Chapter 2

By the time Abel finished reporting in, Yao Jiang was just pulling up to M&C’s office tower. No commercial development in Heliang City over the past five years offered a comparable reference for excavation; the only major discoveries everyone knew about were from when they built Metro Line 3 and expanded Heliang University—both government-backed public works, unlike what was happening at Wanhui.

He sent a message to Director Zhang of the Design Institute, asking if they had any concepts for preserving archaeological remains in place. Zhang, already used to Yao Jiang springing problems on him, grew wary and asked if there was some fresh trouble brewing. Yao Jiang ignored him and took the elevator to the twenty-third floor, where M&C’s owner—Mr. Wu Dongyun, a Chinese American—was waiting in the conference room. Also present was Mr. Ren from Taiwan, who gave Yao Jiang a meaningful look the moment he walked in. Word of the trouble at Wanhui must’ve reached him. Not long ago, Ren had proposed building a commercial sub-center along the river in the east side of town, and Yao Jiang had championed a different plan—eventually getting approval for the current location. Now that site had run into issues, everyone clearly knew what he might be thinking, even if he couldn’t openly gloat.

Yao Jiang met his gaze calmly until Ren’s polite smile faded. Mr. Wu, for his part, merely acknowledged that the project might be delayed and told Yao Jiang to handle it. He was in town to hear the status of several Heliang projects and would soon leave for Beijing.

“Jon, once you settle things here, come see me in Beijing,” he said as a parting note.

Yao Jiang nodded, not bothering to pay attention to Ren’s displeasure. Just then, Director Zhang messaged him back with a reluctant suggestion to reference the Nanyue Kingdom Wooden Watergate Ruins Museum. That site was discovered in 2000 at Guangzhou’s Guangming Square project and opened to the public in 2007, making it the first archaeological site in a commercial district to be both protected and accessible to visitors nationwide.

“But that would mean scrapping the entire current design for Wanhui,” Zhang added ominously.

Yao Jiang responded: Understood. I won’t bother you unless there’s no other way.

“Thank you so much boss,” Zhang shot back sarcastically.

They’d worked together long enough that Yao Jiang didn’t mind his grousing.

On his way back to his office, Yao Jiang replied to a few more messages before finally seeing a new friend request. The WeChat ID was simply “Xing,” which sounded easygoing. But based on the real person, Yao Jiang knew better—open your mouth, ask for a year, and even then, who knew if Wanhui would ever resume construction. He scoffed at the veneer of politeness.

He noticed that the request had been waiting for six hours, so he tapped Accept. Immediately, Li sent over two sheets and one diagram—a regional system survey form, a site record, and a hand-drawn excavation grid map.

Only half a day had passed, and they were already busy at it? Yao Jiang raised an eyebrow. The hand-drawn map alone was surprising—hadn’t Li just been injured? Also, Li was clearly mindful that Yao Jiang had cited “proper procedure” earlier, and was now returning the favor with official forms and diagrams.

Yao Jiang wrote back: Professor Li, where are you?

His reply came at once: With the construction crew.

Yao Jiang frowned and called Mr. Qin, the contractor. Qin happened to be at the site—Yao Jiang heard laughter in the background before someone else took the phone and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Yao, I’m buying dinner tonight to apologize to everyone.”

Barely had he finished speaking when Fang could be heard in the distance, calling out, “No, it’s us who should be apologizing…”

A moment later: “Professor Li, you should take it easy with that shoulder.”

There was a brief laugh, then Li’s voice came directly through the phone: “Mr. Yao, you said millions are at stake for each year of delay. I can’t afford to wait, and neither can you. Let’s drop the formalities.”

“Sharpening your axe won’t slow the job,” Yao Jiang replied.

“Better a clean cut for a tangled knot,” Li countered smoothly. “We are doing fieldwork out here—no point tiptoeing around.”

All of a sudden, Yao Jiang felt a flicker of something strange. For years he’d been in the habit of juggling calls in his car, eating at irregular hours, fielding messages every spare minute, running himself ragged with hardly a break, always racing toward the money. Everyone else was used to keeping pace behind him. Rarely did anyone else step up first and say, “Millions for a year? I can’t afford it either.”

He sensed a wry sort of teasing, but with no real malice. It was just two workaholics colliding head-on, like a scholar and a soldier speaking different languages.

In the end, Yao Jiang ended the call by offering to treat Professor Li to a meal sometime soon.

Abel had bought him a Domino’s pizza for dinner, but by the time Yao Jiang got around to it, the cheese was stone-cold. Standing by the lucky bamboo in front of his office window, he forced down three slices before the grease became unbearable. Checking the time—8:30 PM—he realized that the rooftop pool at his apartment stayed open until ten, leaving him just enough time for an hour’s swim.

Swimming was the sport he loved most. Once his ears sank under the water, the world faded to silence like a vacuum. Yet in the end, he dutifully drove out to Wanhui’s construction site again. Since Li had already started working, Yao Jiang figured he needed to see for himself how to proceed.

The industrial floodlights were off, and apart from a few bulbs in the portable on-site housing, the place was pitch-black. A handful of Li’s crew had set up small lights in the bare earth; distant residential windows glimmered like faint stars in the night.

Yao Jiang swiped his card at the security gate. The workers who were done for the day were gathered in the prefab dorm chatting and playing cards, short-video music blaring, all of them in that bright halo of light. Just a few steps away, the rest of the site vanished into thick, silent darkness.

He walked a few minutes into the excavated terrain before anyone noticed him. There was a young woman in a windbreaker drilling a test core, all business. She asked who he was, then led him over when he said he was looking for Professor Li. She introduced herself as Li Ru, one of Li’s graduate students, and promptly headed back to her work.

Down in a hollow of yellow-brown earth, they’d angled some lamps that threw pools of light onto the strata. Li himself wasn’t doing the manual cleaning but was crouched by one patch of ground, guiding a student’s work. Glancing up, he looked mildly surprised to see Yao Jiang, stood, and checked his watch. “Mr. Yao? What brings you here this late?”

Worried that Li’s injured shoulder might throw off his balance, Yao Jiang reached out to give him a steadying pull up from the pit. “You’ve already started your work. I can’t just be a hands-off boss.”

“My bad,” Li said with a smile.

Yao Jiang waved it aside. “We didn’t really have time to talk earlier, and Xiao Qi didn’t give me many details. So that injury—it really was an accident?” He tapped his own left shoulder, then added, “Don’t get me wrong. I just want the facts. If any disciplinary action is needed, I’ll follow up.”

“Really just an accident,” Li assured him. “I was over on the far side. As soon as we saw something dug up, I headed over. Turned out it was a bit of rammed earth and a pile of carbonized grain—no coins, bronze, pottery shards, or bones. None of the usual stuff people recognize, so they just wanted to keep digging until they could see for themselves what it was. I get it, but if they kept digging, they’d have destroyed it.”

“So you stood in front of the excavator bucket?” Yao Jiang sounded unconvinced.

“Put yourself in my shoes. What would you do?” Li asked. All he had was the status of a Heliang University professor, and at ground level, the crew hardly cared. Words alone meant little when real interests were on the line.

Yao Jiang didn’t bother dwelling on hypotheticals. “You just said you were ‘on the far side’?”

“There’s a Shaxian eatery over there, on a slight slope,” Li replied, gesturing toward the darkness. “I had a telescope with me.”

Yao Jiang recalled the camera bag he’d seen earlier—it was probably for a scope. “You said earlier you’d tried reporting this site several times. Did you know from the start there was something buried here?”

“I wasn’t certain—mostly rumor and educated guesses.” Li made a half-inviting gesture and began walking forward. The two of them left the circle of light, navigating over uneven ground.

“The Heliang Basin sits between China’s second and third major terrain terraces, bridging the vast plains and the surrounding mountain chains. Think of it as an armrest on a giant chair. The Yellow River cuts across the eastern mountains near Heliang, and the site you chose is probably due to your awareness that the south and west edges of Heliang are full of valleys and low hills. Ancient cultural sites often clustered along those loess plateaus or river terraces, relatively isolated yet interconnected. Heliang is within the Song Mountain cultural sphere, not too far from the Wangchenggang site. It’s reasonable to suspect something similar might be buried here.”

Yao Jiang was tapping on his phone, which lit his face in a ghostly glow. “All that still wouldn’t narrow it down to this exact spot.”

“Occupational habit.” Archaeology of ancient eras involved bold hypotheses more often than the layperson might think. With so much missing evidence, a fully rigorous logical chain was often impossible. Cutting himself off, Li said straightforwardly, “Additionally, my teacher’s generation worked here back when the Soviets came to help build projects. Some locals sold relics they found in their fields to the Soviet workers in exchange for money. That’s the bluntest sort of proof.”

Yao Jiang didn’t skip a beat. “Then by your guess, what exactly is buried here, how valuable is it, and how big an area does it cover?”

“Xiao Qi told me Wanhui spans 102,500 square meters. The Wangchenggang site is around ten thousand square meters—only a tenth of Wanhui’s size. But we’ve barely started drilling, so there’s no way I can promise you any clear numbers.” Li glanced at the phone in Yao Jiang’s typing hand. “As for value, I suspect we each have different ways of measuring that. Take these carbonized grains we just discovered. In recent years, archaeologists have started using flotation to recover ancient cereals. New tech, new methods, new samples… not to overstate it, but it could even reshape our understanding of Central Plains culture.”

“Flotation—as in things floating on water?” Yao Jiang asked, still tapping without looking up.

Li paused in surprise, stepping closer to see that Yao Jiang was entering search terms related to archaeological methods. He wasn’t dividing his attention between Li’s talk and some unrelated messages—he’d been researching everything Li was saying in real time.

Because the man had stepped in so close, Yao Jiang reflexively straightened, moving his gaze from the phone’s numeric keypad up to Li’s face, waiting for an explanation.

“Ah… sorry,” Li said, a flush of guilt spreading through him as he recalled the slight arrogance in his earlier tone. Perhaps it hadn’t shown, thanks to good manners, but who was he to act superior? Professions shouldn’t be ranked by worth, nor should “value” be something decided by one side alone.

Sensing none of this self-reproach, Yao Jiang simply turned off his screen. “My apologies—occupational habit. This makes our conversation more productive and saves both of us time. If my assistant were here, he’d be the one taking notes.”

They came across a little puddle, and Yao Jiang stepped over it. He half-turned, as if prepared to steady Li in case he stumbled on his injured shoulder, hand extended loosely near Li’s hip.