Chapter 285 Repairing the Fragments

What did Master Xuantong say to Yin Li? Yin Li refused to reveal it.

After the incident, everything was back to normal. Yin Li and Mu Qing refused to let Hu Xiner work. They both felt that Hu Xiner was pregnant and needed to rest well. They also advised her to stay at home and not come over.

After all, according to His Majesty's wishes, he also agreed to let her take a leave.

But Hu Xin'er rolled her eyes. "It's so boring staying at home, trapped in this small courtyard all day. Besides, there's not much to do in the library. All I have to do is look at the catalog. How can that interfere with my pregnancy?"

In modern times, many independent women go to work with big bellies, so Hu Xiner doesn't think that she should be treated like a treasure once she becomes pregnant.

But at home, Lu's mother hated to let her get out of bed. Although she was very touched by such care and love, it would also make people feel distressed if it happened too much!

She insisted on coming to help, and the other two had no choice but to let her go, but they usually didn't let her do anything.

One day, Hu Xiner was dozing off at her desk when she suddenly felt a hit on the head.

When she looked up, it was Yin Lizheng holding a folding fan and smiling, leaning over to look at her: "I caught you slacking off, fined you 100,000 taels!"

Hu Xin'er had just woken up and was still a little dazed, but she perked up immediately after hearing this: "Are you robbing money here?!"

Yin Li smiled and said, "I'm here to talk to you about serious matters, don't change the subject."

Hu Xin'er was so angry that she wanted to roll her eyes. It was clearly this guy who started the trouble, wasn't it? But Yin Li actually turned the tables and accused her of changing the subject?

Yin Li shook the scroll in his hand and asked with concern, "Do you want me to ask a doctor to take your pulse? After the pulse is taken, he can help me finish the painting!"

Hu Xin'er curled her lips and said, "Bring the painting here, let me see it."

Yin Li didn't argue with her, but carefully placed the scroll in her hand on the table, untied the silk ribbon on it, and slowly unfolded it.

It was only a fragment of a scroll. The upper part was a freehand landscape painting, graceful and elegant, while the lower part had been burned.

Hu Xin'er looked at it for a long time and asked in surprise, "How can we repair such a beautiful painting?"

Yin Li explained, "Of course, we found drawing paper of the same texture, aged it, and then attached it to the original painting. Then we asked the artist to draw the lower half of the picture."

Hu Xin'er listened quietly. "These are the basic procedures for restoring ancient paintings, so I'm naturally familiar with them. What I'm asking is what exactly is depicted in the lower half of this painting? Are there any copies left?"

A copy is a replica of another artist's work. As the saying goes, even a good cook cannot cook without rice. Hu Xin'er had never seen the original painting, so how could she restore it without a copy to compare it to?

If Hu Xiner is allowed to express herself freely, it will not be restoration but creation.

Wanjuan Pavilion itself often repairs burned or damaged books, so it has rich experience in restoration.

Hu Xiner believed that Yin Li could not possibly not understand this.

But unexpectedly, Yin Li shook her head and said, "I don't know what this painting depicts. It's a feeling that's hard to describe. And there's no copy of this painting, because no one can reproduce it after seeing it."

"So mysterious?" Hu Xin'er's eyes twitched. "Are you here to tease me?"

What a lame excuse! Putting aside the others, Yin Li himself can draw. If he had seen the original painting before, how could he not know what it was about?

Yin Li's expression became serious: "Every word I said is true. I am not trying to tease you at all. And I believe that you are the only one in the world who can restore this painting!"

Hu Xin'er said bluntly, "Then I probably can't do this job. How can I restore a painting if I don't even know what it originally depicted?"

Seeing her refusal, Yin Li changed his expression again and put on a nonchalant smile: "Just think of it as doing me a favor. No one knows what this painting looks like anyway, so just paint it casually. You should be the only one in the world who can restore this painting perfectly."

"You're even more confident than I am." Hu Xin'er held her forehead with her hand. "Perfect restoration is impossible. I can only try my best to restore the artistic conception of this painting based on my own guesswork. If you really don't mind the painting being destroyed, then let me do it."

Yin Li tapped her palm with the handle of her fan: "It's settled then! I'll have someone deliver the materials later. Oh, and you need the pen I gave you earlier!"

Hu Xiner hesitated to speak. In fact, although she was good at painting, she was not good at traditional painting.

But since Yin Li said so, and she hadn't been able to help much recently, she felt embarrassed to say she couldn't do it, so she took the painting anyway.

In fact, the technical content of perfectly restoring ancient paintings is more difficult than creating a painting, because not only do you have to spend a lot of time looking for suitable materials, but you also have to make your painting style fit the original artist.

For ancient paintings that are worth restoring, the original painters often have superb skills, so the restorer must also have such superb skills.

But the question is, those who are able to possess such skills have achieved this level through long-term practice and exploration, and most of them have already formed their own unique painting style. How could they restore paintings for others?

Even if we go to repair it, we will encounter many obstacles and need to adjust.

In fact, the more skilled a person is, the more difficult it is to achieve a high degree of similarity with the original painting.

The materials were delivered, and Hu Xiner first tried it with other waste paper before carefully sticking the drawing paper on it.

There is still a slight color difference between the new and old paper. This is because after the painting is completed, it needs to undergo further aging.

Otherwise, the combination of old paper and new ink will be noticed.

The next step was to start painting. Hu Xiner looked at the painting and pondered over it, but she couldn't find a way.

As she picked up the pen and was hesitating, a picture suddenly flashed in her mind.

The mountains and rivers are beautiful, the green pines are towering, and an old man and a child are playing chess under the pine trees... This is exactly the complete appearance of this picture!

"Huh?" Hu Xin'er shook her head vigorously, thinking that she was hallucinating, but the picture in her mind became clearer and clearer.

But she seemed to have never seen this picture before. Hu Xiner couldn't help but wonder, could it be that she had seen this painting before when she was visiting the art exhibition?

But no matter what, the painting could be restored, so Hu Xiner repaired the incomplete half of the painting according to the appearance in her mind.

The strange thing is that she writes very smoothly, as if she has practiced it countless times, but she obviously studied comics and has not learned Chinese painting!