Graduation Means Unemployment, Then a Sky-Dropped Inheritance

"Rustle, rustle, rustle..."

Shen Le gripped a piece of 1200-grit sandpaper, meticulously sanding the intricate carvings on the window frame before him.

Once, twice, three times—he didn't set the sandpaper down until the carved crane feathers on the restored lattice displayed a flawless, smooth finish.

He stepped two meters back from the workbench, pulled off his KN95 respirator, and gasped for air, his chest heaving.

The window lattice was finally repaired.

Finally, he had escaped the hell of sanding!

In the trade of cultural relic restoration, there is a saying: five days for cleaning, one day for the base, three days for shaping, and ten days for sanding. Whether it's wood, pottery, porcelain, or bronze, everything must pass through this sanding purgatory.

A round of coarse sandpaper, a round of fine, and another round of even finer. Flat surfaces were manageable, but when encountering those complex carvings, one had to sand them bit by bit by hand, which took an eternity.

Not to mention that during the sanding process, to avoid inhaling fine dust and developing pneumoconiosis, one really ought to wear a respirator. Wearing a KN95 mask for eight hours a day—well, anyone who has done it knows the feeling.

Regardless, the day's restoration work was finished. Shen Le took a few deep breaths, tugged at the red string around his neck, and pulled out a mottled Copper Fragment.

Observing it closely, he saw that the faint cyan layer on the Copper Fragment had extended further, now covering the entire surface. Shen Le's eyes lit up. He gripped the Copper Fragment tightly and swung it forward with force.

"Hah!"

He bowed his head, pressed the Copper Fragment against the back of his neck, and pushed down hard. A surge of heat erupted, spreading from the back of his neck to the base of his skull and down to his shoulders. For a moment, Shen Le felt as if he could hear his bones clicking.

"Ah... that feels good..."

When he lifted his head again, his neck felt supple and his shoulders relaxed. The lingering stiffness in his neck and shoulders, accumulated from long hours of hunching over his desk, had completely vanished.

"Good stuff, truly good stuff... I just don't know when I'll be able to use it again..."

This Copper Fragment had been passed down by his ancestors. It was about half the size of a palm and roughly rectangular. One end had a smooth, curved edge with rounded corners, while the other end was jagged and uneven in thickness, looking at a glance as if it had snapped off from something larger.

He had worn this trinket his entire life. Since it had no hole, he kept it wrapped in a knot tied with a red string. It had remained that way from his earliest memories through college. It wasn't until he started graduate school and began restoring cultural relics that it somehow began to change.

The first time, he had just finished restoring a wooden bracket set when the Copper Fragment became covered in a cyan glow. He happened to cut his finger, and the moment it touched the fragment, the wound healed instantly.

The second time, he had worked diligently for half a year, restoring dozens of items like wooden door frames, window frames, and railings, before the cyan glow fully saturated the fragment. He pressed the fragment against his eyes, and after the heat surged through, his nearsightedness was restored to 5.0 vision.

This third time was the current one; he had almost reached graduation before he saved up enough energy. Naturally, the effect was powerful enough—the stiffness and soreness in his neck and shoulders, which might have already developed into a straightened cervical curve, calcified ligaments, or frozen shoulder, felt completely healed.

This Copper Fragment was absolutely a treasure!

Even if only to have a safety net for future illnesses, he had to work hard to charge it up!

The problem now was:

He was about to graduate. Where would he find the opportunity to restore so many cultural relics in the future?

Restore new things?

Sorry, it seemed that wouldn't charge the Copper Fragment. To save up energy, he had already turned himself into a handyman, repairing bags, shoes, leaky faucets, and sewing mosquito nets for his classmates...

He tried to repair anything he could get his hands on, but after three years, it seemed only cultural relics could trigger the changes in the Copper Fragment and cause the cyan glow on its surface to spread even a tiny bit.

"So, I have to keep working hard to pass the civil service exams... It seems only by getting into a museum, and specifically in the cultural relic restoration department, can I come into contact with a large number of relics waiting to be repaired..."

Unfortunately, during Shen Le's three years of graduate school, he spent one year taking classes at school and nearly two years working outside with his advisor.

They had restored five or six ancient buildings alone, and the total area was enough that his advisor and the senior students working with him could each afford a three-bedroom apartment—

Even with the help of seniors and juniors to dismantle old wood and bricks, clean, carve, paint, and sand, they still had to work from dawn to dusk and back again. It wasn't quite 007, but it was definitely more intense than 996.

As for winter and summer breaks?

They didn't exist!

Under such a workload, finding time to study for the civil service exams was impossible, at least for Shen Le.

Shen Le forced himself to lower his head and open the Essays and Model Answers Collection, gritting his teeth as he read. After only half a page, he felt dizzy, his head ached, his brain swelled, and his blood pressure spiked.

Read one page, and he wanted to smash his head against the desk; read two, and he wanted to bang his head against the wall...

Under these conditions and with this level of preparation, succeeding this year was impossible. Fortunately, he still had some savings and could stay home for another half year to study for next year's exams.

"Ahhhhh... Copper Fragment, Copper Fragment, can you help me study? At least give me a 'photographic memory' buff... Huh? Copper Fragment, you?"

He pulled the Copper Fragment out again and looked down, slightly surprised.

After being used this time, the Copper Fragment didn't lose all its luster like the previous two times. Instead, the glow retracted, becoming deep and obscure.

The jagged edge had become much smoother, as if it had "grown" a bit, and in the center of the darkness, something seemed to be slightly protruding...

The Copper Fragment had changed? How was he supposed to use this new change?

Shen Le pinched the Copper Fragment, looking at it left and right, but couldn't figure it out. He pressed it a few times—no reaction. He tried biting it—no reaction. As for cutting his hand to drip blood on it, he had tried that before, and it was useless...

Shen Le had no choice but to close his book, lock the door, finish work, and go out to forage for food. While searching for dinner, he bought a few skewers of grilled meat and gnawed on them as he walked. Half a street away, a young ginger cat suddenly darted out from an alley and rubbed against his feet with a "meow."

To have a cat and not pet it would be a waste of heaven's gifts, especially a kitten. Shen Le naturally bent down and saw the ginger cat, no more than three or four months old, pressing against his calf and shivering uncontrollably. He looked up to see several stray dogs darting out, surrounding them from a distance in a semicircle and barking wildly at the kitten.

"Get lost! Get away!"

Shen Le half-bent over, his right hand curled into a hollow fist, pretending to pick up a stone to throw at the dogs. After he scolded them several times, the lead black dog finally whined, tucked its tail, and ran off. Shen Le relaxed slightly and patted the ginger cat's head.

"It's okay, it's okay now..."

The orange cat circled his legs, rubbing against them and refusing to leave. Shen Le simply stroked it from head to tail, scratching its chin and the base of its tail. Beneath his fingertips, the cat's ribs protruded one by one; it was a far cry from the "chubby orange" stereotype.

"Sigh, you've had a rough time, haven't you..."

Shen Le crouched down on the street corner, unwrapped the grilled meat skewers in his hand, and fed them to the cat piece by piece.

As he fed it, he took a closer look. One of the cat's hind legs was bloodied and dragged along the ground, clearly unable to bear any weight. Its fur was patchy and bald in places, and one eye was so crusted over it could barely open.

"Tsk... in your state, a vet visit is going to cost a fortune... these days, treating a cat is even more expensive than treating a human..."

Shen Le sighed and patted the cat's head.

When people see something pitiful, they can't help but want to intervene, yet they lack the means—just the check-up, anti-inflammatories, and perhaps a bath would already cost over a hundred yuan. If, heaven forbid, the cat had feline panleukopenia, FIP, or a fracture...

Or if it needed to be neutered...

The costs would quickly spiral into the thousands. Poor him, his monthly living expenses were only fifteen hundred yuan; he simply couldn't afford to spend months of his budget to save a stray cat.

Besides, he couldn't just use "I'm a student, give me a discount" as an excuse to demand lower prices from a pet hospital—the hospital didn't owe him anything!

Fortunately, fortunately, he still had his golden finger; perhaps it could be of some use...

Shen Le took the Copper Fragment from around his neck and gently touched it to the cat's leg. Visible to the naked eye, the wound on the cat's hind leg began to stop bleeding and contract, the leg's shape corrected itself, and it stood firmly on the ground.

Following that, new fur began to sprout, the crust on its eyes vanished, and a pair of emerald eyes sparkled brightly. It let out a "meow" at Shen Le, snatched the meat skewer from his hand, and leaped into the dark alley.

"Hey! My barbecue..."

Shen Le instinctively reached out, paused, then pulled his arm back and shook his head with a smile. Forget it, forget it; a skewer of meat could be his treat. The orange cat looked like it hadn't had a full meal in a long time.

He stood where he was, watching the orange cat sprint away until it disappeared into the distance. After watching for a moment, he couldn't help but rub his eyes.

"Did I see that wrong... why does that orange cat's... tail look like it's getting bigger?"

Although he found it strange, there was no way Shen Le could chase after it to take a closer look. His stomach was the priority; he turned around leisurely and continued on his way to find food.

As for the orange cat, it sprinted all the way, crossing two alleys. By the time it vanished into the woods, it had already shifted into the form of a fox. It was then scooped up by a pair of trembling hands, which rubbed its recently injured leg and its large tail.

"It's alright, it's alright... this tribulation has passed, everything will go smoothly from here on out..."

Shen Le knew nothing of what happened to the orange cat. He was busy finishing up his work, flying back to the main campus of Beijing University from an out-of-town ancient architecture site, taking graduation photos, picking up his diploma, and packing his things...

He was swamped.

In the meantime, he had submitted dozens of resumes, but regrettably, not a single one had been accepted. Living in Beijing was no easy feat; if he was just going to study for civil service exams, he might as well go home and hole up—it was the most cost-effective option.

On the day Shen Le finished packing everything and resigned himself to returning to his hometown, he received a phone call.

"Is this Mr. Shen? I am your grand-uncle's lawyer. Regarding the old gentleman's estate, there are some matters we need to discuss with you in person."