Lu Chen woke up with a stiff neck, his cheek pressed against a roll of bubble wrap. The fluorescent lights of the warehouse were buzzing overhead, a harsh reminder that morning had come.
He sat up, rubbing his eyes. For a split second, he thought it was all a hallucination. The stress of his grandfather's debt finally cracking his mind. A dream about feeding chicken to a ghost.
He looked at the corner.
The ugly bronze vase was still there.
But the corner itself, which had been choked with pallets of expired beans and bottled water yesterday, was now starkly empty. He hadn't cleared the entire warehouse, of course—that would have taken a forklift and a full crew—but in last night's frenzy, he had manually fed at least fifty cases of water and twenty boxes of biscuits into the bronze void.
And they were gone. Not a crumb left.
On his desk, sitting on top of an unpaid electricity bill, was a heavy, dull yellow coin.
"It wasn't a dream," Lu Chen whispered.
He picked up the gold coin. It was cold and heavy. He looked at the vase. It was silent. No lights, no sounds. It looked like... well, just a tarnished antique.
"Hey," Lu Chen called out tentatively. "You still there?"
Silence.
"Maybe the connection isn't 24/7," he muttered. Or maybe the person on the other side was sleeping.
He checked his bank account on his phone.
Balance: $42.50.
"Right," Lu Chen sighed, sliding the phone into his pocket. "Ghost or no ghost, I still have to eat. And if I'm going to keep feeding you, I need more than expired beans."
He looked at the White Jade Pendant. It was hidden in his drawer, wrapped in a microfiber cloth.
He couldn't sell that. Not yet. A piece of jade that perfect, with bloodstains and ancient carving? If he took that to a jeweler, they'd call the police or a museum. He needed paperwork he didn't have.
But gold? Gold was liquid.
He grabbed the coin, pulled his hoodie over his head, and walked out to his van.
The sign above the door read "Old Liu's Pawn & Gold Exchange" in peeling red letters. The shop inside smelled of stale cigarette smoke and desperation.
Old Liu, a man who looked like a dried walnut with thick glasses, looked up from his newspaper.
"Lu Chen," Liu grunted. "You here to pay the interest on your grandpa's loan? Or are you finally selling me that warehouse property?"
"Neither," Lu Chen said, keeping his face neutral. He walked to the counter and placed the gold coin on the glass.
Old Liu's eyes flickered. He put down his paper and picked up the coin, adjusting his glasses.
"Where did you get this?" Liu asked, his voice dropping an octave.
"Grandpa's stash," Lu Chen lied smoothly. "Found it in an old coat pocket. I need cash, Liu. Today."
Liu squinted at the coin. He pulled out a jeweler's loupe. "Rough cast. High purity. But the stamp... this looks like an antique reproduction. Or maybe real antique."
"I'm selling it as scrap," Lu Chen cut him off. He didn't want Liu asking about the history. "Don't give me the 'museum value' speech. Just weigh it and give me the melt value."
Liu looked at him suspiciously, then shrugged. He dropped it on the scale.
"30.2 grams. Current spot price is sixty-five a gram." Liu tapped his calculator, frowning. "But this is unrefined. There's melting loss, slag, and testing fees. Plus, with no paperwork? I'm taking all the risk."
Liu looked up over his glasses. "I'll give you fifteen hundred."
"Seventeen hundred," Lu Chen countered. "Or I walk down the street to the 'We Buy Gold' guy."
Liu clicked his tongue. "You young people. So aggressive. Fine. Sixteen-fifty. Cash."
Lu Chen hesitated, then nodded. "Deal."
Five minutes later, Lu Chen walked out with a thick envelope of cash in his pocket.
$1,650.
It wasn't a fortune. It wouldn't pay off his $10 million debt. But for a guy who had $42 this morning, it felt like winning the lottery.
The engine of his beat-up van sputtered before roaring to life. Lu Chen gripped the steering wheel, a determined look in his eyes.
"Okay," he said. "Time to go shopping."
Thirty minutes later, Lu Chen was pushing a flatbed cart down the aisles of the Metro Wholesale Club, looking like a man on a mission.
He wasn't buying fancy things. He was thinking like a logistics manager.
If they were starving, they didn't need steak. They needed calories. Volume.
He stopped in the grain aisle. He loaded ten 50-pound bags of jasmine rice onto the cart. It was heavy, durable, and expanded when cooked.
He moved to the next aisle and grabbed a crate of iodized table salt.
He remembered the weight of the gold coin in his pocket. The dull luster, the absence of modern milled edges. It was ancient currency. In ancient times, salt was life. Soldiers died without electrolytes. A fifty-cent canister of salt here was worth a bag of gold there.
He paused at the pharmacy section, eyeing the supplements. He grabbed twenty bottles of generic "Men's & Women's Daily Multivitamins."
Malnutrition causes scurvy and blindness, he thought. These cost $8 a bottle. Worth it.
He checked his budget. He had spent about $600. He had $1,000 left.
He walked past the candy aisle and hesitated.
He thought of the Phoenix Jade back in his drawer. The exquisite carving. The blood.
The history books said ancient generals were iron-blooded monsters. But the dark stain on that jade spoke a language louder than history books. It spoke of a frantic, terrified last stand. It spoke of a person who had stripped away their last dignity to survive.
He grabbed a box of "White Rabbit" creamy candy.
Then he grabbed a crate of chocolate bars.
"Caloric density," he justified to himself. "Sugar is energy."
By the time he finished unloading the van back at the warehouse, his shirt was soaked with sweat.
The floor was now stacked with real supplies. Not expired trash. Fresh rice. Clean salt. Vitamins.
He cracked a bottle of water and drank it in one go.
He looked at the vase. It was still silent.
He sat down on a crate of rice, wiping his forehead. "I just spent a grand on ghosts," he muttered.
He picked up a bag of salt.
"You better be real," he told the bronze vessel. "Because if I'm just throwing this into a black hole, I'm going to feel really stupid."
He stood up. He decided to send a test package. He didn't want to dump everything at once. He needed to establish a rhythm.
He grabbed one canister of Iodized Salt.
He grabbed one bag of Rice—he had to slice the 50lb bag open and pour it into smaller plastic bags to fit them through the vase neck.
He grabbed one bottle of Multivitamins.
He walked to the vase.
"Hey," he said. "Delivery service. I hope you have a cook over there."
He dropped the bag of rice in.
Whoosh. Gone.
He dropped the salt.
Whoosh.
He dropped the vitamins.
Whoosh.
He waited.
Nothing came back. No gold. No jade.
Lu Chen wasn't disappointed. He felt... relieved. It meant they were accepting it.
"Good," he said, patting the cold metal rim. "Eat up. We'll settle the bill later."
Author's Note:
Lu Chen has officially upgraded from "Trash King" to "Logistics Master." He's broke again, but at least the army has salt!
Coming up next in Chapter 5: The silence breaks. We finally get the first direct communication between Jiang Li and Lu Chen. Can modern paper survive the vase? And how will an ancient General react to "White Rabbit" candy?
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