Read Chapter 27: — WHAT SURVIVES

Months passed.

Cai's trial became news and then old news. Huashi kept operating. Customers returned. New crises replaced old ones. The company did not collapse because one ambitious man had imagined himself indispensable.

That fact would have offended Cai more than prison.

The forgery ring's seized works were examined by specialists. Some were destroyed as fraudulent commercial objects; others were kept as evidence or teaching material. Yonghe organised a public exhibition on provenance, showing how easily desire for a famous name could overcome judgement.

Mufeng contributed a short essay.

He wrote that a forgery was not merely a false object. It was a false relationship between a viewer and a history they wanted to possess.

Professor Zhou read it and wrote in the margin: Better. Still too dramatic.

Mufeng kept the page.

He also kept visiting Li Mingtao every week, even after the older man complained that his son was treating him like a patient.

"I'm checking whether Aunt Wang has regretted marrying you."

"She regrets it daily. Stable marriage."

Mingtao never again pushed Mufeng to find his biological parents.

Perhaps he understood that the question had already been answered in the only way that mattered to him.

One evening, Mingtao asked, "Did you throw away that old box?"

Mufeng smiled. "No."

"Good."

"I gave the comb to Daidi."

Mingtao looked surprised, then pleased.

"Your mother would have liked that girl."

Mufeng did not ask which mother he meant.

Sometimes language became kind by remaining imprecise.