Spring rain pattered outside the window, bringing with it a sudden cold snap.

The doctor stood by the window, feeling only a bone-chilling coldness seeping through the incompletely closed window gap that made his whole body shudder.

Strange, when had he started disliking rain so much? Although rain might be inconvenient, it shouldn’t reach the level of disgust or even fear, should it?

Several blurry images flashed through his subconscious. The doctor frowned, trying to recapture and see them clearly, but came up empty-handed.

“What are you staring at the window for? Why don’t you hurry home after your night shift? Did you not bring an umbrella?” Chun Ge, who was reading a newspaper nearby, pointed at the umbrella drying on the floor. “Use mine first, I’m on duty today anyway.”

“…Thanks.” The doctor couldn’t explain that he was afraid of walking into the rain, and had a natural aversion to borrowing umbrellas. But he was probably overthinking it. Pushing aside his doubts about the rain, he walked over to Chun Ge to collect the umbrella, asking casually: “What gossip are you reading? You look quite animated.”

“Oh, it says the museum recently has a ceramic exhibition, and some people claim that after visiting, they go home feeling short of breath and physically weak. I think this should be publicity stunts—who told them so few people visit museums these days?” Chun Ge pointed at the newspaper with a mocking expression. “Look, once the newspaper reported this, more people went to visit. They might even do a series of reports!”

“…Maybe they really aren’t doing publicity stunts?” The doctor didn’t know why he would have such thoughts. Normal people should think like Chun Ge, right? Chun Ge looked at the doctor like he was looking at an alien, but then understandingly shrugged: “Well, I know you have a good relationship with the boss and he’s made you a bit neurotic too. By the way, I heard you say that boss seems to have connections with the museum curator. You could ask about the inside story when you have time.”

“Boss?” The doctor’s frown deepened. Which snack shop boss? Steamed buns or jianbing?

“The boss of that Mute House antique shop on the commercial street! Oh right, I haven’t seen you go there recently. Is the boss still not back? Ah, it’s time—going to make rounds.” Chun Ge just mentioned it casually and didn’t take it to heart. He glanced at the clock hands on the wall, folded his newspaper, put on his white coat, grabbed his medical charts, and went to make rounds.

The doctor felt Chun Ge must have mixed him up with someone else. How could he possibly know any antique shop boss? The doctor smiled dismissively, walked out of the hospital building, stared blankly at the gray sky for a while, then opened his umbrella and walked into the rain.

Raindrops drummed on the umbrella surface, making muffled pattering sounds. For a moment the doctor felt somewhat dazed, and with the umbrella blocking most of his vision, by the time he realized it, he was already standing on the commercial street.

Oh right, he should buy some breakfast to take home, and bring a portion for Tang Yuan too—that kid should be getting up about now.

The doctor came to his senses and began selecting today’s breakfast on the commercial street. The chive buns near the residential area weren’t as good as the ones here, but the fried dough sticks there were better. Soy milk was too troublesome to carry so he’d buy it downstairs, though looking at the time, the breakfast stalls downstairs had probably already packed up.

Unconsciously, the doctor’s footsteps seemed to have their own consciousness, stopping in front of a certain shop before he regained awareness. The carved door was quite eye-catching. The doctor raised his head, the umbrella’s edge slowly lifting, and two small seal script characters came into view.

Tang Yuan, who should have been obediently staying home waiting for the doctor’s loving breakfast delivery, was instead holding a transparent plastic umbrella, standing in front of the museum in a daze.

“Little Lu Lu, are you sure there’s spiritual energy to absorb here? Can you absorb it through glass cases? Speaking of which, Little Lu Lu, have you never been to a museum? Those glass cases covering the antiques are designed to isolate all air!” Tang Yuan muttered to the little white snake lying on the umbrella ribs, his tone earnest and patient. “And today I checked the almanac—it’s actually not suitable for travel!”

The little white snake turned its head toward him and lazily flicked its forked tongue, hissing twice.

Tang Yuan had no choice but to abandon thoughts of retreating home. With a do-or-die attitude, he walked toward the museum entrance, stepping in puddles with each step. The little white snake also flashed like lightning into Tang Yuan’s sleeve when he folded his umbrella and placed it in the entrance umbrella rack.

Shivering from the cold, Tang Yuan resignedly pulled his sleeves closer and flashed a cute smile at the inquiring staff member, claiming he had specifically asked for leave from his teacher to visit and write an article about the museum. Wherever he went, Tang Yuan always encountered well-meaning people asking why he wasn’t in school, so he had developed the skill of casually explaining with various reasons. Anyway, these people just asked questions—they couldn’t really intervene in other people’s lives. This time was the same. Tang Yuan was let into the museum, which was originally a place open for free public visits anyway.

However, since today wasn’t a weekend and it was early morning just after opening, there were pitifully few people in the museum. Adding to this the spacious interior with good ventilation, he felt a chill throughout his body upon entering the exhibition hall. Looking at the somewhat dim exhibition hall, Tang Yuan involuntarily shrank back.

The little white snake originally coiled around his wrist traveled up his arm to his neck, poking its head out from his collar to urge him forward. The enslaved Tang Yuan had no choice but to walk slowly past display cases with the little white snake, occasionally lingering for a few seconds in front of certain exhibits before turning away. It looked like a child casually browsing, but actually it was the little white snake around his neck—unnoticed by others—judging whether the exhibits were usable.

The curator had no idea a lawless little ancestor had entered the museum. He was currently slapping the newspaper while calling the media, arguing with them about inaccuracies in their reporting. What breathing difficulties? Could it be that reporters, afraid of lacking sensational content, deliberately fabricated this report? Don’t think this old man doesn’t know what publicity stunts are! Those reporters must be going crazy trying to find news!

When his assistant knocked on the office door, he happened to see the curator eloquently scolding the other party without using profanity. The assistant stood there bored, waiting for his curator to finish venting, which took quite a while before he hung up the phone.

“What is it?” The curator’s tone wasn’t very good. Although he felt there was something wrong with that shadow blue figurine in the ceramic exhibition, being exposed by the media with baseless reasons announced to the world still made him quite angry and embarrassed.

“Curator, the composition report for that shadow blue figurine is out.” The assistant timely composed his expression and seriously handed over a stack of bound documents.

The curator quickly took it and flipped through, his gaze stopping on a certain line of data. He pushed his glasses in disbelief. “Silicon dioxide, aluminum oxide, and calcium oxide…”

“Yes, Curator, that shadow blue figurine’s composition indeed has problems. It’s not the typical silicate structure of ordinary ceramics.” The assistant was also surprised. “In nature, there aren’t many sources of calcium oxide, so generally animal bone powder is chosen as the calcium oxide source. If our inference is correct, that shadow blue figurine should be the world’s first true bone china. This discovery could completely overturn the definition that bone china is the only ceramic type invented by Westerners! This is five hundred years earlier than Western bone china! Curator! This is an epoch-making discovery!”

The curator ignored his increasingly excited assistant and instead removed his glasses to rub his aching nose bridge.

No wonder he always felt something was wrong with that shadow blue figurine—it was because of weight issues. Bone china of the same volume is always much lighter than ceramics fired from clay, and the texture is also somewhat different, with a very subtle feel.

Having finally found what exactly was wrong with that shadow blue figurine, a weight lifted from the curator’s heart. He put his glasses back on and snorted coldly at his chattering, excited assistant: “Naive young man, this is a burial object. Do you think the components inside would be cow bones like in the West?”

The assistant’s voice stopped abruptly, his young face filled with horror, immediately feeling the office temperature had dropped several degrees.

Western bone china used cow bones, so… the curator meant… that shadow blue figurine… was fired using… human bones?

At this very moment, not far from this office, Tang Yuan, who had been stopping and starting, finally stopped under the little white snake’s direction.

In the display case before him, a shadow blue figurine knelt quietly.

Actually, even without the little white snake tapping him with its tail tip, Tang Yuan would have stopped in front of this display case.

Not because this shadow blue figurine was fired lifelike or had smooth lines, but because this shadow blue figurine was tightly bound around the neck by two thin threads, with both ends of the threads firmly fixed to the four corners of the base. At first glance, it looked like this shadow blue figurine was being tortured.

“Holy crap… this anti-shock thread binding method is too amazing…” Tang Yuan was afraid of leaving fingerprints on the spotless display case, so he only leaned as close as possible to the glass to examine it carefully. He wasn’t unfamiliar with this kind of anti-shock thread—museums used them to prevent porcelain or jade from toppling during earthquakes, causing unnecessary damage, so they would secure the base or tie anti-shock threads on antiques with relatively high centers of gravity. But this way of tying anti-shock threads like binding a prisoner was truly the first time he’d seen it. Tang Yuan looked around and complained: “But this exhibition hall is arranged interestingly. Each exhibit is arranged according to the Later Heaven Eight Trigrams diagram, with yang rising and yin falling, actually suppressing this shadow blue figurine… but it still looks very strange, this binding method… My little ancestor, even without you saying, I feel this shadow blue figurine has soaring evil energy. But like this, how can you absorb its spiritual energy?”

The little white snake disdainfully poked its head out, but before its bright red forked tongue could touch the glass cover of the display case, Tang Yuan pulled it back.

“Ow! Don’t bite, someone’s coming.” Tang Yuan stuffed the furious little white snake back into his clothes, calmly stepped back a few paces on the surface, watching several people rush into the exhibition hall.

Soon, several white screens were erected around this display case, with several security guards standing outside the screens, strictly prohibiting outsiders from approaching. In fact, counting all visitors in the entire exhibition hall, there was only Tang Yuan. Moreover, peeking through the gaps in the screens, Tang Yuan could see staff members opening the display case. He remembered that among the people who rushed in, someone was carrying a brocade box—it looked like they planned to remove this shadow blue figurine from the display case and discontinue its exhibition.

Seeing this heavily guarded situation, Tang Yuan helplessly shrugged and whispered to negotiate with the little ancestor around his neck: “Little Lu Lu, there probably won’t be a chance. Let’s try a different antique, okay? Good… look, that Yuan blue and white jar over there seems pretty nice… mm… okay okay, we’ll watch a bit longer.”