Chapter 84: Strength and longing, she can only choose one
Tong Zhongyuan drove the car back to Yining from the Tohulasu Grassland, and he drove very slowly. Qin Tian leaned against the car window, her mouth raised, and never came down. She was too excited, too excited to stay calm in the car.
She hadn't expected Tong Zhongyuan to be so eloquent. Ah Pao really changed his mind and gave her the two gowns to take to the Shanghai Museum.
Bota gave her the dress and boots she was wearing today. She was embarrassed to accept them. She wanted to buy them, but she was afraid of hurting their feelings. Tong Zhongyuan took off his watch and asked if he could keep it for himself. A Pa and Bota happily accepted it. Qin Tian was stunned. He really liked giving watches as gifts. Fortunately, he was wearing an Apple Watch for outdoor sports in Niya, not the one he usually wore to work. Otherwise, she couldn't afford to pay for it.
When they got in the car, Ali Khan chased out and gave her an exquisite waist knife. After the car drove a long way away, she could still see him standing there in the rearview mirror, watching her leave.
Only after leaving the Tohulasu grassland did her excitement slowly subside, and she closed the car window. Tong Zhongyuan gripped the steering wheel, his wrists empty. If she offered him the watch he'd given her in exchange for money, he'd definitely refuse it. It would be better to buy him a similar one when she got back.
He had so many questions to ask her that he hadn't had the chance to ask them during the day. Now that the opportunity was right, he couldn't hold back any longer.
"How do you speak Kazakh? When did you learn it?" This was what he wanted to know most. If it was for academic purposes, there was no reason to learn a minority language specifically. There are so many ethnic groups in China, how could anyone learn them all? Previously in Hotan, she didn't even know Uyghur.
"My parents can speak it. When I was little, I was surprised how they could speak a minority language. My mom said it was my grandfather who could speak it, so she could speak it. I only now know that my dad was my grandfather's apprentice, so he can speak it too. Maybe before liberation, my grandfather traveled a lot and made many friends."
Tong Zhongyuan was silent for a moment. "What about riding a horse? Did your mother teach you too?"
"That's not the case," she recalled. "My dad used to travel for work. It was still early days, and some places still needed horses as a means of transportation. I learned how to do this after I went to university. It was quite expensive."
Tong Zhongyuan reached out and hit the flashing lights, then pulled the car over. He turned and looked at her. The reminder that had been lingering in his mind was calling her.
"Qin Tian, have you ever thought that the clues about the Han Dynasty gilded plate might be among your mother's relics?"
She stared at him blankly, and her cell phone rang.
There were three days left of the National Day holiday. Qin Tian had originally planned to drive from Yining to Urumqi, visit the Xinjiang Museum, and then fly back to Shanghai. He'd have one last day to rest and visit Qin Yunjie in the hospital.
During the holiday, no colleagues contacted him except Tang Zhixu. Tang Zhixu claimed that the Chunhua Ge Tie he had seen was indeed the best edition yet, but An Siyuan, a China expert and well-informed, had been politely declining their requests. Director Wang persisted, and recently finally persuaded him to relent, but he set a staggering price of $9 million. Director Wang and Director Ming were stunned, suspecting the translator had misheard.
Qin Tian asked, "Then what do you say?" He was speechless. "What else can I say? I said you should not be too desperate. Maybe the translator missed a zero."
Qin Tian was amused by him and laughed non-stop. He then asked her how her vacation was going and when she would be back.
She hadn't told him she'd been to Niya, much less mentioned Tong Zhongyuan's presence there. She trusted him to keep his secret, not even Song Suiyang, from the fact that Tong Zhongyuan had been traveling with her. She didn't want Tang Zhixu to worry about her recklessness from across the ocean. After the sandstorm, she knew she was wrong and Tong Zhongyuan was right.
Even more outrageous than these well-intentioned concealments was her inexplicable sense of guilt. Every time she contacted Tang Zhixu, she chose a time when Tong Zhongyuan was not around. She didn't even dare to answer Tang Zhixu's calls in front of Tong Zhongyuan. She didn't know what she was thinking. Not to mention that she and Tang Zhixu were colleagues, even if they really had something going on, it had nothing to do with Tong Zhongyuan. Besides, Tong Zhongyuan didn't care about her personal affairs at all. He just cared about finishing the work quickly and going home early.
She thought again, perhaps she was just being polite and didn't want to answer anyone's call in front of Tong Zhongyuan. But at that moment, her phone rang. It was Yuan Junruo calling. Her heart sank. Yuan Junruo definitely wouldn't call her during the National Day holiday. She immediately answered it.
"Teacher Qin, I'm sorry to disturb your rest."
"If you have something to say, just say it."
"It's like this. Before the holiday, I told you that the National Museum of China had just acquired a batch of bronze artifacts and asked us to help date them. I took some samples and had the machine analyze them first. I want to issue a report after the holiday. Today, I happened to be taking my relatives to visit the Shanghai Museum, so I stopped by the office to take a look at the results. I found that these bronze artifacts are exactly the same age, all 2,700 years old."
Qin Tian listened to him slowly speaking with a heavy heart, then breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's normal for bronze artifacts from the same batch to be of the same age."
"But," he said, his voice full of doubt, "their inscriptions are different. Some are from the Spring and Autumn Period, and some are from the Qin Dynasty."
Qin Tian was stunned: "Are you seeing things?"
"I... I'm not sure. My colleagues weren't here, so I looked up the information myself. I think I'm not mistaken. So... is it possible that the thermoluminescence analyzer is broken? The National Museum of China hopes we can give them a report after the holiday. If the machine is broken, it might be too late."
Qin Tianxia subconsciously bit his finger: "Type out the report first and take new samples. Then, wait for me to come back."
"Okay. So you'll be working on the 8th?"
She glanced at Tong Zhongyuan. "We'll be back at the hotel tonight, and then we'll drive nine hours to Urumqi tomorrow. If we go straight to the airport, we'll be in Shanghai the day after tomorrow." But staying up late is a bad idea for someone with a weak heart.
"I'll be entering the museum on the 7th."
She hung up the phone. Tong Zhongyuan looked at her and asked, "Is there something going on at the museum?"
"Yeah. I can't go to the Xinjiang Museum. Can I go back to Shanghai the day after tomorrow?"
"I'm fine."
He turned off the flashing lights, restarted the car, and drove back to the hotel. It was as if he had never said anything before.
She glanced at his profile. He had probably wanted to remind her a long time ago, but he hadn't said it. What did it matter? She was already 30, not 9. Don't be afraid to hurt her. She had already grown up to the point where she could withstand any storm.
"My mother's belongings are in those boxes that belonged to my father. I've already looked through them, and there's nothing there."
He stared straight ahead, the road stretching endlessly ahead of them. It was the same road they had taken back home, and although it looked a little different from the way they had come, he could still recognize the outlines of the fields and the undulations of the hills.
"What about memories? Are there any memories of your mother?"
Memories of her mother, those long-forgotten memories. That night, along the way, she thought of Han Wenying.
When she was alive, she'd style her hair in various styles, take care of her diet, and help organize her schoolbag. When Qin Yunjie was away on business, they depended on each other. In the repetitive days, her mother never mentioned anything about cultural relics. She didn't even know her grandfather was an antique dealer. She paid no attention to her father's work and never entered his study when he was away. The only thing that was a little unusual about her was her love of seal carving, and when she had some free time, she'd carve seals to give away.
Tong Zhongyuan's words made sense, and his guess was actually the same as Qin Yunjie's. Since the Han Gilded Plate was a family heirloom of the Han family, they tried to find it from her and her mother's bloodline.
The old times were like a book opened, she flipped through the pages of those ordinary days one by one, but gained nothing.
"No."
"Then let's wait for Director Jiang's news. There should be clues in the Kharosthi script."
"Um."
The moon had risen, and tonight, it was bright and bright, and everyone was looking forward to it. There was one place she hadn't visited yet: her grandfather, Han Yehua's hometown. But she wouldn't tell Tong Zhongyuan again. She didn't want to embarrass him, or herself. A journey is a journey, and it must end.
The plane landed in Shanghai a little after four in the afternoon. By the time they'd picked up their luggage and left the airport, it was already getting dark. Tong Zhongyuan took a taxi to take Qin Tian home. As she got out, he asked if she'd be going to the museum tomorrow. She said yes.
He said through the car window: "I won't come in tomorrow. See you the day after tomorrow."
She watched the taxi's taillights disappear into the night, then walked into the corridor carrying her luggage.
The lights from the elevated highway flashed across the interior of the car, the seat she had sat in flickering in and out. This journey began the moment she got in the taxi and ended the moment she got out.
In three weeks, his long journey will come to an end.
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