Chapter 2: Two Shards Within Ten Meters

Zhou Dehai let out a scoff and yanked his handlebars, swinging the tricycle across Chen Yan’s path. A wheel slammed onto a stray brick with a sharp *clack* that pierced the morning silence, sending a few sparrows fluttering off a nearby utility pole.

"On what authority?" He crossed his arms, jerking his chin toward the pile of junk in the cargo bed. "I don't even know what's in my own damn truck, and you're telling me you do?" His calloused hands were locked across his chest, knuckles deformed from years of hauling heavy loads, yet currently radiating a stubborn, unreasonable arrogance.

Chen Yan didn't answer. The morning mist hadn't fully lifted, and the air was thick with the scent of damp earth and the smell of fried dough drifting from a distant breakfast stall. He held the assembled bowl in his palm, cupping it with both hands, opening facing up, as if cradling a pool of water. His gaze was calm, almost detached, as if the bowl weren't porcelain but a handful of freshly condensed dew. He looked down, staring for three seconds.

A phantom image shimmered into view—first the foot, then the belly, then the rim. A celadon hue, like a post-rain sky, bled upward from the bottom of the bowl; it was a ghostly light visible only to him. At the moment the image flared brightest, a thin line extended from his palm. It was golden-red, thinner than a strand of hair, crawling along the ground, banking a corner, and diving under the plastic tarp of the neighboring stall before vanishing. Chen Yan’s eyelashes flickered—an instinctive reaction to catching a prey's trail.

Zhou Dehai leaned over to see what he was staring at and let out a gruff snort. "You've gone mental."

Despite the cursing, he released the brake and pushed the tricycle along, the wheels crunching over gravel with a sandy hiss. He grumbled the whole way, spittle flying in the dim light. "There's enough broken porcelain on this street to keep you busy until next December. Even the scrap dealers don't touch the shards—too sharp, too heavy for what they're worth. Only you treat this stuff like treasure."

The first stall sold old books and iron scraps, spread over a greyish plastic tarp weighed down by bricks at the corners. Morning light filtered through the trees in mottled patches, giving the plastic an oily sheen. The owner, Fatty Auntie, was perched on a small stool cracking sunflower seeds, the shells piling up in a fragrant, toasted mound. The moment she saw Chen Yan squat down to sift through the pile of shards at the edge of her stall, her face soured, a seed shell still caught between her teeth with a loud *crack*.

"Hey, hey, hey! Xiao Chen, easy with the hands. Don't get mud on the books."

Chen Yan gave a low, raspy acknowledgement, but his hands didn't stop. His movements were incredibly fast, possessing a kind of mechanical precision. Beneath the porcelain shards lay rusty nails, broken saw blades, and half an enamel mug—the cold hardness of metal interwoven with the brittle fractures of ceramic. He dug through the layers, fingertips grazing the edges of the fragments, black mud staining the gaps between his fingers. On the third handful, his fingertips went cold—a chill that shot straight up his nerves to his brain.

A curved fragment. In the phantom image, the gap flared a blinding white, like a nail driven into his mind. Faint words jumped out in his head: [Two pieces missing.]

Fatty Auntie slapped her thigh and stood up, her stool letting out a sharp squeak. "Are you raiding my stall? Once you've dug through my scrap porcelain, how am I supposed to arrange these books?" Her face wobbled with indignation as she reached out to stop him.

The owner of the neighboring clock and watch stall leaned over, wearing the slick, practiced smile of a street vendor, grease embedded in the wrinkles around his eyes. "Who picks up broken porcelain these days? There's plenty in the trash cans up ahead." He toyed with a stopped pocket watch, which emitted a hollow, rhythmic tick.

Zhou Dehai looked up, casting a sharp glance. His tone held a protective streak of aggression. "He's picking through my stuff. You got a problem with that?"

The vendor's smile froze. He shrank back, lowering his head to wind a watch spring, his fingers fumbling clumsily with the gears, choosing to stay silent.

The Golden Thread took a turn in Chen Yan’s mind, pointing straight toward the opposite diagonal. He stood and walked away, his movement carrying a momentum that sent a gust of wind fluttering from the hem of his clothes. He gripped the fragment tightly; the edge bit into the flesh of his palm, a slight sting that kept him focused.

Fatty Auntie yelled after him, her voice shrill. "Dig and run! Not even a word of explanation!"

Chen Yan stopped and looked back, the wind tossing the stray hairs on his forehead. He looked at her, his voice flat but unquestionable. "Auntie, I'll come back and stack your books for you."

The woodwork vendor was a tall, scrawny man squatting in the shadows, smoking. The swirling smoke blurred his naturally caustic features. Beside his feet sat a battered bamboo basket half-filled with porcelain shards of every color—celadon, white, soy-brown—mixed with grey dust and smelling of mildew. Chen Yan knelt to search, dry leaves rustling down around him. The scrawny man eyed him sideways, blowing smoke from his nostrils that smelled of acrid, cheap tobacco.

"What do you want with this stuff?"

"Matching," Chen Yan said softly, as if talking to himself.

"Matching what?"

"A bowl."

The scrawny man took a drag and burst out laughing, a dry, hacking sound. "Since when do people 'match' bowls? If it's broken, it's broken." He kicked the bamboo basket with his foot, the fragments colliding with a faint, whimpering sound.

Chen Yan didn't respond. His hand found a piece at the bottom of the basket. He pulled it up—a curved rim, grey-toned celadon, with a few old nicks along the edge, a patina left by time. He brought the two pieces together. The curves locked perfectly, like two puzzle pieces finding each other, producing a faint *click*. The corresponding Golden Thread flared in his mind. The Missing List was down to one piece, and the direction pointed toward the third stall, amidst a pile of scrap copper and iron at the street corner. Countless discarded copper sheets and iron filings lay there, gleaming dully in the sun.

He stood up, his movements crisp. The scrawny man called out behind him, waving his cigarette. "Hey! Give a guy an answer!"

The third piece was pinned down by a rusty nail, held fast by withered vines. Chen Yan pushed the nails aside one by one, the metal friction creating a piercing screech. A sharp tip sliced a white line into his fingertip; it didn't break the skin, but clear interstitial fluid seeped out, throbbing with a dull ache. He held his breath, pried the piece out, and blew off the dirt, the dust dancing in the sunlight. As the three pieces came together, it felt as if something inside him had completed a circuit.

The list hit zero. Every gap in the phantom image closed. One circle, two circles—the red dot at the rim of the bowl lit up steadily, no longer flickering, like a heart starting to beat again.

"Hey, hey, hey." Fatty Auntie had appeared out of nowhere, shuffling in cloth shoes, and the scrawny man had stood up too. The two of them blocked his path, their stalls forming a barrier behind them.

Fatty Auntie put her hands on her hips, pointing a finger at Chen Yan’s nose. "All three pieces came from our stalls, didn't they?"

The scrawny man tossed his cigarette and crushed it under his shoe, sparks flying. "Right. Ten bucks a piece. Thirty." His eyes were greedy, locked onto the fragments in Chen Yan’s hand.

Chen Yan held the three pieces and looked up, his gaze passing over them toward the end of the street. "You were going to throw these away as trash."

"My trash is still my trash." The scrawny man held up three thick fingers in front of Chen Yan. "Thirty. Not a cent less."

Zhou Dehai propped his bike up, the front wheel lifting slightly as he stepped forward, knocking ash from his pipe. "When I bought your scrap iron last month, what did you say about this basket of porcelain? 'Free, it's just taking up space.' Now it's suddenly treasure?" His voice was gravelly, full of street-smart cunning and hardness.

"I didn't look closely then," the scrawny man snapped, a vein popping in his neck. "I'm looking closely now. He wants them, he pays."

Their voices grew louder, waking the nearby napping cats. Chen Yan fished three ten-yuan notes from his pocket—crumpled, torn at the edges, and stained with sweat—and pressed them into the scrawny man's palm.

"Thirty."

The scrawny man blinked, feeling the rough texture of the bills. His momentum vanished, and his mouth twitched.

Zhou Dehai looked back at him with a fierce glare. "You got money to burn?"

Chen Yan tucked the three pieces away and habitually straightened his clothes, as if the argument had never happened. "Uncle Zhou, the bowl is more important."

Back at the stall, he fitted the three pieces into the gaps, pressing them down one by one. He felt the subtle release of internal stress within the porcelain. When the final piece clicked into place, he pressed his fingertip along the foot of the bowl in three complete circles, sealing every seam as if performing a ritual. The bowl was whole. The sense of security brought by that completeness was more powerful than any words.

The phantom image vanished, leaving only a physical bowl, its glaze glowing warmly in the morning light. A line of faint text appeared in his mind: [Perfect Whole Value: 1.]

Chen Yan flipped the bowl over. Inside the foot was a spiral mark—shallow, crooked, with a little tail where the tool had been pulled away, a testament to the craftsman's sloppiness. The glaze was greyish, celadon with a hint of yellow, featuring a scrolling vine pattern. The brushwork was hurried; the leaves looked like fish, possessing a kind of absurd vitality. It was crude work from a local folk kiln; tens of thousands were produced a year, and every household had one of these bowls on their stove. On the open market, it wouldn't fetch much—he might not even make back the thirty yuan—because buyers only cared if it could hold rice, not where it came from.

He sat on his small stool, the bowl resting on his knee, and stared at it for a long time. The surrounding noise gradually faded, leaving only the sound of the wind.

The Eye only gave him the form. It told him how many pieces were missing, where they were, and how to fit them. It didn't tell him if the bowl was worth thirty or three hundred. The price had to be calculated inch by inch—calculating the flaws in the glaze, the crudeness of the work, who was willing to pay, and the temperature of the market. It was a cold business, yet what he held in his hand were the embers of warmth.

Zhou Dehai squatted nearby, smoking his pipe and exhaling a cloud of white mist. He watched him for a long while, his expression becoming complex through the smoke, as if he wanted to say something but swallowed it back.

A thin old man squeezed out of the crowd. He looked to be in his sixties, wearing a faded blue jacket spotted with mud, carrying a cloth bag, and walking silently. He approached the stall and gave the bowl a kick. It wasn't a hard kick, but it carried a casual, effortless force.

The bowl flipped over on the plastic tarp, bottom-up, spinning half a turn before stopping with a crisp *clink* that echoed in the air.

The old man bent down, his bony, trembling fingers reaching out. He squinted at the foot, then at the seams of the rim, his gaze as sharp as a knife, staring for a full ten seconds. The wind seemed to freeze.

"This bowl was pieced together, wasn't it?" He straightened up, his aged face expressionless. He looked at Chen Yan, his voice low, raspy but clear, silencing the surrounding stalls—even the sound of seed-cracking stopped for a moment. "Pieced so perfectly that the seams are invisible. There's something wrong with your hands."