The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 775 Is this pottery house about to demonstrate its abilities?
Shen Le slowly opened her eyes and smiled slightly.

The pottery jar radiated a warm glow, almost instinctively pressing against his fingers, conveying a warm and joyful ripple.

Peaceful, gentle, and grounded... it seems to be saying:

"here you go!"

"Really? You think I did a good job too?"

Shen Le smiled and touched the roof beneath his hands. This time travel, or rather, this entry into the memories of the pottery house, he had indeed done a very good job:
He turned the tide, helped the Shen family resolve their greatest crisis, and led them to seize their greatest opportunity. He helped Sima Rui travel south, allowing him to arrive in Jianye earlier and begin his strategic planning more efficiently.

Then, he helped him integrate the fleet and lead the noble families, relatives, retainers, and refugees who set off from Langya southward at the fastest speed and with the least loss.
Next, they seized the opportunity to travel back and forth between the Central Plains and Jianye, bringing in refugees time and time again...

During the long four years of the Yongjia southward migration, the Shen family's rapidly expanding fleet brought countless men, women, and children fleeing south in panic from the sea and from the other side of the Yangtze River.

Of course, the Shen family also benefited greatly during this process:
Money, goods, books, and more importantly, the carefully selected refugees who could be swallowed up by the Shen family...

In just four years, the number of refugees taken in by the Shen family reached twice the number of their own tenants!
Those skilled, organized, and martial artists who were able to travel from Luoyang to the Si River, the Huai River, the north bank of the Yangtze River, and the seaside...

The Shen family carefully selected and recruited a total of five or six thousand people!
What does "leapfrog development" mean?
Of course, most importantly, Shen Le restrained his greed in doing all of this.

At that time, Sima Rui wanted to give him an important position, and Wang Dao wanted to give him an important position. As long as he spoke or nodded, the position of naval commander of Langya Prince's Mansion would be his. He could even get a position as a captain of the Changshui Army.

However, he suppressed his entire family's demands and resisted Sima Rui's promise of official positions, only requesting a position as a servant in a general's office. What? A minor official?

Please, later Sima Rui went to great lengths to win over the gentry of Jiangnan and appointed more than 100 famous scholars from the north as his officials, a group known at the time as the "One Hundred and Six Clerks"—

Does he intend to associate with those famous scholars, spending his days drinking, composing poems, weeping, and flattering each other?
Of course, he couldn't just be a minor official; he needed real power. At that time, Sima Rui was appointed General of the East, Commander-in-Chief of the military affairs of Yangzhou and Jiangnan, and given the authority to act on behalf of the emperor. He was stationed in Jianye, where he held some power, neither too much nor too little.

Shen Le used the banner given to him as a shield to obtain a job "assisting in the delivery of documents, the transport of grain and fodder, and the exploration of sea routes in Jiangbei," thereby expanding his power.

Of course, Shen Le cautiously kept this expansion of power within certain limits. He was a behemoth in the county, a number one figure in the prefecture, but from the perspective of the central government…

Is the Shen family some kind of prestigious family?

Please, compared to the local prominent families, or even to those northern immigrants who abandoned their roots and only brought most of their families with them, they are not even worth a glance!
Then... Shen Le suppressed his family, worked hard to farm, build ships, and transport people, and focused on development for ten years.

Ten years later, Chang'an fell, and Sima Rui accepted the title of Prince of Jin, becoming the de facto sole ruler of Jiangnan. Shen Le also took the opportunity to obtain the position of Commandant of Agricultural Settlements in Kuaiji Commandery.

From then on, the Shen family went from a county-level family to a prefecture-level family, continuing to work hard in farming, shipbuilding, and business...

I will absolutely not get involved in matters concerning the central government!
Are you kidding me? The Eastern Jin Dynasty was a mess; how could anyone get involved? Every other day, someone was talking about a northern expedition, someone was urging them to take the throne, and this family was fighting with that family…

"The Wang and Ma families share the world," how could the Wang and Sima families not fight? How could the gentry of Jiangnan and the gentry of the North not fight?

There were two large-scale rebellions: Wang Dun, Wang Dao's cousin, led one, and not long after, Su Jun led another! With the Shen family being so small and weak, how could they possibly fare well if they were caught in the middle?
Two enormous grinding millstones of flesh and blood ground each other down. The little bean of the Shen family was thrown in and disappeared without a trace!

So, while others vied for power, profit, and official positions in the central government, Shen Le forced the Shen family to retreat step by step. He built a strong fleet, headed north, and focused solely on maritime trade, unloading goods at the coast, collecting payment, and leaving.

Head south, along the Zhejiang-Fujian coast, and then south again!

Try to avoid entering the Yangtze River, inland waterways, and getting entangled with local forces!

Thanks to this strategy, the Shen family managed to weather one storm after another during the decades under Shen Le's leadership.

After two generations, the core male population increased from two or three hundred to nearly a thousand, the number of tenant farmers grew from several thousand to tens of thousands, and the farmland, boatyards, and salt fields all doubled...

"Hmm, it seems you're quite satisfied, aren't you?" Shen Le gently stroked the pottery house.

The appearance of this pottery house is now quite familiar to me:

The ancestral home of the Shen family had undergone round after round of renovations and expansions, and by the time his "time travel" ended, it looked exactly like this!

So, were the craftsmen who made funerary objects carrying blueprints provided by the clients, intending to create a miniature replica of their ancestral home and take it underground?

The earthen house remained silent. A bright ripple of light flowed across the roof, as if receiving his fingers:

"So, could you do me a favor? Let me record your detailed shape, and then keep it as it is now. I'll put you in the kiln for a firing to restore you to your original state?"

Tao Wu didn't react at all. Shen Le wasn't surprised either; he got up, rubbed his hands together, and began searching for a knife.
He carefully cut open the pottery house, wall by wall, room by room, absorbing the clay and piecing it together himself.

Each item was scanned, meticulously recorded, and then completely integrated on the computer to create the most detailed document. Then, using a fine spray bottle, water was carefully sprayed onto the clay, drop by drop…

"Hopefully it will work... It's not clay I sculpted myself; it was sprayed on directly. I'm a little worried about the moisture level being wrong or the strength not being enough..."

Shen Le prayed silently as he worked. He sprayed water as meticulously as possible, and used his mental power to guide the water mist into the porcelain clay.

Of course, one must also use a pin-type moisture meter, a sensor-type moisture meter, and one's own mental energy to repeatedly detect the dryness and wetness of the porcelain clay, making it as close as possible to the humidity level when the porcelain blank is put into the kiln...

Once everything was perfect, Shen Le carefully pushed the pottery hut into the specialized kiln. He adjusted the temperature and the atmosphere inside the kiln, and then started firing!
He waited anxiously for three whole days. Through the furnace door, he could see the clay inside turning red, then shining, and then gradually darkening.

With his spiritual power extended, he could sense the aura of the pottery house; it had not weakened, nor had its nature changed.
Everything is progressing steadily. Once the entire kiln is fired and cooled down, we should have a complete pottery house, and the restoration work will be successfully completed...

No wonder!
Once the kiln temperature dropped to room temperature, Shen Le opened the kiln door and carefully pulled it outwards along the sliding rails inside. He pulled it out one foot, then two feet…

"Crash!" The entire pottery house collapsed without any cushioning, turning into a pile of broken tiles and rubble, lying pitifully before him...

"Ah this..."

Shen Le sighed helplessly. He was used to it, he silently comforted himself; he was used to this kind of scene, nothing to be surprised about.
Last time he repaired the porcelain pagoda, he fired it round and round, countless times! But the porcelain pagoda just wouldn't cooperate; it would collapse every time it was fired, and collapse again every time it was fired again…

In comparison, this is only the first time this pottery house has collapsed!

"Okay, what's wrong this time?"

Shen Le patiently picked out the old pottery shards that he had personally repaired, one by one, and placed them on the table.

In this firing, the newly added porcelain clay was fired intact into new pottery shards, without any warping, cracking, or even glaze run-through, demonstrating his truly excellent control over the firing process.

However, the old and new pottery shards simply couldn't be joined together. They remained clearly separated, each keeping its own boundaries.

Although their auras don't clash or they don't look at each other with mutual hatred, there's no way they can become a complete entity!

Shen Le carefully pieced together two shards of pottery, one new and one old, using the warmth of his palms to smooth them out. Once, twice, three times…

When the heat flowed through, both sides cooperated fully, giving the green light and opening the gates. But as soon as the heat flow stopped, everything reverted to its previous stagnant state; the new looked down on the old, and the old looked down on the new…

After Yongjia moved south, the Southern and Northern aristocratic families were exactly the same.

Southern aristocratic families look at northern aristocratic families: Bah! A bunch of displaced people, dragging their families to beg for food here, and they still flaunt their nobility every day. Are you sick in the head?
Northern aristocratic families looking down on Southern aristocratic families: Bah! A bunch of country bumpkins! How many generations of your family have held the highest office? How many generations have held the highest rank? What family traditions do you have, and what classics do you study?

To hold one's head so high in front of us, a family with a rich heritage, truly shows one's descent from a remote and uncivilized place!

"So what exactly do you want before you accept these new companions...? These clays, after all, were attracted and chosen by you yourselves..."

Shen Le stroked the pottery shard in his hand with a terrible headache. The shard remained silent, emitting no fluctuations, completely ignoring him. Shen Le had no choice but to guess at the situation himself:
"Or is the fire not working? I'll get you a different kind of fire and start over?"

He sifted through the clay, mixed it, shaped it, and rebuilt the pottery house. Following the pre-made 3D model, Shen Le diligently worked on the initial shaping of the vessel.

This time, when it was placed in the kiln, he didn't adjust the temperature or turn on the electric heating button. He sat cross-legged in front of the kiln, closed his eyes and regulated his breathing for a moment, then opened his mouth and spewed out a burst of flames:
"call……"

The raging fire ignited by spiritual energy rushed into the kiln and almost instantly seeped into every part of the pottery house, inside and out, down to the smallest detail.

If earthly flames require a slow increase in temperature and gradual penetration to alter the properties of clay and transform it into smooth and lustrous porcelain, then this raging fire, driven by spiritual energy, penetrates directly into the interior, propelling the transformation of the porcelain.

In less than three days, or even two days, within just a few hours, the newly shaped clay had already transformed into hard and bright porcelain.

Throughout this process, Shen Le's mental energy permeated the entire process, ensuring that every step of the changes in the properties of the porcelain clay was reliable, so that it wouldn't suddenly crack or shatter...

That is to say, he fired the kiln countless times during the last repair of the porcelain tower, so this time he was able to handle the heavy task with ease and fire it safely.

However, just as he sensed that the properties of the clay had completely changed and withdrew the flames to allow the furnace to cool slowly—

"Click."

"Why did you crash again?!"

What's wrong this time?!
Clearly, clearly when it was burning, spiritual energy could flow smoothly through the ancient pottery shards and the newly shaped porcelain clay. The energy on the ancient pottery shards could also be smoothly pushed by the flames and flow to cover the newly added parts!
Shen Le was both angry and helpless, and could only comfort herself again, "I'm used to it."

Using spiritual power to investigate further, it was discovered that this time, using spiritual fire for firing, the pottery house had finally shown some mercy, and it was better than last time:

It didn't shatter into pieces or fall apart on the spot. However, fine cracks still extended between the new and old pottery shards, hindering the flow of energy between them and preventing them from coalescing into one piece...

"So what exactly are you missing? You can't really expect to use the porcelain clay from that old mine, can you?"

Shen Le was at his wit's end. The porcelain clay Gu Yulin had helped him obtain was already the closest in composition and geographically compatible—

Even if you find the original mine, each piece is from a different mining area, and the composition is different, so it's not very useful...

"Forget it, how about we look for this pottery house and the kiln where the porcelain was made?" After much deliberation, Shen Le sighed and decided to follow the experience of repairing the porcelain tower last time.

He first connected to academic paper websites and various online libraries, downloading a large number of books and papers. After roughly defining the geographical area where these pottery houses were fired, he began to hold the pottery house fragments in his hands and meditate diligently:
"You want to recover quickly, right? If so, at least show me the way! I'll lead you through the last leg of the journey, retracing the path you took when you were formed in the flames. You'd better recover properly, okay?"

Hopefully this thing wasn't fired on the other side of the strait... Sigh, logically it shouldn't be. Generally speaking, porcelain and pottery are fired not far from the main clay-producing areas...

As Shen Le triggered the resonance of the ceramic blocks, he silently prayed.

Finally, a spot of light appeared on the copper plate. Shen Le memorized the location, then, carrying the pottery house, embarked on a long journey by carriage towards the approximate location of the light.

"Shouldn't I find it after circling around a few times? It's not like I have to crawl through the mud in the middle of the night with it to pinpoint the last 100 meters, is it?"

Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned. Despite Shen Le's efforts, he still couldn't pinpoint the exact location.

Helpless, I waited until sunset, then stepped out of the car carrying the box containing the pottery house, my feet touching the ground:
"Huh? What are these points of light? Is this pottery house finally about to reveal its power?"

(End of this chapter)