Who knows! As soon as I returned to the mountains to farm, I encountered a natural disaster.

The first thing to hunt was bamboo. Bamboo was relatively easy to obtain. Even if they failed at first, there were still materials to recover. The bark of paper mulberry tree was a lot more troublesome. If they wanted it again, they had to go to the forest. They also found wild paper mulberry in the mountains. It is difficult to find, it is not planted in large areas, and the number of paper mulberry trees known now is limited.

Mulberry bark can also be made, but compared to paper mulberry, mulberry is harder to find.

Now, neither of them is familiar with the process of making paper. At the beginning, Mu Xi only put a little fiber into the stone pound, and after pounding it hard, it turned into a soft fiber ball.

Zhao Yeqing was handling the remaining ingredients nearby. The fermented ingredients had to be washed before being beaten to remove the obviously blackened impurities on the surface.

Mu Xi couldn't control the speed and hammered for a long time. He saw that the fibers in the stone had not changed for a long time before he stopped, "Is this enough?"

Zhao Yeqing stretched his neck and leaned over to take a look. His tone was a little uncertain: "Probably... let's try it first before talking."

The beaten fiber clumps are somewhat like the cotton batting in an old cotton quilt that has turned yellow after many years of use. Some are rough and some are soft, and the color is orange-yellow.

The screenshot comes from Peng Chuanming, an ancient skills blogger. His video has a more detailed papermaking process, which is 70% similar to the technique in the article.

Mu Xi took the fiber wood pulp to the backyard and dispersed it in the sink behind the kitchen.

This water tank was originally a small water tower placed in the backyard to store water and supply it to the faucet. Later, after a water pump was installed, the water tower became idle. Mu Xi took the time to knock off the red bricks, and the two used red bricks to build a new water tank. , sometimes when you want to eat fish, you take the fish out of the fish pond and keep it there for a few days.

It won't taste too earthy.

Now the inside of the square cement red brick sink has been cleaned by two people in advance. Because it was only the first time to try it, the fiber wood pulp they brought was not much, and they only filled it with half a tank of water.

The fiber wood pulp was put into the sink and stirred up. Zhao Yeqing took a bamboo pole and stirred it, waiting for Mu Xi to bring over the papermaking trough that he had made long ago.

The papermaking trough is made of bamboo. It is woven with thin bamboo strips and polished until smooth. It is rectangular and smaller in length and width than this sink, making it easier for the papermaking trough to swing inside.

The light yellow fibers stirred up in the clear water are floating inside. Soak the papermaking trough in the water, pick up the fiber wood pulp that floats after constant stirring, and let them be spread thinly in the papermaking trough.

Mu Xi made it for the first time, and the operation was a little clumsy. The wood pulp fibers fell on the papermaking trough, which was thin in some places and thick in others. He floated the papermaking trough in the water several times before the wood pulp fibers were spread evenly.

He didn't know how many times he raised the papermaking trough, looked it up and down, and said to Zhao Yeqing, who had just returned from the drying room: "How was it? It seems to be okay this time?"

Zhao Yeqing's eyes wandered over it, making sure that there were no holes anywhere: "It's pretty good this time. Let's take it to the drying room and bake it out."

She had already gone to the drying room to light up the fire. Mu Xi carried the papermaking trough to the drying room and placed the papermaking trough diagonally on the table, facing the burning brazier at a distance of about forty centimeters. .

Papermaking involves drying in the summer and roasting in the winter. In today's weather, the sun doesn't come out very much, so artificial methods can only be used.

"It shouldn't take long for such a thin paper, let's just leave it here for now." Zhao Yeqing took Mu Xi, who was a little worried, out and continued pounding the wood pulp.

Mu Xi, who mastered the technique of beating wood pulp for the first time, became even more proficient the second time and put paper mulberry bark inside.