Chapter 233: National Treasure, A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains!

That afternoon, Ning Fei, Lin Shanhe, and Wang Xu sat together to discuss the details of the upcoming cultural relic restoration.

Liu Tianzhi just stood respectfully to the side.

Although Liu Tianzhi and Ning Fei were of similar age, in this room, he was merely a junior.

Lin Shanhe had brought him along in hopes of broadening the young man's horizons.

Before the restoration began, Wang Xu had harbored private doubts about Ning Fei's abilities. After chatting with him for a while, however, those doubts vanished into complete trust.

Ning Fei possessed a profoundly deep understanding and mastery of traditional Chinese painting.

He could point out the precise flaws in various calligraphy and painting mounting techniques with a single, sharp observation.

As Lin Shanhe put it, had he not seen it with his own eyes, he never would have believed a young man could possess such a profound understanding of traditional Chinese painting.

"This restoration will be broadcast live. I assume neither of you has an issue with that?" Wang Xu had clearly received orders from Huaxia TV, fully aware of the extraordinary stakes riding on tonight's work.

A failure would trigger immense public backlash.

After all, this was a state television broadcast live-streaming the restoration of a Palace Museum treasure. They couldn't afford to ruin the show.

The director of Huaxia TV Channel 3 was currently a bundle of nerves, but he knew exactly how crucial tonight's opportunity was for him.

If the broadcast truly generated a massive response, his dream of a promotion would finally be within reach.

The channel director was under immense pressure, as was the curator of the Palace Museum. Ultimately, however, the true weight of that pressure landed squarely on Ning Fei and Lin Shanhe's shoulders.

By now, the group had relocated to a room specifically designed for the restoration of calligraphy and paintings.

It was an antique-styled chamber. Though completely enclosed and windowless, the air inside felt remarkably fresh.

The ancient scroll slated for restoration rested in the very center of the room.

"This is A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains?" Ning Fei approached the display. Gazing at the ancient painting through the glass showcase, his expression turned deeply serious.

When he had first heard Liu Tianzhi's request to help restore a historical Huaxia painting, he had agreed without a second thought.

These were the cultural treasures passed down through Huaxia's history. Each painting had traveled across the vast river of time to showcase the nation's past glory to future generations.

They were true, priceless treasures.

However, under the relentless erosion of time, combined with environmental factors and poor preservation, the degradation of such artworks was an inevitable reality. This meant that mounting and framing could never be a permanent fix. Thus, the restoration and mounting of Huaxia's calligraphy and paintings had evolved into a specialized traditional art form of its own.

On this copy of A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains, there were two damaged areas along the edges of both sides.

The damage wasn't extensive, but it severely compromised the aesthetic perfection of the overall scroll.

Therefore, they needed true grandmasters of traditional Chinese painting to restore the missing sections.

Night finally fell.

Before the live stream began, Ning Fei and Lin Shanhe spent their time continuously exchanging ideas and techniques for restoring A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.

The two soon reached a unified consensus on how to proceed.

Wang Xu didn't disturb them, knowing better than to interfere with true experts in their element.

If Lin Shanhe couldn't restore this traditional Chinese painting, then absolutely no one else in Huaxia could dare claim they could.

And since Lin Shanhe had insisted on bringing Ning Fei in to assist him, the old master naturally had his reasons.

At 7:50 p.m.

Before the restoration, Lin Shanhe and Ning Fei had eaten dinner, bathed, changed their clothes, and undergone a full sterilization process. Only then were they finally allowed into the restoration room.

Tonight's broadcast was being filmed from two angles: a drone hovering near the ceiling, and the cameras installed within the room itself.

The moment Ning Fei's Live-stream Room came online, its popularity began to rapidly soar.

Simultaneously, Huaxia TV Channel 3 also began broadcasting his stream, having specially invited two cultural relic restoration masters from the Palace Museum to provide expert commentary.

It was obvious how seriously the network was treating this event.

"It's finally starting!"

"Here we go! I want to see the Palace Museum."

"Good lord, an outdoor streamer actually made it into the Palace Museum. Who else could pull this off?"

"Ning Guan master is amazing~"

"It's so lively in here, the chat is moving so fast it's making my eyes blur."

The viewers were exceptionally enthusiastic right out of the gate. Comments completely covered the screen; if viewers didn't increase the chat transparency, they wouldn't have been able to see the broadcast at all.

Ning Fei knew how critical tonight's broadcast was.

Unlike his usual casual streams, today he was being featured on Huaxia TV Channel 3, which demanded a much more formal approach.

Ning Fei took a deep breath before beginning his commentary.

"Good evening, everyone. As you can see, I am currently inside the Palace Museum. Mr. Lin Shanhe and I are preparing to restore one of the museum's treasured ancient paintings, A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains."

"Restoring an ancient painting requires an incredibly strict environment."

"Take this room for example. It is equipped with 24-hour climate control to maintain constant temperature and humidity, an advanced air filtration system, UV-free indoor lighting, round-the-clock alarm monitoring, and microscopic observation and photography equipment."

At this moment, Ning Fei was wearing his Taichi Sun and Moon robe.

The only difference from his usual attire was the pair of white sterile gloves on his hands, worn in preparation for handling the ancient artwork.

Lin Shanhe spoke up from the side.

"This painting is A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains. Arranged in a long scroll format, it uses misty, vast rivers and rolling mountain peaks to create a truly exquisite landscape of Jiangnan."

"A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains is the crowning masterpiece of ink wash landscape paintings from the Northern Song dynasty, executed in an expressive, freehand brush style."

The camera zoomed in, allowing the viewers to get a clear look at the painting in its entirety.

The scroll measured 51.5 centimeters wide—roughly half a meter—and 1191.5 centimeters long, spanning nearly twelve meters.

When the scroll was fully unrolled on the table, its blue-green landscapes looked utterly magnificent. Stretching endlessly across the canvas, it truly lived up to the name A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.

"This painting... is so long."

"Can an expert step up and just tell us how much this painting is worth?"

"A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains is one of Huaxia's top ten most famous paintings and the crown jewel of the Palace Museum. How much do you think it's worth?"

"It's a genuine priceless treasure. Money simply can't measure the value of a piece like this."

"Ordinary works from famous artists can sell for tens of millions. For a masterpiece of this caliber, it has to be worth hundreds of millions."

"You're severely underestimating the top ten paintings in Huaxia. Being priceless isn't a joke. If it were actually for sale, you might not even be able to buy it for a billion, or even several billion."

"Is it really worth that much?"

The viewers chattered endlessly about A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.

Ning Fei continued his explanation.

"Restoring cultural relics has never been a simple task. The Cultural Relics Protection Law dictates that 'maintaining the original state' is the core principle of relic preservation, but in practice, that's incredibly difficult to define."

"Antique wares are relatively easier to restore. Calligraphy and paintings are the most difficult."

"The restoration of calligraphy and paintings can be categorized into three types. The first is mounting. All ancient scrolls must be remounted after a certain period of time, and the Protection Center employs dedicated artisans specifically for this task."

"The second issue is that ancient artworks accumulate a large amount of invisible grime over the ages. If not cleaned promptly, the canvas will begin to corrode."

"The Protection Center utilizes infrared and ultraviolet light to detect stains that are invisible to the naked eye, then removes them using professional techniques."

"The third category involves missing pieces, tears, and wormholes—the most common afflictions for paper-based relics. Damage like this can generally only be repaired by hand."

Ning Fei kept his gaze locked on the ancient painting, his expression calm as still water as he explained this to the viewers.

Listening to his explanation, the viewers began to truly grasp the sheer complexity and difficulty of relic restoration.

Lin Shanhe picked up the thread.

"A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains has generally been preserved exceptionally well. However, there are two small areas that have suffered slight damage."

"Look right here. In this spot, some of the ink has vanished. The cause is unknown—it could be due to oxidation and drying over time, or something may have dissolved it."

Lin Shanhe pointed to a specific spot on the scroll as he spoke.

The viewers peered closely and finally noticed an incredibly inconspicuous spot on the scroll. Near the peak of one of the mountains, the coloring in a small area was slightly off, appearing somewhat faded and white.

Had Lin Shanhe not pointed it out, the viewers never would have noticed it at all.

"That counts?"

"It's a historical relic. Even the slightest flaw makes it incomplete."

"For a treasure of this caliber, absolute perfection is the only acceptable standard."

"But if someone from a later generation paints over it, doesn't that also make it imperfect?"

"All you can say is that restoration brings the relic into a better state. Returning it to its original flawless condition is fundamentally impossible."

While the chat debated, Lin Shanhe took a few steps down the length of the table to the other side and addressed the viewers again.

"And here, in this spot. There's another area with an issue."

"The task of restoring A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains has long been a heavy burden on the Palace Museum's mind."

"Only a true grandmaster of traditional Chinese painting could be fully confident in restoring the piece to its optimal state."

"However, there is one major requirement. Work on both areas must begin and end at the exact same time, and the density of the ink must match with absolute precision."

"That is precisely why the restoration of A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains has been stalled under my watch for decades."

"I have been searching all these years for another artist whose mastery of traditional Chinese painting had reached the absolute pinnacle. Only now have I finally found him."

Lin Shanhe's tone carried a trace of lingering regret, but also a profound sense of anticipation.

He was the undisputed number one figure in Huaxia's traditional Chinese painting scene. From his rise to fame in his youth to his current esteemed status, his entire journey had been paved with honors and acclaim.

His list of achievements could fill an entire book.

Yet, deep in his heart, Lin Shanhe had never stopped agonizing over the restoration of A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains.

This scroll was the absolute pinnacle of Huaxia ink painting, yet those two flaws had remained permanently etched into its surface.

It wasn't until Ning Fei finally appeared that restoring A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains became a true possibility.

Hearing Lin Shanhe's words, the viewers looked at Ning Fei in an entirely different light.

Just who on earth was this young man, that even Lin Shanhe would speak of him with such unabashed admiration?

Under the watchful eyes of the entire audience, Ning Fei and Lin Shanhe formally began the restoration process.