In a room draped in quiet opulence—cream-patterned carpet, coffered ceiling, dark wood paneling—the air hums with anticipation, not of grandeur, but of absurdity. This is not a traditional auction house; it’s a stage where ritual meets irony, where every gesture is calibrated for effect, and where the audience, seated like jurors in leather chairs, holds numbered paddles as if they’re voting on fate itself. The backdrop reads Jiangcheng Xunbao Paishaihui—Jiangcheng Treasure-Seeking Auction—yet what unfolds feels less like commerce and more like performance art disguised as ceremony. At the center stands Li Wei, the auctioneer, clad in a white jacket embroidered with ink-washed bamboo stalks—a motif of resilience, simplicity, and scholarly restraint. Yet his movements betray none of that serenity. He handles a small red gavel not with reverence, but with theatrical flourish, snapping it open like a magician revealing a trick. When he lifts the yellow silk from the table, the crowd leans forward—not because they expect gold or jade, but because the suspense has been weaponized. And then, the reveal: a microwave. A white, compact, utterly mundane Midea microwave, sitting atop a red velvet drape like a relic unearthed from a suburban kitchen. The silence that follows is thick, almost sacred. One woman in a burgundy knit dress, number 26 in hand, blinks slowly, her lips parted as if trying to reconcile reality with expectation. Another, draped in faux fur and pearls—number 20—tilts her head, a smirk playing at the corner of her mouth, as though she’s just caught the punchline of a joke no one else heard. This is My Journey to Immortality not through alchemy or divine intervention, but through the sheer audacity of recontextualization. The microwave isn’t an object; it’s a mirror. It reflects the audience’s own hunger for meaning, their willingness to assign value based on presentation alone. Li Wei doesn’t explain. He doesn’t need to. His confidence is the script. He gestures broadly, palms up, inviting interpretation, while the man in the loose white robe—Zhang Lin—sits with arms crossed, two wooden gourds resting beside him like talismans, his expression shifting between skepticism and amusement. He watches Li Wei not as a rival, but as a performer he’s seen before, perhaps too many times. Zhang Lin’s stillness is its own commentary: in a world obsessed with spectacle, silence becomes the loudest dissent. Meanwhile, the assistant—Yao Xiao, long black hair tied low, crisp white blouse—moves with precision, folding silks, adjusting easels, her face neutral, unreadable. She is the only one who never looks at the audience. Her gaze remains fixed on the table, the cloth, the object. She knows the truth: the magic isn’t in the item, but in the veil. Every time the yellow silk falls, the audience forgets what they saw last time. They believe, again, that this time it might be different. That this time, immortality—or at least, something worth bidding on—might be hidden beneath the fabric. The bidding begins tentatively. Number 26 raises her paddle first, voice steady but eyes flickering toward Zhang Lin, as if seeking permission. Number 18, a young man in a charcoal suit, follows, grinning, clearly enjoying the game. Then number 32, a woman in ivory silk, lifts hers without hesitation—her posture suggests she’s done this before, not out of greed, but out of habit. The auctioneer nods, smiles, encourages. But his eyes keep drifting toward Zhang Lin, who finally uncrosses his arms, leans forward, and speaks—not loudly, but with weight. His words are unheard in the clip, yet his tone is clear: challenge. Not to the item, but to the premise. Why are we here? What are we really buying? The camera lingers on Yao Xiao as she prepares the next unveiling. She smooths the yellow silk over the microwave, as if preparing a shrine. The irony is unbearable: a device designed to heat food in seconds is being treated like a centuries-old artifact, worthy of ritual, reverence, and competitive bidding. This is the heart of My Journey to Immortality—the realization that transcendence is not found in rare objects, but in the collective suspension of disbelief. The audience pays not for the microwave, but for the moment when they forget it’s just a microwave. They pay to believe, however briefly, that meaning can be conjured from nothing, that value is assigned, not discovered. And when the final gavel falls—though we don’t see it—we know the winner will walk away not with a kitchen appliance, but with a story. A story they’ll tell at dinner parties, embellished each time: ‘It wasn’t just a microwave. It was… *charged*. The silk glowed. The air changed.’ That’s the real treasure. Not the object, but the myth it enables. Li Wei understands this better than anyone. His bamboo embroidery isn’t decoration—it’s camouflage. He wears tradition to sell modern absurdity. Zhang Lin sees through it, yet stays seated, because even cynicism needs an audience. And Yao Xiao? She’s the keeper of the veil. Without her, the magic collapses. She is the silent architect of the illusion, the one who ensures the yellow silk always falls just so. In the end, My Journey to Immortality isn’t about living forever. It’s about being remembered—for having witnessed the moment when the ordinary became sacred, not because it was transformed, but because we chose, collectively, to see it that way. The microwave sits there, inert, humming faintly if at all, waiting for the next bidder, the next silk, the next round of willing suspension. And somewhere in the back row, a man in glasses scribbles notes, not on price, but on psychology. Because this auction isn’t selling artifacts. It’s selling the human need to believe in miracles—even when the miracle is plugged into a wall socket.