“Dad, can I borrow this painting for a few days?”
“Sure, just don’t let your mother know. This painting…”
Shen Sangyu patted her chest and grinned. She and Shen Qian were in this together now.
Shi Qing still intended to buy back the fake painting, so she had to seize the opportunity to uncover the secret hidden inside it.
Watching the father and daughter whispering conspiratorially in the corner, Zhou Hui immediately knew they were keeping something from her again.
Shen Jingnian had already heard about Shi Qing embezzling company funds to gamble. Lately, he had also noticed that his younger sister seemed… different.
“Sang Sang, has something happened at home recently?”
Shen Sangyu couldn’t help admiring her brother’s sharp instincts. No wonder he was destined to become a top lawyer.
Standing on tiptoe, she reached out and patted the shoulder of her brother, who was a head taller than she was.
“Relax, big brother. Everything’s fine at home. Just focus on finishing your thesis.”
Even though Shen Sangyu still didn’t know why Meng Chengxi had transferred schools, she knew that as long as Meng Chengxi remained unaware that her schemes had been exposed, she would retain the upper hand.
As for Shen Jingnian, he should simply finish his thesis and survive his miserable internship in peace.
…
Shen Sangyu carefully spread out the fake Cangqu Painting across her desk.
The golden mist that had once lingered at the center of the painting had already been absorbed by the lotus bud during her first encounter with it.
Her father had mentioned that during today’s notarization process, Li Ming had subtly hinted that the painting was a forgery.
Still, Li Ming had probably recognized just how convincing the counterfeit was. At five million yuan, it wasn’t an outrageous price, so he hadn’t tried to stop Shen Qian from buying it.
Shen Sangyu slowly unrolled the section containing the inscription at the beginning of the scroll and gently ran her fingertips across it.
‘Why does this section feel even thicker than the painted area?’
Normally, when a painting was remounted, the central section containing the artwork would be noticeably thicker than the area with the inscription.
But this scroll was the exact opposite.
After thinking for a moment, she picked up a craft knife from the pen holder on her desk.
Very carefully, she slid the blade along the edge of the mounting…
Between the layers of paper was an incredibly thin sheet of aged, yellowed paper.
Her movements immediately became even more cautious.
‘Could this be the source of the golden mist?’
She wasn’t worried about damaging the fake painting. Thanks to the artifact aura she could always restore it.
But the fragile xuan paper hidden inside looked centuries old. One careless move could destroy it forever.
Using a pair of tweezers, she slowly peeled away the inscription layer attached to the hidden sheet.
It was astonishingly light, only about the size of an A4 sheet of paper.
Time had softened the paper until it felt almost weightless. Shen Sangyu was honestly afraid that a single gust of wind could reduce it to dust.
She quickly found a transparent document sleeve, carefully slipped the fragile sheet inside, and only then dared to examine it closely.
It was calligraphy.
Three vertical lines of wildly flowing cursive script covered the small piece of paper.
After staring at it for a while, Shen Sangyu managed to make out a few characters.
“…Mid-Autumn… unable to… return…”
Why did this feel so familiar?
She quietly read through the cursive over and over, trying to remember where she had seen these words before.
Then her eyes suddenly widened.
“This is… the Mid-Autumn Manuscript!”
Wang Xianzhi’s famous Mid-Autumn Manuscript!
But… wasn’t the authentic Mid-Autumn Manuscript housed in the Huaguo National Museum?
Unlike many other antiques, masterpieces of calligraphy had always been treasured by successive emperors throughout history.
For example, the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing Dynasty had been especially fond of Wang Xianzhi’s works. The imperial palace inventory even recorded the Mid-Autumn Manuscript by name.
That meant the manuscript had always been regarded as an authenticated masterpiece passed down through history.
Its provenance had been meticulously documented for centuries, almost like an exclusive historical biography recording who created it and how it survived through every dynasty until the Qing court.
After the founding of modern Huaguo, many treasures from the imperial collection entered the Huaguo National Museum.
Of course, countless others had been smuggled overseas by antique traffickers during those chaotic years.
But if that was true…
Then how could she possibly be holding another Mid-Autumn Manuscript in her hands?
Wang Xianzhi’s father was the legendary Wang Xizhi, whose Preface to the Orchid Pavilion was celebrated as the greatest running script ever written.
Both father and son had lived during the Eastern Jin Dynasty.
Back then, xuan paper hadn’t even been invented. The paper available during that era was rough, primitive, and far cruder than later generations of handmade paper.
The ancient paper she was holding matched the characteristics of Eastern Jin materials perfectly.
Could it be…
That the manuscript displayed in the Huaguo National Museum was actually the fake one?
After all, the golden mist visible through her relic eye was undeniable proof.
The manuscript in her hands was the genuine article.
Shen Sangyu rubbed her temples.
Was her brain broken?
No matter how she thought about it, the pieces simply didn’t fit together.
She turned the calligraphy over repeatedly in her hands…
Then a memory suddenly surfaced.
Back in her previous life, while working at the National Museum, she had once overheard several researchers from the Calligraphy Department discussing the National Museum’s collection.
She distinctly remembered one senior scholar mentioning that many of the imperial court’s calligraphy pieces had questionable authenticity.
After all…
If the emperor declared something genuine, what historian would dare write that it was fake?
The so-called Mid-Autumn Manuscript attributed to Wang Xianzhi was very likely an imitation created by the Northern Song calligrapher Mi Fu.
After being admired, authenticated, and repeatedly stamped by an emperor obsessed with leaving his seals everywhere, the forgery gradually became accepted as the real masterpiece.
Since no second version of the Mid-Autumn Manuscript had ever surfaced, the Huaguo National Museum had naturally continued following the Qing court’s historical records.
After piecing everything together, Shen Sangyu suddenly felt the manuscript in her hands had become unbearably heavy.
If this was really the authentic Mid-Autumn Manuscript…
Wouldn’t that completely overturn the conclusions of countless experts?
She snapped a photo and sent it to Du Yansong, who had only recently left.
After all, he was the only heavyweight antique expert in the capital she actually knew.
…
Huaguo National Museum.
Du Yansong strode into his office with all the pride of a peacock showing off its magnificent feathers.
In his arms was today’s greatest prize, the bronze wine vessel Shen Sangyu had donated.
“Professor Du! What treasure did you bring back? Hurry and let me see!”
“Go away! This was donated by my apprentice.”
Despite carrying a bronze vessel weighing several dozen kilograms, Du Yansong moved with surprising agility for a man approaching eighty.
If Shen Sangyu had heard him casually calling her his “apprentice,” she probably would have rolled her eyes.
When had she ever agreed to that?
“Oh, stop making things up. Since when did you have an apprentice without me knowing?”
Ding Meng took advantage of Du Yansong’s distraction and snatched the bronze vessel from his arms.
“Whoa! This thing’s heavy! I’m just taking a look. Let go already!”
The two elderly scholars, whose combined ages exceeded one hundred and fifty years, immediately began chasing each other around the office over a single bronze wine vessel.
The researchers in their forties and fifties, along with their graduate students, barely looked up.
They had long grown accustomed to scenes like this.
Eventually, Du Yansong gave in.
“Fine, fine. Take a look.”
Then he noticed the message Shen Sangyu had just sent.
“Old Ding, does this calligraphy remind you of the style of the Three Wangs?”
Ding Meng reluctantly tore his gaze away from the bronze vessel.
Putting on his reading glasses, he held the phone at arm’s length.
“It certainly has the flavor of the Three Wangs. But cursive script isn’t really my specialty… Hmm? Xiao Wang, is your teacher in his office?”
Their colleague Zhu Dongrun, the museum’s foremost expert on cursive calligraphy, happened to be away.
Instead, they spotted Wang Yu walking through the hallway.
Wang Yu was passing by with several of his graduate students when he heard Ding Meng call his name.
“Professor Ding, Professor Du. My teacher has gone to Peking University to give a lecture. If there’s anything you need, I’m happy to help.”
In the world of cultural relic and antique research, academic lineage meant everything.
Although Wang Yu was already nearly fifty years old, he still held deep respect for veteran scholars like Ding Meng and Du Yansong.
“That old Zhu, always buried in his research… Never mind. Xiao Wang, take a look at this picture.”
Unable to find Zhu Dongrun himself, Du Yansong simply handed the phone to his student instead.
Wang Yu accepted the phone and carefully studied the image.
“This is…”
He frowned.
“Hmm… It definitely resembles Wang Xizhi’s brushwork.”
“Is this an imitation of the Mid-Autumn Manuscript?”
“The imitation is astonishingly convincing…”