The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 183: We can finally grow old together... (Red Comet Mas's Rewards Extra 2)

Shen Le thought about it over and over again, but didn't know how to go on with the day.

Looking at the date on the newspaper, it was 48, the 48 year of skyrocketing prices - they had not yet reached their limit, they were still skyrocketing, and there was still at least another year before Binhai saw the dawn...

How should I spend this year?
With silver dollars, gold, and foreign currencies, perhaps we can withstand inflation until social order is restored.

However, three women and a 14-year-old boy kept taking out these hard currencies, just like children carrying gold through a busy city in Binhai where the social order was gradually collapsing.

Without strong connections and the support of powerful people, something will happen one day! Even when Tingting got into trouble, they still haven't been able to get justice for the child...

Finally, Shulan couldn't bear it anymore and took her two children to stand in front of her mother-in-law.

"Mom, let's go to my parents' home." She held the latest letter she had received, her body trembling slightly, her face pale, but her expression firm:

"We can't live like this anymore. Let's go to the countryside. My parents will take care of us. At least, we won't let our children suffer for a few pounds of rice..."

She burst into tears again. The old man stared at her for a long time, then sighed helplessly:
"Go ahead, all of you go ahead. Take Linlin away, take Ali away too... Go ahead..."

Both her parents' family and her husband's family are famous local families. If they were not famous families, she would not have such a magnificent dowry, nor would she have fled to the seaside with her children and bought a detached villa.

However, the world has changed over the years, and the turmoil has been particularly severe. Many famous families have gradually declined, including her natal family and her husband's family.

Axin's father's family had long since dispersed, and the clan members were scattered all over the world. In the past, they were able to marry a lady from a famous family for Axin, but now, they can no longer protect her and the children.

However, the daughter-in-law's mother's family has risen to prominence and has become a well-known local clan. Living under someone else's roof is not easy for the children, but they can still stay safe...

"Mom?!" Shulan screamed. She stepped forward, eagerly grabbed the old woman's hands, and knelt down in front of her mother-in-law:

"Mom, aren't you going? My parents' family said that we are welcome to go together! Don't worry, my parents' family is a well-behaved family and will never disrespect you!"

"I know." The old woman smiled. She patted her daughter-in-law's hand, then raised her hand to tidy up her hair:
"But I'm old, I don't want to leave. Ah Xin hasn't come back yet - I have to stay here, only when he comes back can he find us, only then can he find home..."

"mom!"

"Besides, this country is the one that Axin is willing to risk his life for." The old man smiled slightly and looked to the northwest, in the direction where his son should be:

"I don't know where he is now. I want to wait for him. I also want to take a good look at the new country he wants to see... I want to see it for myself and for my family..."

Shulan was about to fall, and the two children stepped forward, one on each side supporting their mother, with obvious hesitation on their faces. Instead, the old man smiled and pushed her:

"Go, go. Take the children with you, live a good life, and raise them up... As long as you are alive, there will always be a time to meet again in the future..."

She stood up, opened her dressing box, pulled out the drawers one by one, and took out everything inside.

Gold hairpins, silver hairpins, bracelets, rings, all valuable jewelry, were packed into a small bag and stuffed into the daughter-in-law's hand:

"Here. You need to have some money when you go to your mother's house. I don't have much money, so I can only give you this..."

Shulan was terrified and refused. But the old lady insisted on giving her the jewelry, and took out the wooden combs, brushes, and powder boxes one by one, and put them in a special box:

"Take these with you as well. We are a family, and we don't know when we will meet again. Keep these things as a reminder. When you see them in the future, you will know that we are a family..."

Three days later, Shulan took her two children and set out on the journey back to her parents' home.

In three days, in addition to packing up their things, they also took photos of the dressing box and asked someone to draw a picture of it. They each kept a copy to prevent the memory from fading in time.

At that time, they agreed that as long as the country was peaceful and life improved, they would return to Binhai and reunite as a family...

But Shulan and her children never came back. The last letter the old man received was sent by his daughter-in-law from Lin'an at the beginning of the next year:

Her family had made a decision and were about to follow the large group of people across the sea. But she was forced to leave by her family, and it was too late.

She left the porcelain box, wooden comb, and bronze mirror to a distant relative, asking them to return them to her mother-in-law, but they were never able to do so.
The vast sea separated the two banks, and there was no news from then on. The old lady never heard from her children again, whether it was her son or her grandchildren...

After receiving the letter, the old woman sat there all night, her hair turned completely white. A week later, she adopted a little girl who was living on the street and was almost starving to death.

To nurture and teach. With her experience as a teacher after graduating from a women's normal school for decades, she was more than qualified to teach a little girl.

Teach her to read and write, teach her history and geography, teach her music, chess, calligraphy and painting... The only thing he didn't mention was his past, his family, his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren.

What's there to mention?
In that era, it was not a good thing for a family to have connections there...

Her adopted daughter, an innocent person, why should she get involved in trouble and danger since childhood?

Let the little girl believe, let everyone believe, that her daughter-in-law and grandchildren have been separated in the war and can never be found again...

The little girl was admitted to junior high school, high school and university easily and without any difficulty.

And when she graduated from the best university in Kyoto and stayed on to teach, the aging old woman quietly opened her dressing box in the old Shikumen house on a winter day.

The box was empty.

The dazzling bronze mirror, the black lacquer mother-of-pearl combs with a heavy appearance and a radiant inner glow, and the elegant doucai porcelain boxes were all gone, just like all the relatives around her. Only a broken old glass mirror and an old wooden comb with missing teeth quietly accompanied her, all of which were items she had bought in the past few years.

Of course it can't be compared with her dressing table, but it's okay as long as it can be used, isn't it?

In the cold night, the already aged old woman picked up an old wooden comb and untied her hair.

She used extremely slow movements, one stroke at a time, to comb her hair from the top of her head to the ends, and then from the ends to the top of her head. As she combed her hair, she hummed a ballad softly:

“Comb all the way to the end;

Second comb white hair to eyebrows;

Three combs are full of children and grandchildren;

Four combs and four silver bamboo shoots are all in line..."

Jing'an, my hair is already grey. If my children had grown up safely, we would have grandchildren all over the house by now.

This brand new country, the country for which you gave your life, has now stood up, do you see it?
Jing'an... I'm coming to see you soon. You must have been waiting for a long time over there...

White hair and eyebrows...

White hair…

Eyebrows...

The light and shadow gradually dimmed. The wooden comb fell to the ground, just like it fell into water, breaking the deep pool and also breaking the reflection of memories in the pool.

Shen Le sat in front of the dressing box in a daze, unable to come back to his senses for a long time. After a long time, he reached out and touched his cheek, only to feel it was wet and cold:

It turned out to be like this...

In that era, it was so difficult, so difficult to live a peaceful life, to grow old together with your spouse, and to have a family reunited with your children and grandchildren.

Even if we are separated by thousands of miles, even if we have no news for the rest of our lives, as long as we are alive, there is hope. Even if we cannot be reunited, at least we are alive, alive...

live!

Live!
If you can’t live to see the day of reunion, tell your children where you came from, so that they will remember to come back, remember to return to their roots…

"Old You." Shen Le wiped his face fiercely, wiping off the water stains on his face. He quickly wrote down the name, time, and place he saw in his memory, and called Youshun:

"Help me find a cemetery... Then, help me find some files and check a few people..."

It's not convenient for him to go there himself, but it should be easy for a peregrine falcon to fly over, right?

Please ask that rat shop owner to check in Lin'an to see if the family has ever come back and visited the graves of their ancestors.

Then he asked the peregrine falcon to fly to the other side and follow the clues to find them one by one. He didn't believe that he couldn't find them!
He just didn't believe it. There were no local monsters there to help, and there was no way to find Axin's descendants!
Hey, the whereabouts of your father, grandfather, or grandfather-in-law has been found. Would you like to come and pay tribute to him?

Shen Le packed up the materials and buried his head in writing the paper. He had done everything he could to make up for Professor Lin's regret. The next step would depend on Lao You!

Of course, writing a paper is also very troublesome...

"The Study on the Technology and Protection and Restoration of the Black Lacquer and Mother-of-pearl-Inlaid Gold and Silver Flat-peeled Official Leather Box Inlaid with Treasures and Gold Painting", a long, long paper, at least tens of thousands of words...

From the basic situation and inheritance history, to the research and techniques of lacquering, gilding, gold and silver flat-peeling, inlaying mother-of-pearl, and inlaying various precious stones, to the scientific analysis of the material composition of the base, and then to the restoration process.

After writing a paper like this, it can at least be published in "Cultural Relics Protection and Archaeological Science" or "Chinese Cultural Relics Science Research", both of which are core journals!

Fortunately, Shen Le had done solid experiments and restoration work before, with sufficient information and records of every step.

He just needs to write down the completed work one by one. The workload is large, but the difficulty is not high. It is just a pile of words...

He can write five to six thousand words of this kind of paper in a day!
Crackling, crackling...

Shen Le typed furiously. Lacquerware restoration, each layer of paint must wait for the paint to dry, is the best way to kill time - he has been tossed from the bitter winter to the warm spring.

If we don't finish it quickly, we won't be able to hand in a satisfactory answer before Professor Lin recovers and goes north to visit his grave!
Title, abstract, main text, keywords, conclusion, and yes, an English abstract.

Shen Le was scratching his head, still struggling over whether to revise the English translation, when he suddenly received a call from Lao You:
"Found it! Boss, we found the person! They said they were planning to come over to sweep the grave!!!"

Shen Le cheered up.

　Thanks to @书墨凉 for the 888 starting coins

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(End of this chapter)