In the early years, there was indeed a matchmaker who came to tell me that she had met the third girl and Chu Yi of the Xie family. Just as Mrs. Ai said, the Xie family despised Chu Yi's family for being poor, and felt that the big family of the Chu family, old and young, were all unworthy of each other. It's a burden. When the matchmaker said that it was Chu Yi who wanted to make peace, she sent him back without even letting anyone in.
Aunt Zhang became interested when she heard this: "Really or not, brothers and sisters of the Xie family, did a matchmaker really say that she had sex with the third girl of your family and the second son of the Chu family?"
Aunt Xie rolled her eyes at the two of them and thought to herself that this damn Granny Ai must be deliberately quarreling with people because she did not agree to the marriage between her daughter and her son: "It's all a matter of years and years. What’s the point of asking! Besides, Mrs. Ai, didn’t your son originally want to be the daughter of the Shen family? Didn’t you dislike her being older than your son, and you still had to wait for her to have a filial piety period for two or three years? Why do you say that? Marry an old girl and go home! You want to marry, but she doesn’t want to marry yet! What’s going on now, she’s become the proprietress of a shop, and your son hasn’t even seen his wife, and you still want to marry my daughter-in-law, bah! Do it! Go ahead and have your spring and autumn dreams!"
After saying that, he turned around and left with the burning paper, regardless of Mrs. Ai's scolding and the noise of others behind her.
Aunt Xie felt worried when she thought of her daughter's marriage! Because they rejected the Chu family's marriage proposal, their whole family is now filled with regret. Not only did they miss out on such a profitable son-in-law, but their daughter is going to blame them to death! She said that her father-in-law and mother-in-law had delayed her good life, and now she even threatened that if she could not find anyone better than Erlang of the Chu family, she would not marry him even to death, and she would just stay at home and do everything in heaven and earth all day long!
The matchmaker came to pick up so many young men from different families, but none of them caught her eye. Among them was Granny Ai's son. If she hadn't offended Granny Ai because of this, she would not be here today. Is this the case?
There are many families like Ai and Xie who looked down on it at first but now regret it terribly, but no matter how much they regret it, it doesn't help!
Anyone with a little bit of brains would never mention something like this in front of the Chu and Shen families, so the young couple naturally didn't know about it. But even if they knew about it, they would at most just laugh it off after hearing it, and life would go on as usual. Just like before, paper money was sold until the first two days of Qingming Festival.
This time, the young couple did not rush to the town. Instead, they found a man who specialized in funeral arrangements in the village and went to the cemetery of Chu Yi’s father and mother on the Tomb Sweeping Day.
Following the husband's instructions, the young couple re-buried the lost pendant in Cui's tomb. This year is the tenth year since Cui passed away. After many years, the pendant finally returned to its rightful place. !
On the way back, Chu Li met his friends from the school and ran ahead. The young couple followed not far behind. Chu Yi put his arms around his wife's shoulders and murmured: "No wonder my father didn't let me take care of him before he left." If you have any money matters, tell anyone..."
Shen Luzhu guessed that Chu's father didn't trust anyone in the family. He knew that his close relatives had stolen his wife's belongings, but he could do nothing. Chu Grandma's attitude seemed to be the last straw that broke the camel's back. He left with longing for his deceased wife, regret and self-blame.
Shen Luzhu put his arms around Chu Yi's waist and rested his head lightly on his chest: "My father must love my mother very much, and he also loves you and A Li very much. He thinks that our A Yi is an older child. With you taking care of him, he I feel relieved that I can go to heaven to accompany my grandma. They must be protecting our Ayi in heaven and wishing our Ayi to be happy and healthy forever!"
Chu Yi hugged the person in his arms tighter, gently rubbed his cheek against the top of his wife's head, and then kissed her forehead gently with his thin lips. It must be the blessing of his father and mother that he married A Zhu!
After the Qingming Festival, the young couple went back to Shen's house. In addition to seeing his family, Shen Luzhu also had some questions that he wanted to ask Grandpa Shen.
Chu Yi accompanied Father Shen and Uncle Shen to have tea and chat. Shen Luzhu was sitting on the recliner of the drug store in the front yard, chatting with Grandpa Shen who had just taken some time off: "Grandpa, do you know about tung oil?"
Grandpa Shen put down the tea bowl in his hand and looked at his granddaughter: "Want to test Grandpa? Of course I know. Tung oil, also called tung seed oil in the Compendium of Materia Medica, is squeezed from the tung tree species. It tastes sweet and pungent. , cold and poisonous in nature. It has the effect of spitting out phlegm and saliva, clearing away heat and detoxifying."
Although he often practiced calligraphy with his grandfather when he was a child, Shen Luzhu didn't know much about Chinese medicine. Because of his family background, Mr. Shen knew a thing or two about various plants. Shen Luzhu originally planned to ask his grandfather if he had any What plant can replace tung oil? I didn’t expect that tung oil is also a traditional Chinese medicine.
"Grandpa, are there any other plants that can produce oil like this tung tree?"
"Of course, wouldn't soybeans, peanuts and sesame be acceptable?"
"Besides these, is there anything else?" The ones Grandpa mentioned are all edible oils, and they are not cheap to make. It is also a bit wasteful to use them to make paper money.
"Pine trees, sumac trees and tallow trees all produce oil, but we don't have tallow trees here, and I haven't seen any. There are all kinds of pine trees on the mountain, but not many sumac trees. When I was young, I saw a small patch on the top of Houshan Mountain. But it’s probably because the growing environment is not suitable, and it’s a bit shorter. It’s so good, why do you think of asking these things?”
"Hehehe, my granddaughter wanted to make a new kind of paper money. She made a paper ingot just like a gold ingot. However, she needed to apply paint and also wanted to brush some oil on the outermost surface to add some gloss. I originally thought of using tung oil. , but I can’t buy it, and it’s too expensive, so I just wanted to ask you!”
Grandpa Shen patted his granddaughter on the head as if coaxing a child: "Grandpa, there is quite a lot of rosin. You can take it back and heat it up to melt it, and then you can apply it to your ingot. As for the raw lacquer from the lacquer tree, Well, go find your brothers."
"Thank you, grandpa!"
Shen Luzhu mentioned to his brothers that they might go to the mountains. After receiving a positive reply, he brought a lot of rosin pieces home. I plan to try it with rosin first. If it works, I won’t have to go up the mountain to find sumac trees.
According to the method Grandpa Shen said, I broke up the whole piece of rosin, heated it slowly in a small porcelain pot until it melted, and then dipped it in with a piece of lustful paper to apply it, but the result was not satisfactory.
The viscosity of rosin is very high after melting, making it difficult to apply evenly, and it has a certain color. Although a thin layer of rosin will not affect gold, which is also yellow, it will have a greater impact on silver paper.
Moreover, after the thin layer of rosin solidifies, it becomes more brittle, and it will break and fall into pieces if you are not careful. The most important thing is that Chu Yi tried to light the two pieces of paper many times in the yard, but failed.
Experiment No. 1, rosin, failed!
"It doesn't seem to work..." Shen Luzhu squatted on the ground, poked the pile of things with a small wooden stick, and looked up at Chu Yi pitifully.
Chu Yi rubbed the broken hair on his wife's forehead: "Then go to the brothers tomorrow to discuss going up the mountain?"
"Um!"
On the day he went up the mountain, Chu Yi didn't want to take Shen Luzhu with him. Although there were no large beasts in the area, there were many snakes, insects, rats, and ants going up the mountain, and the road up the mountain was not easy. However, Shen Luzhu insisted on following, but Chu Yi couldn't resist his wife. In the end, the young couple and The second brother Shen Songjie, the cousin Shen Zeqi, and Chu Ping set out for the back mountain together.
After walking and stopping for nearly an hour, the five of them finally arrived at a relatively flat area on the top of the mountain. Soon the second brother Shen Songjie discovered the purpose of their trip, a small patch of lacquer forest.
It is said to be a forest, but in fact there are only a few dozen. They grow at the highest point of the mountain top, the place closest to the sun. Perhaps as Mr. Shen said, the growing environment is not very suitable, or it may be a matter of species. Here The lacquer tree is not as tall and strong as other tree species on the mountain, but it is still more than ten meters high.
The Shen brothers often go to the surrounding mountains to collect herbs and sometimes rosin. Naturally, they know how to collect resin. This is why Mr. Shen asked his granddaughter to find his brother.
The two picked a relatively thick sumac tree, and on the sunny side, at a height of one person, they used the machete they brought to scrape off the rough skin on the surface, and then used a special concave shovel to shovel out two pieces of wood where the rough skin had been removed. There is a ravine that slopes inward and downward, and then at the intersection of the two ravines, a vertical ravine with a deep top and a shallow bottom is dug out.
When they got here, Shen Luzhu had already seen resin flowing down the ravine. It was a transparent liquid with a light milky white color and a very beautiful gloss.
After the three ravines were repaired and leveled, Shen Songjie cut a small gap not far from the bottom, picked off a leaf and stuffed the back half into the gap, and finally placed a clay pot in the open space under the leaves. In this way, the raw lacquer flows little by little onto the leaves, and then drips along the leaves into the clay pot below.
The next task is to wait for enough raw lacquer to be applied, and then wrap the wound on the tree trunk with oilcloth to prevent rain and insects from rotting the tree, and to prevent the wound from drying out.
After finally taking half of the can, Shen Luzhu felt confident again when he looked at the almost transparent and oily raw lacquer!
All the way back home, Shen Luzhu hurriedly took out pieces of paper and started experimenting. The Shen brothers and Chu Ping also gathered around curiously, wanting to see what his sister (cousin) was tinkering with. .
Yes, it spreads well and can be applied evenly easily. The transparency is also very good. Although over time, some oxidation may have darkened the color, but a thin layer does not have much impact on the color.
The toughness and hardness are still good, but there are some minor problems when drying. It takes a little longer than when using rosin before.
The previous functions were all passed, and now the only step left was to ignite it. Chu Yi asked Shen Luzhu to take a few steps back, took out the fire paper and blew lightly, pinched the corner of the paper, and tried to light it, but after a long effort, the result was that Still the same as last time, failed.
Shen Luzhu took the piece of paper from Chu Yi's hand and looked around with some confusion: "Obviously pine branches are easy to light, but why can't rosin and this raw lacquer work? It looks oily!"
Shen Zeqi watched for a long time but couldn't understand what his cousin's husband was doing: "Lu Zhu, what do you want to do with this rosin and raw lacquer?"
"I wanted to make a paper ingot like gold and silver ingots. I folded the paper and colored it. I also wanted to coat the outside with oil to add a new luster. But cousin, you have also seen that the raw lacquer and rosin are not good at all. Not easy to ignite.”
After struggling twice in a row, Shen Luzhu was a little discouraged. It seemed that he had to give up the idea of anointing the paper with oil. If the paper money couldn't be burned, what was the use?
Shen Songjie heard this and said in confusion: "Since it is going to be burned, why not use turpentine but rosin?"
"Turpentine? What is that?"
Seeing his sister asking him questions with a puzzled look on his face, Shen Songjie stretched out his hand and flicked Shen Luzhu's forehead: "Thankfully you were always with me when you were a child. The resin from the pine tree needs to be steamed to remove the turpentine. The rest is the rosin, and of course it won’t burn easily without the oil!”
Shen Songjie played not hard. Chu Yi took a look and saw that his forehead was not even red, so he stopped paying attention.
Shen Luzhu didn't care, and tugged on his brother's sleeve with bright eyes: "Second brother, you mean to say that the reason why pine branches burn easily is because of the turpentine in them!"
Shen Songjie scratched his head: "Probably so."
"Do you have any at home now?" In order to steam the rosin, I don't know if I will keep the things I don't need at home.
"As for the medicated oil for massaging bruises, of course I have it at home, but it's easy to break down if left out for a long time. Grandpa seems to have said it's poisonous, so I don't think I have much left at home."
I really didn't expect that not only tung oil was a medicinal material, but also turpentine. Shen Luzhu regretted it for a moment. He should have learned more from his grandfather when he was a child, so he wouldn't have to take these detours!
