Hao Ren toyed with the small metal piece in his hand, but he didn't feel there was anything special about it—in fact, it looked quite ordinary.
It was merely a diamond-shaped iron piece about the length of a palm. It looked like a reinforcing piece that had fallen off an old wooden farming tool, gray-black in color and covered in weathered marks. One side was smooth, while the other had winding patterns resembling leaf veins, like the pictographs specially carved onto fake antiques to fool people. Hao Ren could confirm that it was ordinary iron: he'd tested it with a magnet.
"Let me see." Vivian snatched the small iron piece away without giving him a chance to object, holding it before her eyes and turning it over repeatedly. Seeing her reaction, Hao Ren finally realized what was going on. "You recognize this?"
"...I'm not sure, but I think I've seen it somewhere," Vivian said, her brows slightly furrowed. "Not this exact object, but I've seen the symbols on it. By the way, where did you get it?"
"I don't know either." Hao Ren scratched his hair. "I remember having it since I was very, very young. I was only four or five at the time. What would a kid that age notice if there were a few extra things in his toy box? I only remember that I definitely picked it up myself, and for some reason, I treasured this thing especially back then. My family cleared out old stuff several times, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away."
Vivian was clearly dissatisfied with that answer. She pinched the small iron piece and rubbed the patterns on it with her fingers. After recalling for a full two minutes, she finally looked up. "I definitely saw this symbol before,