This humble Taoist priest wants to take the college entrance exam.

Chapter 149 A Little Thief in the House
The solid wood furniture factory owned by Wen Zhixia's family is not too far from her home; it only takes about ten minutes to drive there.

Although her family is in the timber processing and solid wood furniture business, Wen Zhixia rarely goes to the factory's production workshop, and at most she goes to the factory direct sales showroom.

Wen Zhixue opened the car door and sat in the driver's seat, while Wen Zhixia, who usually prefers to sit in the passenger seat, moved to the back seat.

"Taoist priest, please sit in the front."

"alright."

Chen Shi'an sat in the passenger seat, and Fei Mo jumped onto his lap. After closing the car door, the cat stood up and put its two paws on the car window to look out.

Wen Zhixue fastened his seatbelt, turned around and asked with a smile, "Has Shi'an taken his driving test? Can he drive?"

"not yet."

Having been down the mountain for so long, Chen Shi'an knows that these days, inheriting a Taoist temple requires a diploma and driving a car requires a driver's license. Although he doesn't have a car yet, he is quite interested in driving and plans to take some time to get a driver's license in the future.

“It’s convenient to get a driver’s license. Now that you’re over eighteen, you can go learn to drive when you have some free time. I was thinking of enrolling Zhizhi in a driving class after she finishes her college entrance exam.”

“Okay, then, Taoist priest, let’s go learn to drive together.” Wen Zhixia, sitting in the back seat, leaned over and said.

"sure."

Chen Shi'an nodded.

Wen Zhixue started the car, and the black sedan slowly drove out of the garage on the first floor.

Chen Shi'an turned to watch Wen Zhixue drive with great interest.

The vehicle suddenly started beeping.

Wen Zhixue turned his head and looked.

"Shi'an, make sure you fasten your seatbelt."

"Haha, the Taoist priest rarely rides in a car; he always walks. He even said he wants to buy a bicycle so he can ride it back to the mountains tomorrow."

"Really? Young people have great stamina!"

Both father and daughter were very talkative. Chen Shi'an fumbled for the seatbelt with some awkwardness, and Wen Zhixia, who was sitting behind him, leaned over and helped him fasten the seatbelt.

Wen Zhixue drove very steadily, talking to Chen Shi'an as he drove.

"Shi'an, I've seen quite a few of your talks on traditional culture, classical Chinese studies, and traditional handicrafts on Douyin before. You explained them really well, and you have a deep understanding of these things! Did your master teach you all of this?"

"Yes, besides cultivating Taoism, my master taught me everything he knew and understood in his life. For things he didn't know or didn't understand, he would find some books for me to read so that I could learn on my own."

"You're amazing! Eighteen, eighteen... If I hadn't met you, Shi'an, I would have found it hard to imagine that an eighteen-year-old could learn so much, and learn it so deeply."

"There's nothing else to read on the mountain besides books, so I usually immerse myself in learning these things."

"Conditions are one aspect, but the key is your mindset."

Wen Zhixue couldn't help but nod as he listened, "Many young people these days are restless and impatient. There aren't many who have your temperament to calm down and learn these things. Some of the old masters in our factory often say that their skills may be lost in the future. They are all hard and tiring jobs, and you have to endure those days before you can get ahead. People with your temperament, Shi'an, will definitely not be worse than you, no matter what you do, even if you don't have your talent."

"Uncle Wen, you flatter me. It's not my doing; it's all thanks to my master's teachings day and night."

"It's a pity I didn't get to meet your master. He must be a highly virtuous and extraordinary person."

"If Master heard what Uncle Wen said, he would probably laugh and say, 'I dare not accept such praise.'"

"Hahaha……"

The more Wen Zhixue interacted with Chen Shi'an, the more satisfied he became with him.

Although he possessed great talent and skills, he was not arrogant. The honors and titles that others coveted seemed to be nothing more than fleeting clouds in his eyes.
It can preserve the essence of tradition without being bound by conventions.

Unpretentious, unpretentious, neither arrogant nor timid, Wen Zhixue had encountered all sorts of people in the business world, but he never expected that the 'classmate' his daughter brought home would elicit such an unprecedented evaluation from him.

A short while later, the car stopped in front of a factory building.

The three people in the car opened the doors and got out. The cat also jumped down and darted into the grass and rocks nearby, wandering around aimlessly.

"Shi'an, keep an eye on the cat so it doesn't run away."

"It's alright, Shimo is a sensible dog."

As soon as Chen Shi'an got out of the car, he smelled the rich aroma of various types of wood in the air.

Unlike the city center, small county towns have many factories and the surrounding area is relatively open. The solid wood furniture factory in front of us is located here. You can see various kinds of wood or waste materials waiting to be processed piled up on the open ground inside the factory through the gate.

"Huh! Dad, when was this road paved with cement?" Wen Zhixia asked in surprise.

"...It was laid five or six years ago. How long has it been since you last came to the factory to check on it?"

Wen Zhixue was speechless. It was probably unrealistic to expect his daughter to take over the family business in the future. He should save up as much dowry as possible for her while he was still able to work...

"That's because I didn't want to come. You yourself said the factory is full of wood-making and nailing machines, which is very dangerous, and told me not to get involved!"

Be careful, don't touch anything.

"Know it--"

"Uncle Wen, this factory looks huge."

Chen Shi'an was surprised; he had thought it was just a small factory, but it was much larger than he had imagined.

"Yes, our family has been in the solid wood processing business for many years. My dad was a craftsman back then. When I was little, I often went with him to the market to sell our goods..."

Wen Zhixue enthusiastically introduced his family's business history to Chen Shi'an. Although it wasn't a big business, it was quite comfortable for a small county.

It's a holiday now, all the factory employees are on leave, and the factory gate is locked.

Wen Zhixue took out his key to open the door, but didn't drive the car in. He led Chen Shi'an into the factory area, showing him around as they went.

Chen Shi'an's craftsmanship is indeed superb, but he is still quite unfamiliar with this kind of industrialized production process, as well as management and sales model. Now that he has the opportunity to visit Xiaozhi's solid wood furniture factory, he is very interested.

The production of solid wood furniture requires dozens of meticulous processes, which can be roughly divided into four stages: material preparation, woodworking, painting, and packaging. Currently, the factory mainly sells in two ways: one is through online and offline factory stores for direct sales, and the other is through whole-house solid wood customization.

Chen Shi'an listened with great interest to Wen Zhixue's explanation, but Wen Zhixia was completely confused. As a high school student, things like production, management, and doing business were far removed from her life...

Chen Shi'an and Wen Zhixue walked ahead, while the girl darted behind like a cat, sneaking around and picking up pieces of wood from the pile, seemingly for no apparent reason...

Wen Zhixue turned around and saw that his daughter had already started filling sacks with timber. He paused for a moment and said:

"Zhizhi, what are you doing?" "...I...I'm going to find some wood to carve for fun!"

"?"

Wen Zhixue couldn't be bothered with her anymore.

Turning back to Chen Shi'an, he said:

"Shi'an, let's go to the raw material warehouse together. You're an expert. The factory just received a batch of Phoebe zhennan wood. Can you help me check the quality of this batch?"

"it is good."

The two entered the raw material warehouse, where dozens of thick nanmu trees were piled up. The bark was grayish-brown, and the wood grain was so fine that the direction of the growth rings could be seen.

Chen Shi'an stepped forward, stretched out his fingers and gently stroked the surface of the wood. He could feel the unique warm and smooth texture of the nanmu wood with his fingertips, and then bent down to smell the aroma of the wood.

"Uncle Wen, the quality of this batch of Phoebe zhennan wood is excellent."

Chen Shi'an straightened up and gave an affirmative answer.

"Oh?"

"The straight wood grain and lack of obvious knots indicate that the tree grew in a stable environment with uniform wood density. Looking at the color of the wood, the light yellowish-brown color with a warm luster is the color that mature nanmu should have. It is not easy to deform or crack when used to make the main frame of furniture."

Wen Zhixue's eyes lit up. Although he had been making solid wood furniture for more than ten years, he mostly relied on experience to make judgments. The details that Chen Shi'an mentioned coincided with the evaluation of the old carpenters in the factory.

He then pointed to the cross-section of a piece of nanmu wood and asked, "Shi'an, look at this piece of wood. If we use it to make a wardrobe door and want to carve some peony patterns on it, wouldn't it be a waste of material? Or, would the direction of the wood grain clash with the pattern?"

Chen Shi'an took a closer look at the cross-section of the nanmu wood, then walked around the piece of wood, carefully observing the direction of the wood grain:
“Uncle Wen, this piece of wood is ‘following the grain,’ with a slight wavy shape from left to right. If you want to carve a peony, you can actually design the curve of the petals along the direction of the wood grain. For example, you can let the peony petals spread along the wavy line of the wood grain. This way, you won’t waste the wood, and the carved petals will have a natural sense of flow from the wood grain. It’s more dynamic than carving a pattern by cutting across the wood grain.”

As Chen Shi'an spoke, he turned back to ask Wen Zhixue, who was deep in thought, "Uncle Wen, do you have paper and pen?"

"Yes! Yes!"

Wen Zhixue snapped out of his daze and quickly jogged to the workstation next to him to get paper and pen.

Chen Shi'an took the paper and pen from him and sketched a simple peony pattern on the paper.

“Uncle Wen, look, the edges of the petals here follow the curve of the wood grain. This makes it less likely for the carving tool to get stuck and also preserves the texture of the wood itself. If you carve against the wood grain, it will not only be easy to chip, but it will also damage the fiber structure of the wood. Over time, the edges of the pattern may crack.”

Wen Zhixue looked at the sketch and compared it with the wood, nodding repeatedly:
"Indeed, in the past, when the factory carved patterns, they would first draw the design and then transfer it onto the wood. Inevitably, the patterns on some furniture looked very stiff."

Wen Zhixia also came over to look at the sketch and couldn't help but exclaim, "Taoist, you drew it so realistically! If this peony were carved on the wardrobe door, it would definitely look amazing!"

In the past, Wen Zhixia always thought peonies were old-fashioned, but when she looked at the peonies painted by Chen Shi'an, she didn't think they were old-fashioned at all.

Chen Shi'an smiled and handed the pen back to Wen Zhixue:

"In fact, wood carving and wood itself complement each other. Good patterns must fit the characteristics of the wood to make the furniture both practical and aesthetically pleasing. Of course, in mass production, it is indeed difficult to design according to different wood grains, which also requires a high level of craftsmanship."

"Yes, we're short of talent..."

“Uncle Wen, if you want to develop new styles, besides peonies, you can also try carving patterns like bamboo and orchids. The warm texture of nanmu wood goes well with these elegant plant patterns. Moreover, these patterns have simple lines, which can better preserve the natural texture of the wood when carving. For the craftsmen, the carving difficulty is also easier than that of peonies.”

"Look at this piece of wood. The wood grain is coarser near the root, which is suitable for carving grand patterns, such as pine and crane symbolizing longevity, and can be used for sofa armrests or chair backs; the wood grain is finer near the top, which is suitable for carving delicate patterns, such as plum branches, and can be used for dressing table drawer handles. This way, each piece of wood can be used to its fullest potential."

In Chen Shi'an's eyes, all the logs in this warehouse are treasures. He can even give different suggestions based on each different piece of wood.

Wen Zhixue followed Chen Shi'an, listening to his analysis and design of the wood, and couldn't help but admire the young man in front of him even more.

This is hardly 'somewhat knowledgeable'!

He has clearly studied wood carving and wood thoroughly!

The initial 'scrutiny' of Chen Shi'an had long since turned into respect for a professional. If it weren't for the fact that he was still a student, Wen Zhixue would have wanted to hire him at a high price to be a mentor to the group of experienced workers in the factory.

Where did my daughter find him to come home from...?

"Now that you mention it, I feel like my thinking has suddenly become clearer. I'll have the masters think about it again later."

"No rush, Uncle Wen. I see that the moisture content of the wood is still quite high. It would be best to let this batch of Phoebe zhennan wood sit for another two months to allow the moisture content to stabilize. Although Phoebe zhennan wood is inherently stable, freshly cut wood has a high moisture content. If you carve it directly, the furniture may shrink due to moisture evaporation later, causing the patterns to deform."

"Good good..."

Wen Zhixue did not miss this god-given opportunity and humbly asked Chen Shi'an for advice on some long-standing technical issues.

Chen Shi'an was not stingy and spoke his mind freely.

Wen Zhixue nodded repeatedly as he listened. He took out his phone and wrote down all the key points Chen Shi'an had made, and couldn't help but sigh:

"Shi'an, you know so much! I was worried about the design of the new furniture, but now with your suggestions, I feel much more at ease."

"Uncle Wen, you flatter me. These are just some basic insights."

"Oh, Shi'an, you're too modest!"

……

On the other side, Wen Zhixia answered a phone call, then turned around and shouted:

"Taoist priest! Dad! Mom called and told us to come home for dinner!"

……

"Shi'an, let's go back and have dinner first. If you have time, why don't you stay at home for a few days? Tomorrow we're going on a road trip as a family. Shi'an, would you like to come along?"

"Thank you for your kindness, Uncle Wen, but I have to go back to the mountains tomorrow, so I can't change my itinerary."

"Okay, let's go back and eat first. Shi'an, you'll come back to the village with us tonight. Zhizhi's grandparents want us to go back and eat together. Shi'an, you should come too, it'll be more fun with more people!"

"it is good."

"Hey, where's Zhizhi?"

The two had reached the factory gate when Wen Zhixue realized his daughter was missing as he was about to get into the car.

Looking back, I saw a girl dragging a sack of timber out of the factory.

"Zhizhi, what's wrong with you...?"

"...Give the Taoist priest a consultation fee!"

(End of this chapter)