The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 598 Tang Dynasty Leather Boots, your footwork has surpassed that of the Chinese national football team, hasn't it?
Shen Le lay sprawled out on the ergonomic chair.

The illusion that the armored vehicle had led him into was incredibly exhausting. Even now, the muscles in his arms, thighs, and back are still twitching.

Breathing rapidly, heart pounding, a figure flashed past in front of him. He immediately tensed up, ready to roll to the ground to avoid it or jump up and swing a knife.

Battle and killing have a profound impact on a person's spirit and emotions. Even though he only went in three times, with a total combat time of no more than 12 hours, he doesn't know how long it will take him to recover...

"Senior Brother Shen! Shall we go out for dinner together?"

The microphone crackled with the shouts of the research institute students. Shen Le instinctively sprang to his feet, paused for a moment, then slowly relaxed and waved his hand.

"No, you guys go ahead and eat. I'll lie down for a bit and then order takeout."

"Then—Senior brother, shall we bring you food?"

"Okay...no meat dishes..."

The junior disciples grumbled and left. Shen Le leaned back in his chair again and slowly closed his eyes:

"Ugh... I'm so tired... Maybe I should just leave work early today and find a place to sleep... Fighting and killing really aren't for me..."

If there are any virtual reality games in the future that allow players to feel completely immersed, he will definitely vote against them, or at least demand that the sensory realism be limited, for example, not exceeding 30%.

When you get engrossed in a game, even if you see a clump of grass by the roadside, your finger will subconsciously press down, hoping to find something by pressing the enter key;
If this is a virtual reality game, and someone gets used to physically attacking people, what if they start swinging a knife at people in real life?
He mumbled incoherently with his eyes closed, regretting that he had spoken too quickly and made his junior brothers bring him food. That round trip would take at least half an hour, meaning he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep for another half hour…

so tired...

Just as she was grumbling, a clear, melodious sound, like a spring, suddenly rang out beside her. Shen Le reluctantly turned her head to the side, opening her eyes a crack, and saw a woman in a pale yellow dress sitting gracefully beside her, head bowed, playing the zither.

Her colorful sleeves fluttered, and though she clearly didn't have slender fingers, the strings of her zither moved without wind. The music brushed past her ears, and she let out a long breath, completely relaxing.
"call……"

comfortable...

The pressure that had been pressing down on my brow and shoulders, making me feel tense and ready to jump up and fight back at any moment, was gradually smoothed out and washed away by the music...

The strings murmured softly, like flowing water. Soon, the flutes and xiao joined in the ensemble, making the music even more serene and expansive.

Shen Le's shoulders relaxed even more, and after a while, the sound of the pipa leaped in, adding a touch of cheerful liveliness to the performance...

"what's the situation?"

"Is there a concert over there?"

"A folk music ensemble?"

The high-level performance attracted the attention of the professors passing by. A group of elderly men circled back and forth in front of the screen, reluctant to miss it, yet too afraid to watch:

One glance makes you dizzy, two glances make your blood rush to your head, and three glances make you want to take revenge on society.

why?
Why is it so difficult for them to recruit even a meticulous and well-behaved female student in this remote area? And when they finally do manage to recruit one, they have to leave their office door wide open just to give her some guidance on her thesis.

On Shen Le's side, there were five, six, seven, or eight female ghosts... Whether they were female ghosts or clothing ghosts, they were all women, playing the piano, the flute, dancing, massaging his shoulders and legs...

He showed absolutely no intention of avoiding people!
That's true. The other person isn't a person, just a few clothes. What's the point of hiding from people?
The pressure won't disappear, it will only shift. Listening to music and enjoying the psychological massage from the women in their skirts, Shen Le felt herself gradually returning from the bloody battlefield to the human world.
Meanwhile, the professors on the other side had no choice but to turn off their monitors, leaving only their microphones on, continuously playing beautiful music...

The music played for a full hour, and then resumed after Shen Le finished eating. Later that afternoon, Shen Le was in the mood to sit up straight in his chair and examine each nail leaf;
The next morning, although he still needed to stop and listen to music from time to time, he wrote a two-thousand-word paper in the morning—though whether it would be published was anyone's guess.
By the third day, Shen Le had finally composed herself. Walking down the street and seeing passersby, especially those with non-Han features, no longer triggered an outburst that made her clench her fists into a knife-like shape.
When you go to a restaurant, order a bowl of mutton noodles and a plate of poached chicken from the cooked food counter. Even though you can taste the meat and see the blood in the chicken bones, you won't feel nauseous, vomit, or want to throw up...

He finally composed himself, rubbed his hands together, and began the next round of repairs. This armor wasn't finished yet, and the story of this armor wasn't finished to tell!
On the vast desert, amidst the black storm, the ceaseless sounds of battle still raged...

The body armor was repaired, the helmet was repaired, and the belt, well, it could be considered repaired to some extent as well.

Shen Le stared at the two flattened lumps in front of her, her face scrunched up in frustration. How to put it... she just couldn't bring herself to do it...

Are those two clumps boots?
It should be boots, right?

The material is leather, so even by process of elimination, it can only be a boot. Theoretically, all he needs to do is clean it, let it absorb moisture, patch up the cracked bits of leather, and restore it to its original shape.

However, even without touching it, just looking at it through the storage box, Shen Le could feel a rich, strong, and unforgettable scent rushing into his nose...

These are boots!
Those are two soldiers' boots!
These are two boots that have been worn for countless years, trekking, running, and fighting in the desert, getting wet and dry repeatedly, going through countless rounds of trials!

This is so refreshing!
Even looking at it through the storage box, he already felt it wasn't going to work. If he took it out and handled it himself, would the gas mask really be able to block out the smell?

"what's wrong?"

He stood in front of the safe deposit box in a daze for the entire morning, while several elderly professors came and went, watching him stare blankly for the whole morning.

While getting lunch, it's inevitable to ask a few questions:

"Are you having any difficulties? Do you need any help? If it's not something we're good at, we can still find you a mentor..."

"Not for now!" Shen Le shook his head vigorously. Restoring cultural relics is a huge, deep pit. Although it's not as obvious as biochemistry, environmental science, and materials science, it still requires a lot of manpower and resources, no matter how much you invest.

Putting everything else aside, just consider the plan to build an airport in Chang'an. While surveying the ground, they unearthed 3500 ancient tombs.

Do we have to excavate these ancient tombs one by one?
Should we organize our thoughts?

Do we need to verify the date?
Do we have to repair everything of value one by one?

Some tombs and cultural relics, in a place like Shanghai, might be worth sending a group of experts to carry out archaeological restoration, or even to build a museum specifically for them.

But in Chang'an?

After a quick inspection, it was determined that the tombs weren't particularly valuable, so they were to be backfilled immediately to avoid disrupting subsequent production...

In such cases, archaeology and artifact restoration are very expensive professions; any amount of money thrown in can be swallowed up without leaving a trace.

If Shen Le were willing to spend the money, leather repair experts could fly over and provide hands-on guidance for the repair process.

Even his alma mater could directly award him a doctoral degree; the thesis proposal, dissertation, and defense would all be handled by the university without any difficulty...

However, Shen Le knew his own situation best. His current difficulty lay not in the physical repair process, but in the psychological aspects:
"Teacher, how did you overcome some of your psychological barriers? How could you bring yourself to fix things that you knew were very dirty and smelly?"

"Ah, you're stuck here." Professor Bai chuckled softly. He put down his chopsticks and shrugged.
"That's normal. Just remember, time is the best healer. Things buried in the ground for hundreds or thousands of years, no matter how dirty or smelly they were before—"

"Old White!"

With a loud slam, an associate professor next to me slammed his chopsticks down.

"We're eating!!!"

Shen Le and Professor Bai exchanged a glance, then simultaneously fell silent and buried their heads in their rice. After lunch, Professor Bai took Shen Le for a walk around the research institute before slowly saying:
"Things buried for hundreds of years have already decomposed, so you can't smell anything anymore. It's just psychological; just ignore it!"

Ah, so, is it still better to rely on more experience, more knowledge, and strong resilience to get through it?

"There aren't any techniques or anything like that?" Shen Le asked, a hint of resentment in her voice. Professor Bai replied leisurely:
"Anyway, what we do is cultural relic restoration. Like when we restored Consort Wenxi's clothes, we knew they were soaked in corpse water, so what?"

"We're not like those forensic pathologists who deal with fresh, unpleasant smells. What we do has practically no smell—"

Shen Le inhaled, exhaled, inhaled again, exhaled again. Faced with the situation, she could only try to comfort herself:
It's just shoes, just shoes, just shoes. The archaeologists next door, excavating ancient settlements, treat even a pile of dung like a treasure:
Not only should it be enshrined with utmost respect, but one should also rummage through it, trying to find even a few seeds or bone fragments, to study what people ate back then...

"Thanks for the guidance! I'm off to work now!"

Despite having mentally prepared herself, Shen Le still couldn't bring herself to do the work when it came to it.

With no other choice, I held my breath and threw the two boots into the glove box, and through the box, I began the initial cleaning:
"Cleaning Technique!"

"Cleaning Technique!"

"Cleanliness technique!!!"

Oh no, it smells even worse now, what should I do?

I initially thought that casting a cleaning spell would remove the smell from the boots, but I didn't realize that casting a cleaning spell required mental guidance—

However, mental power is more acute and subtle than the five senses of ordinary people, penetrating every corner of these two boots.

More importantly, the five senses are independent. You can't see if you close your eyes, you can block out most of the sound if you plug your ears, and you can't smell if you hold your breath.

However, mental energy cannot be separated. When mental energy senses every crease and crack in the leather boots, it undoubtedly also senses the scent that has condensed on them:

Layer upon layer, piece by piece, dried and then wet again, soaking and fermenting inside the boots.

If the cleaning technique doesn't want to move them, fine, but if it does want to move them, it must first sense them before it can deal with them...

"Cleaning Technique!"

"Cleaning Technique!"

Shen Le decided to give up entirely. He opened the glove box and held out the two boots, or rather, one and a half boots, so that he could concentrate on his work.

Cleaning leather boots is much more troublesome than cleaning belts or armor.

This thing was shriveled up and pressed together, with wrinkles and cracks everywhere, inside and out. It needed to be cleaned out bit by bit to remove all the dirt.

What's more troublesome is that, unlike a belt which is flat, the upper and sole, and even the upper and cuff, are all rigidly stuck together. If you want to clean it, you have to pry it apart;

You tried to pry it open, but with the slightest force, it made an ominous "crackling" sound, threatening Shen Le:
I'm going to cut it off!

I'm going to cut it off!
"Ugh...this is so troublesome..."

Shen Le was dizzy and disoriented from being tormented by these two idiots. A fragrant breeze wafted around him, and a woman in a flowing dress reached behind him, extending her long sleeves to massage his shoulders and temples.

Shen Le sighed and gently pushed it away:
"Excuse me... could you please move a little further away from me...? Your fragrance is really lovely, but mixed with this stench, it's just too hellish..."

It's like burning incense in the toilet; the stronger the incense, the more unbearable it becomes!
Luo Qun silently stepped aside, slipping into a corner of the studio, and began playing the zither and flute to cheer Shen Le on as he rushed to the atmosphere team. Shen Le gazed at this scene of elegant figures from afar, and after a long while, sighed deeply.
"Luckily, when you were being repaired, you were all wearing embroidered shoes, and they weren't dirty at all... If you were all wearing these smelly leather boots, I..."

I need to repair it too, but I probably won't have such a gentle and peaceful state of mind. The repaired skirt won't be as good-natured.

The comfort offered by Luo Qun was, in reality, a drop in the ocean. Shen Le could only console herself by working for a while, then reading her thesis for a bit;

Let me work a little longer, then I'll look at the paper a bit more.

Although those papers didn't provide particularly detailed descriptions or delve into every single step, they at least offered him some comfort.
I'm not the only one suffering like this!
The master craftsmen have also repaired boots like these, and even boots that are more difficult to repair than the pair I have here!
If the seniors were able to forge this path, how could I, as a cultivator with magical aids, not be able to overcome it?!
It took Shen Le a whole day to completely clean the exterior of the half-boot. With a sigh, she stuffed it back into the box, added water, heated it, and expertly began the process of letting it rehydrate.
"Fine, I'm scared of you!"

"Let's make it a little softer, a little more elastic, so it can withstand me stretching you open, and then I'll continue cleaning you!"

The dehumidifier worked very well. Shen Le waited patiently for a day and felt that the leather boots had softened a lot, and the dented boot shaft could be stretched open a crack.

Although it's still invisible to the naked eye, mental energy can already reach inside, continuing the cleansing and moving the impurities out:
"Cleaning Technique!"

"Cleaning Technique!"

"clear……"

One spell after another was cast, and the leather boots, buried in the annals of time, gradually revealed their true form. And Shen Le, with each spell he cast, grew ever more silent than the last:
"This is just too tragic..."

After removing the sand, the salt, the dirt and humus, the leather boots were visibly covered in the marks of time.

There is a hole on the front of the left foot, on the big toe and on the outside of the little toe. Judging from the outward protrusion, it should be caused by years of wearing the shoes and the toes pushing and kicking.
The heel area was even worse. There were layers upon layers of patches, almost every one of which had holes.

It was clearly torn and patched repeatedly; no matter how carefully its owner wore it, it couldn't stop the constant damage...

Not to mention the boot shafts. Layer upon layer, round upon round, you can see obvious signs of rope binding.

Inside the shoe upper, on the crumpled lining, layers upon layers of bloodstains, both new and old, overlapped...

Looking at these marks, Shen Le seemed to see a Tang soldier, wearing these leather boots, marching through the wind and sand. Mounting and dismounting, walking a long distance, staggering and unsteady;

The shoes have been patched and repaired repeatedly, until they're practically unwearable, yet I keep wearing them. There's simply no way to get a replacement pair…

The condition of these shoes is far more tragic than the leather boots unearthed from the tombs in Turpan, or the brocade boots from the Northern and Southern Dynasties unearthed from the tombs in Gansu.

After all, the shoes in those tombs were probably new when they were buried with the dead, with few signs of walking or wear and tear, only signs of long-term burial.

The marks left by the owner's long-term wear on these shoes are clearly visible...

"Hey... don't worry, just wait a moment. I'll speed things up and fix you as soon as possible..."

Shen Le murmured softly, as if talking to himself, or perhaps making a promise to the boots and the entire suit of armor. A few thuds sounded as the microphone was tapped repeatedly; Professor Bai spoke impatiently:

"Shen Le! Shen Le, could you please leave these shoes in the museum? -- Shoes like these that have been worn are so rare! There are practically none in domestic museums! They have immense cultural and historical value!"

Shen Le: "..."

I agree with your point of view. It's not that I'm unwilling to leave these boots to the country and show them to the public.

The problem is, my agreement doesn't mean the Special Affairs Bureau agrees, nor does it mean this armor agrees, nor does it mean these boots agree... right?

boom!
A muffled thud. Shen Le quickly turned his head and saw the webcam with the microphone on his desk, kicked by a boot, smash directly to the ground...

The relatively intact boot, however, was swinging back and forth with its toe as a fulcrum, as if it wasn't quite satisfied with the screen in front of it and wanted to kick it up again.

With that kind of skill, if he were in the World Cup qualifying rounds, he could at least score a goal for the Chinese national team.

"Wait!" He lunged forward, spreading his arms wide and pressing down hard on the two boots:
"Let's talk this out! I won't let you go if you don't want to! Don't kick my things! Don't—don't break yourselves!"

Look at that kick! A huge chunk of leather just fell off the toe of your boot, and now I have to fix it!
(End of this chapter)