Introduction to the novel
The summer sun is scorching the Baigong Alley, and the sound of cicadas is boiling. Thirteen-year-old Chen Shouzhuo squatted under the old locust tree and was tearing the ink fountain into eight pieces. He used springs made from scrap horseshoes to transform this sixty-year-old object. Upon seeing this, his father Chen Laoshi shouted angrily: "This ink fountain has been with your grandfather for forty years, and with me for twenty years, and it ended up being torn into pieces in your hands?!" Chen Shouzhuo frowned and retorted: "The key is that it is easy to use! After it is installed, the ink line can automatically rewind, which saves a lot of trouble!"
Xuan Ling, who was holding the food box on the side, looked at the ink stains on the young man's face and asked with a smile: "Are you having trouble with Uncle Chen again?" Chen Shouzhuo immediately raised the ink fountain, the spring clicked, and the ink line bounced on the board and rolled back: "Look at the ink fountain I modified, isn't it great?"
Chen Shouzhuo didn't know that the soft sound of the gears he heard when he was polishing the shaft eye, and the hot ink lines he felt when Xuan Ling touched the back of his neck, all hid mysteries. When he uses his whimsical ideas to improve old objects, time has woven clues of the past and present into the chirping of cicadas and ink marks. Under the shade of this locust tree, the story about the inheritance of Junzi and the passion of young people quietly begins with the crisp sound of the ink line. If you don't like it, don't spray it.
