Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

Su Yuan carefully took the book out of the box and opened it to the first page. The characters were in regular script, neatly engraved, but the ink had faded, and some characters were almost invisible!

The character "说" in the first chapter of the Book of Learning, "学而时习之，不亦说乎" is missing half of its radical. The right side, "兑," is gone, leaving only the left side, "言."

He continued to carefully turn the pages, until he reached the third page. The character for "self-examination" in the phrase "I examine myself three times a day" was missing its top stroke, becoming "eye." On the sixth page, the character for "knowledge" (知) was missing the right-hand radical...

The missing parts weren't torn; it's something that's hundreds of years old, constantly being handled and worn down by fingers.

Su Yuan flipped through the book; it was missing twenty-three characters, torn in seven places, and almost all the corners were curled. While not a major flaw, it needed careful repair, patching it up word by word!

He opened his toolbox and took out the items one by one: a magnifying glass, tweezers, a scalpel, ink, and an inkstone—a small, old-pit Duan inkstone, about the size of a palm—that he had taken from the storeroom.

Once Su Yuan was ready, he started grinding the ink. He twirled the ink stick on the inkstone dozens of times until the ink came out, with a strong pine scent...

The inkstick was an old thing; Su Yuan found it in a corner of the storeroom. He didn't know who had put it there. He wiped off the dust with a cloth and saw three characters engraved on it: Hu Kaiwen. The item was from the late Qing Dynasty, over a hundred years old.

Once the ink is ground, we can start adding characters!

First, he added the missing character, "说" (shuō). He dipped a brush in ink and began to trace the missing part. Su Yuan's hand was steady; in a few strokes, the right side, "兑" (duì), appeared. Combined with the left side, "言" (yán), it became the character "说".

He stepped back two paces and glanced at it, confirming that the font matched the original book. The original book was in the Ouyang Xun style, with slender and firm strokes, and the one he had traced was also in the Ouyang Xun style—he had practiced it!

Then add the missing stroke to the character "省" (province), and continue adding strokes to each character one by one...

When he finished writing the fifteenth character, his hand started to ache, so he put down his pen and rotated his wrist. He glanced up at the storeroom; the items on the shelves were all quiet and still.

He kept his head down and continued to carefully mend the parts!

I finally finished mending those twenty-three characters, which took almost two hours. After stretching a bit, I started mending the cracks. The cracks were at the folds of the pages; the paper would crack at the folds after being folded for a long time, some cracked all the way through, some not.

If it's seeped through, patch it with rice paper; if it's not, just brush it with gelatin!

Su Yuan turned to page seven. There was a tear at the fold, running from the edge of the page all the way to the middle, and it was through. He turned the page over, applied a layer of gelatin to the back of the tear, cut a small strip of rice paper, pasted it on, and pressed it flat…

Once it's dry, turn it over to look at the front. The crack is still there, but it's sealed with glue, so you can't see it unless you look closely.

After patching the cracks, the surface is flattened.

The pages were badly curled, some even rolled into tubes. He used a small spray bottle to spray some water, moistening the curled parts, then sandwiched them between pieces of rice paper and pressed them under the toolbox. He'd take them out to check after a while, and if it wasn't working, he'd press them again…

After three rounds of betting, it's a tie!

Su Yuan flipped through the book again, from beginning to end. There were no missing words, and it wasn't torn or curled anymore. He put the book back in the wooden box and closed the lid. He didn't wipe the layer of dust off the sandalwood box lid; he'd leave it there…

Just then, the bronze mirror moved slightly in his pocket. He took it out and looked at it; the mirror was once again filled with those reflections.

"Is it fixed?"

"It's fixed."

"Impressive, Master Su can fix anything!"

"Of course..."

Su Yuan silently turned the mirror over and put it back in his pocket, picked up the wooden box, put it back on the shelf, and walked out with his toolbox, pausing in front of A Wu:

"Awu, the Analects are fixed..."

The terracotta figurine did not respond!

"Twenty-three words were missing, but I've added them."

Still no response…

Su Yuan stood there for a short while before heading to his office. As he reached the stairwell, the bronze mirror moved again. This time, it wasn't warm; it was scalding hot!

He took it out and looked at it. The shadows in the mirror were gone; only a dark shadow remained in the middle of the mirror, slowly turning. Su Yuan asked:

"Old Black! Is that you back?"

There was no answer. The dark mass remained there, facing him. Su Yuan asked again:

"How's it going at Yongle Palace?"

Still no answer! This time the black mass sank, and the mirror returned to normal. Su Yuan stared at the mirror for a few seconds: "What does it mean by not speaking..."

Back in the office, I wrote "Repaired" at the end of the restored Analects, thinking about what Zhao Huaishan had said in my father's notes, when my phone rang. I answered, and it was my mother's voice:

"Yuan'er, have you received and opened it yet?"

"It's been demolished..."

"What are all these things?"

"It's my dad's old notebook."

His mother paused for a moment, then asked, "What notebook?"

"He took notes while he was at work..."

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone: "What did you write?"

Su Yuan thought for a moment: "It's all work-related!"

His mother didn't press him for details, but after a while she said something:

"Your dad woke up today and said he had another dream last night about that Ah Wu. He sat up all night after waking up and couldn't sleep..."

Su Yuan didn't speak, listening to his mother continue:

"He said Ah Wu left, and she seemed quite happy when she left. He said it was time for him to let go!"

Su Yuan gripped his phone, unsure what to say, when his mother's voice came through again:

"Alright, you can get back to work... Don't overwork yourself."

After hanging up the phone, Su Yuan sat down in a chair and closed his eyes. The bronze mirror was warming in his pocket. The shadows started again, but he only clearly heard one sentence:

"Master Su, what needs fixing tomorrow?"

He didn't answer, thinking about repairing the bronze sword tomorrow. Carrying his toolbox, he went to the lobby on the first floor. Wu Zhenshan was sitting on a bench, not reading the newspaper. Seeing Su Yuan come down, he waved to him. As Su Yuan walked over, Old Wu asked:

"Has that copy of the Analects been finished?"

"It's fixed..."

Wu Zhenshan nodded: "Have you looked at your dad's laptop?"

Su Yuan was taken aback: "You knew?"

"You forgot? But I asked him to send it." Wu Zhenshan took a sip of tea from his thermos. "Was it even useful?"

Su Yuan thought for a moment:

"There was a passage written there, in 1990, Zhao Huaishan said to my dad, 'Don't let your son come here...'"

How did Zhao Huaishan know my dad would have a son?

Wu Zhenshan put down his thermos and looked at him:

"Because he's seen you before..."

Su Yuan was stunned!

"You weren't born in 1990," Wu Zhenshan said, "but Zhao Huaishan saw you in the mezzanine."

Su Yuan's mind went blank for a moment...

"Time inside the mezzanine is different from time outside."

Wu Zhenshan stood up:

"What he saw was you as an adult, standing in front of the wall of Yongle Palace, holding tools and fixing something."

Su Yuan opened his mouth.

"So he told your dad not to let you come."

Wu Zhenshan patted his pants:

"But your dad didn't listen. However, he couldn't control himself, and later he ended up like that, and now you're here too..."

He left. Su Yuan sat on the bench, watching his figure disappear. His heart was in turmoil. He sat there for a while before coming to his senses and walking outside.

The wind outside the door is stronger than this morning, and the rain has stopped!

After entering the dormitory, Su Yuan stood inside the door, took out a bronze mirror and glanced at himself. The shadows in the mirror were huddled together, and surprisingly, they were all very quiet and didn't say a word...