In their penthouse, Rukawa was reading the Hong Kong newspaper as Ming Mei busied herself in the kitchen washing the dishes from breakfast. The young woman hummed as she ran the soapy dishes under the water making Rukawa look up at the sound, instantly reminding him of the redheaded man. Feeling her lover's eyes on her, she turned around and smiled. Rukawa smiled back but it was non-heartfelt smile before he turned his attention back to his paper. He could not understand why just looking at Ming Mei reminded him of the emptiness he was still feeling inside.

Ming Mei turned back to her task when suddenly the sound of a something crashing from behind made Ming Mei spin back around in surprise to see what has happened. At the kitchen table, Rukawa had dropped his mug of coffee on the floor and the brunette's eyes were staring wide at the paper he held in his hands.

"Kaede! What's wrong?" asked Ming Mei, panicked as she ran to him, careful not to step on the broken shards.

Rukawa instantly thrust the newspaper he had been reading to Ming Mei, his normally cool expression carrying a small but genuine hint of excitement. It was an article on an exhibition of the Qin Emperor's terracotta army and with it came a full page-sized picture of a terracotta statue in full army gear, the stone soldier's hair done in a bun-like hairstyle and its eyes glaring pointedly to the front.

It looked like the statue that Rukawa saw in his vision.

"We're going there," he stated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The bell tinkled when the door to a store swung open. A young woman with short dyed hair sitting behind a counter looked up to see two young men walk in and began looking around the store in curiosity.

Instantly recognising the shorter one, she left her seat at the counter and walked quickly up to him.

"Yohei Mito!" she called. The young man swung around at sound of the voice and smiled when he recognised who the woman was.

"Ling Ling!" he greeted cheerfully in English, hugging her when she reached him.

"What brings you here?" she asked laughingly after disengaging herself from the Japanese.

"Purely pleasure," he said, giving her a wide grin before he whispered to her conspiratorily as he jerked his thumb to Hanamichi's direction, "and to give my friend there a weekend of fun. Maybe even get him a girlfriend or something. Got any nice friends for him meet?"

Ling Ling whistled lowly when she took a look at the redhead. "Not bad. What about about me?"

"Oh!" Yohei gasped in a mocked-hurt tone, "you already forgot about US?!"

"Sorry, but I need a better man than you. But I hear those Japanese girls are real lookers," she said following the joke, "No doubt you have forgotten about... US as soon as you came back to Japan."

"I swear I have never forgotten you," he said holding up his hand.

Not able to supress her mirth, Ling Ling giggled, slapping her friend on the arm. "Always the Don Juan, eh, Yohei?"

"For you only," he replied before he turned to Hanamichi who was busy admiring the oddities displayed, "Yo, Hanamichi, come and meet a friend of mine."

The redhead walked towards them and shook hands with the store-keeper as Yohei introduced them.

"Hanamichi, Ang Ling Ling. Ling Ling, Sakuragi Hanamichi. Hanamichi works at the same company as I do as the financial consultant and Ling Ling here is an old friend of mine when I studied here for three years. I took a management course while she took an archeological one."

"Nice to meet you," said Hanamichi in perfect English.

"Same here. Dyed?" Ling Ling asked, looking at his red hair.

"Huh? Oh. No. I think I inherited it from my great-grandmother," Hanamichi answered unconciously touching his hair.

"Really? Cool! Mine's dyed. Pure asian blood," she told him running her fingers through her hair.

"So," Yohei cut in, "You finally got youself a shop, eh?"

"Yeah," Ling Ling said, her expression brightening a few amps, "I share it with a few friends of mine. We only deal with antiques here. On our spare time we go excavating with a few pros or professors and students and usually we get some fee out of it."

As Ling Ling talked she brought them around the store, showing them the antiques which were kept in mint-condition. "They are very hard to maintain," she told them , "and expensive too, but when a serious collector comes to buy it, our investment is usually worth it."

When the trio passed by an arrangment of antiques in one of the corners of the store, Hanamichi's eyes fell upon a beautiful zither placed on a table between two rosewood antique chairs. He stopped, staring at the piece that he thought looked vaguely familiar.

Yohei, suddenly realising that his friend was no longer beside him, turned to see Hanamichi who was looking at the musical intrument with interest.

"Hanamichi?" Yohei called, walking up to his friend.

Hanamichi did not reply as he reached out his fingers to touch the cool wooden surface of the zither.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Ling Ling said coming up to them, "'Got it from an auction a few years back. Haven't found a buyer for it yet."

Hanamichi, not actually listening to the woman talk, let his fingers run carefully on the zither, tracing the intricate drawings along the wooden surface before those fingers grazed the strings to strum them lightly, making a nice resounding sound.

Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu that made him step back in amazement.

"Hanamichi? Hey, man. Are you alright?" asked Yohei putting a hand on the redhead's arm.

"Uh, yeah," Hanamichi said, quickly covering up his action, "Just tired that's all."

"Jet lag. You should return to your hotel and take a rest before you drop off on the street" Ling Ling advised. Then she perked up, "Interested in buying it?" she said motioning to the zither

"I...no... maybe next time," said Hanamichi putting up a smile.

The girl shrugged before turning to both Yohei and Hanamichi. "Have you seen the new exhibiton they have started yesterday?"

"No. We just came here this morning," Yohei told her.

"Great! Then I can take you guys to see it tomorrow if you're not busy."

"Sure, why not ... wait a minute. Let me guess. Don't tell me this exhibition is about some old dusty artifacts?" grimaced Yohei.

"Hey! Those old dusty artifacts can show you the great power the chinese had 2,000 years ago," she sniffed, turning up her nose in pride.

Yohei laughed. "Ok, ok. But after that, you're gonna take us somewhere that does not have any more old stuff."

"Fine, fine," she sighed, waving her hand in a conceding manner.

"What's this exhibition about anyway?" Hanamichi asked her, not wanting to think about the places Yohei would be dragging him to to find him a girl.

"The Qin Emperor's terracotta army."

Rukawa walked along the row of statues placed in a straight line in front of him. Ming Mei who was walking from the opposite direction, stopped beside him before opening up the booklet guide she has in her hand.

"I think this was one of the prisoners they beheaded," she said, looking at the headless statue while also taking glances from the guide book. "Did you find the statue of yourself?"

Rukawa looked around and shook his head. " I think the one I saw was taller than the ones here. And that it came from the ocean. These statues came from tombs."

The young woman 'hmm'ed before looking at the smaller sized statues of other less important soldiers of the emperor.

"Wow, there are more than 7,000 of them here," Ming Mei remarked before musing, "I would love to see how you would look like as a Qin Dynasty man. Hey - maybe we can find the statue of the man you saw that night."

"Maybe," he replied as he continued his search around the hall with Ming Mei walking along side him.

"Being an archeologist, you always dream of discovering treasures to be found underneath the Chinese soil. The dynasties are numerous; the Xia, the Shang, Zhou, the Qin, the Han, the Three Kingdoms, the Wei, the Jin, the Southern and Northern, the Tong, the Five Dynasties, the Song, the Yuan...."

As Yohei and Hanamichi listened with interest to Ling Ling's narration of the history of the power and influence of the past dynasties of China, the trio walked along the halls, looking at a few painted pictures showing different scenes from China's ancient times. Reaching the area where the terracotta figures where exhibited, they felt an odd sense of excitement and awe when they first saw the grim-faced statues standing tall and proud in order.

After a few moments of silence, Ling Ling continued her talk, "The Qin Emperor believed in the after-life. He ordered his craftsmen to make terracotta figures of his entire army and had them buried with him to re-enact his conquest, his empire-building, the execution of his enemies and his unification of the six countries."

The young woman pushed back her dyed bangs from her eyes with one hand, sighing. "They are actually ghosts of his empire."

"They are almost like real people," commented Yohei looking at one of the statues glaring to the distance.

"I knew you'd find your way here," a voice suddenly chuckled from behind them.

They turned around to see a middle-aged man with neatly-trimmed beard and glasses smiling good naturedly at them.

"Mr. Chung!" exclaimed Ling Ling in surprise, "It's a pleasant surprise to see you here!" She stepped up to give the man a big hug as they laughed and exchanged jolly 'how are you's.

"This is Mr Chung. He was my lecturer in the university," Ling Ling explained to the two Japanese.
"And these are my two friends from Japan," she told her ex-lecturer, "I think you might remember Yohei Mito?"

"Vaguely," the bearded man said regretfully as he shook hands with the two.

"Don't worry. You didn't miss much," joked Yohei getting another chuckle from the man.

"Actually I am the curator of this museum now. I can show you around and then later I'll take you all out for lunch. How's that?" said Mr Chung.

"That'll be great!" exclaimed Ling Ling cheerfully.

"Why not," Yohei shrugged before turning to his friend, "Is that okay to you Hanamichi? Hanamichi?"

Hanamichi turned around to the sound of his friend's voice with a blank expression on his face.
"W-What? Oh, yeah, sure," the redhead said recovering quickly, "Excuse me for a moment. I think I saw someone I know."
With that, Hanamichi walked quickly away towards the front door of the museum before Yohei could say another word.

It was him! Hanamichi thought excitedly as he walked faster, I'm not mistaken! When the redhead was outside, he turned left and then right and then left again, scanning frantically for that person. Not seeing him anywhere Hanamichi realised that he has lost him. Disappointment mixed with confusion, the redhead turned back around towards the museum entrance to rejoin his friends.

He was passing by a poster stand placed near the door, when he suddenly stopped and stepped back. The poster was about a concert showing in Hong Kong conducted by a famous conductor from Japan. Not a fan of classical music, he was unfamiliar with the name Rukawa Kaede but what attracted his attention was the picture of the conductor seeming to be intent on leading a musical piece with a baton in his hand, his midnight coloured bangs nearly covering his blue fox eyes.

Hanamichi could only stare at it with only a single thought in his brain, It really is him...

Chapter Four