Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

The character "吴" is missing a horizontal stroke!

Su Yuan put the note away and went out. At the warehouse door, Xiao Chen saw him coming, raised an eyebrow, gestured for him to come in, and said:

"Old Wu is inside, waiting for you."

Old Wu was standing with his back to him, leaning against the worktable, watching A-Wu. Hearing footsteps, he turned around.

"You're here?"

"Um."

Old Wu gestured for him to sit down, then sat on a wooden crate himself. Su Yuan sat down on the crate opposite him, the two of them about two steps apart, which Old Wu could tell at a glance:

"Didn't you sleep well last night?"

Su Yuan didn't deny it. Old Wu took out a cigarette to offer him one, but then remembered that smoking wasn't allowed there, so he put it away and coughed lightly.

"You've been thinking all night about who's at fault, haven't you? Have you figured it out yet?"

Su Yuan shook his head, and Old Wu smiled:

"It's normal if you can't figure it out. If you could see right through it, would it still be considered a secret?"

Su Yuan still asked, "Uncle Wu, what's your full name?"

"Wu Zhenshan, Zhen as in suppressing, Shan as in mountains and rivers."

Old Wu answered decisively, and as he spoke, he rolled up the sleeve of his left arm, revealing a long scar!

It was longer than the one Su Yuan had glimpsed last time, running from the wrist along the inside of the forearm all the way up past the elbow joint, the protruding flesh and the seam marks resembling a centipede.

Su Yuan stared intently at him, and Old Wu smiled:

"Want to know how it came about?"

Su Yuan nodded.

"Years ago, before your father came, something emerged from the interlayer, more ferocious than anything we have now. It wasn't an artifact that had come to life; it crawled out from the depths of the crack, shapeless and formless, and all it did was devour."

Old Wu touched the scar and continued:

"Later, it swallowed three cultural relics: a Song Dynasty vase, a Ming Dynasty incense burner, and a Tang Dynasty Buddhist scripture. After swallowing them, it grew bigger."

"And then?"

"People were sent from above to handle it. There were three of them; two died, and one was crippled..."

Old Wu lowered his sleeves, his voice calm:

"I'm the one who's crippled. That thing slashed at me with its claw, and my bone was exposed! If Old Zhang hadn't pulled me away in time, I would have lost this arm!"

"Old Zhang? Director Zhang?"

"Yes, Zhang Weiyi," Old Wu said. "He had just been assigned here not long ago, and he was studying archaeology."

This was the first time Su Yuan had learned Director Zhang's full name; he never took the initiative to inquire about anyone's name.

"Uncle Wu, what happened to that thing in the end?"

"It's sealed off." Old Wu paused. "Old Zhang then asked someone from higher up to seal it off with a bronze mirror."

Su Yuan subconsciously pulled out a bronze mirror from his pocket. Old Wu glanced at it:

"Not your side, yours belongs to the Su family, they're in charge of people. The one sealing that thing is the bronze mirror held above, they're in charge of... the gap!"

"Gap? You mean that..." Su Yuan was confused, while Old Wu nodded:

"It's the kind you mentioned, the one that happened at Yongle Palace, the one from back then, the first one."

"Uncle Wu, not this one..."

Old Wu stood up and patted his pants:

"They're not the same one, but they're all cut from the same cloth. The one who sealed it off back then was surnamed Zhao."

Su Yuan suddenly looked up: "Zhao Cheng?"

"No, he was still young then. He was Zhao Cheng's father, Zhao Huaishan!"

The warehouse fell silent. Su Yuan sat on the wooden crate, his mind a jumbled mess.

No wonder Zhao Cheng knew the details of the conflict, no wonder he couldn't move it; it turns out this conflict was planted many years ago!

"Uncle Wu, what are Zhao Cheng's skills?"

Old Wu stretched his legs and sat down again: "You haven't seen him make a move?"

"no."

"He is different from his father. His father was a legitimate Taoist lineage holder. He learned from his father, but his father passed away before he could fully learn it."

"How did it disappear?"

"The sealing of that substance damaged its very foundation; it held up for several years, but ultimately couldn't withstand the damage..."

Old Wu was silent for a while, then took out a cigarette and smelled it:

"Zhao Cheng inherited half of his skills; he can see things hidden in the interlayer and is good at dealing with people, but he can't fight a tough battle. However, he has a unique ability... he can smell things!"

"smell?"

Old Wu nodded and smiled.

"The things in the interlayer each have their own smell, and he can tell what they are, where they came from, and how long they've been alive just by smelling them. Like a dog, he gets annoyed with them himself."

Su Yuan thought of Zhao Cheng, and what that shadow had said:

"So he said... is the person behind that thing really in the workplace?"

Old Wu didn't answer directly. He stood up and looked at the terracotta figurine Awu, who had her back to him.

Do you believe it?

"I have no idea…"

"Then don't believe it!"

Old Wu started walking out as he spoke:

"Xiao Su, remember one thing. Almost everyone in this unit has secrets, including me, Lao Zhang, and Xiao Chen. But having secrets isn't necessarily a bad thing, nor does it necessarily mean you're a bad person."

Su Yuan casually asked, "What's Brother Chen's full name?"

"Chen Xiaohe..."

After Lao Wu left, Su Yuan was the only one left in the warehouse. He was holding a bronze mirror and processing the information. After seven or eight minutes, he called out softly to A Wu again, but there was no response.

He put the bronze mirror back in his pocket and went out. Chen Xiaohe was no longer at the door. He closed the door and walked away, silently reciting the names of several people!

As Su Yuan approached his office door, he saw that it was open and Zhao Cheng was sitting in his chair, flipping through documents.

Seeing Su Yuan return, he asked:

"Did Lao Wu tell you?"

"Yes, I told you about your father, and about sealing the 'rift' back then!"

Zhao Cheng nodded, stood up, walked up to him, and stared at Su Yuan:

"Then you should understand, I'm not trying to scare you, huh? You smell."

"What does it taste like?"

"Besides the smell of the bronze mirror, Awu's smell, and the smell of Yongle Palace, there's another one... I can't quite put my finger on it, but I've smelled it before."

"Where?"

Zhao Cheng didn't answer, only leaving a sentence at the door:

"I was little twenty-six or twenty-seven years ago, and I smelled that odor on your father..."

After he left, Su Yuan was stunned for a few minutes before he came to his senses and took out the mirror. There were several more shadows in the mirror, and the one in front of him leaned closer:

"Master Su..."

Su Yuan did not respond.

"That guy surnamed Zhao is right..."

Su Yuan put the bronze mirror in his pocket, closed the door, sat down in a chair, and stared up at the crack in the ceiling!

He sat in the office until nearly noon, going through everyone around him in his mind, but still had no clue. He finally gave up, picked up his toolbox, and went outside.

At the warehouse entrance, Chen Xiaohe returned and was squatting down smoking. He put out his cigarette when he saw him coming.

"Going in again?"

"Um."

"Is the warehouse really that good?"

Chen Xiaohe muttered as he watched him open the door. Su Yuan didn't reply. He went inside, walked to the innermost box, lifted the canvas, and pulled out all the photos and documents of Yongle Palace, placing them on the worktable.

He first looked at the photo from 1978, where the main deity was still there, standing intact in the clouds.

He examined the face of the main deity closely with a magnifying glass:

He wore a ceremonial robe and had a long beard. His eyebrows and eyes were lowered, and he held a jade tablet in his hand.

Looking through the photos from previous years, the main deity was still there in 88 and 89, but in the photo from 1990, the main deity had vanished into thin air!

It wasn't deliberately dug out; the photo shows a section that was already empty, revealing the clay underneath, exactly the same as it is now.

Su Yuan stared at the photo for a long time:

"That thing was already out in 1990, more than thirty years ago?"