I was dumbfounded and asked the old man, “Sir, where did you get all these things? Damn, they’re dazzling my eyes.”

The old man glanced at me and said, “Don’t ask about that. If you want them, just name your price.”

At that moment, I really didn’t dare to make an offer lightly. The quality of these items was too high, and they were in excellent condition. It’s rare to see things of this caliber nowadays. I felt these might not have been looted from tombs, but perhaps stolen from the homes of wealthy collectors. If that’s the case, these items are hot goods—once they hit the market, it’s very likely the trail would lead back to me.

I was caught in a dilemma. After thinking it over, I said, “Sir, to be honest, your stuff is just too good. Out there, not many people would dare to take it. Why don’t you just tell me straight where you got these things? Otherwise, I can introduce you to a few bold buyers, and you just give me a referral fee. If these are hot goods, I’d be in trouble if I helped you.”

“Hot goods? What do you mean, hot goods?” The old man was puzzled, but seeing that I wasn’t going to buy, he got nervous and put down his drink.

I explained what hot goods meant, saying, “I dare to take anything, except hot goods. The cops are scarier than ghosts.”

He thought for a moment, then said to me, “Boss, don’t worry. These aren’t hot goods. I fished them out of the Yellow River.”

“The Yellow River?” I really didn’t expect that answer.

“Yes, it’s been about half a year now.”

The old man put down his drink, as if he’d made up his mind. “Don’t be fooled by my appearance. I’m actually a skilled worker. I work on a boat on the Yellow River. Here’s how it happened—”

The old man’s real name is William Carter. Although I called him an old man, he said he was only forty. People who do manual labor tend to look older, so that’s not surprising.

His profession was very unusual, and I was startled when I heard it. His job, nowadays, is called a “Yellow River water ghost.” What he does, officially, is salvage abandoned items; put simply, he picks up junk from the Yellow River.

Every year, millions of tons of garbage are washed down from upstream in the Yellow River—tons of industrial waste, parts, building materials—all of it settles at the bottom.

William Carter and a few others leased a small boat and used a special kind of sled. They’d sink it into the Yellow River, drag it along with the current, scoop up the silt and trash from the riverbed into the sled, then haul it up, wash it with water, and sort it. Basically, ninety percent of what they pulled up was useless and got dumped back into the river. Only metal, plastic, and glass were kept for recycling and sale.

Even so, William Carter’s annual income was quite considerable, because the stretch of river he leased was a sedimentation zone. The river was wide and the current slow, so a lot of debris settled there. Each round trip, he could make at least twenty yuan. In those days, in that place, such an income was unimaginable.

The few bronze vessels he had now were fished up from below a dam last February. He said that when his sled reached that spot, the water suddenly started swirling. From experience, he knew that meant the riverbed silt had collapsed.

The bottom of the Yellow River is very uneven, with many hollow spots underneath. When his sled pulled on something, it could upset the balance, and whatever was suspended above would sink. If the sled hooked something heavy, William Carter’s boat could get dragged below the waterline, so he immediately let go of the sled’s rope and let it sink. Strangely, even after letting out six or seven meters of rope, the sled kept dropping, as if the cavity below was very deep.

It wasn’t until he’d let out more than ten meters of rope that he felt it hit bottom. Then he tried to drag the sled out, pulling in several directions for a long time before it finally loosened.

The group struggled to haul up the rope, trying to bring the sled out of the water. But before it even surfaced, someone shouted. When they looked, they all froze—because what was hooked on the sled underwater looked like a person.

※※※

Note 1: 觯 (zhi, fourth tone) — an ancient drinking vessel.

Note 2: 卣 (you, third tone) — an ancient wine container, small-mouthed and big-bellied.

Part One: The River-Suppressing Seal

Chapter Three: The Pottery Figurine

Pulling up a corpse was extremely unlucky for them, but once it was hooked, it had to be brought up. Otherwise, the next time they went out, the dead might come to overturn their boat.

This wasn’t the first time William Carter had encountered this. Though he was reluctant, there was no choice—ancestral rules couldn’t be broken—so they kept pulling.

When it broke the surface, they saw that what was hooked wasn’t a corpse, but a black pottery figurine. At a glance, it was clearly an ancient artifact—a half-squatting woman, life-sized, with her hands posed as if she was originally holding something.

William Carter immediately realized this was bad. It looked like a yin (see Note 1) figurine. In ancient times, when someone drowned and went missing, their family would sink a pottery figure resembling the missing person into the river as an offering to the river god, hoping the body would float up.