Professor Li scratched at the glass window, then began clawing at the door with all his strength again. "Shen Le, what are you doing?!"
"Don't think everything's fine just because the Dukang Map has been restored to this state!"
"Take out the map! Take it out and let us have a look!!!"
"Don't bury yourself in that dagger! Are you just going to ignore this silk scroll?!!!"
Shen Le really did ignore it. After photographing the Dukang Map, he directly placed it in another Storage Box:
He did not even vacuum-seal it or shield it from light. He merely kept the temperature and humidity stable, then left it there beneath the indoor LED lights.
The only thing that could be considered worthy of his teacher's guidance was that he bundled up the video of himself restoring the silk scroll, along with the high-resolution photographs he had just taken, and sent them to Professor Li's email:
The meaning was obvious: Take it and study it, study it however you wanted, publish whatever papers you wanted. No need to thank him.
As for him, he was pressed for time...
Pressed for time, Shen Le spread out a brand-new sheet of large paper. Following the dagger marks left on the Dukang Map, he began sketching rapidly.
With those marks as a guide, the dagger's width, thickness, and the shape and thickness of its hilt all became perfectly clear. He could even see the fine patterns on the hilt where golden light had surfaced to outline the dagger's remaining traces:
Extremely thin cord had been carefully and tightly wound around the hilt, loop after loop.
Looking at those fine, dense impressions, each one nearly parallel to the next, one could imagine the patience with which the bladesmith of that era had wrapped the hilt: