Lin Lu curled up on the sofa in the police station lounge, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the glaze recipe left by her grandfather. Tang Ren squatted in front of her with a bowl of hot vermicelli, and scallions floated in the soup to form a smiling face: "Try your uncle Tang's secret recipe for warding off colds!"
"He...his ancestors used to sell rat poison." Qin Feng draped a blanket over the girl's shoulders. Her tactical suit was still stained with seabed mud. "But...but the skill of cooking noodles did save lives." He remembered Lin Lu crying at Jiaolong Reef three hours ago, and the sea water mixed with tears formed salt frost on her face.
Su silently pushed the microscope over and put the slide on the glaze sample from Lin Zhenye's notes: "Your grandfather put this in the record on March 14, 1958." He dimmed the lights and projected the microscope image onto the wall - cobalt blue lines as thin as hair, and after being magnified a thousand times, it turned out to be a seal-script congratulatory message "Deer's Hundred Days".
Lin Lu's tears hit the evidence bag, blurring out a blurry blue.
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The fading sun of Yueji Kiln stretched Tang Ren's shadow very long. He squatted at the entrance of the abandoned mine, throwing paper ingots into the pile: "Mr. Lin, I'll burn more money for you, so you can open a proper porcelain factory downstairs..." He licked the unglazed deer brought by Lin Lu with his tongue, and the azure blue glaze flowed like tears in the high temperature.
Qin Feng used a branch to poke the ashes, and suddenly picked up a half-burnt drum: "This... this is left for me by my father." He turned the handle of the drum, revealing the crooked carving marks under the faded red paint - his father taught him to carve the word "Qin" on his eighth birthday.
Su Chen stuffed the hot tea into his cups, the wall of the thermos reflecting the flickering light: "After the case is closed, I plan to donate the medical books left by my father to Lin Lu." He looked deep into the kiln, "Some inheritances should not be contaminated by blood."
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The neon lights of the seafood stalls were crackling, and Tang Ren arranged the grilled oysters into the shape of the Big Dipper: "The boss's daughter was killed by drug dealers, so he secretly installed a GPS in the gangster's car..." He wiped the garlic-stained corners of his mouth, "I used all the money I earned from fortune-telling to buy his oysters."
Qin Feng held the beer bottle, and the ice water flowed down his wrist into his sleeves: "I...I went to see my mother last week." He turned the bottle, and on the back of the label, his mother wrote "An" with an eyebrow pencil. "She...she always thought that I was still studying in the police academy after she became demented."
Su Chen suddenly stood up and walked to the kitchen. When he came back, he was holding a plate of fried rice noodles without chili peppers: "You have a third-stage gastric ulcer." He pressed the pills into Qin Feng's palm, "Don't... don't learn from your father."
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Lin Lu sat on the deck of the drug-catching boat, the blue porcelain bracelet on her wrist shimmering. It was made with the glaze left by her grandfather, and Tang Ren insisted that it was used to ward off evil spirits. "Actually, I made my first finished product in pottery class," she put the little conch to her ear, "When I was a kid, my grandfather always said that a bad ship can't escape the Mazu lantern."
Qin Feng placed the hot cocoa beside her: "You...you don't have to worry about anything..."
"He was an undercover drug hunter and died before you died." Lin Lu pointed to the lighthouse in the distance, "Mom said he turned into light and shone on those black ships."
Su Chen adjusted the angle of the searchlight in the cabin. When the beam swept across the sea, it startled a group of phosphorescent Noctiluca. Tang Ren suddenly pointed at one of the clusters and said, "Look! Doesn't it look like Lao Qin's father blinking his eyes?"
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Three months after the case was closed, Lin Lu's ceramic exhibition opened in the air raid shelter. Qin Feng stood in front of the "Bath" series, and the cracks in the azure glaze vaguely showed the pattern of two swords turning into shields. Tang Ren approached the label and read aloud: "Material source: sealed ore from Yueji Kiln, purification process: Municipal Bureau Forensic Laboratory..."
"Doctor Su helped filter out the toxins." Lin Lu handed the embryos to the visiting elementary school students, "Ceramics are inherently clean, but dirty people use them for evil."
Su Chen was wiping a scalpel in a corner of the exhibition hall. The handle was wrapped with a new bandage with a blue and white vine pattern. His phone vibrated and popped up a message. The system detected the presence of modified cobalt in the latest drugs delivered - but this time he turned off the screen first.
Outside the window, the spring rain was getting heavier. Tang Ren was teasing the police dog with a grilled sausage. Qin Feng was walking towards the maltose seller with an umbrella. Water was dripping from the cracks in the air-raid shelter, beating a soothing rhythm on the bluestone slabs.
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