Chapter 113 Threesome
The Song Dynasty Jian Kiln black-glazed rabbit-hair teacup and the Qing Dynasty ink bamboo bowl have both been restored. Song Suiyang completed the restoration log, snapped photos of the finished product, and shared it with her classmates. This was the first time she and Tong Zhongyuan had collaborated on restoring a precious piece of porcelain.
News of Tong Zhongyuan's agreement to restore the Yuan Dynasty blue and white porcelain of General Meng Tian for the National Museum of China spread like wildfire throughout the Shanghai Museum. The real story lay in the conditions under which he agreed to do so, even if they were necessary. The fact that a national treasure from the National Museum had been transported all the way to the Shanghai Museum after undergoing numerous approvals had intensified. These past few days, countless people had asked her if Tong Zhongyuan's reluctance to go to Beijing was due to Tang Zhixu. Now, even she was beginning to doubt why Tong Zhongyuan only wanted to stay at the Shanghai Museum.
Yesterday, after Tong Zhongyuan finished restoring the rabbit-hair teacup, he said he needed to rest for a few days and disappeared in the afternoon. Strangely, Qin Tian was also on vacation. It had happened before, with both Tong Zhongyuan and Qin Tian taking nearly three weeks off, and now he was back again. Even stranger, another person was also on vacation: Tang Zhixu.
In the Hongqiao Airport terminal, Qin Tian slowly made her way through the security line, the atmosphere rather awkward. Tong Zhongyuan had already completed security and was standing at the ramp, his face sullen, waiting for her.
She wasn't wearing any jewelry, so the security officer scanned her and let her through. She walked over to him and explained, "You only said you couldn't replace people, not add people. This is our new member."
Tong Zhongyuan's gaze turned to the aisle where the male inspector was standing. Tang Zhixu's boarding bag had been stopped and was being unpacked for inspection.
"Have you told Tang Zhixu that I would go with him?" He finally couldn't help but ask the question.
"Yes, I told him."
She didn't know where Tong Zhongyuan got the misunderstanding, thinking that they were going to Henan alone again. When she saw Tang Zhixu at the airport today, his face looked strange.
She told Tang Zhixu before leaving work yesterday that Tong Zhongyuan was going too. Tang Zhixu's pupils trembled, and he asked her why she didn't tell him beforehand. Qin Tian said that she had just found out that Tong Zhongyuan wanted to go too. She told him Tong Zhongyuan's analysis and her previous efforts on the gilded plate without reservation. Tang Zhixu ignored her and only asked the same question: "Did you tell him that I was going too?"
"Yes, he knows," she replied.
Tang Zhixu walked back and forth in the office twice and laughed. His laughter was wanton and flamboyant.
"Okay, he's got guts. Let's go together."
Tang Zhixu passed through security and walked over with a sullen look on his face. Tong Zhongyuan suggested, "It's still early, do you want to have breakfast together?"
Qin Tian breathed a sigh of relief. Tong Zhongyuan had looked grim just now, but now he was back to normal. Regarding the gilded plate, she felt that Tang Zhixu and Tong Zhongyuan each had their own strengths, and since they were both interested in it, she had no reason to refuse. She understood the anxiety of pursuing cultural relics, just like the obsession of a detective facing an unsolved case. Furthermore, the three of them were colleagues, and Tong Zhongyuan and Tang Zhixu knew each other well, so traveling together was no big deal. She hadn't expected them to be as harmonious as they appeared.
"We've eaten." Tang Zhixu answered him.
Tong Zhongyuan smiled. He had eaten too. He just wanted to lighten the mood. Just now, after Qin Tian answered him, the surprise and discomfort he felt when he saw them coming in at the airport disappeared. He always thought that the reason Qin Tian and Tang Zhixu didn't work out was because they didn't cooperate during the window period, which was more than friendship but less than love. Now he knows that the reason Qin Tian knew nothing about Tang Zhixu's feelings was that she had no feelings for him at all. If there was any ambiguity between them, she would not let him join their itinerary.
He walked to the coffee station and the waiter called him to order. He looked at the menu.
"A low-calorie cappuccino, an Americano, and a glass of milk."
After the plane landed, Qin Tian went to pick up her car. She had rented a large, rear-wheel-drive SUV. Ever since Niya encountered the sandstorm, she'd learned the importance of renting a good car when traveling across mountains and hills.
Tong Zhongyuan put away his luggage, opened the backseat door, and got in. He spoke very little along the way, of course, he was never a talkative person. But Qin Tian felt that the reason he was so quiet today was because he was shy. She and Tang Zhixu were too familiar with each other, which made him feel that he couldn't fit in. To take care of his feelings, she asked him a few questions from time to time.
Tang Zhixu spoke less than usual, mostly rolling his eyes. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he would be tempted to mock Tong Zhongyuan. Qin Tian didn't quite understand what he was thinking. He didn't want to be the one to remind her.
Amidst the subtle chill, Qin Tian drove to her ancestral home on the outskirts of Luoyang. However, the scene before her was different from what she had expected. The ancestral home in the old photos was now a dilapidated factory.
The old gate was half-open, and the words "East City Tape Factory" were printed on the low wall.
Tang Zhixu walked in and discovered a second door leading to the factory. It was even simpler, covered in barbed wire and secured with a rusty iron lock. Behind the barbed wire, on the wasteland, lay a flat-roofed, dilapidated warehouse.
Qin Tian and Tong Zhongyuan also came over. Qin Tian pulled the barbed wire, and it made a "squeaking" sound.
“Has this factory been closed?”
Before she finished speaking, a dog barked. Someone yelled at it in the local dialect: "Why are you barking?"
Qin Tian immediately shouted loudly: "Is anyone there?"
An old man, wearing slippers, leaned out from behind the factory building, waved at them from a distance, and shouted, "It's closed, it's closed, there's no one here!"
After saying that, he was about to go back. Tang Zhixu hurriedly shouted: "Master, don't go! I have something to ask!"
The old man paused, then continued waving his hands and said, "Close it! Go back!"
Qin Tian thought quickly and pulled the wire fence, causing another "clattering" sound. The dog barked again. The old man pointed at them and came over, cursing.
"Master," Qin Tian said with a smile, "Don't be angry, I'm here to ask you something."
The old man spoke in a language they couldn't understand, waving his hands through the wire. Tang Zhixu knew what to do with such an old man, but he didn't smoke and had no cigarettes. He also had no cash, so he couldn't necessarily ask the old man to take out his phone and transfer some money. Just then, he saw several hundred-yuan bills being passed through the gap in the wire.
"Old man, I want to ask you something." Tong Zhongyuan's voice came quietly.
The old man, who had been cursing a moment ago, suddenly lowered his voice to a mutter. He reached out, took the bills, fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, took out a cigarette, and handed it to Tong Zhongyuan.
Tong Zhongyuan took his cigarette and pointed at the wire door.
"Can you open the door and talk?"
The old man lit a cigarette and put it in his mouth, took out the key to unlock the door, and opened it with a "clatter".
"What?"
Qin Tian secretly gave Tong Zhongyuan a thumbs up. When he saw it, he smiled calmly.
"It's like this..."
Qin Tian recounted the story of their family's original ancestral home here. She had initially assumed the old man wouldn't know about these past events, and she simply wanted to find someone who knew the story, perhaps someone who had witnessed the conversion of the ancestral home into a factory. Unexpectedly, as soon as she began to speak, the old man grinned.
"Little girl, are you here looking for treasures? It's not even your turn. This place, let alone you, isn't even your father's turn. Everyone here knows the Han family's ancestral home. Three thousand treasures were unearthed here after liberation! Three thousand!!"
The old man explained that the Han family had excavated all their artifacts and presented them to the newly established People's Republic of China, creating a sensation. After the excavation, the Han family left Henan. For more than a decade, the land was constantly being dug up. Not only the Han family's ancestral home, but the entire ten-mile radius had been dug up dozens of times. By the time the factory building was rebuilt, not even a single piece of porcelain could be found on the vast foundation.
"Then who came to dig at that time? What did they find?" Qin Tian asked anxiously.
The old man blew out smoke rings and laughed.
"Little girl, you're such a fool! How could you possibly know? There are all kinds of people here: folks from nearby, people from Luoyang, people from Zhengzhou, and I heard there are even people from other places. Even if you dig someone up, they won't tell you who they are. Who would know?"
Qin Tian returned to the car. This answer wasn't disappointing; it was understandable that she couldn't find anything. She hadn't expected to find a clue at the first stop. Tang Zhixu took a bottle of water from the trunk and gave it to her, then tossed another to Tong Zhongyuan. Tong Zhongyuan was looking down at his phone, and the bottle of water almost hit him in the face.
Tang Zhixu sat in the driver's seat and started the car.
"Going back to Luoyang City? It's only the first day. Let's go to the antique market tomorrow?"
Qin Tian recalled Tong Zhongyuan's plan to follow the old photos. She had clearly told Tang Zhixu about this yesterday, but it seemed he hadn't listened. She was about to repeat it when Tong Zhongyuan suddenly interrupted her.
"It's three o'clock now, and it's not time to get off work yet. Have the office write a statement in official documents. Just say that we need to find the provenance of a rare cultural relic for the Shanghai Museum and we need to consult the catalog of cultural relics surrendered before 1982. We kindly ask for your cooperation. Ask Ming Yuanxing to stamp it and email it to you in the name of the Shanghai Museum. There are 14 first-class museums in Henan Province, eight of which were established shortly after liberation. I'll send you the letterheads of the major museums now. Start with them."
Qin Tian was surprised and said, "Museum? My dad looked for it back then. Didn't you say to start from the background of the photo?"
"I've changed my mind," he said. "Uncle Qin must have been looking for the museum's catalog. But the gilded plate might not be in the catalog."
Tang Zhi was startled. "Uncle Qin" wasn't a name you'd call a colleague on a casual level. Even when he saw her father, he'd called him Teacher Qin. He looked at Qin Tian; she didn't seem surprised, clearly not unfamiliar with him addressing her father that way. He then remembered that he knew Qin Yunjie and He Wu had been employees of the Shanghai Museum. He had always assumed, having known Qin Tian for eight years, that he was her closest friend of the opposite sex. Now, it seemed, that wasn't entirely true.
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