[Translation] The Story Untold (那个不为人知的故事) by Twentine (周爱华): Chapter 3

 

Yang Zhao had not left her home for three days. In a dazed state, she even felt that she might end up spending her entire life with this broken bowl.

Her restoration work was already more than halfway done. This bowl had been with her for two months.

Strictly speaking, the bowl wasn’t very valuable—at most worth a few tens of thousands of yuan. Yet Xue Miao was willing to spend over a hundred thousand to restore it. Two months ago, Xue Miao brought the badly damaged ceramic bowl to her and asked her to repair it. At that time, she was working on a Ming dynasty landscape painting that Xue Miao had previously given her. She glanced at the bowl and said to him, “Your taste is getting worse and worse.”

Xue Miao entered the living room. He had rushed for two days and nights in a suit, flying from California to this small northern Chinese city. He was clearly exhausted, but he always cared about his appearance and sat elegantly on the sofa.

“Sometimes, the value of something isn’t visible on the surface.”

Yang Zhao put down her brush and turned to look at him.

“Are you trying to tell me this bowl hides a treasure map to some ancient tomb?”

Xue Miao laughed and tilted his head back.

“Xiao Zhao, I love your sense of humor.”

She ignored him and continued working.

Xue Miao stood up and walked behind her. He gently grabbed her wrist.

The gesture was… worth noting.

From the edge of her vision, she saw his long, well-defined fingers. Expressionless, she glanced at it and said, “In our line of work, the most taboo thing is grabbing someone’s hand—especially when they’re working.”

Xue Miao shrugged innocently.

She set down her brush and turned to face him.

“Speak. What happened?”

Xue Miao looked down at her.

“It’s complicated.”

“Then make it simple.”

After some rambling explanation from Xue Miao, she roughly understood.

Stripped of his exaggeration, the story could be summed up in one sentence: the bowl belonged to Xue Miao’s grandmother, and during an argument with his wife, it was accidentally used as a target for venting anger.

To others, this might seem strange. Even if it was not a priceless artifact, it was still an antique—there were surely cheaper things to smash.

But this was Xue Miao. Yang Zhao had once visited his hillside villa; even the spittoon there was worth a fortune. So smashing a ceramic bowl during an argument was, in his own way, already a “carefully considered” choice.

“If it’s broken, just replace it with something more valuable.”

“No, no,” Xue Miao shook his head. “My dear Xiao Zhao, you’re still too young. You don’t understand. The truly valuable things in this world are emotions. That bowl carried my grandmother’s lifelong feelings—it’s priceless.”

“Oh,” Yang Zhao said. “So you smashed it.”

Xue Miao froze.

“That was an accident. People lose control of their emotions. When emotions run high, anything can happen.”

“Then why didn’t you ‘accidentally’ smash that jade vase in your bedroom?”

In his bedroom was a Qing dynasty jade vase with beast motifs—his latest prized possession, which he adored obsessively.

Xue Miao said, “I’m currently in love with it. You can’t expect me to be a cruel man.”

Yang Zhao sneered. “There are plenty of restorers. Don’t expect me to drop a painting just to fix a bowl with no profit.”

Xue Miao smiled gently. “No matter how many restorers there are, I only trust you. You know I have a cleanliness obsession—I don’t like random people touching my things.”

She crossed her arms and looked at him coldly.

“Two hundred thousand.”

Yang Zhao raised an eyebrow. The offer was high—far higher than the painting she was working on.

“So this bowl really is important.”

Xue Miao shook his head in distress. “My grandmother is nearly ninety. I’m afraid she can’t take the shock. I’d become a disgrace to the family.”

“Add a vacation,” she said.

Xue Miao’s shrewd look returned.

“A vacation? You want time off? Do you know how fierce the antique auction market is right now? And you want a vacation at a time like this? Xiao Zhao, don’t be so cruel.”

“I haven’t had a vacation in two years.”

“What would you even do on vacation? I’ve never seen you go anywhere to play.”

She paused.

“I need it. My younger brother is in his final year of high school. He’ll take the college entrance exam next year, but he’s not prepared. I need time to talk to him.”

“How long?”

“Two months.”

“Two months?!” Xue Miao took a deep breath. “That’s quite a long conversation.”

“Yes. Two months. If you don’t agree, find someone else to restore it.”

He paced the room, then leaned against the counter.

“150,000, plus two months off.”

Yang Zhao narrowed her eyes.

“You’re really a businessman.”

Xue Miao smiled faintly. “You’re not suited to bargaining. What you want is always too obvious. I’d bet that even if I paid you nothing, as long as you got two months off, you’d still do it.”

She turned away, ignoring him.

He came up behind her and gently pulled her into an embrace.

“But I’ll still pay you. I’m a generous man.”

His expensive perfume lingered faintly in the air. She turned slightly, placed a finger on his chest, and pushed him away.

“Hope you’re that generous with your wife too.”

Xue Miao chuckled. “It’s not about generosity. Arrogance and self-righteousness are in Westerners’ nature. I simply don’t share their mindset.”

She gave a faint “heh” and said nothing more.

Xue Miao seemed tired. He picked up a bottle from the wine rack.

“Can I drink?”

“Suit yourself.”

He opened the bottle, showered, drank a glass, then staggered into the guest room and fell asleep.

Since Yang Zhao had moved here, whenever Xue Miao came, he never stayed in a hotel.

After he left the bowl and returned to the U.S. the next day, he still called every two days, closely tracking the restoration progress.

Yang Zhao yawned and looked up—the sky outside had already darkened. It was only six, but the weather was so gloomy it felt like night.

Restoring the bowl was not difficult. The difficulty was making it look completely intact. Xue Miao did not want his grandmother to know it had ever been shattered.

Her phone rang—it was the courier company.

Some materials were missing locally, so she had them shipped from abroad. The courier said it was too late for delivery today.

She couldn’t wait. She needed the pigments immediately.

She decided to go pick them up herself.

She put on her clothes, grabbed her bag, and went out.

Just as she stepped out of the building, lightning flashed, followed by a deafening thunderclap.

Heavy raindrops began falling instantly.

Within seconds, the rain became torrential.

She hesitated for a moment, then went back inside to grab an umbrella and rushed out again.

She didn’t drive. The warehouse was far, and part of the road was under construction in a low-lying area that might flood.

She flagged down a taxi.

“Ten-yi courier station.”

The driver turned on the meter and drove off.

Rain hammered against the windshield.

“If this keeps up, the underpass will flood soon,” the driver said worriedly. “It’ll be hard to get through.”

“Please go faster,” she said.

“I’d like to, but I can’t.”

The rain grew heavier. She began regretting coming out, but she still needed the materials.

At the last intersection, the driver stopped.

“I can’t go further. I have to turn here. You should get out. No need to pay.”

She paid anyway and stepped out.

The moment the door opened, rain blasted in. Before she could even open her umbrella, the car had already driven off.

Wind whipped the rain in every direction. The umbrella was useless. Within half a minute, she was completely soaked.

She reached the courier station drenched and shivering. The staff were about to close, startled by the dark figure rushing in.

“I’m here to pick up a package,” she said.

“Aren’t you afraid of getting sick coming out in this rain?” one of them asked.

“It’s an international shipment,” she replied.

She quickly found the box, signed for it, and left.

It was already difficult just holding the box, let alone opening an umbrella.

She set the box down and went outside to hail a taxi.

Standing at the roadside, soaked and shivering, she raised her hand—but no car stopped.

After several refusals due to flooding ahead, she was nearly at her limit.

Then another car finally pulled over in front of her.

The window rolled down. The driver froze when he saw her.

Her lips were pale from the cold.

She asked:

“Sir… are you going to Huaken Jinzuo?”