Chapter 2

News that my mentor had kicked me out spread through the antique district overnight.

David pulled every string to make sure everyone knew.

Everywhere I went, people pointed and whispered.

"That's him—the guy who didn't know his place and actually questioned Mr. Grant."

"I heard he tried to get rich quickly, but got burned and lost everything."

"Serves him right! Mr. Grant trained him for ten years, and he turned out to be an ungrateful snake."

Dealers who used to greet me warmly now avoided me like I had the plague.

I tried getting jobs at other shops, but the owners all turned me away.

"Kevin, it's not personal, but Mr. Grant's made his position clear. Everyone knows everyone in this business—who'd dare hire you now?"

He'd blacklisted me.

I became the district outcast.

I clutched Emily's hand, desperately trying to explain everything.

"Emily, please believe me. They all ganged up on me! Mr. Grant—"

Emily yanked her hand away, eyes red and brimming with tears.

"Kevin, what good does it do if I believe you? Where's the money? Where's our house?

"My parents won't let me marry someone who's broke and disgraced.

"They say you're nothing but a fraud!"

Her words cut deeper than David's betrayal, deeper than all the gossip and lies.

I looked at her—the woman I'd sworn to love for a lifetime—and saw only disappointment and finality in her eyes.

"We're done."

With that, she turned and walked away, never looking back.

Everyone abandoned me. I was completely alone.

I locked myself in my cramped apartment for three days straight.

Without food or water, motionless as a corpse.

I hated David for his hypocrisy and cruelty.

I hated how the other dealers kicked me when I was down.

But most of all, I hated my own stupidity and weakness.

On the fourth morning, sunlight crept through a gap in the curtains, burning my eyes.

I dragged myself out of bed and stared at the mirror—unshaven, hollow-eyed, barely recognizable.

Suddenly, I started laughing.

I laughed until tears streamed down my face—bitter, helpless, half-crazy.

Revenge?

How?

In this business, once you buy something, it's yours. Get conned? Tough luck. That's the game.

I had no proof that David and the seller were working together.

Words meant nothing.

Even if I screamed the truth from the rooftops, I was just a disgraced nobody going up against a respected veteran.

No one would believe me.

Unless I could reach ground far higher than his.

A position where I made the rules—where I could finally hold him accountable.

I found a job posting online for the National Cultural Heritage Authentication Center.

Requirements: a master's degree in archaeology or museum studies, or equivalent professional expertise.

I didn't have a degree.

But I had ten years of hands-on experience and knowledge that even David envied.

I scraped together what little money I had left and enrolled in the most expensive prep course I could find.

I moved into an even smaller room, sleeping barely four hours a night.

When I got hungry, I just grabbed some bread.

When I started dozing off, I splashed cold water on my face.

All that knowledge I'd absorbed—ceramics history, bronze catalogs, jade dating techniques—became my only lifeline.

On exam day, I walked into the room strangely calm.

Next came the interview.

When the lead examiner asked my opinion on a "questionable" 14th-century blue-and-white porcelain piece, I laid out everything I knew.

I explained it all—the clay body, glaze, brushwork, the diffusion patterns of the prized imported cobalt of that era, even the formation of iron rust spots.

When I finished, the whole room fell silent.

The lead examiner looked at me, clearly impressed.

"You may lack formal credentials, but your expertise rivals most PhDs. People like you are exactly what this center needs."

As I walked out of the building, I looked up at the clear blue sky.

I knew my real battle was just beginning.

*****

Working at the National Cultural Heritage Authentication Center was much harder than my apprentice days in the antique district.

I wasn't a researcher—just an assistant.

Every day, I organized files and ran errands for the senior staff.

But I savored every bit of it.

Here, we had the country's best equipment and most comprehensive cultural heritage database.

I was like a dry sponge, soaking up every drop of knowledge I could.

While everyone else clocked out, I stayed in the lab, studying spectrometer readings, searching for the subtle trace element differences that distinguished one piece of porcelain from another.

While everyone else enjoyed their weekends, I was buried in the archives, poring over years of excavation reports.

My mentor, Professor Charles Nash—the deputy director—noticed how hard I was working.

One day, a batch of smuggled artifacts recovered from overseas came in for authentication.

Among them was an Attic black-figure amphora—solid construction, beautiful glaze. Everyone assumed it was genuine.

But under the microscope, I spotted a tiny, nearly invisible shrinkage mark in the glaze, hidden beneath the saddle where no one would look.

"Professor Nash, something's wrong with this piece."

I handed him my report.

"The lead-yellow glaze has abnormal antimony content. It doesn't match the established firing practices of the Attic black-figure technique."

Charles adjusted his glasses and personally verified the machine readings.

He stayed quiet for a long moment, then clapped my shoulder firmly.

"Kevin, you've earned your stripes. This is a cutting-edge forgery—it almost fooled us all."

After that, I got fast-tracked for promotion and joined the center's elite technical task force.

Our mission was to develop an entirely new digital authentication system.

Using advanced tools like spectral analysis, element tracing, and 3D modeling, we created a unique "digital fingerprint" for every artifact.

No more relying on the naked eye or some so-called expert's gut feeling—now it was all facts and hard data.

I lived in the lab, working around the clock.

For three years, I didn't go home or contact old friends.

I vanished completely from the antique world I once knew—and now couldn't stand.

Then, one day, Charles called me into his office.

"Kevin, the government's rolling out our system nationwide."

He handed me an official document bearing the government seal.

It was the Regulations on Standardizing the Circulation Order of Cultural Relics and Artworks.

The core rule was simple: every cultural relic entering the market needed an authentication certificate from the National Cultural Heritage Authentication Center.

"To implement this policy, we're establishing six regional authentication centers nationwide."

Charles looked at me, his eyes bright with purpose.

"The Northern District center will be in your hometown. Because of your outstanding technical contributions, I recommended you to leadership—you'll be the center's director."

I held the appointment letter, my hand trembling slightly.

Three years.

The day I'd been waiting for had finally arrived.

I could finally return to where it all started—and settle the score with them in the way they feared most.