Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

The bronze Buddha statue then spoke:

"Xiao Jue is right, that person has something unclean about him. Master Su, be extra careful if you encounter him again..."

Su Yuan nodded after hearing this, thinking that since Old Wu had been involved in a rift, it was highly likely that Han Zhengming was also involved!

He walked up to A-Wu's shelf and asked softly:

"Awu, can you... smell it too?"

Around 3 PM, Han Zhengming's black sedan drove out of the yard. As he closed the car door, a faint black line flashed by...

Su Yuan stood at the door watching the car disappear from sight, and finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The rest is hanging on Sun Guoliang, who is coming soon!

Zhou Peiyuan didn't come to say goodbye to Su Yuan when he left; he only sent a message:

I'll call you when I arrive.

Su Yuan replied with an "okay".

Back in his office, he put his phone on the table and took out a bronze mirror. He saw the old man's shadow chatting with several other shadows nearby. They all stopped and gathered around when they saw Su Yuan arrive.

"Has that person left?" the old man's shadow asked first, followed by the other shadows, "Master Su, are you alright? Did he give you any trouble...?"

"They left without causing too much trouble."

"He'll be back," the old man's shadow said. "That Han fellow is no pushover; he's determined to get what you have."

Su Yuan sat down, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the ceiling: "I know..."

"Just treat it as a snack..."

"Yes, Master Su, we'll definitely need to come to you if we ever need anything in the future."

"It's okay, Master Su, hang in there!"

After the old man finished speaking with the shadows, he went back to muttering to himself.

Su Yuan put away the bronze mirror, got up, and left the office. In the lobby downstairs, Chen Xiaohe and Qian Weidong were talking. When they saw Su Yuan come down, they waved for him to come over.

"What are you saying?" Su Yuan walked over and asked.

"We're talking about Han Zhengming." Qian Weidong twirled his car keys. "Old Chen said he smelled something strange about Han Zhengming; Zhao Cheng would definitely have noticed!"

Su Yuan leaned against the door and said, "Xiao Jue said he's keeping something."

Qian Weidong and Chen Xiaohe exchanged a glance, and Chen Xiaohe spoke first:

"I also felt something was off; there was something about him..."

He thought for a moment but couldn't find a suitable word.

"It can't be like Lao Wu's, can it..." Qian Weidong chimed in, glancing at Su Yuan and lowering his voice.

Su Yuan knew he was afraid that thinking of Wu Zhenshan would make him sad, so he smiled at Qian Weidong:

"Teacher Zhou said he would arrange for someone to come down, named Sun Guoliang, who will arrive next Monday."

Qian Weidong nodded:

"Director Zhang told me that I had heard of this person; he doesn't have a good reputation in the cultural relics system and is close to Han Zhengming."

Chen Xiaohe snorted:

"Bring it on, we're not afraid of him!"

"Anyway, there's nothing in the warehouse that's shameful. I'll handle the surveillance footage with Xiao Liu."

Su Yuan smiled but didn't reply, feeling very gratified to have them...

Back in his dormitory that evening, Su Yuan washed up and lay on his bed, placing the bronze mirror beside his pillow. The light remained dim, and the old man's shadow said nothing more.

He closed his eyes, his mind replaying the events of the day, and eventually drifted off to sleep.

I was dreaming…

In his dream, he stood in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by a hazy, gray atmosphere, as if shrouded in a thick fog. Beneath his feet was a stone-paved road, and on either side were shops whose facades he couldn't make out.

It looks like an ancient marketplace!

A woman's voice came from the mist, very soft and distant, like A-Wu's voice but not quite.

"Su Yuan..."

He followed the sound, the fog grew thicker and thicker, the stone path narrowed and narrower, until he finally reached a dead end.

At the end of the alley stood a woman dressed in Tang Dynasty attire, her back to him.

"Who are you?" Su Yuan asked.

The woman slowly turned around, her face shrouded in mist, obscuring her features, but one could see that she seemed to be smiling.

"You fixed my cuff..."

Su Yuan's heart skipped a beat: "A-Wu?"

The woman did not answer. The fog grew thicker and thicker, and her figure became blurred. Finally, she disappeared into the fog with an inaudible voice.

"Awu!"

Su Yuan shouted with all his might and suddenly opened his eyes!

He was still in the darkened dorm room, moonlight streaming through the curtains, casting a moonlit shadow on the floor…

He looked at the bronze mirror next to his pillow and saw that the light spot was much brighter than usual!

Su Yuan hurriedly picked up the bronze mirror and stared intently at the point of light inside.

The light spot moved slowly, drew a circle on the mirror surface, and finally stopped at the center.

The old man's voice, tinged with a sense of relief, came from the mirror:

"She came to see you..."

Su Yuan's hand trembled as he held the bronze mirror: "She...?"

"This is just a dream she's sending to you for now; she can't move on yet," the old man's shadow said, shaking his head. "Right now, you can sense her, and she can sense you too."

"This is a good start!"

Su Yuan pressed the bronze mirror against his chest and could feel the warmth of the jade ring traveling up his finger.

It passed over the wrist and arm, and stopped at the chest.

It felt exactly the same as that time in the office.

He wiped the sweat from his brow with a tissue, closed his eyes, and continued to sleep. This time, he didn't dream and slept soundly until dawn!

For the next two days, Su Yuan didn't go out much or go to repair the Buddha statue.

On Saturday morning, he went to the cafeteria, got two steamed buns and a bowl of porridge, ate them in a few minutes, and returned to his office.

Su Yuan took out the bronze mirror and placed it on the table. The light was still on, and the old man's shadow stood at the front, with four or five other shadows huddled together behind him, whispering to each other.

"What's your name, sir?"

Su Yuan suddenly realized that for so long, he had only talked and hadn't asked its name or who it was.

The old man's shadow looked up at him and said in a hoarse voice, "My surname is Zhong."

"Zhong?"

The old man's shadow remained silent for a long while, then the shadow beside him nudged him before he finally spoke:

"The bell tolls, the bell of morning and evening, a bell that startles the world with its first sound."

Su Yuan read the name aloud, feeling that it sounded familiar, but he couldn't quite place where he had heard it before.

"What's your relationship with the Su family? You seem to care a lot about me..." Su Yuan asked in a low voice.

Zhong Ming's shadow flickered, as if hesitating. A shorter shadow behind him spoke for him:

"He was your great-grandfather's master!"

Su Yuan was taken aback.

Zhong Ming turned and glared at the shadow. The short shadow shrank back and fell silent. Su Yuan quickly pressed on, asking:

"You were my great-grandfather's master? What did you do for a living?"

"A repairman."

The sound of the bell was very calm:

"I'm a repairman, and I've spent my whole life working with copper, porcelain, iron, and paper. Your great-grandfather, Su Demao, learned the craft from me for three years when he was young."

"His skills after he finished his apprenticeship were far superior to mine. The Shang Dynasty statue he repaired was absolutely flawless; I still can't compare to it to this day."

Su Yuan stared at the blurry outline in the bronze mirror.

My mind was racing. My great-grandfather's master was someone from at least the late Qing Dynasty or early Republic of China!

"Then how come you're in the mirror?"

"That's a long story..."

Zhong Ming sighed and said, "It was Miss Awu who let me in, saying that it was safe inside the mirror and that I wouldn't be able to touch those evil things in the hidden compartments."

"I've been here for almost eighty years."

Eighty years!

Su Yuan quickly calculated in his mind that his great-grandfather lived in the mid-20th century, and Zhong Ming was his great-grandfather's master...

That's an incredibly high seniority!