Shen Le took out the pottery fragments one by one—the ones purged of demonic aura, mixed with clay, and fired once in an electric kiln—and arranged them across the table one by one.
His judgment had indeed been correct. After this treatment, the spirituality within the pottery fragments became exceptionally lively, carrying the vigor of something waking from years of slumber and beginning to stretch its limbs—or sprout branches and leaves.
Not only that, they began reaching outward, circle after circle, humming softly as they tried to find their brothers and sisters—or rather, the other fragments.
Gradually, even if Shen Le merely stood by with his hands tucked into his sleeves, without touching or picking them up, he could see the broken pottery pieces trembling across the tabletop one by one:
Their spirituality was simply not strong enough yet to make their bodies float. Otherwise, they could have assembled themselves directly—or shifted into the positions where they belonged!
After thinking for a moment, Shen Le built a rack out of plastic boards, dividing it into five or six tiers.
Then he picked up the fragment he had found first, the one bearing a strange beast crouching atop a roof tile, and placed it on the topmost tier. He took another fragment that looked like part of a foundation and put it on the bottommost tier.
He closed his eyes slightly, entered a half-meditative state, sensed the shifts in the fragments' energy, and slotted them in one by one, moving them piece by piece:
"Mm, this piece should go in the middle... This one should be a little farther right... This one should be on a lower layer to the left..."
Although many pieces were still missing, and although the fragments he had now were nowhere near enough to assemble a