Majestic palaces with glazed tiles of jade green, misty rain upon blue-and-white porcelain;

Festive joy in underglaze red, dazzling colors on enamelware.

Porcelain tiles, porcelain seals, porcelain weaponry, inner painting and colored sculpture showcasing skill;

Old porcelain blooms with new chapters, and a flourishing era of China rises in a single dawn.

A modern arts and crafts master travels back to the early Ming dynasty, becoming the flamboyant Porcelain King, richest under heaven. He knows colored sculpture and porcelain making, excels even more at miniature inner painting, and even revives the lost art of glazed glass ahead of its time. Watch as this tiny butterfly from industrial civilization flutters its wings, propelling the porcelain and glass industry of the Great Ming to unprecedented heights, and suddenly, a grand vision of a prosperous China bursts into song and radiant bloom.

Volume One: A World in a Teapot

Prologue

Not long after entering the desolate mountains, this wolf appeared. A long tail, gray fur, a fierce gaze—just as described in zoology textbooks. In the deserted mountain pass of these vast, uninhabited ranges, no one knew where it had suddenly emerged from, silently trailing the military off-road vehicle as it bumped slowly along.

At first, Matthew Bolton didn’t pay much attention, thinking it was just a dog. But seeing this persistent creature chasing the car relentlessly in the rearview mirror, he found it odd:

“Lieutenant Clark, why does this dog keep following the car?”

“It’s a wolf, I think.” Lieutenant Clark, who was driving, kept his eyes on the road, focused on the steering wheel, then quickly added, “Look at the way it runs.”

Telling a running wolf from a dog was no problem for Lieutenant Clark. On the grasslands of his hometown in Inner Mongolia, he’d known both animals—descendants of the same ancestor—since childhood. No matter how fast a dog runs, it always bounds and leaps, but this creature’s belly was almost skimming the ground and grass as it glided forward.

“These days, wild wolves are rare. The occasional vicious one gets mistaken for a guard dog.” Matthew Bolton turned back with a mocking look, staring hard at the wolf still chasing the car. “Must be starving. Can’t it go any faster? Looks like it’ll keep following us.”

“Heh, are you scared? Want me to shoot it?” Lieutenant Clark chuckled and pressed harder on the gas.

The off-road vehicle jolted along a roughly cleared military road through marshy mountain paths. As dusk fell, they entered a valley. In the distance, the dark ridge of the green mountains faded into the twilight, and a solitary blue-gray building was encircled by a wall strung with electric wire, guarded at the gate by several armed soldiers.

Honestly, it was overkill. In this godforsaken wilderness, such tight security was like lighting a lamp for a blind man—utterly pointless. Who would you be guarding against when no one comes here?

Getting out of the car, Matthew Bolton curiously surveyed the scene before him. Suddenly, in a patch of low grass, he spotted the wolf again. It lay there leisurely, staring with a pair of cold, blue, sinister eyes, watching Matthew Bolton and Lieutenant Clark without a care.

A shiver ran through Matthew Bolton’s heart.

Arrogant—damn, it was arrogant! Still the same wolf! He tried to shake off the irritation rising inside him, uneasily following Lieutenant Clark through the gate.

……

Stripped bare, showered, and changed into white clothes, Matthew Bolton was led into the basement of the building—a fully enclosed underground chamber with multiple security checkpoints, spanning several hundred square meters. Clearly, this underground room was the true heart of the military facility; the building above was just for show.

After listening to Professor Carter from the Military Academy, Matthew Bolton’s mind buzzed, as if it had been hollowed out—empty, nothing left. Though he stood upright, he felt weak, as if he might collapse.

Professor Carter walked over. Raising his head absently, Matthew Bolton stammered, “A time machine? ‘Time Like Water’? You’re not telling me a sci-fi story, are you?”

“Decades ago, a Western science fiction writer predicted that humans would set foot on Mars and the Moon, and now that’s become reality, hasn’t it? Dozens of our scientists have been secretly researching time travel for over a decade, and today we finally have a preliminary result: this time machine—we’ve named it ‘Time Like Water.’” Professor Carter pointed at the transparent, unknown-material sphere before them, smiling.

“From ancient times to now, time travel has always been a dream. We hope to return to the past to save a love or prevent a tragedy; we long to enter the future, to transcend our limited lives.” Professor Carter’s eyes shone with fanatic light. “Our time machine is based on Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Our research found that gravity is the curvature of time and space, and a powerful gravitational field can bend light and slow the passage of time.”

“Oh.” Matthew Bolton stretched his stiff body, as if listening to a foreign language.

“Come and see.” Professor Carter pressed the remote in his hand.

Boom! With a loud bang, the giant sphere began to rotate slowly. Countless fiber optic tubes started to contract, and four beams of light shot up from the corners, piercing the ceiling.