After returning to Deep Sea, William Clark found a sales job and started dating a new girlfriend. Everything seemed to be moving in a positive direction. However, because he was attracting too much attention, he was framed by a colleague. Not only did he lose his job, but his girlfriend also broke up with him. Afterwards, William Clark was unable to find a new job for more than two months. In the end, it was thanks to the help of his good friend Brian Cooper, who was also the captain of the university basketball team in Deep Sea, that William Clark managed to get a job as a junior doctor in the medical office at the Deep Sea Antique City.

The so-called medical office where William Clark worked was actually just a tiny clinic, no bigger than a small room, located in the most remote corner of the entire Antique City. It was about 10 square meters in size. In a place like Deep Sea Antique City, where every inch of land is precious, even the most out-of-the-way spot costs at least ten thousand yuan a month in rent. This medical office was actually a vanity project set up by the new general manager when he took over this summer.

When Brian Cooper heard about it and realized that William Clark was still unemployed, he recommended William Clark to the newly appointed general manager of the Antique City. The manager was delighted to hear that William Clark had graduated from Deep Sea University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. What the manager wanted was exactly someone with a degree from the university, so he could claim to be recruiting high-end talent. No one cared about William Clark's grades in school. Besides, nowadays, as long as college students have a diploma, once they leave school, nobody cares about their academic performance. Even if you did poorly, as long as you gave the teacher a small gift at graduation, the teacher would mark you as "qualified" in your file.

Moreover, this kind of medical office never dealt with serious illnesses—at most, someone with a cold or fever would come in for some medicine. Anyone with a more serious condition would have already gone to the nearby hospital. Because of this, William Clark's job here was very easy, and he even doubled as a nurse.

Brian Cooper owned a medium-sized antique shop in the Antique City. He often traveled to rural areas in Central South Province and Shaanxi Province to collect old items, or bought "freshly unearthed" artifacts from tomb raiders.

Speaking of antiques, nowadays, in these peaceful times, collecting has become a hobby for ordinary people. If in the past, the antique business was one real item for every nine fakes, now, thanks to the nationwide collecting craze, CCTV's treasure-hunting shows, and the broadcast of programs like "Central South Treasure Appraisal," the boom in collecting has also led to the rapid evolution of the counterfeit industry. Now, in the antique business, there are not just a hundred fakes for every real one—there are even more.

This time, Brian Cooper received a tip that two "moles" in Central South Province had a batch of freshly unearthed goods for sale. But with the Mid-Autumn Festival approaching, the shop assistants were on holiday, and Brian Cooper had no one else he could trust. Since the sellers were in a hurry to sell, Brian Cooper was afraid to miss the opportunity, so he dragged William Clark along for the trip.

William Clark thought, there’s nothing much to do here anyway, and since Brian Cooper had helped him out so many times, now that Brian Cooper needed his help, William Clark took a few days off and followed Brian Cooper to Central South Province.

Following the directions of a "runner," William Clark and Brian Cooper arrived at a cornfield on the outskirts of Yunfeng City. Two men, looking as sly as rats, took more than ten items out of a snakeskin bag and laid them on the ground. Brian Cooper took out a small, powerful flashlight and squatted down to examine them. Following the beam of the flashlight, William Clark could roughly make out the appearance of the dozen or so items. Of course, he could only see what they looked like—William Clark didn’t know anything about these things. Unlike Brian Cooper, who had learned about antiques from his father since childhood, William Clark only picked up a few terms after working at the Antique City. As for telling real from fake, that was like a blind man lighting a lamp—completely pointless.

Brian Cooper examined each of the items in turn: there was a bronze cauldron, a bronze sword, and so on. One wooden box caught William Clark's attention. Brian Cooper opened the box, inside was a thick calligraphy brush, a book, and a wooden sword about a foot long. Brian Cooper glanced at them and closed the box, already deciding in his mind that these were fakes the two "moles" had mixed in to try to fool him. He thought, "How could a calligraphy brush, a book, and a wooden sword buried underground for hundreds of years still look brand new? Even the most clueless forgers wouldn’t make such a mistake."

But William Clark was different. Although he didn’t know antiques, his grandfather had taught him calligraphy since he was three years old. After more than twenty years, William Clark could tell the quality of a brush at a glance. The moment he saw this brush, he was deeply attracted to it—this was definitely a top-quality wolf-hair brush. As for the other two items, although William Clark couldn’t tell if they were real or fake, his intuition told him they were not ordinary.

After looking over the items, Brian Cooper began bargaining with the two "moles."

As the bargaining drew to a close, William Clark grew increasingly wary. On the fourteenth of August, the moon should have been as round as a jade plate, but now it was like a shy young girl, quietly hiding behind the clouds. Surrounded by the dense, towering corn stalks, William Clark couldn’t shake off a sense of foreboding.

Both sides stopped talking. Other than the chirping of crickets and the rustling of the wind through the corn stalks, there was no other sound. The atmosphere was eerie and silent. The stalks standing in the field, in the pitch-black night where you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, looked like a ferocious beast lying in wait for its prey.

"William Clark, bring the box over!" After the bargaining ended, Brian Cooper lowered his voice and said to William Clark, who was standing there.