Therefore, some women disapproved, especially Zhang Qingling, who would look at Song Tantan and her aunt with an "outrageous" and "undignified" gaze every time they met.

However, neither Song Zhuiyan nor Song Tantan are rigid people. They have modern thinking and don't care much about other people's opinions. Their own comfort is the most important thing.

We've strayed a bit from the topic. On one side, they've hired people to make paper, and on the other side, they've hired people to make cement. Whether it's successful or not is another matter, but in short, Songlin Village is developing towards industry in all aspects. Of course, it can't even be called a small workshop yet; it's still in the process of exploring.

The harvest is over. The men who were originally going to go into the mountains to hunt are willing to stay and work now that they know there will be food to share. Their families are not short of meat for the time being, and there is still a lot of meat left from the last distribution. Going into the mountains to hunt is also to supplement their food rations.

The main problem is that this workshop wasn't very formal. You could work five days and then rest for two days, which is equivalent to a modern five-day, eight-hour work week with weekends off.

Neither Song Tantan nor Ye Moxun had the patience to spend all day running between the paper mill and the cement factory; they had many other things to do.

“Since you’ve started, you should do it properly. How can you do things haphazardly? You two are so carefree. You’ve already made paper, and then you send people to make cement. You gave them a few pointers and told them to figure it out themselves, completely washing your hands of the matter.”

"Is this how you do things? You finally made some progress with the live printing, shouldn't you at least calm down and finish printing all the type molds before thinking about papermaking?" Song Zhuiyan watched coldly for a few days, but she couldn't stand it anymore.

The two little ones are quite ambitious. One has a photographic memory and can memorize all the knowledge in a book after reading it only once. The other encourages the smarter one to study this and that, as if he wants to transplant modern industry to ancient times.

The result was that the ideal was very rich, but the reality was very harsh.

Modern times are an era of mechanization and high technology, while in ancient times everything relied on manual labor, making everything difficult and restrictive.

Even if you have a wealth of knowledge, it's difficult to put it into practice.

"We haven't even gotten any good paper or cement yet. Can't you guys be a little more responsible and get those two things made before you go mess around with other things? Don't teach people how to cook, grow poisonous plants, or make bows and arrows these next few days. You're just doing whatever comes to mind, half-hearted. How can you accomplish anything great like that?"

"Ah Xun and I didn't plan to do anything big. We're trapped in the mountains and can't get out, so we have to find something to do, right?" Song Tantan blinked innocently. She wasn't short of food or clothing, so of course she focused her attention on research and manufacturing.

"You can't hold others back just because you have plenty of food in the space, preventing them from going into the mountains to hunt and find food. No, what I mean is we need to hurry up and make paper and cement. Then the villagers will know the benefits of these two things."

I won't need to exchange grain for labor anymore. The longer it drags on, the more grain we distribute. Recently, many people have become suspicious, thinking we've secretly hidden a lot of grain. Although we don't care what others think...

But we still need to be careful. We don't want anyone getting jealous and acting rashly to cause trouble for us. We've finally managed to have a few days of peace, and I don't want any more mishaps."

"Nothing will go wrong. Ah Xun and I have plenty of medicine powder. No one will dare to cause trouble." Song Tantan thought her aunt was worrying unnecessarily. The villagers were wary of her, and no one dared to rob their family's grain.

Song Zhuiyan glared, "You think you can just use medicine powder like that? It's for dealing with bad guys and wild beasts, not for dealing with villagers. You better behave yourselves and don't cause trouble."

"Alright, Auntie, stop talking. We know what to do. Let's put everything else aside for now and get the paper and cement made." She and Ye Moxun hadn't bothered with the movable type printing before; they just gave some pointers and left it to Shuisheng and the others to do, and they made it themselves.

They thought they could shirk their responsibilities in papermaking and cement production, and after being taught a few times, they wanted to be hands-off managers. But their aunt had her eye on them and insisted that they take it seriously.

Under Song Zhuiyan's supervision, Song Tantan and Ye Moxun had to focus their energy on papermaking and cement production. With Ye Moxun's guidance, the first batch of paper was finally produced.

It was extremely rough and low-quality toilet paper, so rough that it was too hard to even wipe one's bottom. Song Tantan, Ye Moxun, and Song Zhuiyan, three modern people, all found it disgusting.

But the others were very satisfied, excited, and felt a great sense of accomplishment. They originally thought it was just a waste of time, and that they only came to make paper because of the sweet potatoes and corn. They never expected that they would actually make paper.

“If this were a peaceful and prosperous time, we could make paper and sell it for money. This is an amazing skill,” one of the tall men said excitedly.

"Yes, it's good enough to make such good paper on the first try. If you make it a few more times and improve it, you'll definitely be able to make even better paper." Another man held tightly to the inferior straw paper.

Ye Moxun gave a barely perceptible twitch of his lips. With a few more improvements, he would definitely be able to make paper that could be used for wiping buttocks and for printing. Then Aunt Song would no longer need to give these people food in exchange for labor.

Now that they've realized the benefits paper will bring them, I'm afraid everyone will be scrambling to learn papermaking. It's so practical; besides wiping your bottom, you can also use it to practice calligraphy and write letters.

Women can also use it as padding.

"It can be used for anything, but it's probably impossible to use it as a sanitary napkin. Just wait and see, these women will definitely think it's too extravagant and won't be willing to use paper to replace menstrual pads." Paper pads have to be thrown away after one use, but menstrual pads can be reused.

"Poor thing, they can't even bear to use paper." Ye Moxun shook his head, his expression heavy with regret.

"Why are you so obsessed with sanitary napkins? What business is it of yours whether other people use sanitary napkins or not? Why are you so concerned? What's wrong with you?" Song Tantan looked at him with the eyes of someone who was a pervert.

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