The villagers looked at Fang Zichen now the way young girls look at their idol.
Before, they'd feared him and kept their distance. Later, they'd grown warm and friendly. But now—they regarded him with profound respect.
When Fang Zichen walked through the village, he was like a little heifer stepping on a live wire—absolutely electrifying. The villagers showered him with praise and flattery, declaring him without equal in the past or future. Fang Zichen felt utterly satisfied, as if the earth could no longer contain him and he was about to fly up to the heavens.
"This fertilizer," he said, "is made by mixing lime with gypsum plaster. I made two kinds, but I ended up mixing them together."
[Lime (calcium oxide), used in construction and traditional mortar; gypsum plaster / plaster of Paris (calcium sulfate hemihydrate), used in construction and traditional crafts]
The villagers: "..."
They understood absolutely nothing.
Lime? gypsum plaster? What are they?
---
By the time the paper mill was fully completed, it was already the middle of the eight lunar month—just in time for the second rice harvest.
Gungun and Dandan were nearly a year old now. They could already wobble around on their feet. The two of them often toddled after Guaizai, calling "Guo guo guo guo" at him. When they stumbled and fell, they didn't cry. Guaizai adored his two little brothers. Every day, he had to take them out for a walk. That was one of the great things about village life—once people got to know each other, they could visit any house they liked. In the city, it was different. Unless someone had known a person for a year or two, dropping by too often would make them suspicious and wary.
[Guo guo (锅锅) = toddler-speak for "gege" (哥哥, big brother)]
Gungun was lighter, and sometimes he could even sit on Black Whirlwind's back. Dandan couldn't. At first, he'd had the same big round eyes as Gungun—soft and adorable. But last time, when Fang Zichen had been away on Hezhou for a few days, he'd come back and felt that Dandan's eyes had changed.
Maybe if he'd been with the child every day, the change wouldn't have been so noticeable. But looking at him now, his eyes were still large, yet the outer corners had lifted slightly. When he shot a sidelong glance at someone, there was something sharp about it. Fang Zichen had been looked at that way several times, and he had to admit—if it weren't for the huge droop of baby fat weighing down his little face, making it jiggle with every step and giving him the appearance of a pudgy little butterball, the boy might actually grow up to have some of his own dashing flair. In that case, finding a wife wouldn't be a problem.
But then again... they both ate the same food. How did Dandan manage to look like a little pig? He was practically a ball of lard.
If he kept going like this, even a sow would be hard to find—let alone a wife.
Fang Zichen looked at them with growing worry. Several times he thought about cutting off their rations, but Dandan wouldn't cry when hungry—he would just cling to Fang Zichen's neck, bury his face in the crook of his neck, and—having spent so much time with Guaizai—picked up the same babyish way of talking, calling out to him in a soft, milky little voice: "Father, Dandan, hungry-hungry."
And Fang Zichen's heart would soften. Besides, the children were getting sensible too—every time they saw him and Zhao Ger return from outside, they would huff and puff their way over to drag out the little stools for them.
Gungun couldn't finish that half-bowl of rice porridge. From now on, instead of pouring leftovers to the dogs, he'd give them to Dandan instead!
The next day, Fang Zichen carried Gungun and held Dandan's hand as they went to the paper mill for another look.
Building the paper mill turned out to be much more complicated than building the cement factory, because papermaking involved many complex steps—the pulp-beating vats, the drying alleyways for baking the paper—all of which needed proper construction. It wasn't like putting up walls and slapping on roof tiles and calling it done.
Just the drying alley took over a month to build.
The drying alley for paper consisted of two brick walls made of sun-dried clay bricks, with gaps between the bricks to let heat seep through. To dry the paper, they'd light a fire inside the alley, then spread sheets of wet paper against the walls. The heat radiating from the gaps would slowly dry the paper, and once completely dry, each sheet could be peeled off and used.
If they didn't build such an alley, they could always sun-dry the paper outdoors—but Anping County was in the south. From the start of winter all the way through the early spring, the weather was rainy and overcast, terribly damp. Clothes could hang for half a month and still not dry. At that time of year, they couldn't take the paper outside, nor could they simply stop production just because winter had come.
So the drying alley had to be built.
But Fang Zichen didn't actually know how to build one. When he'd read about it before, the books only had brief descriptions. The first alley they built had walls too thin and gaps too wide—the paper would catch fire the moment it was pasted on. It took Fang Zichen a long time of trial and error before they finally got it right.
By now, the "tools" he'd asked Zhang Quan to have the carpenters make were also arriving one by one.
For papermaking, the boiled raw materials had to be pounded in a stone mortar until they became a paste-like pulp. The pounded material was then mixed with just the right amount of water, allowing the fibers to fully separate and absorb moisture, forming a suspension of paper fibers, which was then poured into the vat. A fine bamboo screen was used to scoop the pulp from the vat—the fibers would cling to the screen, forming a thin film of paper. A catalyst made from natural plant materials was used to control the concentration of the fiber suspension. The bamboo screen, now coated with pulp, was flipped onto a pressing board, and the screen was carefully lifted away, leaving the paper film on the board. Layer by layer, these sheets were stacked up, then pressed under heavy weights to squeeze out excess water.
All of these—the stone mortars, the bamboo screens, the pressing boards—had to be custom-made.
A rough calculation put the total cost for labor and materials at nearly nine hundred taels of silver.
The floor was paved with cement, and the land itself was provided by the government—if they'd had to pay for those two big items too, the cost would have shot past a thousand taels.
The budget was shrinking fast.
They needed to start production as soon as possible.
Fang Zichen sent an official letter to Yang Chengfeng, asking him to recruit a few experienced papermakers from over there.
For miscellaneous tasks, they could hire locals from the village—but the crucial step of scooping the pulp was not something just anyone could do. It required experience: scoop too lightly and the paper would be too thin; scoop too heavily and it would be too thick. It all depended on the artisan's refined skill and deft touch.
Back when they'd dealt with the bandits' spoils, there had been two large chests of paper, said to be from the Chu family. The Chu family ran a papermaking business, though on a small scale. Poor as Hezhou was, even the poorest places had a few scholars—Anping County had seven, for instance. Merchants and government offices also needed paper for record-keeping. With their "proprietary" craft, the Chu family had practically monopolized the entire southern Hezhou market.
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