She Appraises Treasures, She Solves Crimes

Lu Qingtan was once the youngest art authenticator in the industry, formally trained under a renowned master. Then she made a mistake at a top-tier auction: a Yuan dynasty blue-and-white porcelain piece she'd certified as authentic was identified as a high-quality fake. The client demanded millions in compensation, she was blacklisted from the industry, and nobody listened when she tried to explain how masterfully the forgery had been made.

Three years later, she ran a shabby antique shop in the south of the city, getting by appraising treasures for the locals. She had a sharp tongue and wasn't afraid of anyone.

Chen Shuang was the hot-tempered detective everyone knew from the criminal investigation unit. She rode a motorcycle in a worn leather jacket, and no one on the team could keep her in line. Three years ago, her partner died on duty while investigating an antiquities smuggling case. She'd spent three years pursuing it, but the trail had gone cold at a bronze censer that had come from the antiques market.

The day Lu Qingtan was brought into the station, the two women crossed paths.

Chen Shuang slapped the evidence onto the table: the Xuande-era censer supposedly linked to a murder case. Lu Qingtan glanced at it and laughed. "The stolen goods you've been chasing for three months are mass-produced by an imitation-antique workshop in Luoyang. The bubbles in the glaze are wrong, the inscription on the base is wrong, and even the patina was made by soaking it in urine."

Chen Shuang didn't throw her into a holding cell. She took Lu Qingtan out of the police station.

From then on, two women became a familiar sight in the south of the city: an antique dealer with a keen eye and an even sharper tongue, eating a pancake outside the antiques market, and a detective tearing around the city on her motorcycle, chasing criminals and caring nothing for anyone's status. They shared cigarettes, information, and one subject neither dared to touch.

Behind every antique lurked a truth that could not be spoken aloud.

And the antiquities crime network they were after awaited them at the end of the trail.