Summary:

It is said that when Chu Wan was a little girl, she grew up in a pile of antiques. There are only antiques in her eyes, and no one else.

Those old things, with just a glance, she would know which era they came from.

When she first married Lu Jianshii, it was to obey her great-grandfather’s intentions. She kept the promise made by her elders and ensured her own safety for a lifetime.

Anyway, Lu Jianshi was very good to her, and she had no other thoughts.

Until that day, she saw Lu Jianshi hugging a girl, saying, “My wife looks good. Everyone envies me, but in fact she is a piece of wood. There is no man in her eyes. She is only thinking about that pile of old things all day long!

“By marrying her, my life has become so boring, so why should I endure it!”

Chu Wan was a little surprised. How could he be like this? Why didn’t he just say it earlier?

When she woke up, she was reborn at the age of nineteen.

This time, in front of the Old Man of the Lu family, Chu Wan picked up the yellowing Marriage Agreement, studied it three times, and finally pointed to the person standing behind Mr. Lu. “If I need to get married, I will choose him.”

The man she pointed to was upright, indifferent and cold, and unsmiling. He was Lu Shouyan, the most promising son of the Lu family of his generation. He was also Lu Jianshi’s Uncle.

At the wedding, Lu Jianshi drank a lot of wine and looked at Chu Wan in a daze, his face was sour and difficult, “Wanwan—”

Lu Shouyan’s indifferent eyes swept over his nephew, “Did you just call out the name ‘Wanwan’?”

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1) She is her Uncle’s favorite; the ML is eight years older.

2) There are many emotional lines in the early stage, accompanied by antique bargain picking, archaeological excavation, and treasure identification.

3) The main business in the later stage involves the salvage of treasure shipwrecks, the return of looted national treasures, and the rise of Chinese porcelain, etc.

Brief review of the work: Chuwan is the only descendant of the Chu family, famous antique dealers, experts in porcelain glaze. She has high expectations resting on her shoulders. She wants to track down the whereabouts of her family who disappeared during that infamous national treasures robbery in the chaos before Liberation; to find the Nine Dragon Jade Cup; and recover national treasures lost overseas. Chu Wan, reborn in the 1980s, started from picking up bargains and through good eyesight and slow accumulation, took advantage of the country’s reform and opening up policies. She actively participated in archaeological excavation, protected rare cultural relics, promoted the return of rare cultural relics lost overseas with her own strength, and gained a double harvest of career and love.

The story uses the development of the antique industry in the 1980s as background and revolves around the enmity between the major antique dealer families. It tells the development of glazed porcelain factories and the rise of the antique industry after the reform and opening up, showing the noble feelings of the heroine to protect the country’s past and cherish its cultural relics.

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Translator’s Notes: ‘Pearls and jade’ is a euphemism for something precious, like treasure or words of wisdom. It also means ‘a talented man’. So the title is a wonderful word play—Chu Wan has treasures and a talented man beside her.

I don’t know what the background of the author is but my god the research that must have gone into writing this novel is absurd. The love line is great, epic even, ‘the world will crumble but I shall still be here beside you’ kind. Although there’s only 8 years between them, the generation gap here is more pronounced than in other ‘Uncle novels’ I’ve read because of the setting—it’s the 1980s and the two families are very traditional. I like that they didn’t just sweep it away; it’s a thing they needed to get through to be together.

Chu Wan, as the last of her lineage, was raised by her great-grandfather to be fiercely independent—which is great and all, but with her ‘Uncle’ Lu Shouyan, she could allow herself to let go, be pampered, let someone else do the heavy lifting for a while.

But grand love story aside, what made me love this story are the antiques. The novel is ‘historical’ in two senses. One, it’s a period piece set in the 1980s and the Chu family was embroiled in events that happened during the fall of the last dynasty, the war with Japan, Liberation, then everything else that happened during the 60s and 70s.

The other ‘history’ comes in because of the antiques. Bronze, porcelain, and jade from the different dynasties, and the author tells the story of each antique in such an intriguing way. It’s an excellent look at China’s past through the wonderful things that its different eras produced.

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LIST OF CHAPTERS:

Chapter 1 — The Jade Shatters
Chapter 2 — Wanwan is Back
Chapter 3.1 — An Eye for Choosing a Man
Chapter 3.2 — An Eye for Choosing a Man
Chapter 4 — The Origin of the Marriage Agreement
Chapter 5.1 — Thick Skin is a Must
Chapter 5.2 — Thick Skin is a Must
Chapter 6.1 — He Gave Her Pocket Money
Chapter 6.2 — He Gave Her Pocket Money
Chapter 6.3 — He Gave Her Pocket Money
Chapter 7.1 — There Must be Compatibility Between Husband and Wife
Chapter 7.2 — There Must be Compatibility Between Husband and Wife
Chapter 8 — The Beauty of Line Carving
Chapter 9 — In My Eyes, This Is 200 Yuan

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