Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

He placed the blue stone on the table and the bronze mirror beside it, staring at the two objects.

Five or six minutes later, I took out my phone. To ease my mother's burden, I hadn't told her about my father's situation yet; I had only sent her a WeChat message:

"Mom, I might be busy next week, so please call less often!"

Mom replied instantly: "What are you busy with?"

Su Yuan only replied with three words:

"Fix something!"

Mom quickly replied: "Okay, don't overwork yourself, okay? Do you have enough money?"

Seeing this message on WeChat, Su Yuan felt a pang of discomfort in his eyes.

Thinking about how hard his mother had worked all these years, and how his father had been stuck in that house for eighteen years!

Su Yuan never blamed his father...

These past few days have been anything but peaceful for Su Yuan. Wherever he goes, he feels a chill on the back of his neck.

Even when I'm getting food at the cafeteria, I can catch a glimpse of a blurry shadow moving in the corner. And when I'm sleeping in the dorm in the middle of the night, I always hear rustling sounds outside the window!

He got up and looked around, but saw nothing. However, when he woke up the next day, there were several leaves on the windowsill that weren't even there...

The weirdest thing is the toilet on the second floor of the building. Every time I go in, I can hear thumping, thumping, thumping sounds coming from the stalls.

Su Yuan called out, "Is anyone there?" and the call stopped, but it started again as soon as he squatted down.

On Friday evening after get off work, he had just unzipped his pants in the company restroom and squatted down to relieve himself when a hand suddenly reached under the stall door!

The hand was so thin it was skin and bones, the skin ashen, the fingernails long and sharp. It groped around on the ground for a moment before stopping beside Su Yuan's shoe, and a hoarse voice came from behind it:

"Master Su?"

Su Yuan's scalp tingled; his pants were still down to his ankles. He asked, trembling:

"Who...who are you?"

"I have a minor ailment..." the voice paused, "and I'd like to have you take a look."

"Now...?" Su Yuan stared at the hand.

"Is now a convenient time?"

Su Yuan looked dejectedly at the toilet he was squatting in, then at the hand resting beside his feet, and silently complained to himself with tears in his eyes:

"Is there ever going to be a day like this when I can get off work?!"

He replied rather irritably, "What do you think?"

There was a two-second silence in the cubicle, followed by footsteps and the voice saying, "Then I'll wait outside..."

Hearing the stall door being gently pulled open and then closed again without any further sound, Su Yuan's hands were trembling as he pulled up his pants, and he stumbled out of the restroom!

As we reached the stairwell, a voice suddenly drifted from behind:

"Tomorrow is fine too..."

He didn't dare look back, rushed downstairs, and found Old Wu sitting in the lobby reading a newspaper. He glanced at him, smiled, and asked:

"Why are you running? Are you stuck in the toilet?"

Su Yuan stood there, both surprised and aggrieved: "How did you know?"

Old Wu didn't answer, so he squatted down in front of Old Wu, his voice trembling:

"Uncle Wu, they keep contacting me, I can't leave work on time at all."

"They belong to them, and you belong to you."

Old Wu squinted his small eyes:

"You're a government employee, not someone they can work like a slave for private individuals. Aside from your regular working hours, you're in charge of your own time. The labor law clearly states this, and they have to abide by it!"

Su Yuan thought about it and realized, "Yes, he's a government employee, not one of them." But then he asked, "..."

"What if they absolutely need to be repaired?"

"Even if it absolutely has to be repaired, we have to wait." Old Wu put the newspaper on the table: "If you don't want to repair it, then don't. Nobody can force you."

Su Yuan slowly came to his senses, nodded, and was about to return to his dormitory when Old Wu called him back at the door:

"Oh, by the way, there's been some news about your dad today, go check it out!"

Su Yuan's heart skipped a beat, and he hurried to the old residential area. The door to room 301 was unlocked. He pushed the door open and saw Su Fu still sitting on the sofa, facing the window. But Su Yuan could tell at a glance that his father's back was straighter than the last time he saw him!

"dad?"

Su Fu didn't move. Su Yuan walked around to face him and called out again. Su Fu then spoke:

"You've arrived?"

Su Yuan's nose tingled with emotion. Eighteen years had passed. His father had been mentally unstable for eighteen years, and in order not to affect Su Yuan, his mother had never brought him to see his father!

"Dad, you recognize me?"

Su Fu stared at his face for a full three minutes: "Su Yuan? My son..."

Su Yuan's mind went blank for a moment, then he knelt down and took his father's hand:

"Dad, are you all better?"

Su Fu didn't answer, his gaze fixed on the bulge in Su Yuan's chest pocket. Su Yuan took out the bronze mirror and handed it to him. Su Fu took it, his hands trembling as he stroked the four characters on the back, and softly read them aloud:

"The Seal of Su Yuan..."

Then he smiled, a smile that fell on his gaunt face, a smile both heartbreaking and tender: "She... waited for it?"

Su Yuan nodded, her eyes red, and said, "Yes, we've arrived!"

Su Fu returned the mirror to him, leaned back on the sofa, closed his eyes, and said, "Yuan'er, I want to see your mother."

Su Yuan looked up in surprise: "Dad, what did you say?"

"Your mother...I want to see her."

Su Yuan's heart was in turmoil. His mother was back in their hometown, guarding the empty house, waiting for his father for eighteen years, raising him all by herself, and supporting his postgraduate studies, never uttering a word of complaint!

"Okay, I'll call Mom right now..."

Su Yuan walked into the stairwell, dialed that familiar number, and after two rings, his mother's surprised voice came through:

"Yuan'er? Why are you calling today? Didn't you say you were busy?"

Su Yuan's voice was a little choked up: "Mom... my dad said he wants to see you."

There was no sound on the other end of the phone. Su Yuan thought the signal had been lost. Half a minute later, he heard some noise.

It sounded like a mix of crying and laughing, and then his mother's voice, trembling, came through:

"Where is he now?"

Su Yuan hurriedly sent the address, stood in the hallway and sobbed softly. After calming down, she went back inside.

Su Fu was still sitting on the sofa when he saw him come in and hurriedly asked:

"You hit him?"

"I hit him..."

"What did she say?"

"They didn't say anything else, just asked where it was, and I sent the address to my mom..."

Su Fu's hand unconsciously rubbed the sofa armrest. Su Yuan sat beside him, neither father nor son speaking. After a while, Su Fu murmured softly:

"She must hate me..."

"I don't hate him..." Su Yuan blurted out.

How did you know?

"Dad, if she hated you, she wouldn't have waited for you for eighteen years..."

Su Yuan looked at the curtains that were still drawn:

"Every time my mom calls me, she only asks if I'm eating well; she never says a bad word about me!"

"I often see her holding your photo...that's her waiting for you!"

Tears rolled down Su Fu's cheeks...

On Saturday afternoon, Su Yuan went to the train station to pick up his mother. It had only been a year since he last saw her, and she had lost a lot of weight.

Her hair had turned a shade of white, and the wrinkles on her face were deeper, but when she saw Su Yuan, she still smiled as she always had:

"Yuan'er!"

Su Yuan walked over and let her hug him:

"mom."

His mother looked him up and down, her eyes filled with heartache:

"You've lost weight, is it because you're not eating well?"

"good…"

His mother chuckled and tapped his forehead: "You're still the same old you."

Seeing Su Yuan pick up his bag, he followed his son out:

"Come on, take me to see your father!"

Su Yuan didn't dare tell his mother; he felt like someone was following him the whole way, waiting for him to fix things…