The old things I repaired have become fine

Chapter 651 What?! Porcelain Tower, you've found your home! You want to burn it again at your house?!

Immortal Master!

A celestial master?!
Shen Le frantically waved his arms and kicked his legs, trying to control his "body" and peek out. Was it true that the further back in time one went, the higher the probability of encountering cultivators?
If the immortal master who came this time is real, is he the one who placed an order with the Lu family's porcelain kiln to make soul-suppressing figurines?

Do soul-suppressing figurines truly possess the power to suppress souls?

Shen Le had endless questions to ask. Unfortunately, this time, his motor and visual functions remained disabled; no matter how much he struggled, he couldn't move an inch.

This made Shen Le wonder what state he, or part of this porcelain tower, was in that made him so powerless.

Surely it's not still a packet of porcelain powder in his arms, is it?!
Fortunately, the conversation between the "immortal master" and the old man and the boy had resumed, so Shen Le focused his attention on listening to the old man's pitiful pleas and the "immortal master" pacing back and forth.
“My master observed the celestial phenomena last night and saw resentful energy soaring into the sky from the Pleiades and Hippocrates regions, mixed with demonic energy, and sent me here to investigate. It turns out that someone smashed the soul-suppressing terracotta warrior, allowing the resentful energy to escape… Let me take a look…”

The sound of boots stepping on broken porcelain echoed for a while before finally stopping, replaced by the murmur of "Immortal Master".

The speech was erratic, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes high, sometimes low, with an extremely strange tone, like chanting some scripture or incantation, or perhaps performing a spell.
After reciting for about two minutes, his voice suddenly rose, and he shouted:
"Edict!"

The sound of porcelain shards striking and rubbing against each other mingled together, and from within, one could vaguely hear crying, wailing, pleading, cursing, and even the heavy sound of water falling into the water carried on the wind.

After a long while, the "immortal master" let out a long sigh. With his sigh, a large number of porcelain shards fell to the ground with a clattering sound.

The immortal master sighed softly:

"No. We can only bring back too few, and even if we could, we couldn't seal them away or appease them—we still need to burn the Soul-Suppressing Figurines. If this resentment can't be contained, there will surely be a great calamity in the world next year—"

"Old man, and this boy, are you sure you can burn them?"

"I……"

The boy hesitated, remaining silent for a long time. The old man said in a mournful voice:

“Young master is young and hasn’t learned all the family’s skills yet, so I can only help out—the kiln owner, the kiln owner and his whole family, they’ve all been taken away, they say, to be used as a sacrifice to the river…”

"Which direction did they go?"

"there……"

"I gonna go see!"

Another whooshing sound, a long, eerie sound tearing through the air, came from near and faded into the distance. Shen Le almost wanted to stick his head out and follow the strange departure:
Is he a sword immortal?

Is it traveling by sword?
The sword immortal he met in the Tang Dynasty could only fly a hundred steps on his sword, not carry him with him!

The speed of sword flight was indeed extremely fast. That "immortal master" departed late at night and returned at cockcrow. Landing on the ground, his voice was sorrowful and powerless:
"I'm too late. Those beasts, those beasts... Ugh!"

The old man and the boy both cried out in anguish, wailing loudly. The "immortal master," stepping on the porcelain shards, made two click-clacking circles, then sighed softly:

"So, the Lu family's porcelain kiln, the only ones left who can fire the Soul-Suppressing Figurines... are you two?"

“Only the young master remains… only the young master might be able to recreate the Soul-Suppressing Figurine,” the old man replied, his voice trembling. The “Immortal Master” pondered for a long while, then gestured with his hand:
"We can't stay here any longer. What do we need to make porcelain figurines? Take everything with you, and come with me!"

"We need... we need clay, we need glaze, we need firewood, we need... kilns..."

It's obviously impossible to carry a kiln around with you, and firewood is something you can find everywhere anyway.

The "immortal master" circled around them, seemingly collecting something, then reached out and patted the two of them twice.
"Come with me! Get up—"

The sound of the wind filled her ears. Shen Le felt as if she were in a car traveling at 120 kilometers per hour with the windows open, or as if she were rapidly descending on a paraglider.

After traveling for an unknown amount of time, everything suddenly became quiet and light, and then the "immortal master" said:

"You can stay here. If you need a kiln, I'll have someone come and set it up later. As for the rest..."

"Immortal Master!"

With a thud, the boy knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly:

"I beg the Immortal Master for mercy! I want to cultivate immortality! I want to personally avenge my father, mother, and all my family members!"

With another thud, the old man knelt down behind the boy, not daring to speak, but just kowtowing repeatedly—judging from the rustling sound of the fabric, he was probably still desperately tearing at the boy's clothes.

However, the boy ignored him and simply shouted:
"I beg for your mercy, Immortal Master! If I can cultivate immortality, I will surely repay you with my life!"

"...You should burn the Soul-Suppressing Figurine first."

The "immortal master" approached slowly, stepping on the dry fallen leaves. His voice was soft and gentle, lingering around the boy's head:
"Once it's burned out, we can talk about other things."

"Immortal Master! If I could cultivate immortality—I could also forge even better Soul-Suppressing Figurines!"

There was no answer. Shen Le listened intently for a long time, but still heard no further response.

The "immortal master" may have left using magic, or he may have vanished into the mist; in any case, there was no sound. The boy and the old man, after a moment of silence, sighed and began their work.
"Let's go, let's go. We need to find a place to build a kiln first before we can talk about the rest... Young master, if you want to avenge the master and the others, you have to hurry up and fire the porcelain figurines!"

Alas, this is the consequence of having core military power in someone else's hands. Shen Le sighed silently, mourning for the young man:
If this young man were a disciple of a sword immortal, or even just a warrior, he would have drawn his sword himself. Whether it was by painting himself in lacquer or swallowing charcoal, by delivering fish or maps, he would find a way to get close to his enemy and strike him down—

Unfortunately, he was just a kiln worker; his core skill was limited to kiln firing. If he wanted revenge, he had to comply with the conditions the other party set…

Given the success rate of ancient kiln firing, how many times would it have taken to successfully fire such a large translucent white porcelain figurine?
Shen Le was particularly curious. In fact, he really wanted to do a role-playing exercise, just like when he played the roles of Ah Li and Li Xingtang before, to personally fire the kiln as a teenager:
What a great opportunity!

Once you can go through the entire process of setting up a kiln and firing it using traditional methods, there will be nothing that will be difficult for you when it comes to firing white porcelain!

"Shen Le! — Shen Le!"

A loud shout suddenly rang out. Shen Le jolted awake, snapping out of his meditative state. Opening his eyes, he saw a bright red silk dress swaying and flapping in front of him.
"The workers are coming! They're already at the foot of the mountain! Do you want to—"

"Ah, okay!" Shen Le quickly got up, rushed out of the old house, and then gathered up the house along with the porcelain tower inside, hanging it on her wrist. Turning her head, she saw Professor Zhang leading the way, already climbing up with her students:

"Let's speed things up today! What we dug up before was probably an ash pit next to the kiln site used to fill in broken porcelain. Today, let's try to dig out the kiln itself—"

Alright, today's task is still work. Shen Le took a deep breath, picked up a shovel, and mingled into the team:
He had already explored this kiln site with his spiritual power. There were a total of three kilns, and he had found a piece of translucent white porcelain inside one of them.

Today's task is to follow the professor's lead—or make the professor follow his lead—and assign him to the top of the excavation square where goods can be produced, so that he can dig something out as soon as possible!
Thank goodness, this porcelain kiln didn't cause any trouble today and didn't trigger the Special Affairs Bureau's alarm.

Shen Le diligently dug soil during the day and worked hard at night to assemble porcelain pieces with his junior classmates, leading an exceptionally fulfilling life.

The pieces had already been sorted and piled up, and there was already a complete porcelain figurine that had been assembled. The work of assembling the porcelain pieces was proceeding exceptionally smoothly. Even without using any cheat codes, Shen Le had assembled five porcelain figurines within three days.

The porcelain kiln that Shen Le had been eyeing also revealed its almost complete true form:

This is a long, sloping dragon kiln, consisting of three parts: the firebox, the kiln bed, and the kiln tail. The entire sloping section is 14.4 meters long, the widest part of the kiln bed is 2.4 meters, the orientation is 272 degrees, and the slope of the kiln bottom is 18 degrees.

Such a long kiln could not possibly be excavated by Shen Le alone.

In fact, after he dug out the top of the kiln, Professor Zhang gathered a group of elite personnel to dig in the direction that appeared under the shovels:
"Go faster here, it's okay!" the old professor shouted energetically.

"If there's a kiln down there, then it's definitely not an ash pit. Even if there are some broken porcelain pieces, they were just turned up from the side and won't be very valuable! Keep digging, dig until you find something hard, dig until you find burnt soil, then dig carefully!"

The students responded with a roar, swinging their shovels even faster. Shen Le, however, had time to dig while simultaneously assessing the kiln's structure:
"The furnace door...tsk, the front of the furnace is gone, the kiln door and the front structure of the furnace door are all destroyed, they really went all out back then..."

The rear wall and both sides of the firebox were burning fiercely; the rear wall even had a glassy layer formed! I need to study what these refractory bricks are made of so I can replicate them later…”

"Shen Le, what are you daydreaming about! Hurry up!" Professor Zhang called out to him.

"Help! Clear everything out of the kiln!"

"Okay, okay, right away!"

Shen Le responded and quickly buried himself in his work. He had dug to the middle section of the kiln, that is, the front part of the kiln bed, the part that connects to the firebox—

The collapse was quite severe, leaving only 40 centimeters of height, just above Shen Le's calf.

Shen Le bent over and half-squatted inside, first shoveling soil, then shoveling cultural relics, shoveling out porcelain shards and kiln tools one shovel at a time.

They were moved out of the exploration square, to the edge of the exploration area, and handed over to others for photographing, recording, and sealing. Finally, he knelt down, placed his hands inside the furnace, and closed his eyes:
Compared to the rear wall of the furnace, which bears the highest heat and has been fired into a glassy texture, this sintered surface of the furnace is bluish-gray, making it the darkest part of the entire furnace.

The mental energy penetrated downwards, and the bluish-gray part continued to extend downwards, feeling almost 10 centimeters long—even if it wasn't, it was close enough.

Shen Le stretched out his palm, pressed it against the side of the broken kiln, and gently inhaled the cold air:
Previous measurements suggest that the thickness of the refractory bricks in the kiln is only about 10 millimeters. This means that after a long period of production, the heat has penetrated to the outer edge of the kiln wall.

In fact, what he could feel that hadn't yet turned bluish-gray was only a thin layer, barely the thickness of a finger—

"Hmm, it should all be burnt red clay, very pure burnt red clay. I need to think about where this clay comes from and how to use it to make refractory bricks..."

Digging deeper, the bluish-gray sintered layer gradually becomes lighter towards the outer wall, gradually transitioning into burnt red soil, which then gradually becomes lighter again, transitioning into raw soil.

Shen Le sighed helplessly:

It seems his previous judgment was wrong.

This dilapidated kiln, at least this part of it, wasn't made of firebricks. Instead, it was dug directly into the hillside, and then a portion of the subsoil in the pit was used as the kiln floor...

Alright, alright. It seems the structure of the porcelain kiln will need to be redesigned; more research is needed to recreate it…

He and his professors and classmates worked tirelessly for several days and nights, and finally managed to repair a partially collapsed kiln.

I had just finished tidying up when my wrist started vibrating violently. The bead was pulling on the string, leaving deep marks on my skin.

Shen Le had no choice but to ask his mentor for leave, then slipped into the woods, found a secluded spot, opened the old house, and plunged inside.

"What's wrong? What happened? -- Ouch!"

The porcelain tower leaped up and crashed headfirst into Shen Le, nearly knocking him over. Shen Le wrapped his arms around the tower, leaned against the gate, and tried to soothe it.
"Let's talk this out! Talk it out! Stand up straight! You're going to flatten me! Ouch—"

After much effort, including handling it from all angles and applying heat, the porcelain tower finally straightened up after a long time, thanks to Shen Le's help.

Shen Lesong took a deep breath, sat cross-legged by the tower, channeled heat into it, and tried to listen to its sounds, but to no avail;
Then, we brought out the Xing kiln white porcelain bottle and placed the two items together, trying to use the bottle as a translator, but it still didn't work...

"If you can't speak, then write! I'll give you a sand table, you can write on it! -- What, you can't even write?"

Shen Le reluctantly swallowed her complaint that "Mr. Zhao really doesn't know how to raise children, raising an illiterate one," and began recruiting translators.

The clay figurines ran, their skirts fluttered, but in the end, it was the little oil lamp that stepped forward, proving reliable as always.
It said... the porcelain tower said it needed to be fired again in this kiln to become stronger and to solidify into one!

Shen Le: "..."

what?
This kiln?
This kiln is a cultural relic, okay?
You think you can just let the fever relapse like that?

"Ask it if opening an identical kiln nearby, using the same traditional firing method, could help it?"

It said no! It had to be this one!

"I'll use spirit soil to make fire-resistant bricks and spirit wood to make firewood, so that it can absorb enough spiritual energy?"

【That won't work either! This kiln is connected to its origins; only by firing it again can it absorb the power within!】

(End of this chapter)