I got right to work.
Shen Le toured the entire house, then set down his luggage in the first east-side wing room of the main building in the third courtyard—the only room in the whole residence with air conditioning. Then he rolled up his sleeves and got to work:
To find out whether repairing these objects could charge the copper fragment, he needed to keep the repair time as short as possible so he could see the results quickly. That made choosing what to repair very important.
Shen Le walked through all three courtyards from end to end and picked his first restoration project: a small Rosewood Gold-Painted Landscape Pavilion Screen tucked in a corner of the west-side wing room in the second courtyard.
He chose it because it required the least work to repair. Its support feet were loose, its screen panel was crooked, and its wood had lost its luster. The Gold Tracing on its surface had also grown dull and faded over the years.
There were no breaks, no rot, and no missing parts. He wouldn't have to saw wood on the spot and make a roughly matching replacement. Shen Le was confident he could fix it in a day and see the results that same day.
"Let's get started!"
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First, he shook out a bedsheet and spread it over a small table beside the bedroom to use as a workbench. Then he fished a Rubber Hammer out of his suitcase and began tapping the screen gently:
He couldn't use an ordinary hammer to take the parts apart; it would damage the piece he was restoring. One strike with an Iron Hammer would dent the wood, two would crack it, and three would break it outright. That wasn't ancient architecture restoration—it was ancient architecture vandalism.
Only a Rubber Hammer, with its soft rubber head and excellent shock absorption, could safely take apart the components of old wooden furniture:
Tap, tap, tap; tap, tap, tap. First, he removed the feet at the bottom of the screen. Then he took off the four curled-grass-shaped standing braces above them, which secured the uprights along both sides of the screen, front and back.
Once the braces were off, he removed the two dark-brown uprights they had held in place.
Then came the screen's central body, set between the two uprights:
At the bottom was the wave-shaped Water-Shedding Apron. Above it was the long wooden board supporting the central panel—the Horizontal Stretcher carved with orchids.
On either side of the central panel were the narrow boards carved with a repeating swastika pattern.
At last, the central panel painted with a Gold-Painted Landscape Pavilion design was free of its outer supports and casing. Shen Le held it carefully in his hands and laid it flat in the upper-left corner of the workbench.
Just taking it apart had left Shen Le sweating lightly all over. After a short rest, he picked up the parts one by one and inspected the mortise-and-tenon joints:
"Ah... These joints have loosened a bit, just as I'd expect after at least a hundred years..."
Fortunately, as a master's student specializing in ancient architecture restoration, Shen Le was already thoroughly experienced at fixing minor looseness like this.
He wiped each component clean, removing surface dust and grime. Then he opened his toolbox, took out the smallest chisel, held his breath, and carefully began scraping the dirt out of the mortises.
The screen was the kind that sat on a table as a decoration, and some of its mortises were too small for even his pinky finger to fit inside. Fortunately, they were all square or trapezoidal, with no curved sections, so he could simply scrape straight through them, bit by bit:
Once, then again, and once more. The small, flat 6 mm chisel was made of chrome-vanadium alloy steel. It might not have been sharp enough to slice through iron, but it made short work of the grime inside the mortises.
The only downside was that he had to work very carefully to avoid causing further damage. The joints were already loose; they couldn't take any more wood being scraped away!
The good news was that every part of the screen was made of Red Sandalwood. Despite its age, the wood hadn't rotted, and the inside of the mortises was only slightly soft. After scraping and cleaning them, Shen Le took out some Sandpaper and gave all the components a quick sanding:
"Mm, that should do it!"
Next came the most important part, and the one that mattered most to the screen's appearance: the central panel with its Gold-Painted Landscape Pavilion design. The small panel was a foot wide and half a foot tall, with an intricate pattern and elaborate brushwork.
Shen Le rummaged through his suitcase, took out some gold paint, and chose his finest Goat-Hair Brush. Then he began touching up the Gold Tracing on the panel:
"Ah, good thing I still have some gold paint left... And good thing my boss was generous enough to let us take home the leftover paints after graduation. This stuff is incredibly expensive..."
Not only was it expensive, it was a pain to apply. Every line in the landscape and pavilion was finer than a hair, so he could only dab it on a little at a time with the tip of his Goat-Hair Brush. Even though he was just touching it up—and only on the badly faded areas—it still took Shen Le a full two hours.
When he finished the last stroke, Shen Le let out a long breath and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Even with the air conditioner blasting directly at him, a thin sheen of sweat covered his forehead.
He spread a thin layer of Woodworking Glue inside the mortises, then reassembled the parts one by one and secured them with a Woodworking Clamp. He couldn't help rubbing his shoulder with his free hand:
"By rights, I should carefully sand the screen twice more—once with 400-grit Sandpaper and once with 600-grit... Then repaint it at least three times to bring back its luster..."
Shen Le stepped back a little and looked the screen up and down:
"But if I want to cut corners, I can just about call it repaired like this..."
He lowered his head and pressed a hand to his stomach, stifling a soft growl. Then he stood up from the table, rolling his neck and shoulders as he pulled the red cord from around his neck and looked down at the Ancestral Copper Fragment:
"Nice! It really changed!"
On the dark, deep copper fragment, there had originally been only a spot that seemed to bulge out, visible but impossible to feel. Now the bulge had grown longer and curved around, looking at first glance like a stroke of ancient bronze inscription.
"It really can be charged!"
Shen Le let go of the fragment, clenched both fists, raised them high, and swung them vigorously:
If it could be charged, he wouldn't have to go hunting for antiques everywhere!
He wouldn't have to risk everything to get a government job!
He wouldn't have to kill himself studying for those civil service exams, doing all those aptitude tests and essay questions until his brain felt square from solving problems all day!
No, not square—more like a square with rounded corners, a little like the copper fragment in his hand...
He swung his arms once, twice, three times. Soon, a wave of heat surged from the fragment, driving Shen Le to dance around involuntarily:
He stood with his feet apart and raised both arms as he inhaled. Then he pressed them down as he exhaled. He clenched his fists, raised them over his head, and inhaled; then he pulled them down, bent over, and pressed them to his hips as he exhaled...
He raised his arms, thrust them forward, and swooped down like a Tiger Pounce. He stepped forward, twisted his waist, and sank into a Deer Butt. Then he lifted his hips, stepped down, sat back, and leaned forward like a Bear Sway...
After the routine, Shen Le was lightly sweating all over, but he also felt warm from head to toe, with the stiffness easing from his body. Since moving into this mansion, he'd been bent over and working hard in its chilly rooms, with the air conditioner blowing nonstop. All the resulting stiffness in his muscles and bones had now vanished.
More importantly, that wave of heat! That heat! His lower abdomen, where his dantian was, still felt a little warm. He'd never experienced anything like it!
"Could this be internal energy? So fixing a screen just guaranteed me a supply of internal energy?"