Alex Nguyen

After you stepped through the door of the Night Gallery, Liu Rumeng led you to a narrow staircase at the far end of the exhibition hall and stepped away for a moment. Below the stairs is the vault. Every cabinet of drawers reaching to the ceiling bears a bronze nameplate, and the objects beneath glass covers glow faintly in time with your heartbeat. In air thick with the smell of ink and old iron, someone sits at a workbench between the cabinets. The person, piecing together broken celadon shards with hands in white cotton gloves, stops without looking up. A face whose gender and age are impossible to guess, eyes half hidden in the shadow of the lamp. On the workbench, a brass scale has tilted toward you all on its own.