Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

Holding a bronze mirror in one hand and a toolbox in the other, Su Yuan tucked a flashlight under his arm and crawled into the crevice.

It was darker inside than outside, and so quiet it was suffocating. When you shone a flashlight, you could only see about a meter ahead.

There were blue brick walls on both sides, the kind built with white lime. Su Yuan walked very slowly and carefully, and despite trembling all over, he had no intention of turning back!

He believed his father's words that if he turned back, he would never be able to get out.

After walking for about five minutes, the space in front of them suddenly became larger, and Su Yuan used his flashlight to scan the area.

This is a very large space, like a grand hall, with brick walls on all four sides and a brick arched ceiling.

The ground was paved with square blue bricks, polished to a shine. In the very center of the ground sat something that made Su Yuan's hair stand on end!

It is a coffin.

Su Yuan felt his soul was about to leave his body. He was just a repairman of cultural relics, but he kept encountering non-human beings, and now he had to deal with coffins.

He was a little afraid of human bones; to him, human bones were far more terrifying than shadows or anything like that!

He steeled himself and went forward to examine it. The coffin was made of bluestone and was larger than ordinary coffins. Many characters were engraved on the coffin lid. Su Yuan walked over, squatted down, and shone a flashlight on it to look at the inscriptions:

"Sealed in the third year of Yongle..."

It's all the same as the one carved on the outside wall, but there's another line at the bottom with larger and deeper lettering than the others.

"If the person who opens this coffin is a descendant of the Su family, be very careful."

Su Yuan stared at the words, took out the jade and bronze key, pondered for a while, then stood up and walked around the coffin.

I pushed the coffin lid, it was very heavy, so I pushed it harder, but it still didn't budge!

He opened the toolbox, put it down, took out the crowbar he had used to demolish the wall last time, wedged the crowbar into the gap between the coffin lid and the coffin body, and pressed it down hard.

He exerted all his strength and finally heard a creak; the coffin lid moved slightly. He pressed down harder, and this time the lid popped open a crack.

After circling around and changing positions several times, they continued to pry and press, until the coffin lid finally rested diagonally on the coffin.

Su Yuan wiped the sweat from his brow, picked up the flashlight from the ground, shone it inside, and squinted to look...

Phew~ Thank goodness it's empty inside!

Su Yuan stared wide-eyed. There were no remains or burial objects inside, only one thing.

It's a bluestone tablet, about the same size as the one under the stage in Xinzhou. There are inscriptions on it; the top line reads:

"Records of the Divine Travels of the Pure Yang Emperor"

Su Yuan's mind went blank for a moment; it was the central stele of Yongle Palace that had been dug up!

Wasn't he just asked to go back?

He reached in and touched the monument; it was cool and smooth, without a speck of dust.

The surface of the stele is engraved with line drawings, densely packed with miniature versions of deities. There are more than three hundred of them, exactly the same as those in the murals of Yongle Palace.

The spot in the very center, where the main god was located, was also dug out, leaving a pit larger than the palm of a hand!

Su Yuan absentmindedly pulled his hand back. The bronze mirror trembled at that moment, and he shook his head and quickly took it out.

—The dark shadow in the mirror reappeared, even larger than before, churning in the middle of the mirror like boiling water.

"Old Black?"

The dark figure flipped over and stopped. A voice rang out, causing Su Yuan to take two steps back. The voice didn't come from the mirror, but from the tombstone inside the coffin, and from all directions...

"You've come..."

Clutching the bronze mirror, Su Yuan stammered, "You...you're not Lao Hei, who are you?"

"you guess…"

Su Yuan remembered, it sounded just like the voice from Yongle Palace!

"You are that gap!"

There was no reply from the voice. The dark figure flipped over in the mirror, and you could tell it was laughing.

"You're the gap that Zhao Huaishan sealed off, aren't you!"

"Hehehe...Not bad!"

"When Zhao Huaishan finally came in, he wanted to seal me up here, but he failed... He sealed up this monument, not me..."

Su Yuan tried his best to calm himself down, looking at the tombstone in the coffin, and noticed that the line drawing on the tombstone was moving!

The gods slowly began to move, as if they had come to life. Some moved forward, some moved backward, and some turned around to look at him.

"With the Divine Stele here, you...you can't get out!" Su Yuan said, swallowing hard.

"The monument is there? So what! Hahaha... But it wasn't there before you came!"

Su Yuan's mind was in complete chaos, but he seemed to understand.

—The stele was dug up in 1990 and placed here. Once the vital energy of Yongle Palace was severed, the gap took advantage of the destruction of Chunyang Zhenren and escaped from the wall.

When I wanted to go back, I couldn't!

Is it really?

Zhao Huaidong failed to truly seal it off, and even damaged its foundation. Now it is hiding elsewhere, instead of being sealed here by the monument.

Where are you now?

There was no reply. The dark shadow surged in the mirror, growing larger and darker until it quickly filled the entire mirror surface.

Su Yuan's heart clenched, and he quickly flipped the mirror over and tucked it into his pocket! Its sound was quieter, but still audible:

"What did you bring with you?"

Su Yuan didn't answer, listening to it counting:

"A bronze mirror, jade, bronze pieces, this blue stone! And a talisman! The key is even here; you've brought almost everything from the Su family!"

Su Yuan touched the thing in his pocket, but didn't reply.

"Zhao Huaishan knew you were coming? He actually left this key behind!"

Su Yuan took out a few small items and held them tightly, not telling him that Zhao Huaishan actually didn't want him to come, and that he knew these little things were very important.

"Do you know why he banned me?"

Su Yuan didn't speak. He hadn't forgotten what Chunyang Zhenren had said, and his voice held a hint of confusion:

"Because he's afraid of me, afraid of me going out, afraid of me coming home..."

Going home? Old Hei also said he wanted to go home! If Su Yuan didn't know that it wanted to become human, he would have actually believed it.

Su Yuan stood still in front of the coffin, his flashlight beam illuminating the tombstone. He watched as the deities depicted on the stone tablet moved faster and faster, some walking, some running, some flying…

In the very center where it was dug out, something appeared there. Although you couldn't see it, you could feel it, like something was breathing.

"Your home isn't there," Su Yuan said, sorting through his thoughts.

"Yes, my home is at the very bottom of the mezzanine. They sealed me inside the monument, so I can't go back, and the road is blocked!"

Su Yuan clutched the bronze mirror. "Then I'll let you go back?"

The voice didn't answer. The dark figure flipped around in the mirror and stopped.

"If you let me go back, I'll leave and never come back!"

"How should I put it?"

"Just smash the monument."

Su Yuan gripped the object in his hand tightly, staring at the central stele of Yongle Palace. Something over six hundred years old had been smashed? With that one smash, the life force of Yongle Palace was severed, those murals were destroyed, and the Pure Yang Immortal was gone!

Is Su Yuan really that stupid?

"Don't smash it..."

Without saying a word, the dark shadow continued to churn in the mirror, this time overflowing from the surface and climbing up his fingers.

It feels cool and smooth, like water!

Startled, Su Yuan threw the mirror on the ground. The bronze mirror spun around on the ground and then faced upwards on its own.

A dark figure emerged rapidly from the mirror…