Tian-Tsui Headdress

Xu Ju had no choice but to part with something valuable. She said with some heartache, "Our Xu family has an heirloom. It's a box with a big headdress inside. It's decorated with something called… tian-tsui on it! I heard from my father that it's worth a lot of money. That headdress is in my possession, so I'll use it to bet with you!"

Qiao Mei's eyes lit up when she heard the words "tian-tsui". A headdress like this was a very rare find. Such accessories were made by embedding a metal base with kingfisher feathers and slowly making it into a headdress or other accessory.

A headdress would require the feathers of at least 1,000 kingfishers! There were very few kingfishers in the world, so such tian-tsui items were very rare and would even be accepted by museums, albeit in 30 years' time.

"Alright! But I have to see the headdress first before deciding if it's worth it," Qiao Mei said excitedly.