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墨書 Inktalez
"Don't look!" Cui Xiaoman shouted, grabbing a copper hook as a weapon, her eyes red like a rabbit's. "Get out!"
Lin Dahe scrambled out of the cave, the system alarm ringing in his mind: [Found the emblem of a glass artisan from the previous dynasty! Conflict with database, revalidating...]
During dinner, Cui Xiaoman surprisingly did not come to deliver food. Lin Dahe examined the fragments of molds he had unearthed during the day under the oil lamp and discovered a layered structure with regular break patterns—this was not ordinary clay but a high-temperature refractory material mixed with porcelain stone powder!
"Interesting..." he said to himself, deliberately raising his voice. "The 'Tiangong Kaiwu' states that the glass formula requires lead nitrate mixed with quartz..."
Suddenly, a shadow appeared on the window paper. Lin Dahe immediately yawned and lay down, beginning to "talk in his sleep" in an exaggerated manner: "Thirty percent nitrate... twenty percent borax... oh, the mold needs to be made of porcelain clay..."
The silhouette on the paper wavered and quickly disappeared.
The next morning, news spread through the village—Lin Dahe was going to use a "Western secret recipe" to improve the acidic soil in the experimental field. In front of a dozen villagers, he poured a bag of nitrate soil into a wooden basin and mixed it with water, filling the yard with a pungent smell.
"This stench..." Old Wang pinched his nose and stepped back. "It's worse than my family's latrine!"
Lin Dahe lowered his voice mysteriously: "Nitrate soil can kill soil pests when acidified, but it’s prone to leaching..." He glanced at Aunt Ma, who was squeezed among the crowd. "Back in Bianjing, an explosion at the artisan workshop was caused by this stuff."
During the midday break, Lin Dahe pretended to nap behind a haystack. His tool basket sat in the sun with a newly forged shovel inside. Just after noon, a faint "click" came from the basket—someone had slipped something into the gap of the shovel handle.
Squinting, Lin Dahe recognized the fabric of the visitor's clothes: indigo coarse cloth with some red mud on the hem—it was indeed Cui Xiaoman's usual outfit. Once the footsteps faded away, he turned over to check—the oil paper package contained a grayish-white powder that smelled faintly of seawater.
"Borax?" Lin Dahe dipped his finger in and tasted it; his tongue tingled immediately. The system interface cheerfully popped up: [Acquired key material! Time-limited task activated: Produce transparent glass within 72 hours for a reward of anti-counterfeiting technology.]
As the sun set behind the mountains, Lin Dahe set up a makeshift furnace in the yard. He intentionally mixed the refractory clay too thinly, causing the furnace walls to lean drunkenly. After failing to ignite the charcoal for the seventh time, he kicked over a water bucket in frustration, soaking half of the furnace.
"How stupid!"
Cui Xiaoman's voice exploded from above him like fireworks. She jumped down from the persimmon tree like an angry cat and snatched the fire striker from his hand. "Nitrate needs to be crushed for bedding!" In just a few movements, she removed the collapsed walls of the furnace to reveal soaked fuel inside. "And wet charcoal needs to be arranged like this—"
Suddenly her words faltered mid-sentence. Cui Xiaoman froze in place, still holding a dripping piece of charcoal. Lin Dahe struggled to suppress his laughter while pretending to be clueless: "Miss Cui knows how to fire kilns?"
"I... my father used to..." she stammered, her ears turning as red as if they might bleed.
"Perfect!" Lin Dahe clapped his hands. "Keep an eye on the fire while I go borrow a stone mortar to crush that borax!"
He turned and ran off, leaving Cui Xiaoman's scolding behind him. When he quietly returned around the back of the house, he was taken aback by what he saw—the girl had skillfully rebuilt the furnace and was adjusting the air inlet angle with her copper hook. Her deft movements resembled those of an experienced master with twenty years under her belt.
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