Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

Upon hearing this, Su Yuan reached out his hand, and as the ring approached Jue's body, it indeed became more intensely hot!

The warmth emanated from the ring and enveloped the bronze jue.

Su Yuan brought over the lamp, and the cracks on Jue's body were clearly visible under the light; there were not just one, but three.

One of the lines runs down from the rim of the mouth, and the other two intersect on the abdomen, as if struck by something.

"Who did this to you?"

Su Yuan asked, and the voice remained silent for a few seconds, as if recalling something:

"It was something black... a complete black... it's been so long I don't remember clearly..."

Su Yuan frowned and gently picked up the bronze jue. It was very light, much lighter than he had imagined!

He turned it over to look at the bottom, but there were still no other inscriptions, only traces left by the casting mold.

"What's your name?"

Hearing Su Yuan's question, the voice replied with a hint of grievance, "They call me Jue, so just call me Jue... You can call me Little Jue too..."

Su Yuan's lips twitched slightly... A thousand-year-old little noble? He carefully placed the noble back on the worktable.

"Su Yuan!" Chen Xiaohe called softly from the doorway, "Are you talking to it?"

"Um."

Chen Xiaohe coughed lightly and said, "Then you go ahead and do your work. I'll be going now. Call me if you need anything."

After Chen Xiaohe left, Su Yuan moved a chair and sat down at the worktable, facing Qing Tongjue.

Xiao Jue's voice rang out again, louder than before: "Aren't you afraid of me?"

"Don't be afraid," Su Yuan said, looking at it. "I've repaired several like you."

"You've repaired judges like mine too?" Little Jue paused for a moment. "Have you repaired other judges?"

"I've repaired other cultural relics, not the Jue (a type of ancient Chinese wine vessel)," Su Yuan quickly explained. "Were you the first person to come to me, or did you actually come to me with a Jue?"

Xiao Jue said "Oh," and after a moment of silence, said, "The things you have are really nice..."

Su Yuan looked at the jade ring on his hand. It remained warm, unlike before when it was sometimes hot and sometimes cold.

"When...did you crack?"

"have no idea…"

Xiao Jue's voice sounded somewhat dazed.

"When I woke up, it was already cracked. I can't remember how long it had been. I lay in the dark, no one saw me, and no one spoke to me..."

As Su Yuan listened, a strange sense of sorrow welled up in his heart.

"Later, I sensed you!"

Xiao Jue's voice rose a little:

"When you were repairing that terracotta warrior, that monster, that cauldron, and that pillow, I could feel your presence coming through the interlayer several times."

"That's how I found it."

"You came here on your own. Where did you come from?"

"Hmm..." Xiao Jue thought for a moment and continued:

"Where... I don't know. I walked for a very, very long time. I met many other people along the way. Some gave me directions, and some said I was stupid..."

"They say I'm already this broken, and I still travel such a long way... I might not even get fixed."

Without the slightest hesitation, Su Yuan quickly reassured it, "Don't worry, I can fix you!"

Xiao Jue's voice trembled slightly with a sob: "Really?"

"Um."

Su Yuan acted immediately, stood up, washed and dried his hands at the sink, and moved the toolbox over to get a brush.

He first gently brushed off the dust from Jue's body with a soft brush, then used a cotton cloth dipped in distilled water to wipe it clean little by little.

Fortunately, the corrosion is not severe, and the green rust on the surface is the stable type, so it does not need to be removed!

The real problem is the three cracks.

He took out an eye magnifying glass from his toolbox, placed it over his eye socket, and peered closely at the main crack that ran down from the rim.

The widest part of the crack is less than one millimeter, but it is quite deep; a thin line can be seen from the inner wall.

"Did something get inside you?"

Su Yuan asked it, and Xiao Jue hummed in response: "It's that black one... It crawled in, and it hurts so much."

Su Yuan frowned, took out an extremely thin bamboo skewer from the toolbox, dipped it in a little alcohol, and gently traced it along the crack.

The moment the alcohol seeped in, a very faint wisp of black smoke drifted out from the crack and quickly dissipated into the air.

The jade ring suddenly got hot again!

Xiao Jue's voice sounded more relaxed: "Much better...it doesn't hurt as much anymore."

Su Yuan understood that the crack was not just physical damage, but also something from the interlayer had seeped in, and that something was continuously harming Jue Ling.

He first used a cotton swab dipped in alcohol to clean the cracks one by one.

With each clearing, a faint black mist would drift out, the jade ring would feel warm, and Xiao Jue would hum in response, his voice growing increasingly relaxed!

It took almost half an hour to clean all three cracks.

Su Yuan straightened up and stretched his shoulders. Xiao Jue's voice became more cheerful: "You're even more amazing than I thought!"

"We haven't even started repairing it yet," Su Yuan said with a smile. "We've only just finished the first step of cleaning."

As he spoke, he took out copper repair materials from his toolbox: solder bars, solder paste, and a small soldering iron for bronze welding.

The main crack extends from the rim to the belly, exceeding ten centimeters in length. Soldering is not suitable for cracks with smooth surfaces; this long and thin crack requires a different method!

Su Yuan selected an extremely fine bronze wire, less than one millimeter wide and only as thick as a hair.

He cut the bronze wire into small pieces for later use. He planned to insert the wire along the fine holes drilled on both sides of the crack, drilling a hole every few millimeters to insert the wire, stitching the crack together like sewing clothes.

This is an old craft called "copper wire mending," which is similar to mending porcelain, but it requires even more skill when used on bronze ware!

Bronze is harder than porcelain, so the tool for drilling it is a high-strength fine drill bit. You have to apply steady force when drilling, otherwise the drill bit will chip.

Su Yuan selected the finest drill bit, fixed the drill body on the bench drill, aligned it with the side of the crack, and gently pressed down.

The drill bit rotated and cut into the bronze jue, making a faint hissing sound.

Drill one hole, stop, blow away the copper shavings, and then drill the next one.

Xiao Jue remained completely silent, unusually so. Su Yuan stopped and asked, "Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt at all," Xiao Jue said softly. "It's even a little itchy."

Su Yuan couldn't help but chuckle as he continued drilling carefully. He drilled eight holes on each side, aligned them one by one, threaded the bronze wire through them, twisted the ends tightly, and gently tapped them flat with a small hammer to make them adhere to the vessel wall.

Eight small rivets were arranged in a row, like stitches, to firmly lock the crack!

The other two short cracks, one about three centimeters long, were located at the intersection on the abdomen and required four metal staples. The other was even shorter, only a little over one centimeter long, and only required two metal staples.

After all the metal staples were repaired, Su Yuan used a file to smooth down the protruding parts of the staples, and then sanded them with fine sandpaper.

Finally, I prepared a bowl of antiquing solution, added some lacquer flakes, and used a small brush to carefully trace the rivets and cracks.

When the medicine is half dry, wipe it with a cotton cloth, and then rub it with pumice powder!

The bronze wire used for the new mending absorbed the color, blending into the surrounding rust. Unless you look closely, you can't tell there's a crack, let alone that it's been mended.

The whole process took nearly three hours.

Su Yuan first tidied up his tools, then stepped back and looked at the bronze wine vessel on the worktable.

Xiao Jue didn't say anything...

Su Yuan waited a few seconds, thinking it should speak by now, but there was still no sound. His heart skipped a beat.

"Little Jue?"