Antique Rules

Old objects used long enough remember their owners—remember a person’s obsession until it hardens into a rule. Chen Xu is an antique restorer. After his master vanishes, he discovers that while repairing pieces, he can "see" the memories they hold. When he touches an old bronze mirror, the scent of osmanthus oil floods his senses as a woman who has been paralyzed for two years speaks to it: "Walk for me. Take a look at the osmanthus in the yard." The mirror cracks—not breaks, but accepts the plea. Every old object carries one rule. To restore it is to seal away that obsession. The cost is that the restorer takes on a fragment of it himself—a red line creeping beneath the skin, a hard ridge forming along his cheekbone. How much can Chen Xu endure? He has no idea. But he knows this much: his master worked on these objects too. Over thirty of them. Then he stopped. Then he disappeared. Now Chen Xu continues the work, and with each restoration, he moves one step closer to his master—and one step further from what is normal. The incense burner in the shop grows colder by the day. The wooden box sealed on the western shelf waits for him to open it. Pages are torn one by one from his master’s notebook—and the people who bring in these relics? Some are lying. Some don't know the truth. And some are the truth itself.