This House Can Charge Copper Fragments!

Time to get to work.

Shen Le inspected the entire residence, then dropped his luggage in the first side room to the east of the main building in the third courtyard—the only room in the entire house equipped with air conditioning. He rolled up his sleeves and began.

To verify whether repairing these items could charge the Ancestral Copper Fragment, he naturally needed to minimize repair time to see results as quickly as possible. Given this, selecting the right object was crucial.

Shen Le walked through the three courtyards from start to finish before settling on his first restoration target: a small Rosewood Gold-Painted Landscape Pavilion Screen tucked away in a corner of the west side room in the second courtyard.

He chose this piece because the restoration work was minimal. The support feet were loose, the screen body was tilted, the wood had lost its luster, and the gold-painted patterns on the surface had faded and dulled over the years.

There were no breaks, no rot, and no missing parts; he wouldn't need to saw wood on the spot or craft replacement pieces. Shen Le was confident he could finish it within a day and see the results by nightfall.

"Let's get started!"

He first shook out a bedsheet and spread it over a small table by the bedroom wall to serve as a workbench. Then, he pulled a rubber hammer from his suitcase and began to gently tap the screen.

To dismantle these components, a regular hammer wouldn't do; it would damage the piece. One strike with an iron hammer would leave a dent, two would cause a crack, and three would snap the wood right in front of your eyes. That wouldn't be ancient building restoration; that would be vandalism.

Only a rubber hammer, with its soft texture and excellent shock absorption, could disassemble the old wooden components without causing damage.

Clack, clack, clack. He first removed the support feet at the bottom, followed by the four scroll-shaped standing teeth used to secure the pillars on the left, right, front, and back.

Once the standing teeth were removed, he took off the two dark brown pillars they had been holding in place.

Next came the main body of the screen between the pillars:

At the very bottom was the wavy Water-Shedding Apron; above it sat the long wooden board that supported the screen panel—the horizontal stretcher carved with orchid grass.

On either side of the screen panel were the waist panels carved with swastika patterns.

Finally, the screen panel itself, painted with the gold landscape and pavilion, was freed from all external support and wrapping. Shen Le held it carefully in his hands and placed it gingerly on the top left corner of his workbench.

Just finishing the disassembly left Shen Le covered in a light sheen of sweat. After a brief rest, he picked up each piece one by one to inspect the mortise and tenon joints.

Ah... it's been at least a hundred years. These joints are indeed a bit loose.

But that was fine. As a master's student specializing in ancient building restoration, Shen Le was already well-versed in fixing such minor looseness.

He wiped each component clean to remove dust and grime, then opened his toolbox, took out the smallest scraping knife, held his breath, and began to gently scrape the dirt out of the mortise holes.

Since the screen was the type meant to be displayed on a table, the mortise holes were tiny—some too small even for his pinky finger. Fortunately, the holes were square or trapezoidal, not curved, so he just had to scrape straight through, one stroke at a time.

Scrape, scrape, and scrape again. The 6mm-wide flat scraping knife, forged from chrome-vanadium alloy steel, wasn't exactly cutting through iron like mud, but it made short work of the grime inside these joints.

The only downside was that he had to be extremely careful while moving, so as not to cause any additional damage to the holes. They were already loose; they couldn't afford to have any more wood shaved away!

The good news was that every part of this screen was made of rosewood. Even after all these years, the wood hadn't rotted, and the insides of the mortise holes were only slightly softened. After scraping and refining them, Shen Le took out some sandpaper and gave each component a rough sanding.

"Hmm, that should do it!"

Next was the most important part, the one that dictated the screen's aesthetic: the gold-painted landscape and pavilion panel. The panel was only a foot wide and half a foot high, yet the pattern was exquisite and the brushwork intricate.

Shen Le rummaged through his suitcase, took out some gold lacquer, selected the finest goat-hair brush, and began to touch up the gold-painted patterns.

"Sigh, it's a good thing I have some gold lacquer left... and that my professor was generous enough to let us keep the leftover pigments after graduation. This stuff is incredibly expensive..."

It wasn't just expensive; it was tedious to apply. Every stroke of the landscape and pavilion was as thin as a hair, requiring him to dab the tip of the goat-hair brush bit by bit. Even though he was only repainting the parts that had faded the most, it still took Shen Le a full two hours.

When he finished the final stroke, Shen Le let out a long breath and wiped his forehead. Even with the air conditioner blasting directly at him, a thin layer of sweat had gathered on his brow.

He took out the woodworking glue, applied a thin layer inside the mortise holes, reassembled the components one by one, and secured them with woodworking clamps. He couldn't help but reach back and rub his shoulder.

"Technically, I should sand the screen carefully twice more—once with 400-grit sandpaper and once with 600-grit... then re-varnish it at least three times to fully restore its luster..."

Shen Le stepped back slightly and looked the screen up and down.

"But, if I want to be lazy, this counts as repaired..."

He looked down and clutched his stomach, suppressing a soft "gurgle." He rose from the table, stretched his neck and shoulders, and pulled the red string from around his neck to look at the Ancestral Copper Fragment.

"Nice! There really is a change!"

On the dark, profound surface of the copper fragment, there had previously been only a faint, suspected protrusion—something he could see but not really feel. Now, that protrusion had extended and curved, looking at a glance like a single stroke of ancient bronze script.

"It really can be charged!"

Shen Le let go of the copper fragment and raised his fists in the air, pumping them with excitement.

If it could be charged, he wouldn't have to go hunting for antiques everywhere!

He wouldn't have to kill himself studying for civil service exams!

He wouldn't have to suffer through endless reviews of administrative aptitude tests and essay writing, where a full day of drilling questions made his brain feel like it was turning into a square!

Oh wait, not a square—a square with rounded corners, a bit like the shape of the copper fragment in his hand...

He swung his arms once, twice, three times. Soon, a surge of heat welled up from the copper fragment, pushing Shen Le to move his body involuntarily:

Feet apart, arms raised, inhale; arms pressed down, exhale; fists clenched, raised above the head, inhale; fists clenched, pulled down, leaning forward to the hip bones, exhale...

Arms raised, reaching forward, pouncing like a tiger; stepping, twisting the waist, lowering the stance like a deer; lifting the hip, stepping, sitting back, leaning forward like a bear...

After the set of movements, Shen Le was covered in a light sweat, but he felt his whole body heating up, his joints loosening. The stiffness in his muscles and bones from bending over and working hard in the cold, air-conditioned house had completely vanished.

More importantly, that flow of heat! That heat! Even now, his lower abdomen and dantian still felt warm—a sensation he had never experienced before.

"Could this be internal energy? Does this mean that repairing a single screen has guaranteed me the possession of internal energy?"