Restoring cultural relics: Starting with the crying Tang Dynasty figurines

Su Fu blinked in confusion, as if trying to recall, but after thinking for a long time, he only shook his head:

"I don't remember. Yuan'er, have you eaten yet? Your mom hasn't had noodles in ages, has she?"

Seeing his father like this, Su Yuan felt a pang of sadness. He didn't press further, but stood up and patted Su Fu's arm.

"Dad, I'm going to eat now. You can come later too."

Su Fu hummed in agreement and continued combing the porcelain cat.

My mother's noodles were rolled out perfectly, thin yet chewy, topped with tomato and egg sauce and sprinkled with cilantro.

Su Yuan ate two large bowls in one go.

"Mom, it's been so long since I've had such delicious handmade noodles!"

"Why are you suddenly so sweet-talking, kid?"

Su Yuan chuckled as he finished his noodles. Liu Xiuyun cleared the table and was about to wash the dishes when Su Yuan leaned against the kitchen doorframe and asked:

"Mom, did you put away those papers Dad wrote on before?"

Liu Xiuyun's hand trembled slightly, and she almost dropped the bowl.

Why did you suddenly ask that?

"Just asking casually."

Su Yuan tried to make his tone sound casual: "I just wanted to see what my dad used to write."

Liu Xiuyun looked at her son for a few seconds, put the bowl in her hand into the sink, and wiped her hands with her apron.

Walking into the living room, I pulled out an old tin box from the bottom of the cabinet.

The tin box was an old-fashioned biscuit box with a red background and yellow floral pattern. Liu Xiuyun placed the tin box on the coffee table and opened the lid.

It contained a thick stack of papers, some of the edges of which were crumpled and curled.

The papers varied in size; some were torn from notebooks, some were from inside cigarette packs, and a few were cut from blank sections of newspapers.

All of them were covered with dense writing, written with fountain pens, ballpoint pens, and pencils, with handwriting ranging from neat to messy.

"These were all written in the days before your father's accident."

Liu Xiuyun spoke softly, afraid that Su Fu would hear: "He locked himself in his room for those few days and wouldn't let anyone in."

"He stayed inside for three days and three nights. On the last night, I heard him crying in the room..."

Liu Xiuyun's eyes reddened as she spoke:

"When I went in the next morning, he was sitting in the middle of these papers, and his eyes looked strange."

Su Yuan casually picked up the top sheet of paper and saw that it read:

"The interlayer isn't a place, it's time. Time stacked together becomes the interlayer. Those who go in don't go somewhere else, they go to another time..."

The following line of text has become much more illegible:

"I saw it, I saw myself, so many of myself! They were all looking at me, laughing, laughing ahhhhh..."

The writing stops here, and the content on the next page is unrecognizable, consisting only of a series of circles and lines, as if drawn unconsciously by someone on the verge of collapse.

Su Yuan composed himself and turned the pages one by one.

He can understand some of the content on the paper, but he can't understand some of it at all!

Those who could understand it were all talking about the mezzanine, how to get in, what they would see once inside, and how to get out.

What my father encountered was far beyond his ability to cope…

On one of the pages, Su Yuan saw a familiar name, and the content was:

"Su Demao said that the door to the hidden compartment wasn't opened with a key, but with blood... the blood of the Su family! The jade ring was the key, but it wasn't the key that opened the door; it was the thing it was protecting..."

Su Yuan stared at those few lines of text and read them several times.

The jade ring is a key, but it's not the key that opens the door; it's the thing it protects.

"What is that thing?"

Su Yuan continued flipping through the box, and when he reached the very bottom, he found a piece of cardboard. He pulled it out and discovered it was an old, folded map!

Upon unfolding it, I realized it was a topographical map of the back mountain, drawn in pencil with simple lines but accurate proportions.

The map marked the location of the ancestral graves, and a small circle was drawn next to the graves with the word "left" written next to it.

It's exactly the same as the enlarged version of the word I saw in the bottom right corner of my great-grandfather's notebook.

Su Yuan folded the map and put it back into the tin box along with the other papers.

"Mom, can I take these papers with me?"

Liu Xiuyun looked at him and nodded: "Take it. These things have been sitting in the house for so many years, and I've never known what to do with them!"

Su Yuan closed the metal box and put it into his backpack.

"Mom, I want to go to the back mountain later."

"Go ahead, but be back before dark."

Su Yuan went into the inner room and sat with Su Fu for a while. Then he simply took a few tools, slung his bag over his shoulder, and went out the door, walking along the dirt road behind the village towards the back mountain.

The hill behind isn't very high, but there are quite a few pine and cypress trees growing there, making it look like a green steamed bun from a distance!

The Su family's ancestral graves are located on a small flat area halfway up the mountain, surrounded by a low stone wall and planted with several old cypress trees.

This tree is probably older than Su Yuan's grandfather.

Su Yuan walked up the stone steps and arrived at the ancestral graves more than twenty minutes later.

The tombstone is made of bluestone, and the inscription has been blurred by wind and rain, but the words "Ancestors of the Su Family" are still clear!

The grave mounds were overgrown with grass, and neither my father nor my mother had the energy to tend to them.

Su Yuan clasped his hands together, knelt down, bowed, and then stood up to look at the stone steps in front of the grave, where two stone lions were squatting on either side.

Su Yuan stepped back a little further, his gaze shifting back and forth between the two stone lions.

The two stone lions are about half a meter tall, with a simple and rustic style and bold lines. The lion on the left has its mouth slightly open, while the lion on the right has its mouth tightly closed!

They seemed to be talking about something, one on the left and one on the right.

My great-grandfather's notes and my father's map both marked "left".

Su Yuan walked to the stone lion on the left, squatted down, and reached out to touch the stone body of the lion.

The stone lion's surface is severely weathered, and its facial features are somewhat blurred, but you can still see its former splendor.

"Is this stone lion solid or hollow?"

Su Yuan tapped the lion's body with his hand. It was mostly solid, and when he tapped its belly, it made a dull "thump-thump" sound.

It's not solid, it's hollow!

He circled the stone lion again and saw a thin line on its belly, like a seam left by something covering it.

Su Yuan lay down and touched the seam with his hand. It felt uneven, indicating that it was the mark of two stones being pieced together.

The joints were filled with a layer of mortar, similar to the lime and tung oil he used to repair the stone tablet.

This is my great-grandfather's cooking!

Su Yuan took out the brass key from his backpack, but didn't use it right away. He first used a small soft scraper to remove some of the mortar from the joint.

The mortar has been dry for so many years that it's hard as stone and impossible to scrape off.

He then took out a small flathead screwdriver from the side pocket of his backpack and began to cut along the seam bit by bit.

The mortar crumbled into powder and fell out of the joints in a swishing motion.

Su Yuan worked for more than ten minutes, sweating profusely, and finally cleaned a shallow groove in the seam!

He looked closer and discovered that the lion's belly was not completely hollow, but rather had a square groove covered by a thin stone.

The seam is where this stone connects to the lion's body!