He turned the brush upside down, dipped the round tip in ink, and then imprinted it on the white paper on the table.

The group looked at the reversed "关" character.

"Ah, right, this printing is like looking in a mirror, it's reversed, so our mold has to be reversed."

"Yes, we have to use the mold upside down."

"Why not use wood for the mold? Wood is easier and faster to carve."

Manager Gong asked, adding that when he first heard the idea, he also praised the method highly.

"I had considered using wood before, but the wood grain is not uniform and it is prone to swelling and deformation when it gets wet. It is not as stable as clay products, such as ceramics."

Manager Gong pursed his lips in agreement, "Understood. So, what kinds of characters will our molds be used to make?"

“I think that commonly used characters such as ‘之’, ‘也’, and ‘乎’ should be printed in more than 20 prints each, so that they can be used when there are duplicates in a single print.”

"For uncommon characters that were not prepared, they were carved on the spot and immediately fired with grass and wood."

Fang Yi suggested.

Manager Gong nodded: "Understood. Now that we have the mold, how exactly do we print it?"

"We first arrange the Chinese character molds according to the contents of the book, and then put these molds in an iron frame. That is to say, we fill the iron frame with the characters to be printed. When it is full, it is a print."

"Then brush a layer of ink onto these molds, and then print them onto paper. The paper must be laid flat so that the characters are flat. Print more for each set of pages, then shuffle the order of the characters and print the next set."

Guan Guan and Yun Duoduo explained the specific steps for printing the characters.

"I understand, that makes sense."

After discussing it, the group wrote down some points to note on paper. After finishing their discussion, they headed to the Gong family's porcelain kiln to make molds.

Upon arriving at the Gong family's porcelain kiln, Manager Gong invited them inside, saying, "Come on in, everyone. This is where we usually fire porcelain."

"I have already given the order to make a batch of clay-fired Chinese characters, and to fire them in reverse."

"Thank you, Manager Gong."

The group talked as they toured the kiln, waiting for the first batch of prototypes to come out.

After a long while, a waiter with a dark face came up to them with the food. "Boss, the food is ready."

"Okay, let's go give it a try."

The group left the porcelain kiln and arrived at Manager Gong's backyard.

Manager Gong opened the box containing the molds, untied the silk cloth, and took out the clay molds of Chinese characters of equal size.

"Brother Gong, this mold is quite regular, the size is consistent, and it is in regular script, so the printed result should be quite beautiful."

Fang Yi picked up several Chinese character molds, compared them side by side, and nodded in satisfaction. "Not bad, really not bad. Let's give it a try."

"good."

Manager Gong turned and left, and a moment later returned with several copies of "The Travels of the Eastern Kingdoms".

“These are the books I usually read, and I bought them from your bookstore. Printing these will allow you to sell them, so it won’t be a waste of the experimental materials.”

"Haha, Manager Gong is indeed very shrewd."

Manager Gong opened the first page of "The Travels to the Eastern Kingdoms," where it read: "Summer mosquitoes buzz like thunder. I imagined them as a flock of cranes dancing in the air. Wherever my heart led, there were hundreds or thousands of them, and indeed they were cranes; looking up at them, my neck became stiff..."

"Let's print this section first."

Manager Gong then prepared a wooden frame. Yun Duoduo looked at the first sentence of the first paragraph on the first page of "The Eastern Journey to the Kingdoms" and found the corresponding mold to put in the wooden frame.

Guan Guan looked for the template for the second sentence, and Fang Yi looked for the template for the third sentence. After finding the templates, they were placed in the wooden frame in order and arranged closely together.

After arranging the molds, Yun Duoduo suddenly exclaimed with some regret, "Oh no, we forgot to add punctuation!"

The group looked at each other, seemingly agreeing.

"I understand. I'll have someone make some punctuation later, and we'll test the printing first."

Manager Gong smiled and looked at the mold.

"good."

"Why don't we try a few different types and see which one works better?"

The group continued fiddling with the paper. Manager Gong went to get Yuan paper, rough-edged paper, and Xuan paper. Guan Guan took out some paper and Xie Gong stationery that she had brought with her from her sleeve. Duo Duo went to mix the ink and brought over a small brush.

After everything was prepared, Duoduo carefully brushed the ink evenly onto the Chinese character mold, and then Guan Guan took the Yuan Shu paper from Manager Gong and covered the mold with it.

After a moment, they peeled them off and then covered the mold, which was coated with ink, with rough-edged paper, Xuan paper, and Xie Gong paper respectively.

"It's printed!"

Yun Duoduo clapped her hands excitedly and shouted!

Yun Duoduo placed the four pieces of paper she had peeled off on the empty table, and the others observed them.

"The first one was written on Yuan paper. At this time, there might have been too much ink, or the Yuan paper might have been too absorbent. You can see that the characters are very thick. It absorbed too much ink, and some of them are hard to read."

Guan Guan shook his head and gave up on the first piece of paper.

"Yes, indeed. Although this kind of bamboo pulp paper is very cheap, Yuanshu paper is obviously not suitable for making printed books."

Fang Yi sighed and repeated, "This kind of paper is the cheapest."

Fang Yi thought to himself that many scholars in the world came from poor families. If he could use this cheapest paper to make a large number of books, then all book lovers in the world could afford to buy books and have books to read.

However, this type of paper is too thin and rough, so it is not yet possible to use this method to print in large quantities.

"Hmm, use less ink next time."

Yun Duoduo nodded thoughtfully, as if reminding herself.

"The second one was made of rough-edged paper, which wasn't very good either. Like the original paper, it was too soft and easily absorbed ink. Although the writing could remain unchanged for a long time, it was still more suitable for handwriting with a fine brush."

Guan Guan felt that the second one couldn't be used either.

"The third and fourth ones are significantly better."

Several people nodded in agreement, "The raw material for Xuan paper is sandalwood bark. The paper is not too soft, and it doesn't absorb ink too much, so it looks quite clear."

"Moreover, the ink tones are clearly defined, and the penetration is just right."

"The fourth Xie Gong letter is also good."

Guan Guan looked at the ink stains on the fourth sheet of paper with satisfaction. She picked up the paper, and in the sunlight, the stains were clearly visible.

"Xie Gongjian?"

Manager Gong asked, somewhat puzzled, as if he had never heard of the term before.

"It's actually just letter paper, a kind of processed dyed paper, which was first invented by the Xie family in Yizhou."

"By sprinkling plant petals onto the paper, you can create stationery in colors such as deep red, pink, apricot, dark green, light green, pale blue, and canary yellow, which are very elegant and beautiful."