A repair is not finished when the craftsman walks away. It is finished when the stone forgets it was wounded.
Qiao Ming returned to Entry hall 128 for the final check of Master Mason Lu’s stone base. The low slack had returned, leaving the nook fully dry, smelling of sweet beeswax and freshly set lime.
He set his three horn lanterns at the cardinal points around the stone stand, casting a bright, three-sided cross-light across the repaired granite.
He knelt upon the dark rock flags, his wooden ruler resting across his thighs.
With the tips of his calloused fingers, he felt along the lower margin of the stone base. There, the Scholar’s heavy iron hammer had struck the stone during the struggle for the metal pen.
A hairline crack—narrow as a strand of horsehair, but nearly twelve inches long—ran horizontally along the third cut stone course, threatening to separate the upper decorative molding from the foundation block.
“A hidden flaw,” Qiao Ming observed softly. “If the water enters that seam during the winter freeze, the ice will pop the molding like an eggshell.”
He took his slender copper spatula and cleared the dry stone-dust from the crack.
