The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 647 Evacuate the scene! Evacuate the scene immediately!!!
"We found shards of porcelain here!"

"Look, this layer of soil below is clearly a cultural layer, containing a large number of porcelain shards and kiln tools!"

"I think this porcelain kiln must be quite large, Lao Zhang, what do you think?"

Ten days later, the site where Shen Le discovered the kiln was bustling with noise and people. The excavators had stopped, and villagers and laborers stood outside the yellow line, smoking and watching the spectacle.

Teachers from Shen Le's alma mater enthusiastically pulled the local archaeological team researchers along, strutting around and pointing out various points;
The old professor invited an alumnus who had participated in the "reverse rescue excavation," and he sat leisurely on an empty bucket, exchanging a smile with Shen Le:
Dude, I've finished my mission, you can go now!

Shen Le nodded to him from afar, then slipped into a group of younger students, standing on tiptoe to listen to the professors' discussion.

Several elderly and middle-aged people walked and chatted, occasionally stopping to poke the ground with their sticks.

At these times, students would always run up and work hard, rummaging around for a long time, bringing up a shovelful of soil, which they would then bring over for the teacher to analyze.

After struggling two or three times, Shen Le couldn't stand it anymore and quickly stepped in to take over the job: the thick soil became as soft as tofu under his Luoyang shovel, snapping to the bottom and then snapping up again.

While others can make one shovelful, he can make at least ten, greatly improving evaluation efficiency.

After spending two days exploring the area around the kiln site, the group roughly determined the extent of the ruins. The next step was to delineate exploratory squares and conduct trial excavations.
The site of a porcelain kiln consists of many kilns, ash pits, and workshop remains, covering an area of ​​several thousand square meters.

Such archaeological excavations cannot be carried out by a group of people rushing in haphazardly, each taking a shovel and digging wherever they want;

It's also impossible for an excavator to simply push it across and immediately cover up the site.

Therefore, generally speaking, archaeological experts first estimate the location of the site based on the shape of the mountain, the water veins, and the orientation, and then draw squares on the ground.

Then, responsibility was assigned to individuals, with each student taking charge of a section, and each (or several) students working on a specific area, digging deeper and deeper.

Whoever digs something first, the teacher analyzes and assesses it, and once it's determined that there's an important discovery, then everyone focuses their efforts on working on it!
At this point, the experts from Beijing discussed the matter briefly with the local experts and then began to delineate the exploration areas and count the number of people.

Shen Le stood among the students, watching the old professor point to a few people, then to a different area; then to a few more people, then to another area. When he reached the sixth excavation square, he naturally pulled Shen Le over as well.
"You know what we're supposed to do, right?"

"Know……"

The younger students answered sparsely. The old professor glanced discreetly at Shen Le, seeing that he looked calm and showed no sign of confusion or panic, and waved his hand:

"Go!"

Meanwhile, the other excavation sites had already started working. Shen Le followed their example, each taking a Luoyang shovel and probing vertically downwards.

Choose a spot following the contours of the mountain, poke down, lift it up, observe the soil that comes up, and measure the soil depth:

Mark a series of points and depths on a prepared simple map, summarize the data, and submit it to the team leader.

The excavator has arrived and is digging!
"What are we digging for? — Isn't it said that in archaeological excavations, we have to dig ourselves?"

The junior student, on his first archaeological trip, looked on with curiosity, constantly peering around. Beside him, the older senior student leading the group slapped him on the back of the head.

"What are the geological strata from top to bottom in archaeology? Tell me!"

"There are natural layers and cultural layers..." The junior apprentice who was brought out to work wasn't a complete mess in his studies; he could recite texts fluently without hesitation.
"The natural layer includes the original naturally deposited soil layer, and the intermittent layers formed by natural sediments without relics... The formation mechanism of the cultural layer is mainly the leveling of old houses during reconstruction and the natural burial of ruins..."

"So, how thick is the natural layer of earth we're digging now?"

“Yes…” The junior brother hesitated for a moment, then quickly tried to recall the soil layers that the Luoyang shovel had stirred up, and the thickness that he had observed and recorded.

It's a pity he's just starting out in the field and isn't very familiar with it yet. He couldn't even figure out what the Luoyang shovel was like when he held it in his hands, and could only recall the numbers his senior brothers and sisters had written down:

"The thickness varies from 0.2 meters to 2.25 meters... distributed throughout most of the eastern half of the excavation square..."

"That settles it then," the senior brother said, shrugging. Seeing his junior brother still looking confused, he sighed.

"A natural layer that's over 2 meters thick, how long are you going to dig it out? A month? Two months? You'll definitely need an excavator!"

"Don't even talk about us now. Even before the liberation, when the experts were excavating at Sanxingdui, they initially hired villagers to dig. They only started digging themselves after they found something!"

"But……"

The junior brother mumbled softly, clearly still not quite understanding something. Beside him, a senior sister from their sect scoffed and raised her voice:
"Stop nagging him and get to work! Give him a 2-meter by 1-meter by 30-centimeter plot of land to dig. Once he's done, he'll know what it means to kill someone easily but bury them hard!"

The sound was crisp and bright, and the surrounding excavation squares fell silent for a moment, then soft laughter spread out. Amidst the laughter, the junior apprentice muttered somewhat resentfully:
"It's easier to kill someone than to dispose of the body, isn't it..."

The junior's voice grew softer and softer, drowned out by the roar of the excavator, and gradually disappeared.

Shen Le smiled knowingly and joined them in their hard work. He had carefully selected this excavation site; as long as they dug vertically, they would find porcelain underneath.

Unfortunately, he couldn't directly show off his sensory abilities, nor could he demonstrate them to his mentor.

"Here, here, here and here is the porcelain kiln, here is the ash pit, here is where the broken porcelain shards are stored, and here are the living quarters of the kiln workers..."

So, after the excavator finished its work, and seeing that some cultural layers were already partially exposed in certain places, Shen Le rolled up his sleeves and worked alongside his junior colleagues.

To be precise, the junior students were each guarding a piece of land, diligently digging, while Shen Le guarded the square assigned to him, trying his best to pretend to dig:
As the shovel strikes, a surge of heat rushes into the soil. Then, the entire patch of soil gently vibrates and tumbles, softening and rising quietly in a way that defies Newton's three laws.

All Shen Le needed to do was to pretend to raise the shovel, then bend down and pick up a shard of porcelain.
"We've found something here!"

“It’s available here too!”

“It’s available here too!”

Others work hard, digging the ground while being careful not to break or damage cultural relics with their shovels. They squat or kneel on the ground, and soon they are drenched in sweat.

Shen Le worked with ease, watching as the block he was responsible for sank deeper and deeper, layer by layer. In less than half an hour, it was already more than ten centimeters deeper than the others' blocks… His work speed drew glances and furtive looks from his classmates. Seeing this was getting out of hand, the old professor beckoned to him.
"Shen Le, come here. Dig a trench here, vertically downwards—"

Shen Le rushed over. With a few quick shovelfuls, a three-meter-long, four-meter-deep ditch appeared before the teacher and student at the edge of the hillside.

The old professor looked with satisfaction at the perfectly smooth surface of the earth, nodded, and pointed forward:
"Can you distinguish the different soil layers here?"

"Ah this..."

Shen Le's face nearly contorted in shock. On the 12-square-meter cross-section, even with all his might, he could only discern three layers:

The top layer was light-colored, the middle layer was dark-colored, and the bottom layer was light-colored again. However, without even reviewing the textbook, just by looking at the old professor's expression, Shen Le knew that this answer would definitely fail.

He had no choice but to bite the bullet and point to the soil:

"The yellow layer on top should be a natural layer, sand washed down from the slopes on both sides..."

These red, uh, reddish-brown areas, with interspersed porcelain shards, should be cultural layers; the bottom layer should be unearthed soil…

The old professor shook his head helplessly. He simply blew his whistle, gathered all the students together, and called on them one by one, from the junior to the senior, asking them to analyze the soil layers here.

Finally, he took out a laser pointer and traced lines on the cut surface in a winding manner, explaining it to the students:

"Look, the soil here should actually be divided into seven layers. The second layer is reddish-brown, hard, and contains a mixed amount of materials, including a small amount of kiln slag, burnt clay clods, bricks, etc. This is a disturbed layer caused by modern farming..."

The third layer is darker in color than the previous layer, a deep reddish-brown. The soil is generally looser. Note the difference between this layer and the previous one... It contains a large amount of kiln slag, burnt clay lumps, and a certain number of porcelain shards and kiln furniture...

The fourth layer has the same color and soil as the previous one, but as you can see, here are relatively pure porcelain shards and kiln furniture piles, which is different from the previous one..."

Shen Le could only identify three layers of the earth, but he rattled off eight layers in one breath. When he finished, his voice rose high:
"Everyone come and take a look, and remember the differences!"

The students took turns going up, looking carefully, touching, taking out their phones to take pictures, and drawing in their notebooks. Shen Le was the last one, and did one more thing than the rest:
Place your hands on the layers of earth, close your eyes, regulate your breathing, and unleash your spiritual power. Use all your mind to feel the breath of these soil layers, to feel their pulse, to listen to the sounds they evoke from ancient times…

"I...I feel...I think I understand..."

He sensed and remembered little by little. Previously, when his mental energy spread out, the porcelain shards, kiln tools, fired clay, and bricks he "saw" were all scattered specks, all isolated;
After the old professor sorted things out and pointed to the actual objects, teaching him step by step, what he "saw" gradually became layers of soil, overlapping and intersecting with each other.

After listening for a while longer, the entire structure of the porcelain kiln gradually took shape in his perception:

Here are the extinguished flames in the furnace, here are the ashes that have been dormant for thousands of years, here are the shattered porcelain shards, here are the kiln tools that were fired once and then discarded in the pit...

"I think I'm starting to understand..."

He sighed softly. He opened his eyes, leaped to his feet, and continued working. With the task at hand in mind, he had a clear direction, swinging the shovel swiftly.

Before long, a thick stack of various porcelain shards, bricks, and kiln tools piled up beside me, forcing me to stop and sort them:
"This piece looks like the bottle neck, this piece looks like the bottle bottom, this piece, this piece, this piece..."

Oh no, I can't recognize him at all...

"Don't rush to identify the porcelain shards! That's for later! First, dig them up, register them one by one, and then we can start identifying them!"

Ah... okay. Shen Le put down the porcelain shards in her hand, took photos of each one, put them in bags, labeled them with numbers, and entered the data.

After finishing their own blocks, they took over other people's blocks, and watched as the blocks they were responsible for quickly caved in, far ahead of the others.

The old professor had to call him over again:

"Come on, help me with the initial cleaning of these porcelain shards so they can be sorted later. Do you know how?"

Shen Le: "..."

The most challenging part of this job for me is avoiding taking random photos of the cleaning process in full view of others, or when no one is looking...

He was honest and meticulous, washing each piece slightly to remove the dirt and grime, so that at least the original colors, patterns, and writing could be revealed.

Picking up one item, putting down another, then picking up another, putting down yet another, for a fleeting moment, I felt like I was a dishwasher in the kitchen of some small restaurant—

It's a bit worse than being a dishwasher, since dishwashers don't wash these strange, oddly shaped pieces of porcelain and don't have to worry about cutting their hands all the time...

After cleaning hundreds, perhaps thousands, or even tens of thousands of porcelain shards, Shen Le felt that he had at least gained some understanding of the shapes of these shards and had begun to piece together the original shapes of the porcelain in his mind.

As I was working, I felt the porcelain bottle in my backpack jump violently, and then the bracelet also vibrated twice:
Shen Le, hurry and go see it!

The little oil lamp, the fastest communicator between inside and outside, has already started shouting:
They've found something good! It seems to be something related to the porcelain tower—the tower is jumping really hard! It really wants to get out!

No, you can't come out now! Shen Le grabbed the beads on her bracelet and ran. She'd only gone a few steps when a commotion erupted on the hillside:
"professor!"

"Professor, come quick!"

"This must be translucent white porcelain—it must be translucent white porcelain!"

"Don't joke around, there's no such thing as a translucent white porcelain vase that big!"

"This vessel has a very unique shape! And it even has inscriptions! Professor, look! It has the character '元' (Yuan) on it; we've never seen anything like it before!"

"I found it here too!" From another direction, someone was lying in the mud, holding up a piece of white porcelain:
"A porcelain shard engraved with the character '元' (Yuan)! Professor, we've made a huge discovery!"

"Professor, come and take a look. What does this piece together actually mean?"

Amidst the cacophony of voices, a sharp, urgent alarm blared. Immediately following, the Special Affairs Bureau personnel present blew their whistles loudly.
"Evacuate the scene! Evacuate the scene immediately—"

(End of this chapter)