dmims Chapter 14: Fragments of the Heavenly Craftsmanship Scroll
Chapter 14: Fragments of the Heavenly Craftsmanship Scroll
There are still four days until Boss Lin arrives in Beijing.
Everything was proceeding according to plan when a phone call from Tieguai Li disrupted the schedule.
"You need to come here right away."
Cheng Xiaojingang took a bite of the steamed bun that Tong Kexin had given him that morning; the chives from the filling were still clinging to the corner of his mouth.
"What happened now? Is there a problem with the fake metal?"
"Another genuine artifact has been discovered."
Cheng Xiaojin stuffed the remaining half of the bun into his canvas bag, hopped on his bicycle, and rushed towards the back street of Panjiayuan. The wind rushed into his collar and made him shrink his neck.
Pushing open the metal door to the basement, a chill, carrying the smell of rust, hits you.
Tieguai Li squatted in front of the worktable, wearing a magnifying glass, and carefully wiped the bottom of the genuine product with a cotton swab.
"Didn't you say the genuine article was already sent back to Master Ma? How come it's still with you?"
Cheng Xiaojin tossed his canvas bag onto the folding chair next to him and moved closer to the worktable.
"I picked it up from Master Ma this morning."
Tieguai Li didn't even turn his head; the movement of the cotton swab across the rust was as light as touching a newborn kitten.
"When I was making counterfeit products last time, I felt there was something next to those words, but I didn't look closely because I was rushing to meet the deadline. I've been thinking about it these past few days."
Cheng Xiaojin leaned closer and saw that the cotton swab from Tieguai Li was still dipped in that brown rust remover. The bottom of the genuine product had been cleaned, revealing a small, clean area that was twice the size of the previous one.
The six characters "Made in the 22nd year of Yongle" that were discovered last time are on the left side, and a line of even smaller characters has been revealed on the right side.
The engravings are shallower than those made in the 22nd year of the Yongle reign, and the characters are smaller, completely invisible without a magnifying glass.
Tieguai Li gave up his seat and reached out to take off the magnifying glasses he was wearing and handed them to him.
"Look for yourself, I checked it three times just now, and I didn't dare to wipe it any further."
Cheng Xiaojin put the magnifying glass on his head, his face almost touching the iron surface.
Eight characters.
Crafted by nature's artisans, it locks in the water and calms the pulse.
He tapped his fingertips twice on the table, his ears ringing.
"How so?"
Seeing that his expression was not right, Tieguai Li reached out and patted him on the shoulder.
I've seen the words "Tiangong" (天工) elsewhere.
Cheng Xiaojin straightened up, put the magnifying glass on the table, and ran towards the door.
"Wait for me a moment, I'm going back to get something."
Cheng Xiaojin pedaled his bicycle nonstop all the way to his rented room in Fengtai. He forgot to turn on the lock and just left it at the entrance of the building before rushing upstairs.
He rushed into the house, squatted under the bed, and dragged out his grandfather's camphor wood chest. The aroma of camphor wood mixed with the smell of old paper filled his face.
The hinges on the box lid were rusted, but with a strong pull, he pried the lid open with a click.
Inside were several yellowed handwritten notebooks. He had rummaged through this box countless times, taking it out and fiddling with it whenever he remembered something.
But every time I just randomly flipped through things and arranged them haphazardly, I never really studied them properly.
"I remember my grandfather saying that our family's skills didn't come from nowhere; they were passed down through books."
Cheng Xiaojin muttered to himself as he ran his fingers down the edge of the notebook, his fingertips touching a slippery layer of oilcloth.
He used to think that the tarpaulin was for moisture protection, so he casually peeled it off.
There was something under the tarpaulin.
A thin booklet, smaller than a handwritten notebook, sealed with kraft paper that was so brittle that the edges were torn.
"I knew it."
Cheng Xiaojin pinched the edge of the booklet with two fingers and slowly peeled off the kraft paper.
The cover was badly blurred, and most of the words were smudged by water stains. He held the booklet up to the lamp and looked at it at an angle.
Tiangong Kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature)
His hands began to tremble, and bits of parchment fell to the floor with a rustling sound.
He had gone through his grandfather's belongings more than a hundred times, but he had never found this booklet before. Because it was covered with an oilcloth, he always thought that there was a box board underneath.
He carefully turned to the first page. The paper was so thin it was translucent, and the handwriting was in small regular script, written with a brush. The characters were neat but not printed, and the handwriting indicated it was a handwritten copy.
This is not a complete book; the page numbers start at 73 and end at 112, totaling 30 to 40 pages, which is about one-third of the original book.
When Cheng Xiaojin was browsing Liulichang before, he flipped through the Tiangong Kaiwu, which was written by Song Yingxing in the late Ming Dynasty. It recorded various crafts and techniques, and talked about agriculture, metallurgy, textiles and the like.
This fragment is different.
The title of the first page is "Six Methods of Identifying Artifacts," and below are six methods for identifying ancient artifacts in very concise language.
Identify materials by their sound.
Rust reveals age.
Observe the source and determine the origin.
Odor analysis of kiln.
Weigh the weight to identify the core.
Use it based on wear and tear.
Cheng Xiaojin pressed his fingers on the first and second lines, his fingertips brushing against the words on the paper until they were slightly hot.
"When my grandfather taught me these two moves, he said they were the tools the Cheng family could rely on, and even my father hadn't mastered them all."
He muttered to himself as he scrolled down the page.
He flipped to the next page and found a detailed record on how to identify genuine bronze artifacts, from the color distribution of the rust layer to the acoustic characteristics of the metal, written in more than ten times the detail of his grandfather's handwritten notes.
Page 86, Chapter on Ironware.
Cheng Xiaojin's eyes were fixed on one of the passages.
"The iron of Zhenhai is no ordinary iron. It is made from the finest ore from the Western Mountains, refined to remove carbon residue, and forged a hundred times. When struck, it produces a sound that lingers within the body and is called the Dragon's Roar."
Dragon's Roar.
He squatted on the floor of the rented room, holding up the tattered scroll, staring at the two words for a full minute.
When his grandfather taught him to listen to the dragon's roar, he never explained the reason for the dragon's roar.
So that's where it comes from.
He continued reading, and there was more writing after the section on Zhenhai Iron.
These fifteen iron artifacts form a set, with each set suppressing one vein, totaling nine sets to lock the North China water dragon.
When all nine pulse points are present, the pulse is stable; if one is missing, the pulse becomes erratic; if three are missing, the pulse will change.
Fifteen items form a group, and there are nine groups.
Cheng Xiaojin did the math in his head: nine times fifteen, that's one hundred and thirty-five pieces of Zhenhai ironware.
When Zhou Banxian was drinking with him last time, he said that of the nine talismans placed during the Yongle era, no more than three are still intact.
That is to say, at least six sets have been destroyed or lost, leaving less than forty-five pieces still in their original locations.
The piece in his hand was one of 135.
This is far more important than he had previously thought.
Cheng Xiaojin turned to the last page of the tattered scroll. The texture of the paper was different from the previous pages, and the ink was newer, as if someone had filled in the blank spaces later.
The strokes of the first line of text were completely different from the neat small regular script of the previous lines; they were written hastily and carelessly.
The first volume of this book was collected by the Liu family.
Cheng Xiaojin read it aloud, the sound echoing through the empty rented room.
Who is Liu? And where is the first volume?
He rewrapped the tattered scroll in oilcloth, stuffed it into the innermost layer of the canvas bag, zipped it up, and then wrapped it with newspaper.
As he left, he glanced left and right. The spot where the streetlights were located was empty; the man with the buzz cut hadn't come today.
He pedaled his bicycle onto the main road, rode for two hundred meters, then stopped, propped up the frame, took out his phone, and dialed Tieguai Li's number.
The phone rang twice before connecting, and Tieguai Li's voice sounded a bit urgent.
"Where have you been, you little devil? I've been waiting for you for almost an hour."
"I saw those eight characters on the genuine article: 'Crafted by Heavenly Craftsmen to Lock Water and Stabilize the Meridians'."
"And then what did you go back to do? Steal the house deed?"
"I found a book at the bottom of my grandfather's trunk."
Cheng Xiaojin's voice was very low, almost drowned out by the sound of traffic on the side of the road.
"What book? Can it be sold as a property deed?"
"The fragments of Tiangong Kaiwu, a handwritten copy, only one-third of it."
Cheng Xiaojin leaned back on the bicycle seat, his gaze sweeping over the pedestrians coming and going on the roadside.
"It doesn't talk about farming or weaving; it's all about the identification and manufacturing methods of ancient artifacts, including Zhenhai Iron."
There was a few seconds of silence on the other end of the phone, then Tieguai Li's voice was filled with surprise.
"How could your grandfather have such a thing? I've known the old man for almost ten years, and I've never heard him mention it."
"I don't know, but someone added a line on the last page."
Cheng Xiaojin gripped the phone tightly, her lips pressed against the microphone.
"It is written that this is the first volume of the scroll, which was collected by the Liu family."