The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 439: Green Lantern! I asked you to kill the ghost, not me!

The sails were full and the rigging was taut.

The steering wheel rotated, the rudder swung, and even the ripping boards on both sides of the middle of the hull kept changing direction.

The whole ship shook, and the wooden berth below the ship kept trembling and making an unpleasant creaking sound. The two sides wrestled for a moment, and the creaking sound suddenly became louder, the berth tilted, and the whole ship rushed forward.

"stop!"

Shen Le quickly called for a stop. He leaped onto the deck. Before he could take out the copper sheet and press it on the steering wheel, the steering wheel had already stopped quickly, the rudder was still, and the waterboard stopped quietly.

Only the black wind from the cabin whistled and swirled around him.

"Do you want to go out for a drive?"

Shen Le frowned and patted the rudder. The black wind continued to swirl, as if it had something it wanted to say urgently, but due to the configuration, it was unable to communicate with Shen Le.

Shen Le held the steering wheel with both hands, trying to exert his mental power, meditating, and trying to resonate with the wooden boat. After a long time, he only had a vague feeling:
It seems, maybe, as if those decorations taken out of the wooden boat, those lanterns, dolls, furniture and so on, are more spiritual and easier to communicate with people?
Come to think of it. Shen Le put himself in their shoes and thought about it. If he were a commoner who died in the plague, the remaining attachment, pain and sorrow...

Or maybe he was one of those beings attracted by the ritual...

Or maybe he was the little bit of consciousness left by those soldiers or civilians who were swept up, hacked to death, burned to death, or drowned during the Chenhao Rebellion...

Is it attached to the wooden board?
Or is it attached to the sails, the cables, or the steering wheel?

Or, is it attached to those paper and cloth puppets that are specially made into human shapes, to those lanterns with names written on them, or to those flags with the names of gods written on them?

From the perspective of mysticism, those paper puppets, cloth puppets, lanterns, and flags provide them with possession!

Unfortunately, the tremendous pain obscured their rationality, and the long period of time eroded their spirituality.

Shen Le repeatedly entered into deep meditation, repeatedly tried to use his mental power to connect and resonate with them, and repeatedly tried to sort out the aura of the entire wooden boat to enhance its spirituality and make it more rational.

After seven or eight rounds of meditation, he finally sighed and gave up completely:

You can't wake up a person who is pretending to be asleep, let alone a mentally retarded person. The wooden boat is basically mentally retarded now, and we have to continue repairing it to make it whole...

The subsequent repair work was not difficult, but it was very tedious.

Each of those paper lanterns was damaged to varying degrees. The bamboo frame of the lantern was generally intact, but the white paper pasted on the outside had a big hole in the best case, and only half a piece of paper was left in the worst case.

Only a quarter of the writing on the lantern was intact at most. A large part of it was folded inside the paper cake, forming a black and white piece.
As for the holes, the words that were supposed to be there disappeared along with the holes...

"Hey... can I just beat these paper cakes into pulp and then make them into rice paper again..."

Shen Le complained in frustration. However, it was useless to complain. He knew without asking the instructor that it was impossible to beat the paper into pulp:
There are rules for restoring ancient paper. If it can be flattened, it should be flattened; if it can be reset, it should be reset; if it can be spliced, it should be spliced. Want to directly beat it into pulp and then make it into rice paper?
Any instructor, upon hearing this question, would pick up anything at hand and beat Shen Le into a pulp!

You can fool others but not yourself; if you can't repair the lantern, the spirituality of the wooden boat will decline.

Shen Le had no choice but to hold a scalpel in one hand and a small brush in the other, and carefully spray water on the lantern to moisten the paste, and then scrape the paper and paper cakes off the bamboo frame.

Spray some nutrient solution on the bamboo frame inside, let it reset itself, grow into a round and full shape, and wait for paper pasting;

Then, carefully spray water on the paper to soak the paper cakes, and then use a thin and flexible bamboo knife to cut them apart bit by bit...

"Oh, this is so troublesome..."

Shen Le used both hands and his mental strength, and even with the three-pronged approach, he was still sweating profusely. From time to time, he would lose his concentration and his hands would become heavy:
"Ah! It's torn!"

"Ah! It's torn again!"

"Ouch! Why is it torn again..."

After only picking up half a piece of paper cake, Shen Le was already sweating profusely and wanted to smash the bamboo sword hard on the ground.

He closed his eyes and raised his head to let himself rest. Suddenly, a fragrant breeze blew by, and a pair of hands gently fell on his shoulders:
"Would you like to take a break? Let us ..."

The hands gently massaged his shoulders, carefully and considerately. The force was not strong, but there was a special warmth that penetrated into his muscles and bones, making his entire shoulders and neck relax.

Across the workbench, strands of hair seeped into the paper, gently exploring along the gaps, and gently separating. In just a moment, a small piece of complete white paper was quietly lifted up and fell flat on the table.

"This……"

Shen Le was stunned for a moment, then looked down at his hands, then at the piece of white paper. After a while, he sighed deeply:

"Okay, you guys come on... I think you guys are much better at this job than me..."

The strands of black hair are light, delicate, and effortless. Moving through the gaps in the paper, they almost achieve the effect of "using thinness to penetrate space".

Coupled with their carefulness and patience, the effect of doing this job is indeed much better than Shen Le's!
Shen Le decisively gave up his position and handed the job of separating the paper cakes to the Luoquns. As for himself, he turned around and devoted himself to another task:
Carefully remove a piece of thin paper from the edge of the white paper removed from the lantern to prepare a paper fiber test piece, and use Herzberg staining solution to stain the paper sample fibers.

Then, move the test piece under the paper fiber microscope, observe and take pictures. After taking the pictures, send them to the junior students and ask them to help look up the information:
"Please, please, help me find someone to ask what kind of paper this is, so I can find a replacement of the same type!"

"Brother, rest assured! Leave it to me!" The junior fellow who accepted the bounty quickly sent a "patting his chest" emoticon:
"This is very simple! I'll go ask which big shot did research in this area and ask him for the original data for writing the paper! If that doesn't work, let him take a look at the photos!"

Shen Le calmly handed the task to his junior and continued his research. First, he used a portable acidometer to test the acidity of the lantern paper: very good, the paper was weakly alkaline, which meant that it was basically not acidified;
Secondly, use the colorimeter to scan a large area to test the color difference of the lantern paper: very good, the paper does not have much color difference, which means that the probability of light degradation, yellowing and brittleness of the paper is relatively small;
Next, we use a scanning electron microscope to observe the surface morphology, an infrared spectrometer to perform non-destructive microscopic infrared analysis to confirm the fiber crystallinity, and an X-ray energy dispersive spectrometer to perform elemental analysis...

After a round of research, I found that although lantern paper is quite susceptible to water immersion, surprisingly, the degree of acidification, deterioration and degradation is not high.

So it is the protection of Yin energy and water palace spiritual energy?

It's very possible!
If there is no protection, these paper lanterns would have melted long ago, let alone turned into paper cakes...

The Luoqun girls were responsible for separating the paper cakes, while Shen Le was responsible for soaking the paper cakes one by one in water, pouring paper pulp into the paper cakes one by one, and starting the healing spell to let the paper fibers absorb the pulp and strengthen them. Then, they were picked up, hung on the wall, dried, and pasted on the lanterns. The rice paper that the junior brother found, which was the closest to the lantern paper, was used to fill in the gaps and paste the lanterns...

As for the missing words on the lantern, I had no choice but to look up information desperately.

Shen Le watched the entire ceremony in his memory. Due to the limited angle, he knew what the words were on half of the lanterns. He just needed to fill in the blanks one by one according to his memory;
As for the remaining half, I can basically figure it out by looking up information and making a few guesses.

Repairing the dolls was more troublesome. Most of the dolls were made of bamboo strips and covered with colored paper. Shen Le had to peel off the colored paper one by one, paint one by one, and stick them back one by one.

A small piece of bamboo strips was used to make the skeleton, which was then wrapped in silk and satin. Thin white silk was used to make the skin, and then the eyebrows, eyes, mouth and nose were outlined.

Those clothes, made of various kinds of silk, needed to be washed, had holes repaired, and even dyed.

The blurred facial features, blurred mouth and nose, need to be carefully outlined with pen and ink, and redrawn -

After the drawing was finished, all those faces were staring at him blankly!

They were all placed on the table, or clearly all stood up and turned towards the wall. As soon as he finished adding one puppet and turned around, all the other puppets turned their heads and stared at him blankly!
Even the lanterns that Shen Le had repaired lit up without fire. The green light in the lanterns lit up little by little, like a ghost fire, lighting up the factory with full headlights, which made it look a bit ghostly.

"Are you done yet?"

Even though Shen Le had internal strength and sufficient defensive means, and was not afraid of being possessed by ghosts, he still felt a little scared. He endured it, and endured it again, for seventeen or eighteen times, and finally he could no longer endure it:
"Can you please stop staring at me! Can you please behave yourself? If I tell you to face the wall, then just face the wall!"

sough--

The colored paper on the paper doll trembled as if responding. The doll wrapped in silk and satin had a little light flashing in its pupils, which were dotted with black ink, and the corners of its mouth, which were painted with colored ink, rose slightly, as if it was smiling.

Just don't talk.

Well, just stare at him, stare at him intently, without moving your eyes (of course, the painted eyes can't move either), and use your eyes to put pressure on him...

Shen Le was so annoyed!

He couldn't burn these puppets, nor could he abandon them and stuff them into the boat in their tattered state. He had no choice but to turn around and work, turning a blind eye to them while shouting:
"Green Lantern!"

【Here I am!】

The small oil lamp was full of energy. Without waiting for Shen Le's further instructions, an electric grid had already lit up and was patrolling the studio:
[Behave yourself! All of you, behave yourself! If anyone dares to mess around or do something weird again, I will shock them! I will really shock you! ]

The bright white electric net paraded along the wooden frame. All the paper figures, silk puppets, paper cows, sheep, pigs and dogs were silent and obedient in an instant.

The paper doll turned to face the wall, and all the clothes on the satin doll fell down, no longer rustling in the wind.

The paper animals stood quietly, their ears tucked in and their heads lowered. If it weren't for the bamboo strips supporting them and not allowing them to change their movements, they would have almost fallen to their knees...

Paper tables and chairs, paper boxes and cages, paper swords and guns, all were silent. The two rows of paper lanterns on the side of the ship suddenly changed their green light into a warm yellow light, pretending that there were candles lit inside...

The only thing that remained unchanged was the paper Persian cat hovering at the lady's feet. The cat looked around and suddenly jumped lightly to Shen Le's feet.

He lowered his head and rubbed Shen Le's shoes, then raised one of his front paws, grabbed Shen Le's trouser leg and shook it back and forth, as if asking him for food.

That cute look made Shen Leqing bend down involuntarily and reach out to scratch its chin...

Crack!

A flash of lightning flashed across the sky. A patch of the paper Persian cat's snow-white fur was immediately scorched, and it screamed in pain:
[Meow——]

"Green Lantern!"

Shen Le shouted to stop him. The second lightning from the small oil lamp had already struck down, and Shen Le stretched out his hand to block it, but he turned quickly and fell to the ground.

The little oil lamp immediately became unhappy. A bright white lightning flashed across the sky, and it kept shouting:

[Why are you stopping me? You're stopping me! -- You asked me to take care of them, but you're standing in the way, so I can't take care of them!]

"Okay, okay, it's my fault, it's my fault." Shen Le raised his hand and stroked it lightly, while at the same time, he extended his mental power and gently touched the body of the small oil lamp a few times:
"This cat has no lethality and it's very troublesome to mend it, so I stopped you from chopping it apart. Okay, okay, if you misbehave next time, you can punish me as you like. I won't care, okay?"

After coaxing for a long time, the little oil lamp hummed softly, retracted its electric light, and returned to its original state of a quiet and well-behaved oil lamp.

Shen Le bent down, picked up the paper Persian cat, cut off the burnt long hair, and then cut white paper and glued it back on.

Looking closely, the Persian cat's left eye was pitch black, and its right eye was emerald green. It stared at him closely for a long time before returning to its original soft and lovely appearance with a pale yellow left eye and emerald blue right eye...

"Hey, be good and don't make trouble. If you continue, I will really strike you to death." Shen Le stroked the cat twice before bending down, putting it on the ground and continuing to work.

While working, I complain:

Didn't I say I didn't want to mend the fabric?

Why throw another pile of fabric at me!
why! ! !
Unfortunately, no matter how much he resented and wanted to give up, he had to work hard. After working hard for half a month, he finally finished everything and moved these paper people, paper horses, paper weapons, paper furniture, and even paper Persian cats onto the wooden boat in batches.

The last box of paper ingots was placed in place, and a gust of cold wind suddenly blew across the entire ship. The wind was shrill, ghosts were crying, and the entire vision suddenly became dark.

A feeling of weightlessness enveloped Shen Le's whole body. The wooden boat carrying him was sinking rapidly.

Looking up, the sky changes from light blue to turquoise, from turquoise to dark green, and from dark green to black.

In the darkness, the clear water is like a wall, supporting the clear, crystal sky.

(End of this chapter)