The Han Family Escort Agency

The next day, I went in the afternoon.

In the middle of Lintai Ancient Town stood a shop with an antique-style facade. Four characters on its sign read: "Lintai Treasures."

A yellow dog lay in the sun by the entrance, sprawled on the steps, its tail not even wagging.

Old Zhou was in the back room.

He stood in front of the display case, his back to the door and both hands clasped behind him.

"You're here."

"I'm here."

I walked over.

He had already lifted the glass cover off the display case and set it aside.

The pillow lay on black velvet.

A foot and two inches long, six inches wide, bluish white, its surface slightly hollowed in the middle. Four seal-script characters were carved into it:

"Three Realms, Five Elements."

A seam ran down the middle.

Not a crack, but a "seam." As if someone had taken a very fine blade and split something open from within the jade.

It was black inside the seam.

I reached out and touched the air above it from a few inches away.

"Cold."

"Cold," Old Zhou said.

"How much is this jade worth?"

"What do you think?"

"I couldn't say," I replied. "If it's really from the Song dynasty, and it came from Bao Gong's possession, it would have to be a national treasure."

"But it's been sitting in this town for thirty years."

"Right," Old Zhou said. "Sitting here for thirty years."

He turned and looked at me.

Old Zhou was seventy. His face was deeply wrinkled, but his eyes were bright.

"Weiwei," he said. "Touch it."

I looked at him.

"When I was little, my grandfather told me something," he said. "He said this pillow recognizes its master."

"What kind of master?"

"Someone capable of holding back a chaotic age."

I smiled a little.

"Old Zhou, are you telling me to touch it and transmigrate?"

He didn't smile.

"Touch it."