Next, I put the jar containing the lard on the fire and heated it, and then started adding lye water and stirring it continuously.

As the mixture was stirred rapidly, the oil inside began to saponify. Some grayish substances started to float to the surface; these were, of course, the soap I needed.

However, I continued to heat the liquid inside until no more white fumes appeared, which meant that most of the water inside had been evaporated.

I brought out another bamboo tube, which also served as a filter. However, unlike the first one, this one was made entirely of weeds and charcoal topped with a fine layer of tinder.

I filtered the colorless liquid inside into a prepared bamboo tube. This oil-like, transparent liquid is glycerin. It can be used to moisturize, prevent dry and cracked skin, and also for conditions like frostbite; it has many uses.

I pressed the rest down a little so that the resulting soap wouldn't be too loose.

I placed the bamboo tube containing the soap in a puddle and surrounded it with stones. After leaving it overnight, I split the bamboo tube open, and the soap inside had solidified into a long, cylindrical shape.

I used hemp thread as a knife. I held one end of the thread in one hand and wrapped it around a cylindrical bar of soap. Then, I pulled hard and a small section of soap was easily cut off.

These soaps are not usable yet, so I put them in a bamboo basket and put them in my shed.

Once the soap is made, simply place it in a cool, dark place to allow the saponification reaction to continue for about twenty days, and then it will be ready for use as a washing soap.

Now that I have the soap, I need to start working on the next thing. This thing is both the mold release agent and the most crucial element in making the blowgun.

It is no exaggeration to say that it is the foundation for the accuracy of blowguns. Once this mold is successfully made, the blowgun is more than half done.

This time I chose to use clay.

I still have some clay that I dug up before, but it's barely good enough for making pottery. It's not suitable for making precision molds, so it needs to be processed again.

I took some of the clay out and added water to a golden basin, turning it all into a slurry. Next, I let it settle, and after the water cleared, I poured off the water on the surface.

Only the finest layer of mud was taken, and this process was repeated several times, each time only the surface mud was taken.

After obtaining a large lump of fine mud, I continued to dissolve it in the basin, and after it settled, I took out the top layer of mud.

At this point, the mud is already very fine, making it perfectly suitable for making precision molds.

But fine mud alone isn't enough; this stuff is prone to cracking when it dries, so I have to add some reinforcing material.

This is similar to how cement needs to be reinforced with steel bars to become strong.

Artemisia flakes are a good choice; the fibers of this plant are fine and soft. Simply separate them, chop them into small pieces about one centimeter long, and then mix them into the fine mud.

With the materials ready, I will now use this slurry to cast a vertical 16-millimeter cylinder, about 1.5 meters long.

To ensure its verticality and roundness, I need to make a suitable outer mold to hold the mud.

First, I carved a wooden board about two fingers wide out of wood. Then, I used two sharpened bamboo sticks to hold it in place as a compass and drew two identical circular marks on the board.

The wooden board wasn't very thick, so I used a knife to carve out the two circles little by little, making them about the size of my index finger.

These two circles are the diameter templates for casting the cylinder. Next is the main part of making the mold, which I made using very fine bamboo strips.

First, use melted pine resin to attach a thin bamboo strip around the edge of the small round wooden board. The first layer must be tight and without any gaps.

Once this end is dry and firm, turn it upside down and add some sand inside the cylinder to increase its load-bearing capacity.

The sand pressing down on the round wooden board now acts as a weight, much like a steel weight taut the wire.

Here, simply continue to glue the taut bamboo strips to the edge of another round wooden board, thus forming a basically vertical cylindrical outer mold model.

Tie the excess bamboo strips to a triangular support, then use a bamboo brush to apply melted pine resin evenly over them.

Before the pine resin hardens, add a layer of fine bamboo strips on top, then apply more pine resin, and then add another layer of bamboo strips.

Once the resin dries, the outer bamboo strips will form a sturdy outer shell.

Then, make a hole in the small wooden board at the top, pour all the mud into it, and then insert several bundles of bamboo strips through the small hole to the bottom of the cylinder.

The process of waiting for the mud to dry may take a while, but fortunately the weather has been pretty good lately, so I think it should take about four or five days.

Four or five days later, I was worried that the mud inside hadn't dried completely, so I baked it over a low flame for a while. When I saw that no more moisture was evaporating, I knew it was dry enough to be unmolded.

After softening the bamboo strips by the fire, I carefully tore them open, revealing a straight, cylindrical mud stick inside.

I looked at this mud stick; it's nice, very vertical.

After smoothing out the rough parts of the clay stick with my palm like sandpaper, I took out a piece of the soap I had made earlier, cut it off, and mixed it into a soap solution as thick as sesame paste.

I spread the soap solution evenly on the mud stick with my hands, and the mud stick became very smooth.

The process is more than halfway complete; the next step is to begin making the main frame of the blowgun.

Here, I'm using the same method as before for weaving furnace exhaust pipes, crisscrossing bamboo strips to create a cylindrical pipe framework that's slightly larger than a mud stick.

Then, insert the mud stick vertically into the prepared clay platform, and then put the mesh bamboo tube over it so that the mud stick is roughly in the center of the bamboo tube.

Next, straighten the bamboo tube, similar to the first step. Brush a layer of melted pine resin on it, then attach a circle of thin bamboo strips and continue brushing. Brush a total of five layers until it's about the size of a mop stick.

The final layer should be applied thicker to facilitate later sanding and polishing. After completing the outer reinforcement, the remaining resin should be poured directly into the gaps between the mud stick and the mesh bamboo tube until it overflows.

I filled a bamboo tube with cool water and started pouring it continuously onto the resin casting. This would speed up the cooling and shrinkage process, making it easier to demold later.

About half an hour after the resin and bamboo baton tube was poured, the outer wall of the tube cooled and hardened completely.

I carefully grabbed the mud stick connected to a bundle of thin bamboo strips and slowly pulled it out of the mud stick.