Shen Qing pointed her chin at a large bucket of soybean dregs: "Washing soybean dregs!"
Cheng Zhiwen glanced at the soybean dregs and smiled sarcastically: "I thought you had some profound method when you were so confident about making artificial silk, but this is all you have? Didn't you even consider how many kilograms of soybean dregs your hands could wash?"
At the end, his tone suddenly became stern.
Shen Qing gave him a resentful look, then looked back at the ground and muttered under her breath, "Isn't this just the trial phase? Once it's in mass production, I'll naturally hire workers."
“In the dead of winter, no matter how much money you offer, no one will risk crippling their hands to earn that money.”
His words came true, and Shen Qing kept her head down and remained silent.
She really didn't expect to get stuck so quickly, especially in the simplest place.
The next step is an even more challenging desulfurization and drying process!
What will we do then?
Oh, the more I think about it, the more discouraged I get!
Just then, a suit jacket fell from top to bottom onto her knees, covering her frozen hands.
The pure wool fabric still felt warm from human body heat, and Shen Qing immediately felt much better in her hands; one of her fingers could move again.
She looked up at Cheng Zhiwen and said, "Thank you."
From this angle, her eyes are bright and clear, and the tip of her nose is red from the cold, making her look like a beautiful little deer.
Cheng Zhiwen suddenly felt a tickle on her heart.
He quickly looked away and walked to a large bucket of soybean dregs.
Chunju brought out a basin of hot water from the kitchen and placed it in front of Shen Qing: "Young Madam, please put your hands in the hot water quickly!"
Seeing the suit jacket draped over her hands, she paused for a moment, then looked at the tall figure not far away. Recognizing it as Cheng Zhiwen, she gave Shen Qing a wink.
Shen Qing didn't say anything, but stretched his hands out from under his suit and immersed them in the hot water.
She closed her eyes comfortably and sighed, "I'm alive again, I'm alive again."
Chunju draped the suit jacket over her shoulders.
Shen Qing waited until her hands regained feeling before taking them out of the hot water. While drying her hands, she looked around but didn't see Cheng Zhiwen.
I don't know when he left.
Shen Qing glanced at her suit jacket and muttered to herself, "He left without taking his coat. Isn't he cold?"
Chunju winked at her and said, "Young Madam, what's Second Young Master Cheng doing here? Are you two...?" She chuckled as she spoke.
Shen Qing was speechless. She stood up, straightened her suit, and mimicked Cheng Zhiwen's sarcastic tone: "They said that even when I was a virgin, they didn't want me, let alone now that I'm a widow."
She didn't tell Chunju that Cheng Zhiwen stayed in Jiangzhou to wait for the original owner's whereabouts, not to help her.
Shen Qing stopped touching the cold water and could only sit in front of the tapestry machine, resting her chin on her hand, thinking about how to solve the problem of washing.
"Young Madam!" Chunju ran in, pointing outside the door, "Young Master Cheng is back! And he brought a huge wooden tub with him!"
Shen Qing snapped out of her daze, got up, and walked out.
In the courtyard, besides Cheng Zhiwen, there were two workers. They set up two wooden frames and then placed an oval bucket with two sticks protruding from the front and back horizontally in the center.
Shen Qing looked at it and thought the device was quite ingenious.
He immediately had an idea, ran up to Cheng Zhiwen and said, "Put the soybean dregs in a bucket, pour in cold water, then seal it and roll the bucket to use the friction of the water molecules to break down the soybean dregs."
Cheng Zhiwen was slightly taken aback, then laughed after a moment: "You seem to know quite a bit."
The worker paid him and left, and Shen Qing then realized that it was a carpenter he had temporarily commissioned.
Recalling his earlier words, he immediately realized that he had been exposed again.
Cheng Zhiwen commissioned this wooden bucket because he had seen similar tools in the United States. Western countries entered the steam age long ago, so it's not surprising that they have such things.
But the fact that she, a woman living in the Qing Dynasty, knew how to use this tool cannot be said to be anything but suspicious.
Recalling Cheng Zhiwen's words, "You seem to know quite a lot," Shen Qing felt even more certain that he was not a person of this era.
They're really exposing a little bit every day...
With the help of the new tools, the cellulose in the soybean pulp was completely separated in less than a week.
Next, we just need to get the baking soda and carry out a series of chemical reactions to extract the adhesive.
Once the adhesive is done, you're pretty much done!
Shen Qing became increasingly certain and, while waiting for the baking soda, took a trip to Suzhou.
Rayon cannot be made into vibrant colors and patterns using the tapestry technique like real silk; it can only be made through dyeing.
Shen Qing contacted a workshop in Suzhou and negotiated more than twenty shades suitable for spring and summer, including lake blue, light blue, jade blue, and snow blue, at extremely low prices.
She planned to launch the rayon as early as spring and at the latest in summer, so she first chose spring and summer colors, which are also the most famous colors in Suzhou.
Shen Qing returned to Jiangzhou full of hope to wait for Xiao Baking.
As expected, Cheng Zhiwen kept his word and delivered 100 jin of baking soda to the kesi workshop a month later.
Shen Qing immediately set about making sodium hydroxide, the most important chemical solution for extracting the adhesive.
But she failed again.
She looked at the bottles and jars and the white solution on the table with frustration.
Even if someone isn't a professional chemist, and has extensive lab experience from their student days, it's much harder to succeed once they leave that environment, especially in ancient times when tools were scarce.
Cheng Zhiwen happened to enter the kesi workshop at that moment. Seeing her squatting there in a daze, he walked over, glanced at the containers on the table, and asked, "What's wrong? Can't continue?"
Shen Qing looked up at him, then looked back at the ground without saying a word.
A small oil paper bag was handed to her.
She thought it was a sesame seed cake and shook her head: "I don't want to eat it."
The oil paper bag was still hanging in front of her, and she couldn't help but look up at Cheng Zhiwen: "What?"
"Caustic soda".
Shen Qing: !!!
The caustic soda is the sodium hydroxide that she's been failing at in her experiments for the past few days!
She reached out to take the oil paper bag, but missed.
Because Cheng Zhiwen took it back.
She stood up abruptly and asked urgently, "For me? Where did you get this?"
Cheng Zhiwen leaned against the edge of the table, placed the oil paper bag beside her, and looked at her coldly: "When you asked for baking soda, I knew you would need caustic soda, so I imported it at the same time."
"Why didn't you say so earlier!" Shen Qing took a few steps forward and reached for it again, but was stopped by him.
She then realized that his bag of caustic soda wasn't so easy to get.
She looked at him anxiously: "How can I get you caustic soda?"
Cheng Zhiwen crossed her arms, looking relaxed. She glanced down at the oil paper bag, then at him, and said, "It's simple. Answer me one question, and I'll give you a packet of caustic soda."
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