Nine-turn exquisite
"Let's go," Lu Yu sighed and said to Shi Guang in a somewhat disappointed tone, "It seems like we've made another wasted trip today."
He turned around to leave, but found that Shi Guang was motionless beside him. He followed Shi Guang's gaze and found that Shi Guang was staring at something in the workshop through the narrow crack in the door.
It was a half-finished piece of extremely complex mortise and tenon joint structure, casually discarded on a workbench. It looked like a delicate wooden lock, its layers interlocking, imbued with classical geometric beauty.
Lu Yu couldn't figure out what was going on, but a flame seemed to be lit in Shi Guang's eyes.
He was so engrossed in the reading that he completely forgot his surroundings. Almost subconsciously, he began to mutter to himself in a voice that only he could hear. The tone didn't sound like he was communicating with anyone, but more like he was in his own world, solving a math problem that had been bothering him for a long time.
"No... the inward thrust here can't exceed three inches, otherwise the supporting mortise and tenon will be unevenly stressed, and the entire structure will become fragile... How did he resolve this contradiction? Could it be... could it be that he used a dovetail joint internally for double locking?"
His professional and almost idiotic mumbling was like a stone thrown into the silent workshop.
The sound of carving in the room stopped.
A few seconds later, the tightly closed door was slowly opened from the inside with a creaking sound.
Uncle Chen's sharp eyes shot out from the crack in the door. He no longer looked at Lu Yu, but instead fixed his gaze on Shi Guang with a hint of disbelief.
"You are just a young boy, how can you know what it means to enter Qiaochengmao?"
The sudden questioning jolted Shi Guang out of his thoughts. He realized he had just spoken out everything he had been thinking. Facing Uncle Chen's eyes, which seemed to see through people's hearts, he subconsciously became a little nervous, and his cheeks flushed slightly.
"I... I just saw it in a book." Shi Guang met the other person's gaze. Although a little embarrassed, he still expressed his understanding of the complex component called Jiuzhuan Linglong, the theoretical basis he saw in ancient books, and the questions he just had in a complete and clear manner.
The scrutiny and suspicion in Uncle Chen's eyes gradually melted away as Time spoke with such clarity and concentration. His cold wariness slowly turned into surprise, and finally, into a hint of appreciation he hadn't even noticed.
He listened to all of Shi Guang's words in silence, and then slowly and thoroughly opened the door.
He pointed his chin at the greasy little wooden table in the room. His tone was still stiff, but without the previous hostility.
"Come in."
Lu Yu and Shi Guang looked at each other and saw the surprise in each other's eyes.
The workshop was filled with various woods and tools, and the air was filled with a pleasant woody fragrance. Uncle Chen poured two bowls of coarse tea, dark as medicinal concoction, from a tea-stained clay pot.
"Tell me, what exactly do you want to do?" He sat down and finally asked the first real question.
Lu Yu immediately explained in detail their project, their technology, and their original intention of preserving ancient buildings permanently in digital form.
Uncle Chen listened quietly without interrupting. He didn't let out a long sigh until Lu Yu finished speaking.
"Protection?" He laughed self-deprecatingly. "Do you know why I locked up this ancestral hall?"
He finally told the forgotten story. It wasn't due to some complicated family property dispute; the reason was heartbreakingly simple. Young people in town had secured investment from outsiders and planned to renovate the ancestral hall into a paid tourist attraction. Their plan involved covering the centuries-old patina of the original wood with a gleaming chemical lacquer, and even contemplating reinforcing the intricate mortise and tenon joints with cold metal screws and cement.
"They said it was called restoring the old to look like new, and it would attract tourists!" Uncle Chen's cloudy eyes blazed with anger. "That's not restoration! That's destruction! I had a huge argument with them, and they called me stubborn and ignorant of economics. In a fit of rage, I used this old key to completely lock the Xian Hall. I swore that until I died, I would never let those unworthy descendants ruin the hard work left by our ancestors!"
By the time the story was over, it was completely dark. There were no lights on in the workshop, only the faint light from outside the window.
Uncle Chen didn't say whether he agreed to let them in or not. He just stood up and ordered them to leave: "It's dark, go back."
Lu Yu and Shi Guang walked out of the carpentry workshop and looked back. The dilapidated courtyard door slowly closed behind them again.
Back at the inn, the relentless rain washed the blue tiles and white walls outside the window even quieter and quieter. Lu Yu and Shi Guang told the team about Uncle Chen's story, and everyone fell into a long silence. Their previous complaints and confusion about the old man now gave way to a complex mixture of sympathy and admiration.
"I take back what I said yesterday," Fatty Jiang broke the silence. He scratched his head, his tone no longer as frivolous as before. "That old man is a ruthless man and deserves respect."
"We understand emotionally, but the problem isn't solved," Sun Rui said. "We can't intervene in their clan's internal disputes, and forcing them to do so would only add fuel to the fire. From a game theory perspective, we've reached a dead end."
The little hope that the team members had just ignited was shaken again by this basin of cold water.
After listening to everyone's speeches, Lu Yu stood up, walked to a small whiteboard on the wall, picked up a pen, and wrote two words: respect and proof.
He turned around and glanced at each team member: "Sun Rui is right, we can't solve his problem. So, from now on, we will no longer ask him to open the door."
He paused, his voice clear and powerful. "We must prove to him in our own way that we are on his side. We must submit an answer and tell him that our technology is not blasphemy, but another form of protection."
Lu Yu's new strategy is to restore the Nine-Turn Delicate Mortise and Tenon Component that made Uncle Chen look at time in a different light.
The core of this task fell on Shi Guang. Unable to obtain the actual object, he could only rely on his amazing memory, the structure he had glimpsed through the crack in the door, and a large amount of information he had consulted from ancient books to digitally restore it on the computer.
This was no longer Shi Guang's battle alone. Room 201, the core computer room with the most stable wiring, became Team Yuguang's headquarters. Lin Xiyue, leveraging her language skills, was responsible for searching and translating relevant foreign literature on ancient architecture. Sun Rui, using algorithms, simulated the stresses on the components to verify the rationality of Shi Guang's design.
The entire team was working at full speed, but the hardest part was still the all-nighters. Since Lu Yu couldn't help with the technical stuff, he automatically became Shi Guang's logistics officer.
He would calculate the time and quietly bring the hot porridge that the innkeeper's wife had helped warm to the table; when Shi Guang was rubbing his sore eyes, he would put a cup of hot milk at the perfect temperature in his hands and then say, "Close your eyes and rest for ten minutes, or I will turn off the power."
Time doesn't argue, it always does what it says. In those late nights, the clacking of the keyboard, the hum of the fan, and the sound of Lu Yu's gentle steps formed a wonderful tacit understanding.
After almost thirty hours of sleepless work, on the first morning after the rain, an extremely detailed Nine-Turn Linglong three-dimensional model was finally born on the computer.
Lu Yu decided to submit this answer in the most respectful way.
He borrowed Sun Rui's spare tablet, saved the model demonstration video on it, and set it to play on loop. He also found paper and pen and wrote a note by hand.
He and Shi Guang once again arrived outside Uncle Chen's carpentry workshop. The sky was clear and the water on the stone road reflected the blue sky.
Lu Yu gently placed the tablet, wrapped in a waterproof bag, against the workshop door and placed the folded note underneath. Throughout the entire process, the two of them were as silent as if they were performing a solemn ceremony.
On the note, Lu Yu's handwriting was clear and powerful:
"Uncle Chen, we can't help you restore that soon-to-be-forgotten craft, but we hope to preserve this unique wisdom and glory for you in our own way. This is our answer to you."
After doing all this, the two turned and left without looking back.
Inside the workshop, Uncle Chen heard a noise outside. He opened the door and immediately spotted the unfamiliar electronic device leaning against it. His brow furrowed, his eyes filled with wariness and a hint of disdain, thinking it was just another young man's new trick.
He picked up the tablet and wanted to throw it aside.
But when his fingers accidentally touched the cold screen and the looping video began, he was completely stunned.
On the screen, the Nine-Turn Exquisite Craft, which he had spent half his life painstakingly researching, was presented before him in a way he had never imagined. He saw that the model could be infinitely magnified, even the delicate grain of the wood and the tiny flaws he had left during the carving, which only he knew of, were clearly visible.
With trembling fingers, he clicked the decomposition button on the screen.
The next second, the entire structure slowly unravelled before his eyes, each tenon and mortise, each hidden structure within, all perfectly revealed in a perspective way. Clear, intuitive, and filled with a breathtaking power.
His hands, calloused from a lifetime of holding carving knives, began to tremble slightly.
That afternoon, the Yuguang team was in the inn's courtyard, sorting through data from the perimeter survey. When Lu Yu and Shi Guang returned, they simply announced they would continue working and await the verdict. The team's atmosphere was somewhat unsettled, but they continued to work methodically.
Just then, a little girl, about seven or eight years old, with pigtails, ran into the inn yard and asked timidly, "Excuse me, who is Brother Lu Yu?"
Lu Yu stood up, walked forward and squatted down, "Is there anything wrong, little sister?"
The little girl took something out of her pocket embroidered with small flowers and handed it to him carefully. It was a bunch of heavy, old keys with a bronze luster.
"Grandpa Chen asked me to give this to you."
The little girl tilted her head back, trying to recall the adults' words, repeating them word for word: "Grandpa Chen said he'll be waiting for you at the ancestral hall gate at 8 o'clock tomorrow morning. He also said... the key is very heavy, so he asked you to hold it tightly and not lose it."
Lu Yu held the still warm key chain, which felt heavier than a thousand pounds.
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