The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 545: Peel off the wall of this ancient house, and remove the wall bricks of this ancient house!
Shen Le clearly saw that Lord Dragon curled his lips...

It's really amazing that the usually calm, friendly and down-to-earth Dragon King would actually make such an ungraceful move?

His face is distorted!

"You... okay, okay." He obviously swallowed back a lot of complaints. Shen Le guessed that there might be some sarcastic remarks.

But in the end, he still picked up the small flag and scribbled two lines on it:
"If you want to purify this resentment, it's best to talk to it directly and ask it to take the things back. You have to think clearly about this. I will not and cannot go to that place—"

isn't it?
You can't cross the barrier between heaven and earth and go to that wild world rich in spiritual energy, and you can't take a boat, or a plane, or use other means of transportation to go to certain places on this earth?

Shen Le was full of questions. Long Jun did not explain, but continued:
"At most, this flag can help you hold it up for a while, giving you a chance to speak. As for repairing the barrier over there..."

As his fingertips passed over the small flag, the black color became deeper and deeper, and he could even hear the sound of water. In the light blue mist above, the scales and claws of the blue dragon also became slightly brighter and more moist.

He pushed Xiaoqi towards Shen Le and spread his hands in disapproval:
"Let go of the desire to help others and respect their fate. We don't need to get involved in what happens on that land - whoever pollutes it, whoever governs it, whoever commits evil, will suffer misfortune."

Shen Le nodded. In any case, the urgent problems he had to solve during his visit to Dragon Palace had been basically solved. As for the matter that the Dragon King was thinking about:

"Well, I think I may need to advance a few more times before I can help you repair the wooden boat. Could you please wait patiently for a while? I will come back when I feel more confident?"

"Hey, we've waited for thousands of years, a few years won't make a difference." Dragon Lord waved his hand nonchalantly and stood up calmly:
"When you can fully charge this flag with your own power, you will be able to touch the edge of the wooden boat.

Before that, there is no need to worry about it all the time..."

This is what it means to send the guests away. Shen Le quickly raised the small flag with both hands and left the Dragon Palace under Qing Li's guidance.

As soon as I got back under the sun, my phone started vibrating. There were already seven or eight messages piling up:
"Mr. Shen, how are you doing?"

"Is there anything we can help you with?"

"That inner elixir... was it separated successfully?"

Shen Le could only reply to those practitioners who had come to Meizhou Island specially for Yun Kun’s matter one by one.

Reply to Tianhou Palace, it has been completed, the alien aura on Yun Kun has been cleansed, and it is safe now;

Replying to Emei Mountain, Longhu Mountain, etc., the inner elixir was sealed and might need to be returned to the original owner. It is not convenient to use it for other purposes.
The reply to the Special Affairs Bureau was extremely detailed, especially mentioning that the firebirds were rampant in the Red Sea, which might cause some risks to shipping. Domestic shipping companies and personnel were requested to be careful...

"It has already happened." The person in charge at the naval port said solemnly:
"The latest news we received is that there have been some minor disturbances in the Suez Canal and the Red Sea. We originally thought it was caused by human factors..."

For example, when a ship was turning, it made a mistake and ran aground in the channel. It needed a tugboat to tow it, or an excavator to help dig a channel...

The excavator squatting under the big ship looked so small.
Now it seems that this is not entirely the case. In this case, our own ships will have to reassess the risks over there.

"Thank you for the news." The person in charge of the military port thanked Shen Le earnestly:

"During this period of time, you must not go to that place, including Yun Kun. We will also advise him not to go to that sea area as much as possible. Other than that..."

He hesitated for a moment, and finally swallowed back the words that were about to come to his lips. No matter what, Shen Le was always a non-staff member, a civilian, not a member of the navy.

Including Yun Kun, Yun Kun's organization can't be considered military status. Asking him to take charge when danger strikes is a bit too much...

Shen Le hummed a few times, called and thanked all the people who came to help him, then returned to Citong City and plunged into the restoration work of the ancient house.

For some reason, he had a strong premonition:

The restoration of this ancient house and the problem of the Red Sea may end up in the same place...

After all, it all has something to do with people from that area, doesn't it?

Shen Le just didn't know where the thread was, and for the time being he didn't want to spend a lot of energy analyzing it and trying to catch it.

He just rubbed his hands and plunged into the ancient house with all his heart:
The wooden structure of the house has been repaired, the floor tiles have been repaired, and even the ancient well has been repaired. The two most important parts that need to be repaired are the walls and the roof tiles...

Shen Le looked up at the roof tiles. For the time being, he really didn't want to jump onto the roof in broad daylight and in front of everyone.

He began to walk slowly around the old house, gently stroking the outer wall of the old house as he walked:
This wall always gave him a strange feeling, as if there was some secret hidden inside. He couldn't tell for sure, but there must be one!

"Have you checked this wall?"

"We've cleaned it up!" The junior fellow followed closely behind, wishing he could raise a selfie stick to take pictures of Shen Le's every move and send them to the instructors and classmates outside the mansion:
“We cleaned all the dirt off the wall, re-puttyed it, re-painted it – there were bricks that were brittle and chalky, so we gave them injections too!”

Sure enough, the junior fellow students still used traditional techniques and did not pay attention to the particularity of these wall tiles.

Shen Le nodded, and expanded his mental power, going deep into the wall, searching inch by inch:
One, two, three... the fourth. One, two, three... the fourth.

It's strange, why are there strange things on the bricks of this wall, distributed in a regular pattern?

"You guys take this wall..." Shen Le raised his finger and pointed at the wall, then put it down again. He tilted his head to think about it, and changed his instructions:
"...Forget it, you guys go out first, I'll use the Special Affairs Bureau's detector to scan it. Once the scan results out, we'll come back to communicate."

The junior brother turned around and left. Although he didn't dare to run, the frequency of his legs swinging close to the ground was obviously as fast as possible.

Shen Le barely endured it for a moment and didn't shout at him to walk slower from behind: the child is already very nervous, if he shouts again, he might trip at the door?

He raised the detector and scanned the brick wall inch by inch. As expected, the brick he marked out was a little different from the other bricks:
The energy reaction was slightly larger. Not particularly large, just stuck at the critical point between "spiritual" and "slightly contaminated";

However, there is putty on the outside of these bricks, and paint on the outside of the putty, and it has been cleaned back and forth by practitioners!

So, if we remove these shells, will the uniqueness of the bricks become more obvious?
Shen Le looked around, found a small spatula, poked it diagonally on the wall, and began to scrape off the paint and putty.

Shovel twice, shake your hands, shovel twice again, shake your hands again:
The workload is not huge, especially considering his current physical condition. What he needs to consider more is controlling the strength so as not to damage the bricks below:

Of course, don't even break the wall. But, it's annoying!

It's annoying!
One piece of wall plaster is scraped off in one second. The size of the wall is 5*5 cm. How long will it take to scrape off such a large wall?
Shen Le's patience only lasted until the second brick was exposed. Well, the brick he had marked as problematic had a noticeable charred black surface, as if it had been burned by fire;
The wall tile next to it has normal color, normal texture, and the spiritual power index scanned by the detector is normal. In short, everything is normal.

In other words, his previous perception was correct. If he wanted to reveal all the secrets of these walls, then perhaps he could just remove the putty and paint on the outside of the walls?

"Cleaning Technique!"

"Cleaning Technique!"

"Cleaning technique!!!"

Shen Le raised his hand and pointed at the wall, and began to cast a spell... cheating. He carefully controlled the cleaning spell, rolling it across the wall, removing the paint on the wall, as well as a thin layer of lime.

Don't use too little force, or you won't be able to scrape it off at all. The paint and putty are much more firmly bonded to the wall than ordinary dirt.

It can't be too heavy either. If it is too heavy, not only will the paint and putty be scraped off, but even a layer of the brick surface will be scraped off.

If it was just repairing the wall, there would be no problem. However, in the eyes of the cultural relics restorer, these bricks, the charred marks on the surface of the bricks, and the particles precipitated in the charred marks...

Whether it is burnt black ash, charred oil stains, or various other things, it carries countless information.

The most appropriate force standard for cleaning is to roll off a layer of the wall evenly, clean the paint and basically clean the putty.

Through the remaining thin layer of putty, you can vaguely make out the color of the wall tiles with the naked eye.

This way, it would be convenient for him to ask his supervisor to come over and take a look, and let the supervisor decide what the next step in the research should be!

Shen Leping remained calm and patiently cleaned the area bit by bit, just to practice his cleaning skills. Cleaning walls, fabrics, and sculptures have different requirements:
The latter requires extreme delicacy, penetrating into the warp and weft of the silk; while the former requires not only extreme accuracy and extreme evenness, but also the expansion of its scope as much as possible:
A cleaning technique starts with 10*10 cm, and it is best to double, triple, or even expand to 1 square meter.

Even so, the entire courtyard wall of the ancient house is at least several hundred square meters, and this does not include the walls of the house.

Each cleaning spell, even if it expanded to 1 square meter, he had to cast it hundreds of times. If Shen Le needed one minute to cast each spell, then eight hours would have passed in a day...

Fortunately, Shen Le became more and more skilled, and the range of his spellcasting became larger and larger.

As he walked forward, the ochre-red paint on the wall in front of him faded piece by piece, revealing the light white putty. At first, it looked like it had been gnawed by a dog, with pits and spots;
Gradually, the entire wall began to appear with large square grids, as if it had been knocked by a seal or brushed by a strict hand.

Shen Le walked around the entire old house and peeled off all the wall plaster. This time he stood under the wall and let out a long breath:
On this outer wall, from the base of the wall to a height of nearly one meter, there is a burnt black brick for every three red bricks. A little crispy, a little powdery, but more importantly... more importantly...

It was the vibrations conveyed from the brick that made him feel secretly frightened. There was fear, sadness, anger, pain, and despair...

However, there is also joy, relief, and liberation. What a complex story, what deep emotions, condensed in these bricks!

The exterior walls are like this, but what about the interior walls?

What about the other houses?

Shen Le turned around and carefully explored the three-story house. From the foundation, to the main house, to the side rooms. He scanned it with his mental power, and then scanned it again with the Special Affairs Bureau's detector, and soon came to a conclusion:

There was none in the foundation, probably because the people who rebuilt the house later did not dare to use the bricks that had experienced the flames, fearing that the foundation would be unstable and the house would collapse.
There were no side rooms either, probably because there were not enough bricks, and the less important side rooms were not eligible to be used;
The three-story mansion, especially the school on the left side of the first story, and the main hall in the middle of the second and third stories for enshrining tablets—

The foundations around the house and the steps leading up to it are exactly the same, using a mixture of old and new bricks.

As if to remember or to comfort each other, these bricks are quietly embedded in the wall, becoming a part of the house that connects the upper and lower parts.

"Boss, these are what I found." Shen Le took the photos and sent them over. In less than half an hour, the instructor arrived with his students.

Seeing these bricks with his own eyes, the instructor's face became heavy. He turned his head suddenly and stared at the current group of students with a whip-like look:

"Why didn't you find out?"

"what?"

"Didn't you say that you checked and confirmed every piece? Didn't you also apply putty and paint? Did you just leave it all to the workers?!"

"The bricks and tiles used in these ancient houses are also part of the history of the ancient houses! If Shen Le hadn't seen it, this part of history would have been completely buried!"

"We are engaged in the restoration of ancient buildings. Restoring the main structure is one part of our work. Uncovering the dusty history and showing it to the world is also an important task!"

"You are so careless and fooling around like this. What if there are special words on the wall bricks, and something is buried in the hole in the wall, and you haven't found it or excavated it?"

"I am old and will retire soon. The future of ancient building restoration in China depends on you to pass it on!!!"

Shen Le stood aside with his head down, not daring to say a word of advice. He stole a glance and saw several junior brothers and sisters standing in a row, all bowing their heads in confession, and nodding their heads.

However, even Shen Le could see that their eyes were darting around and their lips were twitching from time to time, and they were obviously a little unconvinced. Shen Le could read their thoughts:

"Three thousand yuan a month, why do you want to do such a detailed job..."

“I may not be able to find a job in the future…”

"Even if you pass the exam and get a civil service job, your salary may not be that high..."

"Now all places are running out of money again. Plots of land cannot be sold, houses cannot be sold, and civil servants cannot take on projects. We can't make much money..."

Well, speaking of it, the field of cultural relics restoration is indeed a project that is supported by passion.

It is really difficult for workers who do not have enough money, do not have financial freedom at home, or even stop working until the rice is cooked to support their work with enough passion...

He could see it, and the instructor could see it too. He scolded and gave earnest advice, becoming more and more angry.

Shen Le waited patiently for a while. Seeing the old professor's face getting redder and redder, he hurried forward, held his vest with one hand, and carefully injected heat:
"Boss, don't be angry. It's impossible for the junior brothers and sisters to carefully touch the wall brick by brick for such a large wall.

So what do we do next? Shall we remove a few bricks to study it?"

"Don't be in a hurry!" The old professor then shifted his attention back and snorted coldly.

He looked at Shen Le reproachfully, as if he wanted to say that this student's academic performance had regressed and he had forgotten all his previous working methods, and he actually asked such a question.

The words came to his lips, but he swallowed them back and directed his students who had not yet graduated:

“Take samples! Take samples first! Scrape the sediment on the surface of the bricks and bring them back to the laboratory for composition analysis!
Then, look for the broken bricks and tiles that were replaced before. If there are none, take one or two bricks of each type from a part that will not damage the wall structure and do a detailed inspection! "

As soon as the boss gave the order, the students immediately came to life. Those holding brushes took their brushes, those holding shovels took their shovels, and those holding various detectors raised their detectors...

Shen Le was free, standing by and watching them work. At the same time, he used his mental power to purposefully light up all the charred bricks and resonate with the entire house:

Did the fire that burned these bricks black leave traces in other places in the old house?
Shen Le seemed to remember that he vaguely saw the entire mansion burned down, with only twelve beams and pillars still standing...

Where did this blaze start, and where did it pass through?
He sat there in a daze, not doing any work. His fellow junior brothers and sisters did not dare to drag him down, so they had to concentrate on their work.

There was a lot of clacking here and dinging there. After a long while, they finally completed the instructor's request and retreated collectively. They rushed to the laboratory, each of them occupied one or two instruments and immersed themselves in tinkering...

When Shen Le came to his senses and reunited with them, he saw that his fellow junior students were busy, and only the tutor was sitting quietly at an empty table.

There were half a brick placed on each of the left and right sides of the old man. The one on the left was burnt black, and the one on the right was a normal red brick.

The old professor stared at the two bricks closely, as if he was reading their fortunes. After a long while, he carefully picked them up, weighed them, and then stroked them carefully with his gloved fingers:

"Shen Le, look at these bricks. What's the difference between them? Can you tell?"

"I think the black ones are Song bricks, and the red ones are Ming bricks." Shen Le was silent for a moment, then answered carefully. The old professor said "Oh" and turned to look at him:

"How to say?"

Honestly, I really can't tell the difference just by looking with my eyes and touching it.

Maybe I need to accumulate more experience, such as repairing more ancient buildings in this area, or sending bricks for carbon 14 testing or something?
Of course Shen Le would not say these things out loud to get himself into trouble. He racked his brains, sorting out the information he had obtained earlier, and answered:
"According to the information we received earlier, this ancestral hall once fell into the hands of the Yuan army and was likely destroyed and burned.

——According to the Huang family genealogy, after the recovery of the old land, the clan raised funds to rebuild the ancestral hall. So, I guess that in order to commemorate, a batch of old bricks were left and built into the wall..."

As part of the clan's foundation, thereafter, during the annual grand ceremony and even every day when the children went to the clan school for classes, someone would point at the bricks and tell them about this tragic history...

"Well……"

The old professor nodded with satisfaction. He turned the two bricks in a different direction, pointed at the surface of the bricks that had just been split, and patiently explained to him:

"Look, this color... this level of detail... these holes... you can compare them with the houses nearby... compare them with the main hall of Hualin Temple, the main hall of Kaiyuan Temple, and the Luoyang Bridge..."

Shen Le nodded vigorously. Well, it's still a matter of experience. The more you see, the more you touch, and the more you practice, the more you will recognize it at a glance.

Before he could pat his chest to express his determination, the old professor had already turned his head away:
"Did you hear everything? How is your experiment going? Are there any other experiments that need to be supplemented?"

“It’s being done, it’s being done! — Boss, there are obvious carbon black and tar deposits on the surface of the bricks!
However, this is different from the previously discovered incense burners that had been stored for a long time and had accumulated incense ash and spice tar. This one should have been burned directly by a raging fire!"

“Boss, the iron and phosphorus content on the surface of the charred bricks is abnormally high—I mean, it’s obviously higher than that of new bricks.

Considering the history of this old house, I strongly suspect that someone was burned to death in here, or was killed and then burned in here!"

"Boss, the degree of crispness and powderiness of these charred bricks is a bit inconsistent with the degree of high temperature they were burned. I apply to do more experiments--"

The students talked at once, constantly putting forward their discoveries, answers and requests.

The old professor smiled and listened, nodding his head. He just made more requests to the one who applied to do more experiments:

"Then go and write the application! Write out the experimental project, experimental methods, experimental objectives, and detailed budget, and then hand it over to me - do you want me to teach you this?"

The students ran away in panic. After a moment of silence, Shen Le also raised his hand weakly:
"Boss, I also want to apply for a few Song bricks to do some experiments..."

"Apply?"

"Can I not write an application? ... Mainly, what I want to do is an experiment on magic..."

I don't mind writing more, but the problem is that you may not be able to put this application into the project report...

(End of this chapter)