"Sister, what do I need to do?" Jiang Xun asked.
"First, dry the mortar and pestle. Later, you can help grind the mugwort and mint leaves into powder," Jiang Wanwan instructed.
Artemisia and mint leaves are harder to grind into powder, so Jiang Xun is the most suitable person to do it. She is in charge of crushing the charcoal.
"Okay." Jiang Xun happily went back to the kitchen, grabbed a cloth, and dried the two stone mortars.
Jiang Wanwan took out mugwort leaves from her basket and poured some into the stone mortar.
Jiang Xun held the pestle in both hands and began to vigorously pound the mugwort leaves.
The pestle struck the mugwort leaves repeatedly, producing a dull, rhythmic sound.
Jiang Wanwan wasn't idle either. She poured all three catties of charcoal into the stone mortar and began grinding the charcoal into powder with another pestle.
For a moment, the entire courtyard was filled with sounds rising and falling.
About half an hour later, Jiang Wanwan's charcoal was ground into powder.
Jiang Xun helped tilt the stone mortar to the side, while Jiang Wanwan used a chapped earthenware bowl to scoop charcoal powder into a cloth bag.
Before long, Jiang Xun had also ground eleven catties of mugwort leaves into powder.
After putting the mugwort powder into a cloth bag, Jiang Xun began to crush the mint leaves.
Jiang Wanwan switched the floating screen in front of her to the store, found the book "108 Essential Skills for Time Travelers", and located the page on the ancient method of making mosquito coils.
She glanced around and decided to make the third type of mosquito coil first.
However, the page only showed the unit "liang" (two), so Jiang Wanwan had no choice but to run back into the house and spend fourteen yuan to buy a small scale.
Upon seeing this, Jiang Xun stared wide-eyed, "Little sister, you even have scales!"
"Of course. I spent some time in town to buy it." These days, Jiang Wanwan can lie without batting an eye.
Jiang Xun didn't think much of it and immediately believed Jiang Wanwan's nonsense.
Jiang Wanwan looked closely at the floating panel in front of her. The book said, "One pound of charcoal, half a pound of mugwort floss, three ounces of elm powder, two ounces of dried tangerine peel powder, and half an ounce of realgar powder." She took a small scale and weighed everything according to the weight in the book.
Each item, once weighed, is poured into a wooden basin.
After mixing the five ingredients in the correct proportions, Jiang Wanwan took a wooden ladle and scooped some water into the wooden basin. Worried about adding too much water, she slowly added water while stirring.
After adding water several times, it finally reached the right consistency. Jiang Wanwan put down the wooden ladle and vigorously kneaded the ingredients into a ball.
After about 15 minutes, the mixture has been kneaded into a dough. Next, it needs to be rolled out flat and cut into strips with a sharp object, then the strips can be coiled into a modern mosquito coil shape.
Jiang Wanwan went to the woodshed and found a wooden stick and an old, discarded chopping board, and took out a wood-chopping knife.
Jiang Wanwan placed the mosquito coil ball on the old cutting board and carefully rolled it out with a wooden stick.
Perhaps she lacked a bit of talent in this area, because the mosquito coil ball she rolled out was completely uneven. It was either thinner on one side or thicker on the other, with absolutely no aesthetic appeal.
Furthermore, the strips cut with a machete varied in size, some larger and some smaller, making them unappealing.
However, Jiang Wanwan wasn't in a hurry. The most important thing now was to determine the effectiveness of the mosquito coil. As for its aesthetics, she could find ways to improve it later.
Jiang Wanwan placed the mosquito coil strip on a flat winnowing basket and coiled it into the shape of a modern mosquito coil.
Jiang Xun stopped what he was doing, looked at Jiang Wanwan curiously, and asked, "Little sister, what is this? What's it for?"
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