121: Chapter 121 Cousin, are you in there? May I come in?

The entire process took nearly an hour.

The second Yue Kiln jar featured underglaze brown painting; the system specifically emphasized that the brown pigment was sensitive to acidic solutions, so the painted areas had to be avoided during cleaning.

Hu Tian picked up the jar and examined it carefully against the light.

The brown paint was located around the middle of the jar's body in a simple geometric pattern, with lines of varying thickness, some of which had already become blurred.

He used a cotton swab dipped in purified water to wipe from the mouth of the jar down to the edge of the painted area, then stopped, swapped for a new swab, bypassed the painted section, and continued wiping downward.

He only lightly dabbed the painted area with a swab, without applying any force.

Cleaning this jar took another forty-odd minutes.

The final item was a Ru Kiln cup stand.

When Hu Tian picked it up, his movements were lighter than they had been for any previous piece.

The cleaning advice provided by the system was the most stringent: a constant temperature environment, purified water swabs, gentle picking with bamboo sticks, and a strict ban on soaking.

He first glanced at the thermo-hygrometer to confirm the readings hadn't changed, then placed the cup stand in the center of the workbench.

As the cool white light shone down, the sky-blue glaze appeared exceptionally warm and mellow; that hue of gray within blue and blue within gray was like the sky after rain.

There was a ring of carved floral patterns around the edge of the cup stand—a design of interlocking lotus vines, carved very shallowly with fluid lines.

Some grime had accumulated in the grooves of the carvings, consisting of marine sediments.

Hu Tian picked up the thinnest bamboo stick, aimed it at the edge of a carving, and gently picked inward.

The moment the bamboo stick touched the grime, he could feel a soft resistance, and then the dirt was picked out bit by bit.

He picked extremely slowly, stopping to check after every stroke to ensure he hadn't damaged the glazed surface or the carved lines.

Once the grime in the grooves was removed, he used a purified water swab to lightly wipe the entire surface of the cup stand.

As the swab glided over the glaze, it picked up a thin layer of salt crystals.

He wiped very lightly, using almost no force, as if caressing something incredibly fragile.

By the time the cup stand was cleaned, an hour and a half had passed.

Hu Tian placed it on the workbench and gazed at it under the light for a while.

The sky-blue glaze shimmered with a faint luster under the light, the carved patterns were clearly visible, and the entire cup stand was spotless, looking as if it had just come out of the kiln.

He stood up, packed away the toolbox, and wiped down the workbench again.

Then he went to wash his hands, returned, and picked up the six items one by one, placing them into a tray lined with soft cloth.

The tray was large, and the six items fit perfectly with enough space between them to ensure they wouldn't touch.

Carrying the tray, he walked out of the studio and into the adjacent storage room.

The lights in the storage room automatically sensed his presence and turned on.

On the left side of the storage room, several rows of curio shelves were installed. These shelves, with enough space for thousands of items, stood against the wall. Many spots were empty; currently, they only held a few hundred porcelain pieces previously retrieved from the Heavenly Kingdom Holy Treasury.

Hu Tian carried the tray to the curio shelves and scanned them with his eyes.

These shelves were custom-made from rosewood, with soft padding on every level, and the height between layers was designed according to different vessel shapes.

The top few layers were for small items like tea cups and saucers, the middle layers for bottles and jars, and the bottom layers were reserved for large-scale objects.

He stood before the shelves for a moment and began finding spots for the six newly cleaned porcelain pieces.

He placed the Ding Kiln white-glazed bowl on the third layer next to a Ding Kiln plate also from the Heavenly Kingdom Holy Treasury; the two items, with their similar glaze colors, displayed clear characteristics of their era when placed together.

The Longquan Kiln celadon bottle went on the fifth layer, which already held several Longquan pieces—plum green, powder green, and bean green. The different shades of green lined up like an exhibition of celadon glazes.

He placed the two Yue Kiln jars on the fourth layer—one celadon and one brown-painted—leaving an empty space between them to avoid any contact with the painted section.

He hesitated over the Ru Kiln cup stand before finally placing it in the very center of the second layer.

This layer had been empty; he had specifically reserved it for the most precious items.

Once the cup stand was in place, its sky-blue glaze shimmered with a warm luster under the lights, making the entire shelf seem to light up with that touch of blue.

Hu Tian stepped back two paces and looked at the porcelain on the curio shelves.

Hundreds of items, ranging from the Tang Dynasty to the Ming and Qing, from Yue Kiln to Jingdezhen—each had its own story.

He remembered when he first bought this villa; the storage room was empty, without even a single shelf.

Now, hundreds of pieces were displayed on these shelves, but compared to the thousands of empty spots, there was still a long way to go.

He turned and walked out of the storage room, and the warm lights automatically extinguished.

Back in the studio, he returned the tray to its place and checked the thermo-hygrometer again to confirm the numbers were normal.

Then he sat down, opened his laptop, and began organizing the data for these six porcelain pieces.

He had to create a file for every item, including photos, measurements, records of origin, and the cleaning process, before finally saving them into the system.

This work was tedious, but he performed it with great diligence.

Because he knew these things were not just his collection, but witnesses to history.

The studio fell silent, leaving only the faint hum of the desk lamp.

Hu Tian leaned back against his chair, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

Next were the pieces with chips or obvious damage; he counted twelve of them.

This batch represented the bulk of the workload this time, featuring chipped corners, notched rims, and cracks—all sorts of conditions.

He didn't rush to assemble them, instead examining each piece individually and making notes in his ledger: vessel shape, glaze color, location and extent of damage, estimated restoration difficulty, and whether there were matching fragments.

Finally, there was the batch that was completely fragmented.

They were already in pieces when salvaged; some were broken into four or five chunks, others were even more shattered, with the smallest piece being less than the size of a fingernail.

He grouped these fragments separately into a shallow tray on the right side of the workbench. He didn't rush to process them, instead creating numbered labels and sticking them to the side of the tray, waiting to match them to their respective vessels later.

When the categorization was finished, he glanced at the time; it had taken nearly forty minutes longer than expected.

The light on the workbench was still on, shining on the mist-covered porcelain shards. The glaze colors appeared deeper under the light—those colors that had been submerged for hundreds of years weren't dead; they were suppressed, as if covered by time. As long as they were treated correctly, the beauty beneath remained.

He pulled up a stool, sat at the bench, and picked up his ledger again.

He visualized the shapes of the chips on several of the twelve damaged vessels and felt that some of the fragments should match.

He flipped to the notes he had just made and pointed to two of them: one was a ewer with a damaged rim, missing nearly a quarter of its mouth; the other was a jar with a crack in its belly that ran down about a third of the way from the shoulder.

He took fragments from the tray and began matching them one by one.

This was a job that required patience; it couldn't be rushed.

The color of the ceramic body was the most direct reference; fragments from the same vessel should theoretically have the same body color. However, items salvaged from the sea were affected by different stains; sometimes different parts of the same vessel would show subtle color differences. Therefore, looking at the body color alone wasn't enough; one also had to look at the flow of the glaze, the thickness of the break, and the density and direction of the crackle pattern.

He picked up a fragment, turned it to the broken side, and held it up against the gap in the ewer under the light.

The thickness was right, the curvature was close, and the glaze color matched. He gently rested the fragment against it and checked the alignment of the break.

A perfect fit.

He set the fragment down and made a mark in his ledger: this piece belongs to the ewer.

He continued searching for the next piece.

This matching process sounded simple, but it was actually quite mentally taxing. Out of the batch of ten completely fragmented items, less than half of the individual shards could be identified. The rest were either too small or the breaks were too badly damaged, making matching extremely difficult. He looked over a few pieces several times without being able to determine where they belonged, so he eventually had to set them aside for later.

He set the fragments that could be preliminarily categorized aside. He picked up a few more from the tray but still had no clue, so he simply put them down, took a sip of water, and let his eyes rest.

He stood up, walked a few steps around the studio to stretch his legs, and then stood before the storage shelves to look at the labels. These were all things he had organized over time; every storage box was clearly labeled with its contents, origin, era, and source.

He took a box down from the shelf and opened it; inside were several Song Dynasty porcelain shards he had kept as references. Their glaze style had a certain similarity to the batch he had brought back today. He took the box to the workbench and compared them; the more he looked, the more he felt that today's batch pointed toward a very concentrated group of kilns—this wasn't a random assortment, but seemed like a concentrated output from a specific kiln during a certain period.

He recorded this judgment in his notebook with a question mark, needing to investigate further later.

He put the reference shards back, sat down at the bench again, and looked at the cluttered workspace, already beginning to plan the order of restoration in his mind.

The intact pieces weren't urgent; after anti-corrosion and desalination, they needed to sit undisturbed to allow the salt to fully leach out. This process could take anywhere from a few days to over ten days depending on the situation; during this time, they weren't to be moved.

The damaged batch needed to have their cracks stabilized first, especially that jar with the cracked belly. The crack already showed signs of slight shifting; if it wasn't reinforced first, there was a risk of it cracking further during subsequent operations.

The fragments would be handled last; he would wait until everything that could be categorized was in place before considering the assembly and replacement for each item.

He listed the sequence in his notebook in great detail, writing down which materials to use for each step and which steps required special attention, point by point.

Halfway through his writing, he heard movement from upstairs—footsteps, then the sound of a door opening, and then closing.

He didn't look up, continuing to write.

A moment later, he faintly heard someone coming down the stairs. The footsteps were light, stopping at the studio door with two knocks. "Cousin, are you in there? Can I come in?"

It was the voice of his younger cousin, Cousin Zhang Fei.

"Come in."

The studio door was pushed open gently.

Cousin Zhang Fei poked her head in, and seeing the table full of items, her eyes widened instantly. "So many?"

"Mm."

She walked in, stood by the workbench, and leaned in for a closer look. Her gaze swept over the piles of scattered porcelain on the bench before landing on one of the twelve damaged items—a thin-bodied bowl. "This one is beautiful."

"Song Dynasty, thin-bodied."

"Can it be fixed?"