The penthouse suite atop the museum was a fortress of glass and shadows. Lu Wei sat behind a desk of reclaimed dark wood, the city lights bleeding through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him.
He wasn't looking at the skyline; he was staring at a single physical file and a flickering CCTV playback on his tablet.
It showed the sub-basement. A woman—Su Yilin—was opening the first of the three crates.
She hadn't used a crowbar. She had touched the iron-bound wood with a reverence that looked almost like a greeting. And then, she had reached in and pulled out a fractured Great Yan Horse-Chopping Blade the Zhanmadao.
She didn't hold it like a restorer; she held it with a muscle memory that made Lu Wei's blood turn to ice. She had balanced the weight in her palm, her fingers curling around the hilt as if she were waiting for a horn to blow on a battlefield.
He looked down at her resume—the one Lin Jue had practically forced onto his desk. He hadn't bothered to read the accolades. He just stared at her headshot.
A sharp, jagged spike of pain shot through his left temple, radiating toward the spot hidden beneath his dark fringe.
He squeezed his eyes shut, his hand gripping the edge of the desk until his knuckles turned white. It wasn't just a headache; it was a rhythmic, pulsing pressure, like a drum beating in a language he couldn't translate.
The door slid open with a soft electronic hum. Lin Jue walked in, carrying a silver tray with a glass of water and a small porcelain ramekin containing two white pills.
"You're staring at her again," Lin Jue said softly. There was no secretary-to-boss formality in his voice now—only the quiet concern of a man who had pulled Lu Wei out of these 'episodes' for a decade. "Take the medication, Wei. The doctor said the stress of the Europe trip would trigger the migraines."
Lu Wei didn't argue. He took the pills, swallowed them in one go, and leaned back, rubbing his face with his palms. "It's not the stress, Jue. It's the way she touched that blade. You saw the footage. No one handles a 14th-century weapon like it's a part of their own arm."
Lin Jue pulled up a chair, sitting across from him. "She's the best in the field. You asked for a specialist who could 'wake up' the history. That's what you're seeing. Talent. Not... whatever it is you're worried about."
"She was crying," Lu Wei whispered, his voice losing its boardroom edge, sounding tired and raw. "In the rotunda. She looked at the portrait of the General and she fell apart. Why does a stranger look at my ancestor and feel like she's lost her own soul?"
Lin Jue sighed, reaching over to take the file before Lu Wei could obsess over the photo any longer.
"Maybe she just has a sensitive heart. Unlike you, you frozen block of stone. Now, lie back for ten minutes. Let the pills work. You have a museum to run, and she's already in the basement starting her shift. If you go down there looking like a ghost, you'll scare her off before she even cleans the first bronze."
"A short, breathy laugh escaped Lu Wei—a sound so rare it seemed to surprise even the shadows of the room. 'Scare her, Jue? I think it would take more than a migraine to rattle a woman who looks at the world like she's already seen it end once before.'"
"Check the monitors in an hour," Wei muttered, his voice drifting. "I want to see what she does with the second crate."
Lu Wei leaned back into the leather of his chair, the medication finally starting to dull the jagged edges of the migraine.
He kept his eyes closed, the image of Yilin's hands on that ancient blade still burned into his retinas like a thermal ghost.
"Understood," Lin Jue replied, but he didn't move toward the door.
He lingered, a slight, mischievous curve tugging at the corner of his mouth—the look of a man who had known Lu Wei long enough to know exactly how to annoy him.
"Oh, before I go... I had a very interesting call about twenty minutes ago."
Lu Wei sighed, sensing the shift in the air. "From who?"
"Your grandfather's personal secretary," Lin Jue said, his tone turning mock-serious.
"It seems the Chairman is concerned that his only heir is spending too much time with dusty relics and not enough time with... living ones. You've been booked for another blind date this Sunday. Daughter of the shipping magnate in Shanghai. Very 'refined,' apparently."
Lu Wei's eyes snapped open, his brows knitting into that hard, judgmental line. "Cancel it. I'm in the middle of the Great Yan restoration. I don't have time to play house with a shipping heiress."
"I told them that," Lin Jue chuckled, already moving toward the door as he saw Wei's hand drift toward a heavy stack of acquisition files on the desk. "But your grandfather said if you don't show up, he's going to personally come down here and start 'restoring' the artifacts himself. With a sledgehammer."
Lin Jue paused at the door, giving a playful wink. "Honestly, Wei, maybe you should go. You're starting to look as gray as the charcoal in that portrait. A little romance might thaw that ice block you call a heart."
"Out!" Lu Wei growled, grabbing a thick folder of spreadsheets and hurling it toward the door with practiced accuracy.
Lin Jue ducked, the papers fluttering like white birds against the wood. He let out a genuine giggle—a sound that would have shocked the museum staff—and bent down to gather the scattered documents.
"Going, going!" Lin Jue laughed, tucking the files under his arm as he straightened up. "I'll check on the 'Ghost of the Basement' for you. Take your nap, boss. You're grumpy when you're tired."
He slipped out and closed the door just as Lu Wei reached for a second, heavier book.
Silence returned to the penthouse, but as Lu Wei stared at the closed door, his hand instinctively went to his left brow, tracing the skin hidden beneath his hair.
The sub-basement felt like a tomb, but one that was breathing. The hum of the industrial HVAC system was a constant, low-frequency thrum that vibrated in the soles of Yilin's sneakers.
It was 11:14 PM.
She had already cataloged the shards from the first crate—mostly broken pottery and rusted arrowheads.
Nothing that justified the "thin ice" Lu Wei had placed her on. But as she turned to the second crate, the air in the lab seemed to thicken, turning heavy and cold.
This crate was different. It wasn't just pine; it was reinforced with iron bands that had started to bleed rust into the wood.
Yilin snapped on a fresh pair of black nitrile gloves. The snap of the latex sounded like a gunshot in the silent room.
She didn't use a crowbar. She felt for the pressure points in the wood, her fingers moving with a frantic, trembling certainty. When the lid finally groaned open, she didn't see "minor bronze-work."
She saw a Jiānbǎn—a piece of Míngguāng Kǎ.
Yilin's breath hitched. She didn't reach for her camera or her ledger. She reached for the metal.
The moment her fingertips brushed the surface, she didn't feel cold bronze. She felt a jolt of heat so violent it made her shoulder blade twitch.
It was a lion-head crest, identical to the one she had seen in the portrait of General Gao Wei, but this wasn't a painting. This was real. The metal was pitted and scarred, deep gouges torn into the lion's mane as if a heavy blade had tried to cleave the wearer in half.
Her reaction wasn't academic. It was visceral.
She slumped against the workbench, her legs suddenly unable to support her weight. A wave of nausea rolled over her, followed by a crushing sense of claustrophobia. She wasn't looking at an artifact; she was looking at a witness to a murder.
"I know this," she whispered, her voice cracking in the empty lab.
She traced the edge of the metal where it was jagged and torn. Her mind didn't give her a "memory," but her body gave her a sensation—the feeling of weight on her left shoulder, the smell of burnt copper, and the sound of someone screaming her name over the roar of a collapsing roof.
A single, hot tear hit the bronze, sizzling in her imagination. She pulled her hand back as if burned, clutching her chest where the phantom pain was now a sharp, stabbing reality.
"Get it together, Yilin," she hissed at herself, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. "It's just metal. It's just old, broken metal."
But her hands wouldn't stop shaking. She looked at the armor and then at the CCTV camera humming in the corner of the ceiling.
She knew Lu Wei was likely watching, or Lin Jue was. She had to be a professional. She had to be the "ice" Lu Wei demanded.
She forced herself to stand up, wiping her face with the back of her gloved hand. She grabbed a soft-bristled brush, but as she leaned over the crate, her eyes kept darting to the shadow of the door.
For the first time in her career, Yilin wasn't afraid of damaging the artifact. She was afraid the artifact was going to break her.
In the darkened penthouse, the only light came from the glowing grid of the security monitors. Lu Wei was leaning back, a cold compress pressed against his temple, watching the sub-basement feed with a predatory focus.
He saw her hand tremble as it hovered over the iron-bound wood. He saw the exact moment her fingers made contact with the lion-head crest.
Then, he saw her buckle.
Su Yilin didn't just stumble; she collapsed against the workbench as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
Her head dropped, her small frame shaking with a silent, jagged sob that even the low-resolution camera couldn't hide. She was clutching her left shoulder—the exact spot where the armor in the crate was most viciously torn.
The glass of water on his desk rattled as Lu Wei stood up abruptly. The "ice block" Lin Jue spoke of didn't just melt; it shattered.
"Damn it," he hissed, the pain in his temple flaring into a white-hot spike.