Golden Pupil

Golden Pupil is an urban treasure-appraisal novel by Qidian platinum author Da Yan, serialized on Qidian from June 2010, completed in February 2012, totaling about 4.14 million characters. In 2019 Yangcheng Evening News Press (planned by Tianwen Kadokawa) released a print edition in multiple volumes, and a TV adaptation of the same name starred Zhang Yixing. The protagonist, Zhuang Rui, is originally an obscure clerk at a pawnshop. After being injured in a robbery, his eyes undergo a mutation that lets him see through objects' interiors and authenticity, and he enters the world of antique appraisal and bargain hunting. Gorgeous porcelain, archaic heavy bronzes, and thrilling jadeite stone gambling follow one after another; from Shanghai's antique market he travels to the Tibetan grasslands and Tibetan temples, using his "golden pupils" to distinguish true from false, avoid traps, and read people, encountering all walks of life and human warmth and coldness in deal after deal of indistinguishable authenticity. The work weaves the trade secrets of pawn lending, calligraphy and painting, jade and jewelry into a brisk narrative rhythm. Much detail comes from the author's years of pawnshop experience, offering both the thrill of "one cut to heaven, one cut to hell" stone gambling and the rules and tricks of the antique underworld.