Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

"As for where to put it later, we'll talk about that later."

"OK."

The stone lion's voice was full of anticipation: "As long as I can get out of this pile of hay, I'll go anywhere."

Su Yuan wrapped the stone lion head in cloth and put it in the empty space next to the toolbox.

Su Yuan got into the driver's seat and adjusted its position. Qian Weidong was half a head taller than him, so he moved his seat back quite a bit!

He started the car, put it in gear, and slowly drove onto the road back to his workplace.

The bread truck is not easy to drive; the gears are a bit stiff, and the clutch travel is too long.

Su Yuan drove very carefully, and the journey that should have taken ten minutes took half an hour.

Back at work, Su Yuan parked the bread truck in its original spot, turned off the engine, and got out of the car with his toolbox.

Liu Jun poked his head out of the security room and asked, "Master Su, is the monument repaired?"

"Um…"

Su Yuan nodded and entered the hall. When he reached the second-floor corridor, he saw that the door to Sun Guoliang's office was open.

He was sitting behind his desk reading documents when he saw Su Yuan pass by. He nodded but didn't say anything.

Su Yuan nodded in response and went directly to the warehouse.

He placed the toolbox on the workbench and took out the stone lion head, placing it on his great-grandfather's workbench.

"What is this?"

Xiao Jue's voice came from the shelf, and Su Yuan looked at it:

"A stone lion head, a baluster on the bridge, had been abandoned in the grass for decades, and I retrieved it."

"Is it injured?" Little Duke asked.

"His mouth is missing, and his nose is flattened from the fall."

The stone lion head spoke in a muffled voice: "I'm from the Qing Dynasty, and I've been standing on this bridge for over a hundred years!"

Xiao Jue said with a sympathetic tone, "Oh... then you're worse off than me."

The stone lion didn't continue speaking.

Su Yuan washed his hands first, stood in front of A Wu for a while, and then began to clean the stone lion head.

The weathered layer on the surface of the stone lion's head was very thick, and it crumbled easily when rubbed with a finger. Su Yuan first used a soft brush to sweep away the surface dirt, and then wiped it all over with a cotton cloth dipped in distilled water.

When you rub the lion's mouth, you can see fresh stubble showing at the edge of the notch!

It wasn't weathered, it was chipped off; there are several fine cracks at the break, extending inwards.

Su Yuan used a magnifying glass to carefully examine it again, determining which areas needed to be repaired.

A third of the mouth was missing; the upper left lip and lower right lip were gone, revealing an empty mouth.

The nose needs to be re-carved; it can't be simply replaced with a piece of material!

The nose is where the spirit of a stone lion lies; if it is not carved well, it will look like a sick cat.

Su Yuan drew a sketch on the paper, trying to deduce the original shape based on the remaining outline of the lion's head.

The characteristics of Qing Dynasty stone lions are large heads, curly mane, round eyes, square mouths, wide and short noses, and round and deep nostrils!

Su Yuan rummaged through a corner of the old warehouse and found a piece of bluestone. He used a hammer and chisel to shape the stone into a rough form and began to carve a nose.

Carving stone is different from carving wood. Wood has a grain, and it's easier to cut along the grain.

The stone had no texture and was hard, so it relied entirely on the strength and feel of his hands. Su Yuan first used a large chisel to carve out the outline of the nose!

Make it into an inverted trapezoid, narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with a slight convexity in the middle.

Next, use a medium-sized chisel to shape the transition between the nostrils and the bridge of the nose, and finally use a small carving knife to carve out the depth and shape of the nostrils.

After carving two strokes, compare the stone lion's head with the carving details; after each subsequent stroke, compare it again.

It took more than a dozen revisions before the shape of the nose finally matched the original style of the lion's head!

Next up are the lips.

Su Yuan cut thin slices from the same bluestone and glued them to the broken ends with epoxy resin to cover the missing upper left lip and lower right lip.

After the glue dries completely, use a carving knife to shape the curve and thickness of the lips, as well as the subtle ridge along the lip line.

After the repairs were completed, Su used fine sandpaper to polish it and mixed an antiquing solution!

I mixed stone powder with alcohol and a little ink, and applied it twice to the repaired area. After the color was absorbed, the newly repaired stone was almost the same color as the original stone surface.

Su Yuan turned his head to look at the stone lion's head.

The mouth is complete, the nose is visible, and the eyes are bright and alert. Although it is still heavily weathered, its spirit has returned, and it looks like a lion.

The stone lion head stared silently at its reflection in the sink mirror. Su Yuan said, "It's fixed. How does it look?"

Su Yuan waited a while, but there was still no sound. He asked, "Why aren't you saying anything? Have you left?"

"...I'm looking in the mirror."

The stone lion's voice trembled with joyful sobs: "My mouth is back! My nose is back too!"

"You don't know, with my mouth missing all these years, the wind blows in through the gap and it's always chilly."

Su Yuan was also happy for it, that it would no longer be abandoned, and placed the stone lion head on the shelf, not far from Xiao Jue.

Xiao Jue greeted him warmly, "Hey, Brother Stone, let's stand next to each other!"

The stone lion-headed man replied in a muffled voice, "Who are you calling 'big brother'? I'm only a little over two hundred years old. You should call me 'brother,' you thousand-year-old nobleman!"

Xiao Jue choked for a moment, "I'm a thousand-year-old little demon, I can't be bothered to argue with you."

The bronze Buddha statue chuckled beside it but didn't say anything more.

Su Yuan smiled as he packed up his tools, glanced at his phone—it was almost midnight—and washed his hands before heading to the cafeteria.

The bell in the bronze mirror suddenly spoke:

"Su Yuan, that guy surnamed Sun, after you came to the warehouse, he stood outside your office for a while."

Su Yuan suddenly stopped in his tracks: "He went in?"

"No, I just crept inside and then listened at the warehouse door."

Miao Deyu chimed in, his voice muffled: "I watched him walk away, he was holding a notebook and writing as he went."

Su Yuan's heart skipped a beat, and he frowned: "What is he writing?"

"I can't see clearly, there's a door in between."

Su Yuan hurried out of the warehouse and walked to the door of his office. The door was still locked. He took out his key, opened the door, and went inside. Everything in the room was the same as before; nothing on the desk had been touched.

All the important things are on my person and in my toolbox, and I never leave them behind!

He looked down from the corridor window and saw that Sun Guoliang's silver-gray sedan was still parked in the yard, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Su Yuan leaned back in his chair and sat down, taking out a bronze mirror and placing it on the table. Zhong Ming stepped forward and continued:

"He'll do this every day from now on. He won't go in; he'll just stand outside the door and listen, listen to your phone calls, and maybe even eavesdrop on your conversations with us."

"Even if he can't hear the specifics, just hearing you talking to someone is enough. He'll report your movements and say you're...behaving abnormally."

Su Yuan was silent for a moment, then said, "Then I won't make phone calls from the office anymore."

"Yes, and don't talk to us in the office. Go to the warehouse; with Ah Wu's aura there, he wouldn't dare linger outside the door!"

Su Yuan nodded, put the bronze mirror in his pocket, and went downstairs to the cafeteria.

Lunch was noodles with soybean paste. Li Xiulan rolled the noodles herself, and they were chewy and springy. The diced meat in the soybean paste was cut into large pieces.

Mix in cucumber shreds and bean sprouts, and it makes a big bowlful.

Su Yuan sat down at the table further inside to mix his noodles. Chen Xiaohe brought over his bowl, glanced at Su Yuan, and seeing his tired expression, asked:

"What's wrong? Is the monument not repaired?"

"It's fixed, but I'm a little tired."

"Why don't you just fix two fewer?"

After Chen Xiaohe finished speaking, she glared at him and stuffed a mouthful of noodles with soybean paste into her mouth.

"Cough cough cough..."