Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

Su Yuan quickly turned the Guanyin statue over and checked the back, discovering a small hole at the back of the head!

It was about two or three millimeters in diameter and was blocked by dust. Su Yuan gently poked it with a bamboo skewer, bringing out a small clump of dark, fluffy material.

This is... the spiritual aperture is blocked!

This was something Zhong Ming had mentioned before: every artifact that has been imbued with spiritual energy has a spiritual aperture, through which spiritual energy enters and exits.

If the spiritual orifice is blocked, the spirit cannot come out and cannot speak.

Su Yuan used a thin bamboo skewer to carefully clean the fluffy material from the small hole, then dipped a soft brush in alcohol and gently brushed around the opening of the hole.

After waiting for less than a minute, the eyes of the Guanyin statue lit up!

That brightness wasn't a physical emission, but rather a feeling of spiritual charm.

His once dull eyes now sparkled, and his lowered eyelids seemed to radiate light.

"Phew... thank you."

The sound of the Guanyin statue is as pleasant as a wind chime, but it makes me feel very tired.

"You can speak now."

"Yes, after being blocked for so many years, I can finally speak again. Sixty years ago, the collector meant well by protecting me, putting me in a box with these fine velvet linings!"

"Little did I know I was suffocated by these things, making it hard to breathe. Luckily, you found out..."

Su Yuan felt very fortunate; being able to help them was a kind of... spiritual satisfaction!

He straightened the Guanyin statue, preparing to repair the severed finger. First, he found a piece of old boxwood, the grain of which Su Yuan had carefully selected.

Similar to the Guanyin statue, the wood was carved into the shape of an index finger with a carving knife. After seven or eight comparisons, the shape and the broken edge were completely matched.

First, apply fish glue to the broken end, then align the newly carved finger with it and press it on, securing it with three small splints tied with thin wire.

After the glue has dried completely, loosen the wire clamps and use fine sandpaper to sand the seams and your fingers until they feel the same as the rest of the area.

An aged look is a must!

I mixed a small bowl of light black tea with a little ochre, applied it twice to the newly repaired fingertips, and stopped once the color was absorbed.

After it dried completely, Su Yuan felt it was still not quite right, so he applied another layer. After it dried completely, he checked again, and it was done!

Now the old color of the new wood blends in with the original boxwood, and even if you get close, you can't tell that it was a replacement!

The Guanyin statue looked at its new fingers and said with emotion, "They're all aligned! My fingers are neat now! Thank you, Master Su..."

After speaking, silence fell, but a faint, unseen ripple drifted from the Guanyin statue's finger and into the bronze mirror.

Su Yuan was unaware of all this. Satisfied, he put the Guanyin statue back on the shelf, glanced at the time, and realized it was almost eleven o'clock.

He quickly washed his hands and prepared to go to the cafeteria. He didn't need to pack up his tools yet. When he reached the door, he heard an old man's voice behind him!

It wasn't the Guanyin statue, nor the blue-and-white porcelain plate or the small wine vessel; the sound was coming from the direction of the window. Su Yuan felt a chill and got goosebumps all over his body.

"Master Su..."

Although Su Yuan was already used to this kind of ethereal sound, the feeling just now was still a bit eerie.

Turning around, I saw that the window was closed, and a blurry human figure was standing against the wall, with only the general outline visible.

It was a short, thin figure with a hunched back!

"Who are you?"

Su Yuan walked closer to look at it, and heard it say in a hoarse voice:

"I am the old man, the stone monument by the stone bridge at the east end of town. During the Republican era, a wild bull rammed into it, and a crack appeared on the base, running from top to bottom. It looks like it's about to collapse!"

"Could you come and help fix it?"

Su Yuan remembered that there was indeed an old stone tablet at the east end of the town. It was quite old, and the inscription was so blurred that it was hard to read.

He passed by several times but never looked closely.

"Grandpa, how did you find this place?"

"I came here by following the path through the mezzanine."

The shadow of the stone tablet flickered and continued, "You're repairing that bronze jue (wine vessel), this one."

It pointed to the goblet on the shelf and said, "It passed by me while playing, saw that I looked a bit miserable, and pointed me over here!"

Su Yuan glanced at Xiao Jue and smiled inwardly: "This guy's even getting into the liaison business..."

He then said, "I need to go and take a look first before I know how to fix it."

"When will you come?" Shadow's voice was a little urgent. "I'm afraid it won't hold for much longer; that opening is getting bigger every day!"

Looking at its pitiful state, Su Yuan said, "I'll go check on it this afternoon!"

After hearing this, the shadow's outline swayed, it bowed, and then disappeared.

Su Yuan stood there for a moment, then decided to put his tools away first…

During lunch, Su Yuan brought up the stone tablet with Qian Weidong, who put down his chopsticks and said:

"That stele at the east end of the town? I know it too. It's from the late Qing Dynasty, I think. It's been standing there for almost two hundred years. There are indeed cracks in the base of the stele. I saw them when I passed by."

"Could you come with me this afternoon?"

"Of course! How about after 2 PM?"

"Um."

Around 2 PM, Qian Weidong drove his white van out of the yard. Su Yuan sat in the passenger seat, with the toolbox in the back.

Less than ten minutes after the car set off, they arrived at the east end of the town. Qian Weidong parked the car on the side of the road and pointed to a stone tablet by the roadside.

"That's the one."

Su Yuan nodded, got out of the car, and went over to take a look.

The stone tablet is about 1.5 meters high, about 60 centimeters wide, and about 15 centimeters thick.

The surface of the bluestone is severely weathered, and only a few lines of the inscription are still barely legible!

It's probably a monument commemorating the construction of a bridge, with the names and amounts of the donors faintly engraved on it. Most of the characters have been worn away and are no longer legible.

The body of the stele is intact without any cracks, but the base is not.

The base of the stele is a rectangular stone base, wider at the top and narrower at the bottom, with a groove carved into the top, into which the lower part of the stele is embedded.

The crack is on the front of the base, running from the top to the bottom, and at its widest point, a coin can be inserted.

The stone at the edge of the crack had loosened; pushing the stone tablet with your hand caused it to wobble slightly, and a sound emanated from it.

"Hey, hey, hey... Master Su, I can't even stand up straight anymore, be gentle..."

Su Yuan hurriedly withdrew his hand and awkwardly squatted down, reaching out to touch the crack, which was already crumbling!

However, it looked like it had been repaired, but Su Yuan didn't think much of it or ask any further questions.

"Master Su!"

The voice from the stone tablet came from above: "Is it very serious?"

Su Yuan carefully examined the body of the stele and then looked at the base.

"We need to lift the monument and remove the base for repairs."

Su Yuan stood up and dusted off his hands.

Qian Weidong stood to the side, staring at the stone tablet and smoking. "Is it easy to repair?"

"It's alright," Su Yuan said. "We need to prepare the materials first: lime, tung oil, hemp fiber, and we also need to find a few people to help lift the monument."

The stone tablet's voice rang out again: "Master Su, please come quickly, I'm scared just looking at this ground..."

Qian Weidong found it a bit cheesy, but Su Yuan nodded, took out his phone to take a few pictures, and then squatted down to measure the size of the crack.

The crack is about 40 centimeters long and about 8 or 9 millimeters wide at its widest point. The depth is not visible, but judging from the amount of debris falling out, it has cracked at least halfway in!