After Qin Yanan left, Liu Chang'an thought of her great-grandmother, Ye Sijin.
Many, many years ago, Ye Sijin had been like the girl in Dai Wangshu's "Rainy Alley," a lilac-like young woman weighed down by sorrow.
Lilac-colored, lilac-scented, lilac-sad.
As Ye Sijin walked through the alleys beneath her oil-paper umbrella, her sorrow certainly hadn't come from making a fuss over nothing.
Like Qin Peng, she had been a paragon of that era.
The spirit of that era wasn't the poetry of any Republican-era master, nor the satisfaction of sentiment brought by Tagore in 1923. It lived on a little boat on South Lake in Jiaxing.
Ye Sijin had passed away. Qin Yanan's birth was probably Qin Peng's greatest comfort and a way to remember her.
What a resemblance, Liu Chang'an thought. When he turned around, he found the scattered old men had gathered around him.
Cunning worldly wisdom was a survival instinct that grew with age, a way to protect oneself. The unknown and unfamiliar always made the elderly uneasy. Once those people had left, only Liu Chang'an, a familiar face, remained, so naturally they came over to offer their opinions and share their wisdom as elders.
"Xiao Liu, did you get on the wrong side of someone?"
"That woman looks like she'd be good at having children."
"I've seen tanks like that. When I escorted the chief back in the day, it was about the same kind of setup."
"What the hell is this all about? Are they going to demolish the place? I'm not moving. I'd rather die than move."
Liu Chang'an smiled, closed the cargo container door, and jogged off with the keys. Exercise was essential for him. Although jumping off a building was a more direct way to improve his body, it wasn't something he could do repeatedly.
Following the new route he'd planned, he looped back from the train station. By then, the bystanders who had been gawking at the freight truck had dispersed, so Liu Chang'an went back inside the container and examined the bronze coffin.
Qin Peng clearly hadn't told Qin Yanan anything about the bronze coffin. She'd even thought it was just a valuable replica, since the painted designs on it looked so fresh and the finely carved patterns seemed too exquisite to belong to an ancient artifact.
Liu Chang'an, however, could feel its deep, ancient aura, as though it surrounded the bronze coffin. It was invisible and intangible, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. It was like a magnetic field.
This sort of field was especially dense and distinct in major museums. The ancient artifacts that had crossed thousands of years of history condensed countless upheavals from humanity's past, unfurling scenes long buried in the river of time before the eyes of those who could understand them.
Who could say whether the artisans who created those national treasures, refining them through clay, water, and fire, had never dreamed of passing their work down through the ages, of making future generations gaze upon them in wonder?
Liu Chang'an reached out and gently stroked the yellow interlocking thunder patterns around the coffin lid. A mountain stood at the center of the design, its sides equal in length. Two dragons passed through the mountain, their tails encircling an ancient jade seal, while two yellow ribbons bound the dragons.
The ancient jade was square, like a seal. By convention, the deceased's name and posthumous title, or some other inscription, should have been engraved on it. Yet it was completely blank, making it stand out all the more.
The coffin lid fit the body perfectly. Not even a hair could slip between them; only the faintest seam was visible, so fine it was almost nonexistent.
What mattered most about a coffin, of course, was the person or body inside. A bronze coffin more than two thousand years old, a soul-sealing ritual, the image of a phoenix attacking a dragon... What did it all mean?
Bronze coffins had become rare after the Qin Dynasty. Over time, a folk belief arose that bronze coffins were inauspicious. Anyone with a weak fate who came near one would be possessed by evil spirits and die after losing their soul.
Liu Chang'an certainly wasn't afraid of any inauspicious coffin. He knew that such coffins were called inauspicious because the deceased had been vicious and cruel in life. The ancients believed that only a bronze coffin could seal the souls of such extraordinarily evil people, or those stained with countless deaths, and keep them from reincarnating and wreaking havoc in the world again.
Of course, some also believed that a bronze coffin could preserve a person's spirit, allowing the deceased to retain their last bit of life force and wait for the day they would be brought back to life, as with the enormous coffin of Marquis Yi of Zeng.
It was all superstition. The dead couldn't come back to life. Liu Chang'an had never seen anyone rise from the dead.
Unless they had never aged or died in the first place.
For the study of artifacts and archaeology, the age of a coffin, its designs, the tomb site, and any sacrificial or burial goods were all extremely important. The corpse inside, unless it was a case like Lady Xin Zhui's, wasn't important. It was enough to identify the deceased.
Liu Chang'an wasn't involved in that kind of research. To him, on the contrary, the person or corpse inside a coffin was the most important thing. For one reason or another, Qin Peng had clearly kept this coffin instead of leaving it to an artifact research institute or the cultural affairs bureau. Otherwise, he couldn't have sent it directly to Liu Chang'an like this.
There were no signs that the coffin had ever been opened. The craftsmanship and precision of many ancient artifacts were beyond the understanding of modern people, who were often unable to open or take them apart without damaging them. This coffin was just like that.
Liu Chang'an ran his fingers around the coffin, tapping it lightly. There might be bones inside, belonging to someone who had been brilliant in life. There might be a priceless treasure, comparable to the He Shi jade and the Imperial Seal. There might be a mysterious ritual, recording a lost tribe and civilization.
Or perhaps there was a... person lying inside?
Without absolute certainty, he wouldn't destroy what was inside. Without enough information, Liu Chang'an wouldn't recklessly lift the lid. There were no ghosts or gods in the world, but that didn't mean there were no taboos.
Liu Chang'an closed the container door. He'd already understood what Qin Peng meant. It felt a little troublesome, but it was only a matter of a few decades, so there was no need to take it too seriously. Just as Qin Peng loved Qin Yanan most when he looked at her because she reminded him of Ye Sijin, Liu Chang'an would also look after Qin Yanan a little for Ye Sijin's sake.
As for Qin Yanan having read more into it, Liu Chang'an didn't mind. Human emotions were even more elusive and unfathomable than clouds. They'd soon pass.
After tidying the old books in his room, he thought he should visit the Xiangnan Museum. Because of the ancient Junsha Kingdom, South Hunan had always been a major source of Han Dynasty artifacts. The Xin Zhui Tomb ranked among the world's ten most precious tombs alongside the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, and its most important discoveries had been the large quantities of written records.
Perhaps he could find some clues, or get some hints. Even just triggering a few memories would be enough.
He had experienced too much; there was no way to keep every memory neatly organized and retrieve the relevant information at will. The human brain wasn't a computer that could pull up reference material whenever you entered a keyword.
Liu Chang'an didn't head straight to the museum. He checked the time, then ambled over to school. Sure enough, he was late again.
The last days of senior year were both lazy and tense. Everyone had loosened up when it came to rules and discipline, but they were certainly tense about studying for exams. Liu Chang'an went to his seat and took out his study materials instead of Yuan Mei's Zi Bu Yu.
Only a faint red mark remained on An Nuan's nose from the scrape. Girls her age healed quickly, so there was no need to worry that such a small injury would leave an ugly scar. She no longer tried to hide it with her hand, though the students who knew Liu Chang'an had hit her in the nose with a volleyball occasionally grinned at her.
"When I got home, my mom yelled at me for ages. Then I quickly took a picture of my injured nose and posted it on Weibo with a pitiful, pouty face. My God, she really got into character. It's like she thinks the person on Weibo is herself. She loves chatting with her followers all day." An Nuan shook her head in exasperation. "I have an alternate account. Let's follow each other."
"I think your mom manages that account really well. She seems sweet." Liu Chang'an glanced at An Nuan. "Your mom must be pretty, too."
"Can you be serious for once?" An Nuan was exasperated and amused. "In real life, my mom has a sharp tongue. If she met a smooth-talking young guy like you, she'd scold you so badly you'd want to start your life over."
"Not at all. I get along great with her." Liu Chang'an shook his head and took out his phone. "Look. We chat from time to time about life and our ideals, poetry and literature, songs and movies from the eighties and nineties, Indian films, and the scenery of little islands in the South Pacific."
An Nuan stared at him in shock. She snatched Liu Chang'an's phone and scrolled through their chat history. There really was a long, long string of messages. They'd talked about everything from astronomy and geography to gossip from the streets and alleys of Junsha City.
"Didn't you know all along that my mom was the one mostly using that account?" An Nuan asked, unable to believe it. After all, people mostly socialized online with others their own age. The generation gap was even more obvious online; even their memes were completely different. How could they possibly chat?
"Of course I knew. That's why we could keep the conversation going. If it were you, what would we have to talk about?" Liu Chang'an said matter-of-factly.
An Nuan pressed a hand to her chest and tried to calm down. It really was time to cut ties with Liu Chang'an. Usually, when she messaged him, his replies were incredibly slow and sluggish. She never would have guessed he could chat so easily with her mom... He ignored the beautiful young girl right beside him, yet he was perfectly happy chatting with a grown woman. How was An Nuan supposed to feel about that?
"I'm cutting ties with you." An Nuan was so annoyed she could have died. Naturally, she didn't mention following each other's alternate accounts anymore; she figured he wouldn't be interested anyway.
"No," Liu Chang'an refused.
"We're definitely cutting ties." An Nuan opened her book in a huff, then snatched Liu Chang'an's phone again and carefully read through his chat history with her mom.
"If we're cutting ties, why are you grabbing my phone and reading my private messages?" Liu Chang'an asked, unable to understand An Nuan.
"I've got goosebumps just reading this!" An Nuan shot Liu Chang'an a look, unable to help wondering if he... liked mature women.
"An impure heart reveals demonic colors in the eyes," Liu Chang'an said, looking into An Nuan's eyes.
An Nuan gave a light cough. Her cheeks turned slightly red at the thoughts in her head. Still clutching Liu Chang'an's phone, she wouldn't give it back, but she stopped reading the messages and stared solemnly at the book on her desk. They were cutting ties, after all, and she didn't feel like talking to him today.
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