Courtyard Check-in: Starting with a Small World of Cultivation

At 3 p.m. on August 5, the rain finally started to fall.

Large raindrops pattered against the hotel window, and the buildings across Victoria Harbour were blurred into gray shadows in the rain. Chen Yu stood by the window, holding Su Zhiqing's business card in his hand. The paper was of fine texture, with faint cloud patterns printed on the edges. The only contact information was a landline number and the address "151 Des Voeux Road Central, Central".

The phone rang.

"Mr. Chen, this is Li Guoan." The voice on the other end of the phone was very low. "Regarding today's preview, the police's preliminary investigation results are in—the deceased, Zhang Zhiqiang, suffered from cyanide poisoning, and the poisoning took effect very quickly, within three minutes."

"Cyanide? How was it poisoned?"

"The investigation is still ongoing. But there's something going on..." Li Guoan paused for a moment, "The original note inside the broken porcelain bottle was lost after the police took a photo for their records."

"Missing?"

"The officer in charge of the evidence said he put it in an evidence bag, locked it in a cabinet, went to lunch, and when he came back, it was gone. There were no pry marks on the cabinet, and only he and his superior had the key."

Chen Yu's eyes narrowed: "What does it say on the note?"

"I've seen the police photos. They're in simplified Chinese characters, and the message is very simple: 'The bronze lamp is fake, do not photograph it.' There's no signature."

Is the bronze lamp fake? Chen Yu recalled what Su Zhiqing had said: this lamp was identified as a Ming Dynasty imitation at a Paris auction three years ago. But Christie's report this time shows it's a genuine Tang Dynasty piece. Which is real and which is fake? And who left the note?

"What is the paper strip made of?"

"Ordinary letterhead, the kind commonly found in Hong Kong. The handwriting is done with a fountain pen, the strokes are neat, as if the handwriting is deliberately concealed," Li Guoan said. "Mr. Chen, what do you think?"

Chen Yu pondered: "There are two possibilities. First, someone knows the bronze lamp is a fake and wants to stop the auction or drive down the price. Second, someone wants to create chaos and divert attention."

"What about Zhang Zhiqiang's death?"

"If it's the first possibility, then Christie's is the most likely suspect in the murder to cover it up—they don't want the counterfeit goods to be exposed. But Christie's wouldn't need to commit murder on the first day of the preview; that would be too conspicuous."

"What about the second one?"

"That makes things complicated." Chen Yu looked out the window at the rain. "The poisoner might have targeted Zhang Zhiqiang himself, or... everyone interested in the copper lamp. That note might be a warning."

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone: "We will continue our investigation. Also, after Liu Zhenbang left the preview, he went to a warehouse in Wan Chai, and our people lost track of him. The terrain there is complicated, and we suspect there are secret passages."

"The Scarface team has a base in Hong Kong."

"More than one place." Li Guoan's voice was grave. "According to intelligence, in the past two weeks, at least five batches of cultural relics smuggled from the mainland have entered Hong Kong. They are all related to 'fire': bronze tripods, red jade artifacts, and some mineral samples. The recipients are all shell companies, and they all point to Kowloon Walled City."

Kowloon Walled City, that lawless, no-man's-land. Chen Yu recalled Huang Wenyuan's warning.

"The auction has three days left, what are your plans?"

"Strengthen surveillance, but without alerting them," Li Guoan said. "Mr. Chen, your mission remains the same: confirm the truth about the bronze lamp. If it's truly a fake, why is Scarface's team so concerned? That's the key."

After hanging up the phone, Chen Yu paced back and forth in the room. The sound of rain tapping on the window masked the noise of the street. He needed more information.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the rain subsided slightly. Chen Yu changed into casual clothes, opened an umbrella, and went out. He was going to 151 Des Voeux Road Central, Central—Su Zhiqing's address.

Des Voeux Road Central is Hong Kong's financial district, lined with bank and commercial buildings. Number 151 is a six-story old building with light yellow tiles on the exterior, giving it an aged appearance. The first floor houses a watch shop, while the upper floors are offices. Su Zhiqing's business card didn't list the floor, but Chen Yu found "Su's Appraisal Firm, Room B, 4th Floor" on the mailbox sign in the lobby.

The elevator was an old-fashioned sliding door type, creaking as it ran. The fourth-floor corridor was quiet, carpeted in a deep red. The door to apartment B was solid wood, with a brass plaque reading "Su's Appraisal." Chen Yu rang the doorbell.

The door opened, and a girl in her early twenties, wearing glasses and with her hair in a ponytail, asked: "Who are you looking for?"

"Is Miss Su Zhiqing here? This is Chen Yuyu."

"Mr. Chen, please come in. Ms. Su is meeting with a guest, please wait a moment."

The room wasn't large, but it was elegantly furnished. A bookshelf lined the wall, filled with books and scrolls; in the center was a large worktable covered with velvet, upon which sat several pieces of porcelain and a magnifying glass; several framed paintings and calligraphies hung on the wall, one of which… Chen Yu's eyes narrowed—it was a print of Shi Tao's "Huangshan Cloud Sea" from the preview!

"Mr. Chen, are you interested in this painting?" Su Zhiqing's voice came from the inner room. She had changed into a light blue cheongsam, and her hair was tied up, making her look more capable than in the morning.

"Miss Su, do you also have this painting here?"

"It's just a printed copy." Su Zhiqing walked over. "Didn't you see the real thing at the preview? What, are you interested?"

"I just thought the brushstrokes were unique," Chen Yu said casually. "Ms. Su, have the police questioned you about today's events?"

"I asked, just the usual questions." Su Zhiqing gestured for him to sit down and asked the girl to pour tea. "I know Zhang Zhiqiang, but we're not close. He mainly makes high-quality replicas of Ming and Qing dynasty porcelain. His skill level is quite good, but his character... is so-so. People in the industry know that he sometimes passes off replicas as genuine articles and sells them to foreigners who don't know anything about porcelain."

Who did he offend?

"There are many more." Su Zhiqing took the tea from the girl. "Last year, he sold a Yongle blue and white porcelain to a British businessman, but it was later identified as a Republic of China-era imitation. The British almost sued him. And the year before last, he had a very unpleasant dispute with a Macau gang leader over an antique."

"Macau gangs?"

"One of the gangs under the Ho family." Su Zhiqing lowered her voice. "The Hong Kong and Macau business is very murky. On the surface, they're all civilized people, but in private..." She didn't finish her sentence, but the meaning was clear.

Chen Yu took a sip of tea, a top-quality Tieguanyin: "Miss Su, are you aware of that note?"

Su Zhiqing paused, "What note?"

"A note inside the broken porcelain bottle. Police said it read, 'The copper lamp is fake, do not photograph it.'"

A few seconds of silence filled the room. Su Zhiqing put down her teacup, her expression serious: "Mr. Chen, where did you hear this news?"

"I have my own channels."

"Then let me remind you," Su Zhiqing looked at him, "some things are safer the less you know. That note... isn't the first time it's appeared."

Chen Yu was startled: "What do you mean?"

"Two months ago, at an auction in Macau, a 'Han Dynasty Vermilion Bird Mirror' was up for auction. The day before the preview, the auction house received an anonymous letter saying that the mirror was a fake. But on the day of the auction, the mirror still sold for a high price, and the buyer was a wealthy businessman from Southeast Asia." Su Zhiqing paused, "Three days later, that businessman died suddenly in his hotel room, and the mirror disappeared."

"What did the police find out?"

"The conclusion is a sudden heart attack, but everyone in the industry knows it's not that simple." Su Zhiqing stood up and took a photo from the drawer. "Look at this."

The photo shows a bronze mirror with a Vermilion Bird pattern engraved on the back, which is 70% similar to the Vermilion Bird design on the bronze lamp at the auction!

"This mirror..."

"It's part of a set with the bronze lamp," Su Zhiqing said. "In Tang Dynasty court rituals, there was a saying about the 'Four Symbols Ritual Vessels': Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise. The Azure Dragon was a bronze tripod, the White Tiger was a jade cong, the Vermilion Bird was a bronze lamp and a bronze mirror, and the Black Tortoise was a tortoise shell. This set of ritual vessels was scattered among the people for hundreds of years, and only reappeared in recent decades. But each time it appeared, it was accompanied by... death."

Chen Yu took the photo and examined it carefully. He activated his Spiritual Eye Technique; although it was just a photo, he could vaguely sense a faint residual spiritual energy on the mirror—from the same source as the copper lamp!

"So this time, the bronze lamp..."

"I can't be sure if it's genuine, but I'm certain someone doesn't want it to auction off smoothly." Su Zhiqing put away the photos. "Mr. Chen, if you're just looking to buy decorative items, I suggest you find another target. This place is too murky."

"Why are you telling me all this, Miss Su?"

Su Zhiqing paused for a moment: "My grandfather was a curator at the Palace Museum during the Republic of China era. In 1949, he didn't go to Taiwan but came to Hong Kong. Before he died, he said that the set of Four Symbols ritual vessels was related to a secret, a secret that... should not be reopened."

"What secret?"

"He didn't elaborate, only saying, 'When the Fire Star appears, the world will be in turmoil.'" Su Zhiqing smiled bitterly. "I didn't believe in these things before, but I've seen too many strange things over the years, so I have no choice but to believe. Mr. Chen, I can tell you're not an ordinary person, but please take my advice: some things are better left untouched."

When Chen Yu left Su Zhiqing's office, the rain had stopped. The streets were wet, and the neon lights reflected fragmented shadows in the puddles. Chen Yu walked among the crowd, Su Zhiqing's words echoing in his mind.

The appearance of obsidian brings unrest to the world. Obsidian, the Vermilion Bird ritual artifacts, the legends of the Four Symbols… these clues gradually connect. Scarface's team is collecting obsidian and related artifacts, and it's not just for money. What are they searching for? What is that "secret that shouldn't have been reopened"?

At 7 p.m., Chen Yu returned to the hotel. He called Li Guoan and relayed the information provided by Su Zhiqing.

"The Four Symbols Ritual Vessels..." Li Guoan pondered. "This clue is very important. We will check the old archives of the Palace Museum. Also, Mr. Chen, there is something I need to tell you—our people in the hospital morgue found something unusual about Zhang Zhiqiang's body."

"What's wrong?"

"On the palm of his left hand, there was a small brand that had been covered by sweat and dirt. After cleaning, it became clear that it was a symbol—a copper coin encased in a flame."

Flaming copper coin! Chen Yu remembered the Kaiyuan Tongbao coin that the major from Factory 903 had given him, with a flame symbol on the back!

"The Scarface team's mark?"

"Very likely. But what's strange is that the brand is very old, at least a year old. That is to say, Zhang Zhiqiang had been in contact with this team for a long time."

A mole? Or a coerced collaborator? Chen Yu recalled what Su Zhiqing had said: Zhang Zhiqiang was a person of questionable character, capable of anything for money. He might have learned something he shouldn't have while working for Scarface's team and was subsequently silenced.

The note that read "The bronze lamp is fake" was probably a backup plan he left behind—if something happened to him, he would expose the bronze lamp as a fake, disrupt the auction, and ruin the team's plan.

But was the bronze lamp really fake? Chen Yu recalled what he had seen with his spiritual eye technique: the runes were real, the residual spiritual energy was real. Either it was a counterfeit so realistic that it could fool even cultivators; or… it was genuine, but someone wanted to claim it was fake and drive down the price at auction.

At 9 PM, Chen Yu decided to sneak into the preview venue at night. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel had security guards at night, but for him, a cultivator at the seventh level of Qi Refining, infiltrating was not too difficult.

He changed into dark clothes, activated his concealment technique to its maximum, and left through the hotel's back door. The streets were slippery after the rain, and there were few pedestrians. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel was not far from his hotel, just a fifteen-minute walk away.

There was a freight elevator in the back alley of the hotel, used exclusively by the kitchen and cleaning staff. Chen Yu used his spiritual sense to check and, after confirming that no one was around, used a thin wire to pry open the electrical distribution box next to the elevator—a little trick he had learned from his reconnaissance skills. The elevator stopped working, so he took the stairs to the second floor.

The banquet hall doors were locked, but the adjacent fire escape was unlocked. Chen Yu entered silently. The hall was pitch black, with only the emergency exit signs emitting a faint green glow. The exhibits were all covered with cloth, appearing like silent ghosts in the darkness.

He walked straight to the area where the bronze lamp was located. He lifted the dust cover, and the glass cover reflected a faint light in the darkness. With his spiritual eye fully activated, the runic structure inside the bronze lamp was clearly visible.

This time he examined it more closely. The runes were indeed part of the Fire Gathering Spirit Array, but three key points showed signs of repair—not modern repairs, but ancient ones, crudely made, which greatly reduced the array's effectiveness. This indicated that the bronze lamp had been damaged and repaired in the past, but the repairers were not skilled enough.

"It's genuine, but it has flaws," Chen Yu concluded. Such a magical artifact, with its incomplete functions, is greatly diminished in value, but it might be sufficient for Scarface's team—they might only need the obsidian component in the copper lamp, or the rune structure, for research.

While I was observing, my spiritual senses suddenly detected movement—someone was coming!

Chen Yu quickly covered himself with a dust cloth and slipped behind a pillar. He activated his breath-concealing technique, reducing his heart rate and breathing to a minimum.

The banquet hall door was gently pushed open, and a beam of flashlight swept in. Two figures, one tall and one short, were wearing security guard uniforms, but their gait... was unlike that of ordinary security guards.

"Hurry up, we only have fifteen minutes," the short man whispered in Cantonese.

"Got it. Which booth is it?" the tall man asked.

"The third row, the seventh one, the one with the broken blue and white porcelain vase."

The two walked to the porcelain section and lifted the dust cover. Shining their flashlights on the broken porcelain shards, they crouched down to examine them closely.

"Did you find it?"

"No... That's strange, it was clearly said to be here."

"What if the police took it?"

"Impossible, the note was put in later, the police didn't know."

They're looking for something! Besides the note, is there something else hidden in the porcelain vase?

Chen Yu locked onto the two with his spiritual sense and sensed faint fluctuations of spiritual energy emanating from them—they were also cultivators! However, their cultivation levels were not high, around the second or third level of the Qi Refining stage.

"Keep looking, it might be a hidden compartment." The short man tapped the wooden planks of the display stand.

Chen Yu's heart skipped a beat. He had used his spiritual eye technique to examine the broken porcelain bottle during the day, but his attention was focused on the note, and he hadn't looked closely at the bottle itself. Now, thinking back, there was indeed an unusually thick spot on the bottle's belly...

"Found it!" the tall man whispered. He pried a small metal tube, thinner than a pen cap, out of a gap in the base of the display stand.

"What is it?"

"I don't know, the boss only said to take it out." The tall man put the metal cylinder into his pocket. "Let's go, it's time."

The two covered the items with a dust cover and quickly left. Chen Yu waited until they were far away before emerging from behind a pillar. He walked to the porcelain section, lifted the dust cover, and used his spiritual eye technique to carefully scan the display stands and broken porcelain shards.

In the gap at the bottom of the booth, he sensed a faint trace of spiritual energy—different from the aura of Scarface's team, it was colder, more...evil.

A third-party force?

Chen Yu recalled what Su Zhiqing had mentioned about the Macau triads. Could it be them?

He stayed at the scene for a few minutes to make sure no clues were missed, then quietly left. He returned to his hotel at 11 p.m.

Tonight's discoveries are numerous: the bronze lamp is genuine but flawed; besides the note, the porcelain vase also contained a metal tube; the security guard is a fake, a practitioner from some powerful organization; the third-party force may be involved with Macau's triads...

Chen Yu sat at the table, organizing in his notebook:

1. Bronze lamp: Genuine Tang Dynasty artifact, ritual implement, but the fire-gathering spirit array has defects. Value to be determined.

2. The note reads: "The copper lamp is fake, do not bid." It may have been left by Zhang Zhiqiang as a backup plan.

3. Metal cylinder: Newly discovered, contents unknown, taken away by a fake security guard.

4. Fake security guard: A cultivator with low cultivation level, whose affiliation is unknown (not Scarface's team).

5. The Four Symbols Ritual Objects: The Vermilion Bird Bronze Lamp and the Vermilion Bird Mirror from Macau are a set, which may involve ancient secrets.

After writing this, he looked out the window. Hong Kong's nights are never truly dark; there are always lights everywhere. But beneath this dazzling light, how many undercurrents are surging?

Tomorrow is the second day of the preview, and the auction is still two days away. Scarface's team, third-party forces, Christie's, the police, the National Security Bureau... all parties are making their moves.

He must find his place on this chessboard.

The rain started again, pattering softly against the city's night.

Chen Yu sat cross-legged, cultivating, his spiritual energy flowing through his body. The rainy night in Hong Kong added a moist, watery quality to the spiritual energy, making cultivation a unique experience.

But his mind was already on tomorrow's preview.

What secret does that bronze lamp hold?

What's inside the metal cylinder?

Everything awaits to be revealed.