The homestay owner brought over a brass-handled censer and insisted that Yun Guoqiang appraise it.
This was the ninth time since Yun Guoqiang arrived in Xiao Family Village that he had been forced into a “treasure appraisal.” The previous eight had all been fakes.
The front courtyard was dimly lit, making it hard to see clearly. Yun Guoqiang didn’t take the censer. He simply said, “Fake. A reproduction.”
“But Professor Yun, this was passed down from my great-great-great-great-great-great-great… great-grandfather.”
The meticulous Yun Guoqiang picked up a pair of fire tongs and scribbled calculations on the ground. “According to your family genealogy, if this censer were genuine, it would date back to roughly the Tang or Song dynasties.”
The homestay owner remained adamant. “My ancestors say it’s from the Yan Dynasty.”
“Ha.” Yun Guoqiang, who had spent most of his career in archaeology, let out a humorless laugh.
Yun Yi propped up her chin, her head bobbing along to the rhythm of the “great-grandfathers” in the family genealogy rap.
Her wool shawl suddenly slipped off, covering the little dog at her feet. She picked it up, drowsily rubbed the dog’s head, and caught a familiar syllable drifting into her ears: “Yan… Dynasty?”
Even the expert’s own daughter had chimed in. The owner grew excited. “Professor Yun, your daughter has heard of the Yan Dynasty too!”
Yun Yi found it hard to explain. Help. The entire Xiao Family Village has been brainwashed!
Time to wash up and go to sleep. In her dreams, she could be emperor!
That night, Yun Yi applied a face mask, set a 15-minute timer on her phone, and closed her eyes with confidence.
When she opened them again, the homestay had transformed.
Her surroundings were vast and open. All she could hear was the faint rustle of air moving.
Her body felt frozen, her field of vision fixed in place. She could only blink furiously.
At three o’clock, rows of nanmu bookshelves stood packed with countless texts.
At twelve o’clock, a gold plaque hung inscribed with the words “Revere Heaven and Serve the People.”
As she gazed in a daze, fragmented voices trickled into her ears.
— “You needn’t trouble yourself over the funeral procession, Empress Dowager. I have my own arrangements.”
Due to her profession, Yun Yi had a natural sensitivity to voices. This was an exceptionally beautiful male voice—in her favorite vocal range. Too bad the source was behind her.
A weary, hoarse female voice followed. “Now that the late emperor’s edict has been proclaimed, Your Majesty should change how you address me.”
Ah. So he was the emperor. The emperor dream she was having—she had entered it from an “observer’s” perspective.
Yun Yi cleared her throat inwardly: “I”— if I say you die, you die.
She tried it on: “Your Majesty.” That self-address really was rather embarrassing.
From the brief exchange, Yun Yi gathered that the mother-son relationship was very strained.
The emperor showed no trace of joy at inheriting the throne. “Empress Dowager, please take your leave.”
Tap. Silence fell. Every small sound amplified. Yun Yi strained her ears to listen.
She wanted to turn around and look, but her neck felt stiff and useless. Instead, her mind conjured the image of the aged empress dowager kneeling prostrate on the ground in humiliation.
She heard the sound of a forehead striking the floor. A birth mother kowtowing to her son. This soul-devouring feudal society!
The empress dowager pleaded, “Your Majesty, in light of your fifth brother’s filial devotion, permit him to walk in the procession and escort the late emperor’s coffin. I beg you to grant this.”
The emperor sneered. “Since the fifth brother is so filial, why not simply bury himself alive with Father Emperor as a sacrifice?”
The empress dowager was stunned.
Yun Yi imagined the bloody scenes of nine princes fighting for the throne.
A tyrant, finally seated on a dragon throne drenched in his brothers’ blood.
Sigh. Invincibility is lonely.
At some point, the empress dowager had left.
A palace attendant asked the emperor if he wished to return to the main palace.
“Leave,” the emperor said, his tone cold and heavy.
Soft rustling sounds, drawing closer. Each footstep landed on Yun Yi’s heart. She suddenly grew flustered.
In her peripheral vision, what appeared was not the bright yellow dragon robe, but a man in plain white mourning clothes.
He appeared directly across from Yun Yi, an arm’s length away. The dim palace lanterns elongated the corners of his eyes, and a sharp, blade-like gaze suddenly fell upon her.
Their eyes met.
Time slowed to half speed. Yun Yi held her breath, staring blankly at the man’s cold, unfeeling expression.
He wore mourning robes, yet there was no sorrow in his eyes. His lashes lowered slightly, veiling a murderous intent.
That long-fingered hand, with prominent veins on its back, was reaching toward her.
From the look of it, he was about to grab her by the throat. Was it too late to run now?
What—those beautiful hands of yours are going to take a life?
With just one hand, the emperor steadily gripped “Yun Yi’s” neck and hoisted her high into the air.
Even at death’s door, Yun Yi found herself slipping into an omniscient perspective, imagining the scene: Right now, she looked like a plucked, blood-drained chicken.
The distance between them closed rapidly. Yun Yi could feel the heat of his breath washing over her.
She finally realized the problem: in this dream, she wasn’t a person—she was a soul sealed inside an imperial seal.
Yun Yi quickly accepted the situation. As long as it’s not a blood-soaked nightmare, it’s fine.
The emperor’s thumb rubbed back and forth over a certain spot on the imperial seal—exactly where Yun Yi’s cheek would have been. It left her face feeling warm and tingly.
Whatever, it’s just a dream. Trapped in this tiny space with nowhere to go, Yun Yi tried to make the best of it. Keep at it, keep polishing. Only a hundred million more rubs and you’ll develop a nice patina.
The emperor’s lips parted. “I found you first.”
Yun Yi telepathically shot back: Wow, you’re so amazing. I also noticed you have ten whorls on ten fingers. That means you’re born rich. Happy now, Your Imperial Majesty?
The emperor, of course, couldn’t hear her.
He opened a nanmu box. Yun Yi caught a flash of red in her peripheral vision, and a strong smell hit her.
Oh no. Ink paste!
Veteran journalers feared this above all. High-quality ink paste was especially prone to seeping into pores and skin texture—nearly impossible to wash off.
Yun Yi screamed silently: Don’t stamp it down—!
—
When Xiao Zhi was five years old, his father was still a general. One day, while playing by a stream, he slipped on a smooth stone, twisted his ankle, and the oil-glutinous rice cake in his hand fell into the water. His grandmother’s treat was gone. Furious, Xiao Zhi fished out that stone, intent on settling the score.
The stone was the color of mutton fat, perfectly square. Xiao Zhi hated it so much he couldn’t put it down. He played with it during the day and kept it by his bedside at night, sleeping with his hand over it.
His younger brother discovered the stone and tried to trade a sugar figurine for it.
Xiao Zhi refused.
The sugar figurine shattered on the ground. The stone was taken from him.
The next time he saw it, his father had successfully rebelled and ascended the throne as emperor. Xiao Zhi’s treasure now lay quietly on the imperial desk, its surface exuding a warm, lustrous glow.
“A heirloom seal.”
“The mandate of heaven.”
“This is divine will.”
Soon, a legend spread among the people: the new dynasty’s emperor had descended by heaven’s command. Whoever possessed the ancient “Heaven-Mandate Jade” was fated by heaven to become emperor, and the people would naturally follow.
Xiao Zhi’s hand, holding the imperial seal, hovered in mid-air. Some mysterious force seemed to be stopping him from stamping the edict.
He narrowed his eyes, examining the seal.
Before Yun Yi’s eyes, the world spun. A hot, powerful palm pressed against her back. She was being kneaded and flipped like a salted fish.
Xiao Zhi’s laughter seeped down to her. “Do you still remember the child by the stream at Fuling Ridge?”
Yun Yi: !!! And I suppose I’m Xia Yuhé by Daming Lake too?
“It’s your fault my grandmother’s oil-glutinous rice cake fell into the water,” Xiao Zhi said, dredging up an old grievance. “After that, my grandmother fell ill and never recovered. I never got to eat her oil-glutinous rice cake again.”
He’s completely insane! He couldn’t eat his cake, so he blamed a seal.
Nursing his old grudge, Xiao Zhi slapped her bottom with a sharp crack. Yun Yi tumbled down onto the imperial edict.
The seal made its mark.
His hands clamped down fiercely on her shoulders. Above her head, a nearly deranged whisper sounded: “Kill. Kill them all.”
Yun Yi: … Damn you, you dog emperor!
In a haze, the alarm went off.
Groggy and aching all over, she felt as though she’d been thoroughly beaten up, even though she’d been lying in bed the whole time.
The wall clock showed 12:10 a.m. Outside the window, the sky was pitch black, not a single star in sight.
She’d dreamed quite a bit, and it felt like she’d been asleep for a long time—but only fifteen minutes had passed.
Out in the hallway, it was as bustling as peak tourist season.
Yun Yi cracked the door open and saw several travel-worn familiar faces.
“Uncle Yu.” Yun Yi greeted her father’s colleagues from work.
They’d all shown up in the middle of the night. Was there really something underground in Xiao Family Village?
“Little Yi is here too?” Uncle Yu, who loved to joke, said, “Come along with Old Yun to rob some tombs?”
Everyone present was from the Provincial Institute of Archaeology. Dark humor at its finest.
Not letting the comment fall flat, Yun Yi smoothly replied, “My skills are lacking, so I’ll have to learn the art of tomb raiding from you experts. Then I can go three hundred rounds with the zombies down in the ancient graves.”
Yun Guoqiang shooed her away. “Go on, go on. Kid, go play in your room. Daddy needs to have an emergency meeting.”
The bathroom was thick with steam. Yun Yi felt a dull ache in her back and turned sideways to check the mirror.
Her shoulders showed no visible marks. Her gaze traveled downward.
There were two distinct marks on each of her butt cheeks! Bright red and stinging—like a monkey’s butt!
What happened?
Had she fallen while panning for gold at the stream yesterday? No.
Had she sat on the stove and burned herself during the evening barbecue? She wasn’t that stupid.
Could it be from the emperor dream?
Yun Yi lay sprawled face-down on the bed like a starfish. On the pillow lay the notebook Priest Xiao had given her.
The journaler’s urge to document kicked in—even dreams needed to be archived.
She recalled the imperial edict in her dream, covered with a densely packed list of the condemned… Her perspective traced back upstream, landing at the end of the yellow silk scroll—
Right beside the emperor’s name was the stark impression of the imperial seal: Treasure of the Emperor.
Like a giant red footnote.
Yun Yi wrote down each stroke:
[October 17, 2026. Dreamt of the tyrant Xiao Zhi. He kills like hemp.]
—
Someone in Xiao Family Village had dug up a pile of shattered porcelain. Ordinarily, finding ceramic shards in the wild was nothing special. But this person, refusing to believe it was nothing, spent three full days piecing the shards together.
That piqued Yun Guoqiang’s interest.
Preliminary identification suggested the porcelain was exquisitely made, not an ordinary piece. The excavation site matched the location of the gold mask—meaning the gold mask now had a potential coexisting artifact.
The porcelain had been sent to the lab for dating.
At daybreak, Yun Guoqiang led a team into the village to gather information.
Instead of finding answers, they stirred up public anger.
“It’s you, isn’t it?! Spreading rumors that our village has an ancient tomb so the whole village has to move out? Are you from a real estate company or a tourism agency?”
The group of cultural relics scholars stood speechless.
The forecasted rain hadn’t arrived. Her leather shoes, finally dried, had been handled with care. Yun Yi cautiously slipped two black plastic bags over them—bags she had asked for from a fishmonger.
With nothing to do in the morning, she pulled out her filming equipment to shoot some village scenery for backup footage.
Yun Yi ran two accounts. Her main one posted study-related videos. Her smaller one was for personal vlogs.
The market was modest. Villagers hawked their goods in thick local accents. Stray dogs panted, tongues lolling out pink, grinning at the camera.
Ugly oranges piled into golden hills on tricycles. A blue sign read: “The wind of missing you has finally blown to Xiao Family Village.” Distant mountains were ink-wash blue. The camera automatically captured a backlit silhouette—like a traditional brush painting.
The lens focused on one particular villager.
Priest Xiao?
Yun Yi’s gaze lifted from the camera and locked onto him.
The man stood properly beside a mobile food cart, the corners of his mouth curled into a simple, honest smile. “Oil-glutinous rice cakes! Freshly made! A secret recipe passed down from my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother.”
Oh, the ancestors of Xiao Family Village must be so proud.
Yun Yi strode toward him with the determined pace of a debt collector coming for payment: Pay up!
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