Chapter 199 Yaozu in the Mountain Village (XIV) Beep! Strive to be a good person...
Song Ce placed the broken porcelain shards he had bought from the middle-aged man onto the repair table and then began to clean them one by one.
Restoring ancient porcelain involves five main steps: cleaning, gluing, patching, polishing, and coloring. Each step is complex and requires a great deal of effort from the restorer. The twenty-two pieces that Song Ce carefully selected, when pieced together, would form a complete antique.
The materials and densities of ancient porcelain differ, so the adhesives used for repairing porcelain naturally vary as well. Song Ce tested for three whole days and finally managed to concoct an adhesive suitable for repairing the cracks in this set of porcelain. After he repaired the first crack, the skill status of his appraisal function changed to: Beginner · 91/100.
Following the principle of "restoring the old as it was," Song Ce wanted to piece together these scattered pieces of porcelain, which was a time-consuming and laborious process. It took him three days to finally patch up the last piece of porcelain, which was about the size of a fingernail.
At this point, the function of antique appraisal also changed from basic to intermediate, and an additional ability was added: restoration to its original state, which means that old things can be restored to their original state.
Song Ce stared at the small, exquisite ancient cup in his hand, its rim only five or six centimeters wide. He tried to activate the newly acquired "Restore to Originality" function. A faint golden light flashed, and the cup, which had just been covered in cracks, was completely renewed.
He subconsciously tested his intermediate-level antique appraisal function, and this time the item information he received was: Ming Chenghua Doucai landscape cup, 554 years ago, with a delicate body and a rich glaze. The cup is decorated with rocks, flowers, birds and grass, with bright and soft colors, and a natural and harmonious appearance.
Song Ce stroked the perfectly preserved Chenghua doucai landscape cup, pondering to himself, "It seems the intermediate appraisal function is much more convenient than the basic one. It can no longer just tell you the year; it can even tell you the name and basic characteristics of the antique. I wonder what it will be like when it upgrades to the advanced level."
Lost in thought, his phone suddenly vibrated. It was a message from a private investigator he had hired a few days ago: "Mr. Song, we've made progress on the person you asked me to investigate last week. Do you have time tomorrow?"
Song Ce smiled as he stared at the screen, tapping his fingertips on it: "Yes, see you at our firm at 10 a.m. tomorrow."
The other party replied quickly: "Okay."
The next morning, Song Ce quickly tidied up and took a taxi to the entrance of a firm called Weihe Investigation Agency.
The Weihe Investigation Agency had a small storefront, located in an alley in the old city of Beijing. Xiao Weihe, wearing a plaid shirt, sat behind the counter waiting for this generous young customer to arrive.
Song Ce raised his hand and pushed open the door. The wind chimes on the door jingled for a while. Xiao Weihe quickly stood up and said with a smile, "Mr. Song, please come in."
Upon entering the office, the two sat facing each other. Xiao Weihe handed the researched materials to Song Ce, and seeing that Song Ce was reading them intently, Xiao Weihe wisely refrained from making a sound to disturb him.
Song Ce looked at it for half an hour, nodded slightly, and then took out a wad of cash from his bag and placed it on the table: "Thank you, Attorney Xiao. Is this enough?"
Xiao Weihe's eyes lit up, and he quickly said, "That's enough, Mr. Song, you're too kind. If you need anything in the future, please feel free to call me."
Song Ce nodded, and looking at Xiao Wei's handsome face, he suddenly asked, "Attorney Xiao, is there anything you want right now?"
Xiao Weihe looked puzzled: "Mr. Song, what is this...?"
"Or to put it more aptly, what are your wishes right now?"
Xiao Weihe: "???"
He is 29 years old this year and has been in this line of work for seven or eight years. During this time, he has seen all kinds of customers, including migrant workers who are chasing debts, small business owners who want to find out if their children are their biological children, and wealthy wives who spend money to investigate extramarital affairs. But no one has ever asked such a baffling question after paying like Song Ce.
Xiao Wei coughed, breaking the strange silence in the room.
"My wish is... for a gold ingot to fall from the sky?"
Upon hearing this, Song Ce looked at him seriously and asked, "How big is it?"
Xiao Weihe gestured with his hand, speechless: "...This big."
"Okay." Song Ce smiled, picked up the brown paper bag containing the documents, and said, "Then I'll take my leave."
Xiao Weihe: "...Take care."
Two days later, Xiao Wei was playing games in the office and had just achieved a triple kill when the landline phone next to him rang.
"Hello, this is Weihe Investigation Agency."
"Attorney Xiao, this is Song Ce. Where are you now?"
Xiao Weihe's voice was slightly hesitant, "Mr. Song? I'm still at the firm..."
"Okay, I'll come find you."
"Well……"
Ten minutes later, Xiao Wei looked at the unremarkable box in front of him and asked in surprise, "Mr. Song, what is this?"
Song Ce smiled faintly, "Open it and take a look."
Xiao Wei hesitated for a moment, but still opened the box in front of him as instructed.
Suddenly, a dazzling golden light appeared, almost blinding his nearsighted eyes. He instinctively squinted, and his phone fell to the ground with a "thud."
Inside the box was a layer of bright red velvet cloth, and on it lay a gold ingot as big as the palm of your hand!
Xiao Weihe: "Mr. Song, what's wrong with you...?"
"Last time you said your dream was to have a pure gold ingot, so I had someone make one overnight, and the base is even engraved with your initials. Here, it's yours."
"...Mr. Song, I was just saying it casually that day. You can't joke like that!"
Xiao Wei's voice was shaky, and he was so frightened that he quickly took a step back, frantically raising his hands. After stammering for a long time, he finally managed to squeeze out this sentence.
Seeing his panicked expression, Song Ce smiled slightly and pushed the box forward: "I'm not joking. The information you helped me find was very useful. Consider this an extra and irrevocable gift from me to you. I did it voluntarily."
Xiao Wei stared blankly at the excessively young man in front of him. If it weren't for the other man's calm expression, he would have thought the young man was pursuing him. After all, he had been in this business for so many years and had received cigarettes, alcohol, local specialties, or doubled fees from clients, but he had never seen anyone offer a gold ingot as a thank-you gift.
Putting aside the distant future, if he were to take this large gold ingot to a gold shop and melt it down, it would be enough for him to buy a small house nearby.
“Mr. Song, this is too valuable. You have already paid more than the price we agreed on. I cannot accept this gold ingot.”
Song Ce shook his head, stood up, and said gently, "It's alright, take it, consider it my thank-you gift. If you really don't want it, just throw it away. After all, it belongs to you now."
He spoke casually, as if the box contained not a gold ingot that could make someone rich overnight, but an ordinary stone. Xiao Wei opened his mouth, wanting to say something more, but saw that Song Ce had already opened the office door.
"Oh, by the way," Song Ce turned and glanced at Xiao Weihe, "I wish you a long and healthy life."
Xiao Weihe: "...???"
Only after Song Ce's figure completely disappeared at the alley entrance did Xiao Weihe suddenly come back to his senses. He put his hand on his chest, feeling his heart pounding, and couldn't help but let out a "Damn!"
Strange things happen every year, but this year there seem to be more than usual!
Song Ce walked leisurely forward. He had already dealt with Xiao Wei, one of the innocent passersby. Now, there was only one left: a uterine cancer patient named Dong Mengru—the person he had asked Xiao Wei to investigate a few days ago.
Dong Mengru's background is actually quite tragic. She was abandoned by her biological parents shortly after birth and grew up in an orphanage until she was fourteen. When she turned fifteen, the orphanage director kicked her out, telling her to fend for herself. Left with no other choice, Dong Mengru eventually found work as a waitress in a restaurant in Beijing.
The restaurant owner, seeing that she was underage, said it was illegal to pay her a salary and could only provide her with two meals a day. Little Dong Mengru, not understanding anything, agreed without really thinking it through.
Dong Mengru had worked there for almost a year. One day, while serving dishes, she suddenly fainted in the lobby. The restaurant owner, fearing that something might happen to her and he would blame her, quickly called someone to take her to the hospital, then left and never appeared again.
Seeing her pitiful state, the hospital doctors paid for a full-body checkup out of their own pockets, which revealed that she had late-stage uterine cancer—a hereditary disease—and she had at most three months to live.
Dong Mengru had no money. After thanking the doctor repeatedly, she left the hospital alone. She took out her meager few hundred yuan and bought a ticket back to the orphanage, and then she encountered the original owner of this body—a madwoman…
Thinking of this, Song Ce sighed. After asking his advisor for leave, he went alone to the southern province where the orphanage was located. At that time, Dong Mengru was only eight years old.
...
After more than ten hours of travel, Song Ce finally arrived at the social welfare home called Angel of Love.
The large iron gate of the welfare home in front of us was somewhat mottled, with several pieces of paint peeling off. The cement ground in the yard was also cracked. Both the entrance and the building facilities were dilapidated.
Just then, the window of the gatehouse was pushed open from the inside, and an elderly man poked his head out, squinting as he looked him up and down: "Young man, who are you looking for?"
"Hello, Master, I'm looking for the Dean." Song Ce lifted his backpack onto his shoulder, his voice very gentle.
Perhaps it was his harmless appearance that made the old man lower his guard, and he asked again, "What do you want with the director?"
Song Ce sighed softly, "I've come to find my relatives."
"Looking for relatives?"
These two words carry a lot of information... The old man paused, pointed inside, and said, "The dean is in that room, on the first floor, around the corner."
"Thank you, Master."
The old man pointed to a two-story red brick building with badly peeling paint. Following his directions, Song Ce indeed saw a sign that read "Dean's Office" hanging in a corner room on the first floor.
The door was ajar, and a rustling sound came from inside. Song Ce raised his hand and knocked on the door. The noise inside quickly stopped, replaced by a slightly high-pitched female voice: "Come in!"
Song Ce pushed open the door and saw a woman in her forties sitting behind the desk. She had curly hair, her face was covered in thick powder, and she was haphazardly stuffing the things in her hand into the metal cabinet next to her.
When Dean Zhang saw the unfamiliar young man enter, his eyes immediately showed a hint of wariness. "Who are you?"
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Author's Note: [Cat emoji]
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