Chapter 169 Waiting for me, waiting for you, waiting for the fragrance of a thousand years
“It’s snowing.”
Someone shouted in surprise, and the onlookers looked up. Joyful voices echoed one after another. The heavy and awkward atmosphere had vanished.
Snow fell from the gray sky and sprinkled on the glass dome.
She looked up for a while, then walked out of the crowd as her cell phone rang.
There was a knock on the door, and Ming Yuanxing withdrew his gaze from the snowy window.
"Come in."
Qin Tian bowed to him and said, "Are you looking for me?"
"sit."
Ming Yuanxing stood up from behind the desk, took a bottle of water and gave it to her, then sat on the sofa in the reception room, his face showing extreme fatigue after relaxing.
"Qin Tian, I have done what I promised you."
She was stunned.
"You and the little boy are safe."
Just hearing this name makes my heart beat like a rushing stream.
The explanation was long. Ming Yuanxing was very patient, and in a rare relaxed tone, he recounted the day Tong Zhongyuan came to his office and placed his complete trust in him.
"He gave me the fake data from the paper. He said that within one to two months, artificially reproduced porcelain matching this data would be available. Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan would be the main targets. The counterfeiting team didn't know the data was fake. If we discovered any of them and took countermeasures, we would alert the enemy and end up with nothing, just like last time. So he suggested we stay calm and communicate with local police first. Once these products are fully deployed at home and abroad, we can take unified action and catch the enemy in one fell swoop.
Honestly, the idea is a good one, but it's asking too much of me. I'm only the director of the Shanghai Museum, and it's a bit difficult to get support from other regions. Cultural heritage protection is a major concern, and your safety is even more so. So I reported this matter and received unprecedented support.
Before he left, Xiaotong told me he'd be prepared when he returned to the UK. While the UK market wasn't his primary target, he had some experience with the counterfeiting team and could provide clues to the police.
Just yesterday, we did it. The police found the three artificial strongholds and all those involved have been apprehended. You and the child are finally safe.
She was silent for a long time, and Ming Yuanxing did not disturb her, but just waited quietly.
"Is everything really under control? Even if he's sentenced, will he retaliate against him once he's released?"
"Don't worry. The police promised that they won't know they were caught because of a fake data leak."
Qin Tian lowered his head, their fingers entwined tightly. Ming Yuanxing knew she still wasn't completely reassured, and he couldn't help but sigh inwardly. All he could do was try to get her as much information as possible, to see the full picture of the incident and alleviate her doubts.
"Xiaotong gave me a copy of Wang Qiqing's information. He suspected he had deliberately leaked your paper. Indeed, Wang Qiqing engaged in misconduct, particularly in his handling of your father, which seemed to be motivated by selfish motives. Xiaotong's suspicions were not unfounded, which is why I kept the deployment of the artificial replication a secret from anyone, keeping it a secret from Director Wang. Now, the investigation has concluded that Wang Qiqing had nothing to do with it. However, your paper was indeed leaked intentionally. It was Wang Qiqing's secretary, Guo Jie, who was in cahoots with those in Hong Kong. A young man seeking shortcuts to wealth, and with his position offering numerous advantages, he misused his intelligence. Guo Jie was on the borrowing list for internal publications provided by Xiaotong. We all thought Wang Qiqing had asked him to borrow them, but it was actually his own doing. Guo Jie also orchestrated the Kongbo incident, and of course Wang Qiqing also leaked the information to him. But overall, his actions don't warrant a criminal penalty. Perhaps you think early retirement is too lenient a punishment, but Xiaoqin, when power is taken away from someone, it's also a form of punishment. Besides, retirement isn't the end. After the new year, the Discipline Inspection Commission will launch an investigation into him."
Walking out of Ming Yuanxing's office, the snow was falling harder outside the window.
She stopped and looked up.
Snow fluttered in the gray sky, like fragments of time. Christmas Eve, a snowy Tokyo street, marked the end of the story. The gilded plate they'd been searching for had been found; the Shanghai Museum exhibits from London had arrived in Hong Kong; the precarious crisis had been resolved. Like this melting snow, the countless threads that had once connected her and Tong Zhongyuan faded silently from her life.
Qin Tian took a vacation for the last three days before the New Year.
Qin Yunjie's lucidity had been dwindling recently, and she could no longer fully care for him while juggling work. She'd hired a local nanny at a high price, but the small two-bedroom apartment was becoming a bit cramped for the three of them. But she didn't have the money to move, so she had to sell off a few of the paintings Tang Zhixu had given her. But that was a matter for later; the immediate priority was to free up space.
Qin Yunjie's second bedroom was still piled with boxes. While the nanny took him for a walk, she sorted through the clutter alone. The boxes were labeled "Childhood." After Han Wenying passed away, she locked away her childhood. These boxes contained her childhood toys and clothes, no longer of any practical use, but only memories.
She sat on the floor, dug out a set of fairy tales and her childhood textbooks, and threw them into the large garbage bag beside her without any nostalgia. At the bottom of the box was an old box, and she couldn't remember what it was. When she opened it, she found that it was a set of puzzle pieces. She remembered this puzzle. When she was a child, her mother often asked her to put it together. After she finished, Han Wenying would take it apart and put it back in the box, and ask her to put it together again after a while. After a few times, she was getting faster and faster at it, and she knew where to put the pieces just by touching them. She picked up a piece and looked at it. Over time, the edges of the pieces were worn and the pattern had faded. She could no longer remember what the puzzle looked like when it was put together, but she remembered that it was a strange and incomprehensible picture. She closed the lid of the box and threw it into the garbage bag.
In the last box, she found a glass vase containing a paper rose. She had folded it as a child, and every year on Mother's Day and Han Wenying's birthday, she would fold roses for her mother. She hugged her, kissed her, thanked her, and then kept the rose.
Han Wenying had taught her how to fold roses; she seemed particularly fond of them. Qin Yunjie wasn't a romantic; in her mind, her mother probably never received a flower from him. But she still felt her love for roses. She'd taught her to fold origami roses, she'd crocheted roses on tablecloths, she'd embroidered roses on the chests of her shirts, she'd taught her to sing the nursery rhyme about the golden rose, and even her bronze coin had a rose on it.
Time froze. She stood up and took out the bronze coin from the drawer of her bedroom. The golden rose under the sunset that day seemed like yesterday.
Suddenly, she rushed into the second bedroom, grabbed the garbage bag, dug out the puzzle box, and quickly opened the lid. She suddenly grabbed a handful of puzzle pieces and turned them over one by one with trembling fingertips to examine them.
Like a 100-meter sprint, my heartbeat is becoming more intense and my breathing is becoming more rapid.
She closed her eyes, her hand pressed against her chest as she gasped. Opening her eyes again, she took the puzzle and returned to her room, locking the door. She held the puzzle for a moment, then twisted her wrist, sending the pieces tumbling down like a sudden summer rainstorm, scattering all over the floor.
She slowly sat down on the ground, picked up a piece of debris, and gently pushed it to the center.
"Yiyi, look at this rose. Mommy can make it out of it with chess pieces."
She looked in the direction of Han Wenying's finger, and saw a golden rose in the corner of the puzzle that had just been completed.
"Isn't a chessboard for playing chess?"
Han Wenying laid out the chessboard: "You take white, I take black. If we play chess, a flower will bloom."
Qin Tian was turning over the fragments on the floor. Without any reference pictures, he could only compare them manually.
Han Wenying placed a piece in the center of the chessboard and sang a nursery rhyme: "One step left, it's eight-two, one step right, it's three-seven."
The chess pieces fell to the ground as she sang cheerfully. Qin Yizhang's childish voice responded to his mother: "The white chess piece is called the east side, and the black chess piece is called the north side."
The memories of touching the fragments are awakened again, and the map of time is connected and expanded piece by piece.
"Two steps left is four-three, two steps right is five-eight."
The puzzle pieces gradually became complete in her memory. She worked faster and faster, as if she had already done it thousands of times long ago.
"White chess piece, move west. Count seven squares."
Qin Tian paused. The last puzzle piece fell into place, and a complete puzzle unfolded on the bedroom floor in the early morning—a rubbing of a large gilded bronze plate used for Han Dynasty court sacrifices.
"The golden rose is blooming."
Han Wenying also stopped and smiled gently. On the chessboard, a rose made of chess pieces was in full bloom.
The sound of the wind came again, a singing sound blowing from the sand dunes two thousand years ago.
Qin Tian's hand touched the rubbing. This wasn't the Han Dynasty gilded plate she'd seen in Tokyo. Yes, all the carriages and palaces were the same. But in this sacrificial scene, there was a woman with a rose on her skirt.
She is not Han Chinese.
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