Whether it counted as repaired depended first on whether the Ink Marker had enough spiritual energy, and second on whether the Copper Fragment would respond.
Shen Le shook the Ink Marker, tapped it, knocked it against the table, and fussed with it over and over. It still lay quietly on the table.
It showed no sign of getting up to dance, or of talking to him, acting spoiled, or bickering with him like Little Puppet.
Shen Le picked up the Copper Fragment and examined it from every angle. A faint blue-green glow covered about half of its surface. Aside from that, the fragment itself hadn't grown, no new strokes had appeared, and there were no new points of light.
From the looks of it, it didn't acknowledge that the repair was complete and refused to grant him any new abilities.
"Then I'll just have to figure something out with what I've got..."
Shen Le let out a soft sigh.
He stood up, closed his eyes, and raised both hands. Activating the Copper Fragment's guidance function, he started with a set of Five Animal Frolics. After feeling a warm current gently surge through his body, he returned to his seat, picked up the carving knife, and got back to work...
It didn't help.
The Five Animal Frolics wasn't the Iron Cloth Shirt or Iron Sand Palm. Even after practicing it, he didn't gain any defense—especially not in his fingers.
Shen Le made two cuts. It still hurt. If there was any difference, it was that he'd used more force, increasing the recoil and making his fingers hurt even more...
"Just as I thought... Is my Five Animal Frolics level too low?"
Shen Le tried a different approach.
This time, with the Copper Fragment's help, he started the circulation of energy through his body, guiding the warm current along the Ren and Du Meridians.
After a few rounds, he didn't guide the warmth up to his eyes. Instead, he tried to turn it toward his right hand.
"Failed..."
"Failed..."
"Failed again..."
"Hey, it worked this time!"
His right hand grew slightly warm, and the pain in his thumb seemed to fade. Shen Le looked down and saw that the red mark on his fingertip had almost completely disappeared.
His heart leaped with joy. He used the warm current to grip the knife and gently push.
It helped!
It really helped!
The pain eased! And not only that, his fingers felt stronger and more responsive. Pushing the back of the blade to shave off the wood felt much smoother...
Shen Le's spirits soared. He took a deep breath and devoted himself completely to his work.
The warmth generated by the technique could protect his fingers for only about fifteen minutes before fading away completely. Shen Le had no choice but to keep cycling the energy and practicing the technique.
When his fingers hurt too much, he closed his eyes and practiced for a while. Once they felt better, he went back to work.
Scritch, scritch, scritch. Fine Jujube Wood shavings kept peeling away from the Jujube Wood Bead, gradually piling up in a small heap on the table.
One night passed, then another day. One day passed, then another night.
At last, a Jujube Wood Bead turned gently in Shen Le's hand. Its innermost layer was still rough, its outermost layer had no carvings, and its middle layer had no patterns.
Could this count as an initial finish?
How much effort had the original carver put in to get this far?
Shen Le had no idea.
But when he tried fitting the Jujube Wood Bead onto the Lead Weight, making it part of the Ink Marker, the Ink Marker suddenly sprang up.
The Lead Weight swung through the air, yanking the Ink Line out of the Ink Reservoir with a rattling whir. The line pulled taut, pointing firmly toward the outside of the house.
Shen Le turned to look at the taut Ink Line and the Lead Weight, which hovered at its tip in defiance of gravity. He really wanted to sigh.
Alas, I'd been planning to install a security camera to protect the house. Now that you've pulled this, how am I supposed to set up a camera?
These days, cameras get hacked all the time, and then people sell the footage they've recorded. Some camera software even comes with a backdoor. If it catches Little Puppet dancing or the Ink Marker working by itself, how am I supposed to live with that?
"What are you trying to do?"
Shen Le flicked the Lead Weight. It tilted aside to avoid his finger, looped around his knuckle, and began tugging him outside. Shen Le hurriedly called out:
"Wait, wait, wait! What are you trying to do? Don't tie me up! This thread is so thin! You'll cut off my finger!"
What a joke!
It was a silk thread—a silk thread! If a strand this fine tightened around his finger joint for too long, he could lose blood flow and end up with dead tissue!
The Lead Weight shifted and quietly loosened. Shen Le breathed a sigh of relief. He was still trying to figure out how to communicate with the Ink Marker when the Lead Weight made a wide loop and wrapped itself around his arm...
It tugged and tugged. After two tugs without budging him, it simply flew up and started winding around him. Shen Le was terrified out of his mind.
"Stop, stop, stop! Where are you going? Just point the way, and I'll take you there, all right?"
There were eighteen meters of thread inside this Ink Marker!
It wasn't just for woodworking. Masons and bricklayers used it too. People even used Ink Markers to draw long, straight lines when building ships, digging ditches, or laying out fields!
Eighteen meters of thread wrapped around him wouldn't quite turn him into a silkworm cocoon, but it could easily wrap him up like a whole chicken roll!
The Lead Weight tilted to the left, then to the right, as if it were thinking. Shen Le waited anxiously for a long time before it finally lifted into the air again and let him go. The reel spun with a whir, winding most of the Ink Line back in. Only a short section remained outside, holding up the Lead Weight as it pointed firmly toward the outside of the house.
Shen Le sighed. He had no choice but to pack up and take the Ink Marker outside. As he went, he carried his backpack backward, leaving a gap in the zipper so the Lead Weight stuck out. He pretended the reel hadn't wound all the way in and that the thing had gotten stuck outside. He left the house and turned left, heading for the main entrance—
"Hey! Don't pull me! That way's a wall! I have to use the door! The door!"
The Lead Weight lowered its head, like a king cobra that had relaxed a little and wasn't about to attack for the moment. Shen Le stroked it and sighed.
This is what happens when its intelligence is too low. It can only point in a direction without considering how a person is supposed to get there. It's like a completely unadjusted lousy map.
It's even worse than a lousy map. At least a lousy map will give you a route—even if it takes you through a government compound or along a gas pipe over a river that's barely wide enough for one person—instead of assuming the shortest distance between two points is a straight line!
Shen Le pinched the end of the line behind the Lead Weight and followed where it pointed, taking one turn after another.
He crossed two roads, went down a dead-end street and had to turn back, entered a residential community and then had to leave again. At last, they reached a place that seemed somewhat familiar to Shen Le.
"Wasn't this where I bought you?"
He knocked on the Ink Marker. It stayed silent, pretending it hadn't heard a thing. Only the Lead Weight turned firmly in another direction and tugged Shen Le inward. They hadn't gone far when a somewhat familiar, high-pitched female voice rang out.
"Zheng Xiaohua! Don't you dare play dead! We're getting divorced! We're going to the Civil Affairs Bureau today!"
Oh, it was the couple who had sold him the Ink Marker. Shen Le immediately understood why it had brought him here.
"You want me to watch you two argue? Or break up a fight?"