Chapter 66 Let’s be together when I come back
When he saw that there were only a few boxes as she said, he gave her a cold look. Fortunately, he came, so she chose the weekend. She originally planned to move by herself overnight so that she could rest tomorrow.
He stacked two or three boxes together. Qin Tian was afraid that he would be too heavy, so he insisted on taking down the top box and moving it himself. After running a few times, the tenant girl took out two cups of fruit tea from the refrigerator and said sweetly, "Sister, take a break before moving."
Tong Zhongyuan couldn't drink tea, so he drank a sip of water and continued. After he went downstairs, the girl stammered and asked her if this was her boyfriend?
Qin Tian thought that instead of letting her go to Tong Zhongyuan to eat soup behind closed doors, it would be better for her to just accept it, so he said yes.
The girl was obviously a little disappointed and muttered, "It doesn't look like it."
Now Qin Tian felt it was amazing, why didn’t it look like them?
The girl said, "You two don't look familiar."
Tong Zhongyuan came up one last time. There were still two boxes left to move, and they could be moved in one go. As he bent down, Qin Tian reached out and pulled down his rolled-up T-shirt. Tong Zhongyuan was stunned and looked back at her.
She drank her fruit tea as if nothing had happened: "My waist is showing."
Tong Zhongyuan didn't understand what was going on, but he subconsciously put the T-shirt in place before carrying the box downstairs.
Qin Tian shook the fruit tea at the girl, said "Thank you for the tea", and walked downstairs with light steps.
On the way, Qin Tian said that he would eat something before moving, and Tong Zhongyuan said that he had ordered takeout to her house. Qin Tian then remembered that he had been to her house before, when she was not there.
The car stopped downstairs. Tong Zhongyuan had been careful when unloading the boxes, grouping the light and heavy items together. This made it much easier to carry them upstairs, and he finished the job in just a few trips.
He went to the bathroom to wash his face, and just then the takeout arrived. Qin Tian thought, hadn't she asked her to treat him to dinner? After all, it turned out to be the takeout he ordered. And this takeout wasn't cheap, with a whole table of dishes.
During the meal, Qin Tian asked him if he was tired. Tong Zhongyuan smiled. The game hadn't started well, and his sickly image would probably remain in her mind forever.
He changed the subject: "Is what you're looking for in the boxes we moved today?"
Qin Tian looked at him. She had always admired him for the past two months, even after the incident with the Buddha statue. In many things, if she missed something, only he could know where the loophole was. She wanted him to help her. With him around, the probability of finding the Han Dynasty gilded plate would be much greater. But if he got involved, she would have no reservations about her family affairs. She was not Qin Yunjie, and she did not think there was anything shameful about being an antique dealer. She was just a little... scared, afraid that they would get too close because of this. They were colleagues and friends now, and this distance was just right. He was not Tang Zhixu, and she could not imagine that she and him could be as close and relaxed as good friends of the opposite sex. She did not dare to think about it. She could not relax in front of him.
He waited a long time for her answer and raised his head. She looked at him with a complicated look, a mixture of desire and fear, expectation and hesitation.
He couldn't understand so many of her emotions, but he understood one thing, and he guessed right: what she was looking for was in these boxes.
After dinner, he helped me pack up the food waste. She said to just leave it at the door and ask me to take it to the garbage station when I go back.
He frowned and said, "That's too early. It's hot, I'd better go throw it away first."
He gathered the rest of the trash from the room and threw it downstairs. Qin Tian was a little stunned. It was still early? He had already finished his meal. How long did he plan to stay?
Tang Zhixu stood in the empty terminal. Darkness had already fallen before the floor-to-ceiling windows, and silvery-white planes took off and landed. He had gone to the airport with Ming Yuanxing today, and hadn't had much chance to call Qin Tian along the way. When they arrived at the airport, they met Director Wang from the Ministry of Culture. She asked him a lot of questions about calligraphy. He answered them politely, but his mind was racing, running towards where she was.
When the boarding announcement sounded, he couldn't hold back any longer and said he needed to go to the bathroom, letting his leader go first. He called Qin Tian's phone, and after two rings she picked up.
"I'm at the airport, about to board a flight."
"Yes. Take good care of Director Ming, and take good care of yourself."
"Qin Tian," he called her name. In the past three years, the best word he wrote was her name.
"What?"
"When I come back," he paused for a long time and said solemnly, "let's be together."
Qin Tian was holding the phone waiting for Tang Zhixu to speak when the key in the door lock rang and Tong Zhongyuan came in. She thought he would knock on the door, but she didn't expect him to come in directly.
She was startled by him and didn't hear what Tang Zhixu said at all.
"Hello?" Qin Tian shouted to the other end of the phone, "What did you just say? I didn't hear you."
"Forget it, let's talk about it when I get back. I'm boarding the plane." His voice came vaguely.
"Oh, have a safe trip."
Qin Tian hung up the phone. She wanted to hurry and unpack the boxes to find clues, but Tong Zhongyuan was still there, and she couldn't kick him out. A cup of tea after dinner would be enough, but he couldn't drink tea. She opened the refrigerator, rummaged through it, took out the milk, and asked uncertainly, "Would you like a glass of milk?"
"Wait a moment." After saying that, he walked to the box and looked at the classification label.
Qin Tian put the milk back. Wait, he was planning a protracted battle. She somewhat missed the aloof and measured Tong Zhongyuan when they first met.
"Are the patterns on the bronze coins and the amphora from the same period?" he asked.
"It's the same place, and the time period isn't that far apart. You need to go there to learn more about it. I'm not very familiar with the Western Regions."
"Is the third artifact you are looking for also from the Western Regions?"
She shook her head. "I don't know. In fact, I have no clue."
"It has something to do with bronze coins?"
She took the bronze coin from her desk and gazed at it, lost in thought. "My dad said that discovering history from cultural relics requires not only professional knowledge but also a bit of imagination. I think the same is true when searching for cultural relics. We can't just rely on objective evidence; sometimes intuition is also a factor. My intuition tells me that it has something to do with the bronze coin."
Tong Zhongyuan came over and took the bronze coin from her hand. After a moment, he said, "Are the Western Han Dynasty artifacts you're looking for gold or silver?"
Qin Tian stared at him in amazement: "How did you know?"
The large gilded copper plate cannot be considered a gold or silver artifact, but his answer was very close.
"I'm just guessing." He returned the bronze coin to her and went back to pondering the boxes.
"No," she walked around to him, "Why don't you guess bronzeware, jadeware, lacquerware, or seals?"
There was a smile in his eyes. He knocked on the top box and said, "Open it and let me see if I guessed right."
Qin Tian looked at the pile of boxes hesitantly. Tong Zhongyuan didn't urge her. He walked away a little, found a cup, and poured himself a glass of water.
She thought it through, pulled a utility knife from the drawer, and cut the packing tape. If he could guess, even with almost no information, that she was looking for gold and silver artifacts from the Western Han Dynasty, then his presence would increase the chances of finding a clue.
The smile in his eyes deepened. He put down the cup, walked over with great interest, opened the box, looked up and asked, "What are you looking for?"
"A large gilded bronze plate from the Western Han Dynasty," she said. "It's said to be a cultural relic my grandfather collected before liberation, but it disappeared after that. My father has been searching for it for decades but hasn't found it. I want to give it a try. If there's any clue, it should be in these boxes."
His eyes lit up with the light of discovery, the same light he'd had when he'd told her about a dragon in the secret passage when they were little. She'd thought artifacts were just work for him, but it seemed that wasn't entirely true. He was the dragon guarding the secret passage, the one whose pupils turned from vertical to round at the sight of the treasure. No, they were both that dragon.
She counted the boxes. "These are all pots, pans, and miscellaneous items. No need to open them. This one is a photo album. I've looked through it several times but can't find it. These two boxes are books. You can look for them. And there's my dad's work diary. There might be clues there, too."
She led him to the bedroom bookshelf and pointed to a row of old diaries. Among the several photo frames in front of the diaries, a childhood photo of her and Tong Zhongyuan was placed in the center. She was stunned. She clearly remembered that time when she came back from the hotel, she was so angry that she turned his photo upside down in the corner.
He walked past her from behind, reached out and picked up the photo, looked at it, then put it back without saying anything.
She opened her mouth to explain, but he didn't say anything, which made her even more suspicious. She'd put their photo front and center, implying she'd been obsessed with him all these years. He might even think she'd dug out the photo again just to reminisce about him. Hadn't he assumed she wanted a relationship with him back in England?
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