Lu Zigang stood at the entrance of the Mute House, staring blankly at the ancient plaque above his head for a moment, hesitating for quite a while before pushing open that heavy door.
Actually, he had discovered this antique shop by chance two years ago while touring in Hangzhou. With just one glance, he felt this place seemed familiar, yet he could swear he had absolutely never been here before.
But every time he encountered difficult ancient artifact puzzles, he would think of this place. This time was the same—after his business trip to Xi’an, returning to Beijing with no one able to resolve his confusion, he immediately boarded a plane to this city.
The carved door opened with a sound. Lu Zigang stared blankly at the shop’s interior arrangement. Every time he came here, he felt something was slightly off about the shop’s layout. For example, that Song Dynasty blue-white glazed plate shouldn’t be placed there—it should go elsewhere. There shouldn’t be only two Changxin Palace lamps either; he remembered there should be two more inside the shop beyond those at the entrance. Look, when did that crack appear in the gilded dragon-subduing Boshan incense burner? And when did that human figurine appear at the entrance—resembling but clearly completely different from Qin Shihuang’s terracotta warriors?
Chaotic thoughts exploded in Lu Zigang’s mind, making him momentarily dazed. A phrase involuntarily burst out: “How did this shop become so small?” As soon as he said it, he regretted it. This antique shop had clearly never relocated—why did he always feel this place was too cramped?
“Property prices are too expensive…” a clear laugh came.
“True, property prices nowadays are simply devastating! A month’s salary without eating or drinking can’t even buy one square meter!” Lu Zigang’s anti-rich angry youth thoughts immediately occupied his mind. He nodded with deep sympathy, then suddenly froze. Who was the boss trying to fool? With his eye as a National Museum intern researcher, any antique casually taken from this shop could buy the most luxurious storefront in Hangzhou’s best location. So the reason this antique shop was cramped in this inconspicuous spot on a small commercial street had only one explanation—the boss simply didn’t want to sell antiques.
Lu Zigang turned toward the voice and found the boss wasn’t wearing his usual old Zhongshan suit but had changed to a very fashionable black shirt. This black shirt had dark crimson cloud-pattern borders embroidered at the cuffs and hem, blending classical and modern fashion quite uniquely. Like the original Zhongshan suit, it also featured a lifelike red dragon embroidered on it, with the dragon’s head resting on the boss’s right shoulder and the dragon’s body winding around his back, giving the entire shirt a luxurious quality.
“Why change styles? The original Zhongshan suit looked great!” Lu Zigang frowned, the words spilling out without thought: “The Zhongshan suit blended modern and ancient elements with various meanings! For example, the four front pockets represent propriety, righteousness, integrity, and shame… Oh right, I remember your original one seemed to have no pockets. But no matter—the front placket’s five buttons, different from the West’s three-power separation, represent the five-power separation of executive, legislative, judicial, examination, and supervisory powers. The three buttons on each cuff represent the Three People’s Principles of nationalism, democracy, and people’s livelihood. The unbroken back seam represents the great righteousness of national peaceful unification… How traditional and meaningful! The Zhongshan suit is much better than those so-called Hanfu and Tang suits nowadays! If you ask me, though Hanfu is gorgeous, it ultimately has long sleeves that hinder movement. Though Tang suits carry the name ‘Tang,’ they actually evolved from Qing Dynasty riding jackets and can’t represent our magnificent China…” Lu Zigang’s voice stopped abruptly because he realized he was having his problem again. He scratched his head embarrassedly: “Sorry, whenever I see modern things, I can’t help comparing them to ancient ones. Probably occupational hazard.”
The boss smiled tolerantly and brought two Ge kiln powder-blue bowls from the counter, boiled water, and brewed two cups of tea.
“Mr. Lu seems to have come several times. Did you pass last year’s examination?”
Lu Zigang was pleased that the boss actually remembered him and smiled: “Passed. Now I’m an intern researcher at the National Museum.” He picked up the powder-blue covered bowl and couldn’t help examining it briefly. After confirming this bowl was indeed a late Song Ge kiln antique, he said nothing. Lu Zigang first used his left hand to support the tea saucer, gently lifted the bowl’s lid with light fingers, smelled the rich tea fragrance, then lightly sipped the clear tea and closed his eyes enjoyably: “First buds and leaves just unfolding, flat and smooth—this is premium pre-Qingming Longjing. I’m truly blessed today.”
The boss smiled and accompanied him in a sip. Actually among these people, Lu Zigang suited his taste best. Perhaps because this person had grown up in the Mute House in his previous life, he felt particularly compatible with him. None of his current companions could match Lu Zigang’s current leisurely, enjoyable demeanor. The doctor naturally didn’t understand such things—just gulped it down. The curator understood tea but was particularly careful with ancient objects; having him drink tea from a late Song Ge kiln bowl would probably be more painful than being strangled. As for that painter kid, he was single-mindedly focused on painting with no interest in anything else. That master was probably more interested in how much the bowl could sell for…
The two men each held their tea bowls, drinking slowly while the Mute House flowed with a tranquil atmosphere, intoxicatingly peaceful.
Lu Zigang savored the tea’s lingering fragrance and felt incredible calm, as if such scenes had repeated hundreds or thousands of times in his life—so familiar it was dizzying. This person before him—Lu Zigang couldn’t fathom his depths. At first glance he seemed an ordinary young man, but the more one looked, the more he resembled ancient artifacts buried underground. Just brush away the dust and wash off the patina to reveal extraordinary splendor. Thinking this way and looking at the person again, one would discover that beyond the misty tea steam, whether his eyes or brows all carried a flavor steeped in years, truly impossible to look away from.
Only when he finished the tea and the boss refilled his water did Lu Zigang come to his senses, remembering his purpose, and hurriedly opened his backpack.
“Boss, I recently went to Xi’an and acquired this item from someone. You’re well-informed—could you see what this object’s origin is?” Lu Zigang spoke while handing over a palm-sized stone material.
This was stone material with an overall greasy yellow color, with faint radish-pattern fine lines visible in the texture, the color gradually lightening from outside to inside. The stone was carved into a miniature stele shape. The stele’s top bore no inscription, only eight chi dragons carved on the stele head, ingeniously intertwined with distinct scales and exposed sinews, lifelike. Both sides of the stele had ascending dragon designs, each with a soaring dragon dancing through the air—the carving was exquisitely skillful, the dragons seeming to fly. Unfortunately this was only the upper half of the stele, severed in the middle by a sharp blade, exposing the stone’s cross-section.
“This should be Tianhuang stone—’one tael of Tianhuang is worth three taels of gold.’ But as they say, ‘gold is easily obtained, Tianhuang is hard to find.’ By current market prices, it should indeed be one tael of Tianhuang worth three taels of gold—undoubtedly astronomical value.” Lu Zigang paused, then continued: “But this stele carving’s significance isn’t in its material, but in this carving style…”
The boss looked up and met Lu Zigang’s eyes. Both saw their answer reflected in the other’s gaze and said in unison: “Wordless Stele.”
Throughout China’s history there had been many wordless steles, but the most famous was the one at Mount Li’s Qianling Mausoleum. That was the wordless stele standing before the tomb of history’s only female emperor, Wu Zetian. This unique stele head decoration and completely blank stele face made it immediately recognizable.
The boss didn’t ask how Lu Zigang had obtained this object but returned the stele carving to him and walked into the inner room.
Lu Zigang sipped the premium pre-Qingming Longjing but found it tasteless.
In just the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the boss emerged holding a palm-sized brocade box. “This is a stone carving I acquired years ago. I never knew its origin.”
Lu Zigang’s heart jumped twice as he looked expectantly into the brocade box. He saw stone carving of the same material as his lying quietly inside, with the adjacent flying dragon carving exactly identical. “It seems this was indeed carved copying Qianling’s wordless stele, but this object doesn’t look newly carved—the age appears quite ancient.” Shoushan stone carvings were hardest to date because carbon-14 could only test organic matter, so one could only judge from carving style. Relatively speaking, jade dating was simpler—not only carving style, but jade also had special substances penetrating to form various jade patinas, while Shoushan stone rarely had such special changes. So after Lu Zigang brought this half stele back to Beijing, many people examined it but all agreed the material was good but the carving was recent.
This was actually understandable. Shoushan stone only became popular after the Song Dynasty, with collecting coming much later, reaching its peak in Ming and Qing times. But Lu Zigang always felt something was wrong—who would be so bored as to use such fine Tianhuang stone material to carve a wordless stele! So he specially made this trip to the Mute House.
After closing his eyes to think for a while, the boss opened them and said coolly: “Shoushan stone carvings first appeared in Southern Dynasty stone figures, but the carving was crude. After that, except for burial use, there are no examples of collection.”
The boss sighed softly: “When I acquired this lower half stone carving, I always felt it resembled a memorial tablet…”
Lu Zigang’s spine went cold. Any stone with carved characters could become a stele. Actually, the wordless stele was fundamentally a heaven-defying existence, quite fitting for Wu Zetian, China’s unique female emperor.
But this Tianhuang stone wordless stele in his hands was interesting. If it was truly a burial memorial tablet, that meant this was a grave good stolen from Qianling… But historical records and various surveys clearly showed Qianling had never been robbed… Lu Zigang couldn’t figure it out. He couldn’t help picking up the half stone carving from the brocade box with his left hand, bringing together the two halves of the wordless stele in his hands. The break fitted perfectly, as if it had never been split.
Lu Zigang leaned in to look closely and found his gaze couldn’t move away. The yellow light in his vision instantly expanded several times, yet his body couldn’t move even half an inch, actually being swallowed whole by that lustrous yellow light…
“Zhicong! Zhicong! Zhicong, don’t die…”
Lu Zigang was awakened from darkness by a woman’s crying voice. He opened his eyes in confusion to see a little girl lying on him, tearful as a pear blossom in rain. This little girl appeared three or four years old, with clear features and skin like congealed cream. Though young, one could already see she was a beauty in the making. But what shocked Lu Zigang wasn’t this girl’s appearance, but her clothing.
Narrow-sleeved small garments—exactly the popular clothing of late Sui and early Tang periods. The narrow-sleeved small garments popular in Sui-Tang times weren’t promoted for saving fabric, but because Hu-style narrow sleeves were convenient for horseback riding and recreation, becoming women’s favored attire. Lu Zigang knew ancient affairs in great detail, so from the other’s clothing alone he could judge the clues. Scanning the various accessories and makeup this girl wore, he marveled inwardly.
The makeup on this little girl’s face wasn’t like the uniform makeup in modern TV dramas, but the moth-wing eyebrows very popular in early Tang times. The two eyebrows were drawn broad and short, shaped like moth wings, painted with copper black. Copper black was what modern people called verdigris—copper black scraped from copper vessels was material ordinary families used for eyebrow painting. So this little girl’s eyebrows were a very prominent dark green color, truly strange by modern standards, yet this was indeed popular early Tang makeup. Lu Zigang could even analyze from these eyebrows alone that this girl’s background wasn’t very good, yet the clothes she wore were somewhat luxurious, not what ordinary families could afford—extremely strange.
What TV production was this, with such meticulous props! Even the makeup was so authentic. Though the clothes were overly luxurious and somewhat mismatched with the simple makeup, it was already quite remarkable.
But this thought only flashed through Lu Zigang’s mind before he dismissed it. Because he wasn’t watching a play now—he was acting in one. Yet he couldn’t remember how he’d appeared here. Wasn’t he having tea with the boss at the Mute House? Then it seemed they confirmed that Tianhuang stone carving was a miniature wordless stele…
While Lu Zigang was confused and dizzy, he was horrified to discover his body couldn’t move at all. Not only couldn’t he move, he couldn’t feel anything, only able to stare in panic while listening to the little girl sob: “Zhicong, I know you want to marry me, but after my father died two years ago, my two half-brothers have been even more coldly sarcastic toward us four mother and daughters. Though I could marry you and leave that cage, what about my mother? I can only enter the palace to try my luck…”
From this little girl’s crying, Lu Zigang pieced together a story—after the family head’s death, the coldness of human nature exposed through family property disputes. This was simply a Cinderella remake, but here there was no fairy godmother or pumpkin carriage, no glass slippers or magic. Yet this little girl still stubbornly wanted to enter the palace to fulfill her dream. So these clothes and makeup were real. When the little girl’s father was alive and doted on her, she naturally had several beautiful garments, but now she couldn’t afford the expensive rouge and powder from Jiangnan, only learning from ordinary families’ women to scrape copper black from mirror backs for casual application.
So realistic—absolutely no flaws could be found in any detail.