Feng Junyi felt happy when he saw Daolin giving him a thumbs up. He was about to take Daolin to drink tea and talk about things, but saw that Daolin was still standing in front of the desk, and he put back the Qingfeng Guanding in his hand. He took off the pen holder and his eyes fell on the paper.
"Is there anything special about this paper?" Dorian asked, taking out a piece of paper from the pile.
"This paper is Fuyang bamboo paper, which is a very magical kind of paper. The words written on this paper and the paintings drawn on it can be protected from being eaten by insects for thousands of years, and will not fade for hundreds of years..."
"This paper is very expensive to make, and I only have a dozen of them in my hand..."
"If you want to make this kind of paper, you need to go to the south bank of the Fuchun River at the southernmost point of the Lieyang Empire to get young moso bamboo covered with white frost. This bamboo has a bitter taste, so it can prevent insects..."
"Freshly cut young bamboo needs to be peeled off first, and then beaten repeatedly to break the bamboo into pieces until the fibers of the bamboo are exposed..."
"Starting from the first cut of the bamboo, this moso bamboo will go through 72 processes, large and small, and it will take several months to become a piece of Fuyang bamboo paper..."
Dorian looked at the paper in his hand in shock, then put it between his nose and smelled it. He could indeed smell a faint bitter smell.
Feng Junyi smiled and continued: "The hammered moso bamboo must be tied up and submerged in the water for about half a month. Only the soaked bamboo surface fibers and bamboo film can be mostly removed..."
“The fished-out bamboo must be passed through lime slurry, then put into a large pot and steamed for three days and three nights. The lime water solution at high temperature can fully remove the pectin, lignin and other substances found in the fiber, and finally the fiber can be dispersed. to form pulp…”
"After three days of steaming, the fiber of the bamboo has basically weakened. The next step is the most critical step in making Fuyang bamboo paper, which is to use children's urine to continue fermentation..."
"Child urine?" Dorian thought he heard wrongly, so he repeated it again.
"Yes, you heard it right, it just needs to be fermented with child urine." Feng Junyi said with a smile.
Daolin was beyond shocked, which made him even more curious about the remaining processes of Fuyang Bamboo Paper.
"The characters written on bamboo paper fermented from children's urine will be darker and brighter and easier to preserve..."
"After soaking in the child's urine, you should avoid it for a month, wait until mold grows on the surface, and then submerge it in the water again for a few months..."
"Until the bamboo is completely softened into fiber, it is taken out and cleaned, and then it is beaten thousands of times before it can be turned into pulp..."
"The finer the hammering, the more delicate the paper will be. Pour the hammered pulp into the pool, mix it thoroughly, scoop it out with a paper trough to dry, and finally divide it."
"I have to praise people's wisdom. There are so many details about the Four Treasures of the Study in daily life. If Feng Zong doesn't explain it to me, I will never know it in this life." Daolin said sincerely.
"No, I just like these objects after practicing. If I were to do it all by myself, I wouldn't have that much thought about getting them." Feng Junyi said with a smile.
"Let's go, let's drink tea and chat." Daolin put down the Fuyang bamboo paper and said.
Feng Junyi nodded and walked towards the tea table.
After putting down the paper, Daolin picked up the inkstone beside him.
Feng Junyi sat down and started making tea. When he saw Daolin holding his inkstone in his hand, he immediately stood up from his seat.
"Sir, please be gentle!" Feng Junyi had a frightened expression on his face.
"What's wrong? What's your expression? Isn't this inkstone rarer than the paper and pen? I think this inkstone is indeed a good thing, but it's not at the rare level." Daolin turned over the pages after hearing this. The inkstone looked carefully.
Feng Junyi was so frightened that he almost twitched, and he stretched out his hands to protect him.
"Are you making such a fuss?" Daolin smiled and placed the inkstone on the tea table. Different from his tone, his movements were very gentle.
Only then did Feng Junyi breathe a sigh of relief.
"You don't know something. Since I took this inkstone, you are the first person besides me who has touched it, and you are also the first person to move it." Feng Junyi picked up the teapot and poured it for Daolin. Said a cup of tea.
"What? Are you trying to say that if it didn't matter here, you would beat me to death?" Dolin asked, taking a sip of tea.
Feng Junyi nodded slightly.
"Good guy, what's the origin of this inkstone?" Dolin asked with interest.
"This inkstone is made by a master from a family that makes inkstones. It is a rare good thing in the calligraphy world." Feng Junyi pulled the inkstone in front of him and explained.
"What magical and complicated process is there?" Dowling asked.
"I don't know about this. The reaction shouldn't be too simple. In fact, the reason I'm so careful is because of the ink in the inkstone. The name of the ink is Tongyan Huimo..."
"Some people have a name worth one ounce of gold and one ounce of ink, so you can imagine their value."
Daolin looked at the ink in the inkstone and saw that it contained one tael of gold and one tael of gold. This was how he got rich!
"Tell me quickly, I want to hear it." Dorian said, drinking up the tea in one gulp.
Feng Junyi poured him another glass before saying.
"The reason why this ink is called Tongyan Huimo is that it is made from the smoke rising from the burning oil lamp."
"When making, pour a plate or bowl over the oil lamp. The smoke from the burning oil lamp will blacken the plate. It takes only a few grams of soot to burn an oil lamp for a day and night... It is extremely difficult to accumulate the smoke into ink."
Dolin was speechless as he listened. This good guy is indeed a tormenting person.
"However... there are still many smart people. By chance, our ancestors discovered that tung oil was extracted by hand pressing from tung tree seeds. Purely hand-pressed tung oil contains more water, so it produces larger smoke when burned and is easier to produce. Soot.”
"I have both kinds of ink, and the effect is actually not much different. The ink used in my inkstone is the former, so I'm afraid that you accidentally dropped the inkstone." Feng Junyi said softly.
"Don't worry, I have a sense of control. If this thing can be dropped, it will be useless." Dolin said with a smile.
"I was too careful. I'll continue. You continue to drink tea." Feng Junyi poured tea for Daolin again and continued talking.
"First, prepare a hundred pounds of tung tree seeds, and then peel the tung seeds by hand. This peeling takes a day and a night. After peeling, you have to shell them. After shelling, you need to fry them. After frying, you have to mash them. , it can be pressed into oil after being crushed, and this process will take three days.”
"One hundred kilograms of tung tree seeds can only squeeze out about five kilograms of tung oil. The next step is to collect the soot."
"Split the bamboo into half, use the knuckles to hold the edge of the bowl, and place it upside down on the burning tung oil. Five pounds of tung oil can be evenly distributed into twenty bowls, and it can be roughly estimated that fifty grams of Hui ink can be made."
"This step of collecting soot is very critical. If the inverted bowl does not collect soot for a long time, the soot will agglomerate, and the agglomerated soot is considered inferior in Hui ink. The more diligently you collect the soot, the finer it will be. Only the misty soot that disperses when blown away is the best quality for making Hui ink. Once the oil lamp is lit, someone must be nearby to collect the ink."
