Senior Brother, Save Me! Senior Sister, Save Me!

In Shen Le's cohort, the cultural relic restoration major in the archaeology department recruited 25 master's students, though they were split into seven or eight different specializations:

Restoring bronzeware, restoring ceramics, restoring ancient architecture, restoring calligraphy and paintings, restoring textiles...

Each specialization was further subdivided; those who restored paper-based calligraphy and paintings were on a different path from those who restored silk-based ones, and they were worlds apart from those who restored murals.

Those who restored ceramics, pottery, Cloisonné, and Tang Sancai might seem to be of the same ilk, but in reality, none could replace the other.

As a result, 25 master's students per cohort were not enough, and students from several years above and below had to work together.

Take the senior student Shen Le was consulting, for instance; she was in the miscellaneous group. However, the miscellaneous category was simply too vast—restoring clocks and watches, ivory carvings, and snuff bottles were as different as night and day.

"Oh? Lele? Long time no see! How have you been lately? Are you studying at home? How is your review going?

I have the textbooks and exercise sets from the last two years here, do you want me to mail them to you?"

The senior took a long time to reply, likely because she was deeply focused on her work and couldn't stop. But once she replied, she asked a whole string of questions, leaving Shen Le unable to cope, so he had to beg for mercy:

"Senior, Senior, let's not talk about that for now. It's like this..."

He explained the matter of the Devil's Work Ball, and the other side went silent. It took a long time before a message came through:

"Can't you just buy one? It's not expensive! Why would you want to learn how to make something that is both troublesome, unprofitable, and completely outside your field?"

"Senior, please, help me out! I wouldn't want to do it by hand if it weren't a last resort!"

"I get it, you've found a girlfriend, haven't you?" The senior sent a big smiley face and fired off questions like a machine gun:

"What's her name? Where is she from? Which school? What's her major? How tall is she and how much does she weigh? Do you have a photo to show me?"

"Senior!!!" Shen Le typed with a mournful face:

"Please, I'm begging you!"

"Alright, alright, I won't tease you anymore." The senior quickly sent another smiley face:

"This... it's not as hard as it sounds. It just so happens that a new junior has joined, so I'll send the problem to him and have him build a model to calculate it! It's perfect, he might even be able to publish a paper or something..."

Whether it was the senior brother sending samples for inspection or the senior sister squeezing work out of her junior, both required time.

Taking advantage of this gap, Shen Le scrubbed and washed the Ink Marker, then began to grind away at its surface, sanding off the peeling, residual lacquer:

"Squeak... squeak... squeak, squeak, squeak..."

"Ah, this is no way for a human to live." Once the first round of sanding was finished, Shen Le retreated outside the room, took off his KN95 mask, and patted himself from top to bottom, then from bottom to top.

At this very moment, the workspace was still filled with a hazy mist drifting about—all pulverized paint dust; the PM2.5 index was definitely over 500:

"You have to wear a mask to sand, wear a mask to spray paint, wear a mask to do anything. In the whole house, only one room has air conditioning; if you want to take off your mask, you have to get out of the air-conditioned room..."

Ah, he needed to find another way to increase his income.

Living on 2,600 a month, when would he ever be able to afford air conditioning? Even a halfway decent unit cost more than 2,000!

Nevertheless, Shen Le wasn't in the mood to scour the streets for work right now, like going to second-hand shops or old furniture stores and asking one by one:

"Hello, do you need any of these old pieces of furniture or ornaments refurbished? Professional service, low fees, high efficiency~~~"

He opened the window, set up an old electric fan he'd picked up at the second-hand market, and blew the paint dust in the room out with all his might. Then, he wandered out for a stroll:

Something like a Devil's Work Ball definitely required practice.

The almighty Taobao sold 20mm solid wooden balls for 1.2 yuan for ten, though the shipping cost was 6 yuan.

He might as well walk around the street to see if there were any ready-made, cheap wooden balls he could buy, and while he was at it, look for any opportunities to make money!

Walking out of the Old Street, the vegetable market was only a few steps away. Inside the sheds, they sold vegetables, and outside the sheds stretched a long street with narrow shops packed side by side.

Goods hung on doors, piled on shelves, or stuffed into snake-skin bags were almost spilling out onto the road.

Shen Le walked down half the street and saw large bundles of yellow cloth shoes with rubber soles, bags of cotton yarn gloves, blue cloth shirts in the style of the last century, black cloth trousers...

Of course, there were also vegetable peelers as thin as tin sheets, pungent fake camphor wood beads soaked in inferior perfume, and ordinary Rosewood-style walking sticks made of Miscellaneous Wood with very poorly applied colors, and so on.

He spent two yuan to buy a pack of ten 20mm solid wooden balls, a bag of KN95 masks, one roll each of 200, 400, and 600-grit sandpaper, and a pile of miscellaneous items.

As for an industrial dust mask, one labor protection store did have them in stock. Shen Le picked one up, flipped it over, and tried it on his head, but he didn't dare buy it.

In these strange shops in small places, you never knew if you were buying a fake. Since it concerned his own health, he'd rather wait until he had money and buy it from a Tmall Flagship Store—that was more reliable!

After buying his practice tools, Shen Le wandered past the vegetable market and headed toward the other half of the street.

As he walked, he saw two familiar-looking figures pulling and tugging at each other, arguing incessantly. The woman held the man with one hand and a shoebox in the other, shaking it vigorously:

"Look at these shoes you bought! Return them!"

"What's wrong with these shoes!" The man leaned back, trying to stand his ground, but he was still dragged along by the woman, stumbling forward.

Just as he wanted to argue back, his wife's words poured down on his head like a torrential rain:

"The soles are soft as mush! They wore through in a month!

And don't give me that 'brand name' nonsense. I've told you so many times, brand names are the most meaningless thing!

And they cost 150 a pair!

Buying those Liberation Shoes is the best; they're cheap and durable. Ten yuan a pair, and they last half a year! With 140 yuan, I could buy you several pig trotters!"

"Sigh, I have to do all the shopping myself. The moment I take my eyes off you, you go and cause trouble. Tell me, what use are you anyway..."

"But you were the one who went to the supermarket, and you should dress a bit nicer..." the husband was still struggling. Without a word, his wife dragged him to the entrance of a shoe store, slammed the shoebox onto the counter with an aggressive air, and declared:

"I want a refund!"

The husband shrank back, clearly disapproving of his wife's behavior yet too afraid to resist. The wife wouldn't let it go; she whipped her head around and roared at him:

"What are you looking at! Tell them to refund the shoes!"

Shen Le watched the couple from a distance, shaking his head slightly.

As for this pair, the wife was clearly thinking of her husband, trying every possible way to save money for the household, yet her tongue was unforgiving.

The husband was also thinking of his wife, but as he was dragged around like this and scolded in public, who knew if he harbored any resentment?

Lost in thought, he slowly approached, watching the commotion from outside the shop door.

The wife's combativeness was truly astonishing. After arguing with the clerk for ages, hurling insults and threatening to report them to the industrial and commercial authorities, she actually managed to get the shoes returned.

She walked out of the shop with her head held high, but suddenly caught sight of Shen Le. She froze for a moment and asked:

"It's you? The one who bought our woodworking tools yesterday... is everything alright at your place?"