"Sure, sure."
Under Yao Shunyu's hopeful gaze, Jiang Cheng took the mirror, picked up the broken talisman from beneath the Fatty's porcelain bottle, and confirmed a few details about the scene with the others before setting off.
He headed in a different direction from everyone else. After leaving the courtyard, he turned the other way.
That was the route they had taken to get here. Jiang Cheng remembered passing a very large study with its door open. Inside was a huge wooden desk, and the walls were hung with paintings and calligraphy.
He found the study by memory and pushed open the door. No one was inside. Along with the usual four treasures of the study, there were several unusually shaped fountain pens on the desk, and a stack of white paper sat in one corner.
Jiang Cheng also found many porcelain bottles in the study. He had examined the bottles the Fatty and the others had retrieved. Aside from being similar in size, they differed in every other way—even the techniques used to fire them.
Li Bai had also made it clear: there was nothing special about the bottles. Any bottle large enough to hold the remains of an infant would do. What mattered was the talisman on the bottom.
Recalling the Vengeful Infant Bottles Li Bai and the others had brought back, Jiang Cheng picked out the bottle closest in size. To make it look old and convincing, he deliberately rolled it gently across the floor a few times, then rubbed the mouth of the bottle against the ground. The bottle was already worn, and after his efforts, it looked even more battered.
There was a copper basin filled with water in the study. Remembering how Li Bai had described the feeling of the contents inside the bottle,