The meal passed amid playful banter. With food and drink aplenty, Carolyn Turner swirled her wine glass in satisfaction, stretching her body languidly and asking in a flirtatious tone, “I’ve heard that families dealing in antiques are very particular about what they eat and use. The dishes you make are so exquisite—hmm, and you’re wearing a necklace worth tens of thousands around your neck. Is that an heirloom? What does your family do?”

Ian Lawson dodged Carolyn Turner’s question: “Big sis, this is the new China—what old aristocratic families are there? The sons of those families either got beaten to death by the Red Guards or are barely scraping by in some remote mountain where they were exiled. If I were from such a family, would I still be working to earn a living?”

Autumn Lewis pressed on relentlessly: “Don’t change the subject. What’s the story with that necklace of yours?”

Ian Lawson answered honestly, “Picked it up in Tibet. So what? I’ve already proven through experience: life may be a bold adventure, but it’s not without its rewards. Look, what a haul.”

“Yeah, right. Like we’d believe you.” The two ladies looked at him with disdain and ordered in unison, “Go, wash the dishes.”

“No way! You two just eat and don’t even wash the dishes—how is that fair?”

“What?” Carolyn Turner glared, her beautiful fingers displayed one by one before her eyes as she clicked her tongue in admiration. “Do you know how much my nail polish costs? Do you know how much I spend every week on manicures? How much are those dishes even worth? And you want me to soak these expensive hands in detergent to wash a few plates? Are you kidding me?”

“Then don’t wash them at all—just throw them out,” Ian Lawson snapped, getting up and retreating into his small room.

The door closed. In the living room, the two women were stunned by Ian Lawson’s outburst and lowered their voices to discuss. Once the commotion died down, the relics discovered in the Grand Canyon sat quietly on the desk. Ian Lawson sat gently at the desk, took out the pendant from his pocket, turned on the desk lamp, and began to examine it carefully.

The two women hadn’t noticed that the most precious part of the necklace might actually be the pendant. While inspecting the necklace, Ian Lawson also tested the material of the pendant and came up with a startling figure: a specific gravity of 13. This is extremely close to the density of mercury, but mercury is liquid at room temperature. This left Ian Lawson puzzled.

Putting down the necklace, Ian Lawson let his gaze drift over the items on the desk, picking up the metal box and the vajra pestle one by one, only to sigh and put them down again after a while.

Soon after, the doorbell rang outside. A moment later, a man’s voice was heard in the living room, muffled and indistinct. Ian Lawson quickly put the necklace back around his neck, swept the items on the desk into a drawer, leaving only the metal box out. Then he quietly approached the door to his room, listening intently to the sounds in the living room. Just in time, he heard Carolyn Turner’s soft and sweet “Goodbye.”

“Damn it, why does she always talk to me so harshly?” Ian Lawson opened the door, only to see the back of a man dressed as a delivery worker. There was now a cardboard box in the room—a dishwasher.

“Big sis, why do you act all coy just because it’s a man?” Ian Lawson joked with a grin.

“What, are you jealous? Little brother, it’s not your turn to be jealous yet.”

Autumn Lewis poked her head out from behind the sofa, her cheeks flushed as she squinted drunkenly and said, “Carolyn sis, be careful, your little man is super jealous.”

With that, her head sank back down.

Carolyn Turner giggled, swaying as she walked toward Ian Lawson. Ian Lawson quickly straightened his face and changed the subject: “Carolyn sis, how many megapixels is your digital camera?”

“Seven million pixels.”

“Can I borrow it? …And also your digital camcorder and tripod.”

“Now?” Carolyn Turner lifted her right hand to play with her hair, her left hand gliding over the soft flesh of her trembling chest, striking a seductive pose as she asked in a sultry voice, “Are you going to take pictures of me?”

The head on the sofa popped up again. “Photo shoot? Nude or semi-nude? …Count me in,” Autumn Lewis shouted.

The two women were getting more and more outrageous, and Ian Lawson didn’t dare joke anymore: “I need to copy some materials. My camera’s resolution is too low, so I’d like to borrow yours.”

“Aw, got excited for nothing!” The head on the sofa sank back down.

Carolyn Turner dropped her pose, swaying as she fetched the items from her bedroom, drawing out her words and throwing flirtatious glances: “Little An, don’t just borrow things—remember, you can borrow people too…”

“Got it, auntie.” Ian Lawson slammed the door shut in a flash. There was a soft thud outside—the sound of a sofa cushion thrown by Carolyn Turner.

Chapter 4: The Mystery (Part 1)

With the tripod set up and the camcorder lens aimed directly at the metal box, Ian Lawson used the camera to take photos of every side of the box, not even missing the bottom.

A seven-megapixel camera can be used to shoot advertising posters; enlarging a metal box to poster size is enough to capture every detail. After taking the photos, Ian Lawson set the camera aside and began searching for a way to open the box.

The box was sealed very tightly. Generally speaking, some 18th-century explorers liked to use such sealed boxes to store diaries, maps, blueprints, and the like. There would be a hidden lock on the side of the box, concealed beneath intricate carvings. The method for opening such a box, which was used daily, wasn’t complicated. Once you found the location of the hidden lock, there were two ways to open it: pressing or rotating.