Chapter 218: My hands are shaking with excitement
A good lunch at noon was exchanged for the Zhao family's father, son, uncle and nephew working hard in the afternoon. They were supposed to finish work at feeding time, but when Chen Lie came to deliver lunch at noon, he said that he would only treat them to lunch, so the Zhao family felt relieved and did not have to retreat in a hurry. After eating a full meal at noon and drinking honey water in the afternoon, they had all the strength in their bodies, and they worked very hard, and they didn't finish work until it was almost dark.
Sang Luo did not come to the fields. Shen Jin watched while working and felt that everyone in the Zhao family could be hired, which was very real.
Of course, when they returned home in the evening and heard their family members talking about the wages paid by Sang Luo, they became more eager to help do the work better. Of course, this is a story for later.
It was feeding time, and Sang Luo had just eaten at noon, so she was not hungry yet. She was thinking about her paper. She thought that even if she was weaving, four hours of cooking would be enough, so she burned a few bundles of firewood and finally told Chen Ning not to add more firewood, and just burn the ones in the stove.
The first stove to go out was the one that burned out. Shen Ning opened the wooden lid on the earthenware pot and scooped up the bark that had turned from yellowish brown to black and was cooked until it was soft.
Sang Luo scalded it carefully, pinched it carefully, and then looked at the other pots.
The most obvious difference is the color of the one with and without adding wood ash. The one with wood ash is really black.
Sang Luo did not scoop up all four pots of bark first, but selected two groups of numbered ones that had been dried before soaking, one with wood ash and the other without, and called Chen Ning to fetch two basins of water.
Chen Ning had seen her make records for the first time, and knew that she was trying to figure out the differences between different methods, so she didn't touch the other two pots, but quickly went to fetch two ceramic basins of water.
The aunt and the sister-in-law each had a basin and washed the softened bark. Chen Ning's was easy to wash, but Sang Luo's, which was mixed with wood ash, had to be rubbed bit by bit with the loofah vine. After changing the water seven or eight times, the color finally looked better.
When peeling the bark, there are always some old barks that are not peeled clean. When they are almost washed, they need to remove impurities. There is a long table outside the house that is almost as high as the table. The two sisters-in-law simply moved a stool each and sat beside the wooden table to clean slowly. Shen Ning discovered at this time that the old barks that her sister-in-law had boiled with plant ash were obviously easier to clean than those that she had not added plant ash.
"Sister-in-law, boiling it with wood ash makes it easier to clean, and after washing it a few more times, it seems to be a little whiter than mine?" She pinched it with her hand and said, "It's also softer."
“Well, I wonder if there will be any difference in the paper produced later.”
There were two pieces of bark, and it took them until sunset just to remove the impurities. Chen Lie and Shen An came out to take a look, and saw that the two of them were busy all day and took over the work of cooking dinner and feeding chickens and sheep.
The sound of pounding the pulp at the Shen family lasted for more than an hour that night. Fortunately, each family lived far away and could not hear the noise.
Of course, it was basically the job of Shen Lie and Shen An. Sang Luo and Shen Ning would occasionally go up to help take over, and only when Shen An was tired would they respond. As for Chen Lie, it was as if he never got tired and he never asked anyone to take over his hands.
Sang Luo stared at his arm several times, thinking that if she could really make paper, she would have to arrange a water mill, otherwise it would be too tiring to use the paper.
Although Sang Luo has never made a water mill, she does know the principle behind it.
…
At the end of the Xu hour, Shen Lie sent Shen An to Shen Jin's house. Shen Jin guessed that his second brother and eldest brother wanted to read together, so he left the door open. The farm was also very safe, so when Shen An arrived, he opened his eyes, took a look, moved himself inside, and continued to sleep soundly.
At the Shen family's side, Sang Luo and Shen Ning were stretching a clean gauze on the tofu frame under the light of the oil lamp.
That's right, this is the method of making paper that she figured out after thinking about it for more than a month. Just like making tofu, she filtered the pulp water and saw if the remaining material could be shaped after drying.
The difference is that the tofu can be a little wet, and the gauze is directly placed under the tofu frame, while the paper is dry, so she found a way to stretch the gauze on the surface of the tofu frame, so that if there is water, it will drip into the tofu frame and then flow out from the gaps in the wooden frame.
When Chen Lie came back, he saw Sang Luo carefully scooping the stirred paper pulp water with a spoon and pouring it into the tofu frame. The water flowed under the gauze, and the paper pulp was intercepted on the surface of the gauze. Wherever there was a missing piece or it was thin, Sang Luo would fill it in.
The gaps in the wooden frame leaked slowly after all. By the time Sang Luo had added enough pulp to satisfy her, the water had already filled up. However, because of this, the pulp left on the gauze became more evenly distributed.
"Is this all right?" Shen Lie asked the equally curious Shen Ning.
Sang Luo shook her head: "I don't know."
She didn't have much hope, because the tofu was able to take shape because she used gypsum, but she didn't know if the pulp could really take shape after drying.
"Let's wait and see tomorrow. I think it will be a sunny day tomorrow. Let's take it out and dry it in the sun then."
Since entering the mountains, I have not been selling tofu for a living. The small tofu racks at home are only used for cooking at home, and there are really not many of them. Chen Lie looked at the two barrels of paper pulp that were hardly used and said, "Tomorrow I will go to Uncle Arita's house early to borrow a saw and help you make a few suitable racks."
He looked at the gauze that was being removed from the water as the water gradually leaked into the wooden basin below and said, "Shouldn't we just make a frame that can fix the four sides of the gauze? It would be more convenient to use."
Sang Luo nodded: "Let's wait and see tomorrow, and do it if it works."
If it didn't work, it meant that this method was useless, so she stopped messing around. The Chen family's saw had been worn out over the years, and it was now very difficult to saw something. She couldn't help but ask Chen Lie, "Is there any blacksmith shop open in the city now?"
Chen Lie probably knew what she was thinking about, and said, "Open it. There is an old blacksmith, but he has been requisitioned by the state government to make farm tools. He is not taking private jobs for the time being. I will go and ask him after a while."
There will be times when you will need to use these tools at home.
Sang Luo nodded, she was indeed tired, and asked Chen Ning to wash up and go to rest first.
After returning to the room, she took off her coat and got on the bed. Chen Lie helped her massage her shoulders and neck. The strength was well controlled, and the heat of his hands made Sang Luo so comfortable that she closed her eyes slightly and almost hummed. After a while, she was reluctant to move: "Aren't your hands tired?"
As he spoke, he reached over, intending to massage her, but then he realized that her muscles were so tight that he was tired. This made Shen Lie laugh, so he put his arms around her and continued to massage her, but by the end, the massage became boring. In the dark night, all he could hear was Sang Luo's voice, sounding both shy and annoyed: "Don't you know how to get tired?"
Shen Lie's reply was inaudible, and I could only faintly hear "I miss you so much". The rest of the voice was vague, suppressed and ambiguous.
She only goes home once every half a month, and as a result, Sang Luo got up late for two days in a row. On the first day, Chen Lie and the others were in a hurry to register, but today she didn't wake up until noon.
Chen Lie was in good spirits and got up early. Thinking about how difficult it was for Sang Luo to make those two buckets of paper pulp, he went to Chen's house to borrow a saw without waiting for the results. When Sang Luo woke up, there were six larger wooden racks next to the two buckets of wood pulp in the kitchen. The tofu frame that was soaked with paper pulp last night was also moved by Chen Lie to the open space behind the house to dry in the sun.
Shen Ning was not surprised at this situation. In fact, during the two years she lived in the village outside the village, Sang Luo would get up late from time to time. The little girl didn't think about it in other ways, nor did she notice that her sister-in-law's staying in bed was something she did after getting married. She was very excited when she saw Sang Luo. While telling Sang Luo what breakfast she had prepared and warming it in the stove, she said, "Sister-in-law, my brother made a lot of wooden frames. I'll put on the gauze first. When you're done, we can pour paper pulp together."
After everything was done, there was still some pulp left in the two buckets. Another difference of the pulp made from bark boiled with wood ash emerged: the pulp yield was higher.
The whole day, Sang Luo and Shen Ning were concentrating on the wooden frames that were coated with starch. When the sun set in the evening, the paper was still half dry, but it looked vaguely like it was done?
I didn't dare touch it, and the wait was so painful. I was eager to know the answer, so after dinner in the evening, I simply lit a fire in the brazier in the kitchen and placed two of the paper frames at a distance from the brazier to dry them.
Shen Lie and Shen An both stayed in the kitchen waiting to see the results.
At the end of the Xu hour, when the two pieces of paper were peeled off intactly, not to mention Chen Lie and the others, even Sang Luo herself didn't dare to believe it. She touched the paper again and again, and looked at it over and over again.
Did it really work?
Although the finished product is yellow in color and uneven in thickness, the side that is against the gauze is relatively smooth, and the other side is so rough that it is not much better than straw paper, but it is indeed paper.
Paper.
This is paper.
The whole family knew what this meant.
Sang Luo couldn't hide her joy. She looked at the paper in her hand carefully, looking at it inch by inch in the firelight. Her fingertips stroked the paper and scraped lightly on a clearly visible bark fiber that was more than an inch long. "Aning, look here. If we make the pulp finer, the paper we make will be smoother and finer. There are still two portions of bark soaked in water. Let's get up early tomorrow morning and try to make the pulp."
"Well, get up early and pound it so that it can be dried before the sun comes out." Chen Ning was obviously very excited. He agreed and gave another idea: "Sister-in-law, should we try to cut the bark into smaller pieces after pounding it?"
"Okay, let's make half a portion and try it tomorrow."
Chen An and Shen Lie were close to each other, looking at another piece of formed paper. Chen An was obsessed with reading. From the time his sister-in-law wanted to buy pens and ink for him and An Ning to make bamboo slips for the Thousand Character Classic, he knew that pens and ink were expensive, and paper was even more expensive. He had studied for several years, and although he had to hide in the mountains, he had only used paper to write in the past two days, and he used the paper sent by the Wang family.
Although the paper in his hand was rough, for Shen An, his sister-in-law had made paper!
Chen An held the rough yellowed paper, his hands shaking with excitement: "Brother, sister-in-law really made paper."
Chen Lie had already seen it. He helped to take it off with his own hands. Chen An was so excited that he couldn't even nod in response. He just turned his head to stare at Sang Luo in a daze, his throat rolling several times and he couldn't speak.
He thought of the bamboo slips he received when he registered his household registration, the half-waste paper used when registering his name, and the imperial edict seeking talents from the imperial court.
At this moment, a strong thought that could not be suppressed rose in his heart: Why did the court select only men for talents? His A Luo, there are many men in the world who are not even one tenth as smart as her.
It was obvious that she was more knowledgeable than anyone else in their entire village, and her insights and intelligence were beyond the reach of many people. However, because she was a woman, she did not even have the opportunity to participate.
Sang Luo waved her hand in front of Shen Lie: "Are you happy as hell? Get up early tomorrow and help me and Aning make some paper pulp."
She wondered if she didn't have the arm strength that Chen Lie had.
Chen Lie held Sang Luo's hand tightly in his hand, and after a few breaths, he finally spoke: "Okay, but don't put it outside to dry. Let's bake the ones we made recently in the kitchen first. I will build a yard behind our house as soon as possible, so that you and Aning will have a secret place to think about things in the future. As for the vegetables behind the house, we will build an enclosure inside for now, and open a piece of land on the mountain, and plant them in the mountain after spring."
He didn't know if Sang Luo would have a chance to succeed, but he knew that he should give her all the conveniences, so that she could do whatever she wanted, and not let himself and this family become a burden to her. He also knew that he should work harder, because if he just worked hard, he would not be worthy of her, nor could he protect her.
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