Qin asked

When the knife cut his hand for the third time, Mo Dou finally realized that his current mentality was not suitable for carpentry, so he could only put down the knife and wood in his hand and stared blankly.

Ying Zheng has been sleeping with him for three consecutive days, it's really scary...

Mo Dou couldn't help but twitched his mouth when he thought of this, but the expression on his face was already numb, and he couldn't see the expression of fear at all. It can only be said that people's adaptability is infinite: Mo Dou was in a daze for a whole day after discovering Ying Zheng on the first day At night, after seeing Ying Zheng appearing, he didn’t even dare to sleep, and stayed up until dawn; on the second day, Mo Dou was able to force himself to fall asleep; and on the third day, Mo Dou even learned to wake Ying Zheng up on time in the morning Shang Dynasty...

But this doesn't mean that Mo Dou doesn't care about this matter anymore. During these three days of experience, Mo Dou felt that his spirit and body were divided into two halves--the body gradually adapted, but the spirit became more and more tense.

Mo Dou felt that if he continued like this, unless he could know the reason why Ying Zheng was so abnormal, he would have to suffer from schizophrenia.

However, he didn't dare to ask Ying Zheng, let alone tell others about it...

Mo Dou sighed in despair, feeling that he had met a fake Ying Zheng, feeling hopeless in the world.

"Master?" Ping had watched Mo Dou sigh for a long time, he called Mo Dou hesitantly, interrupting the other party's train of thought. "Things burnt out."

Mo Dou raised his head and glanced at Ping in confusion, only then remembered that a few days ago, he seemed to have entrusted Ping with the task of calcining pencil leads.

The pencil Mo Dou promised Gan Luo before was not nonsense. From the day Ying Zheng complained to him about the pen, Mo Dou had already started collecting raw materials for making pencil leads: graphite and clay.

These two things seem simple, but it is not so difficult to find them. Clay is easy to find. According to Baidu records, the main mining area of ​​graphite is in the northeast. Yingzheng sent people to the northeast.

After all, in this day and age, the Northeast is still a barren land blocked outside the Great Wall, and it is definitely not a place where one or two people can be sent casually.

Fortunately, Mo Dou still found graphite resources in Shaanxi Province. Two days before he promised Gan Luo, he finally collected the raw materials for making pencil cores.

Pencil leads are primarily made from a mixture of graphite and clay.The first thing to do is to grind the granular clay to powder, mix it with graphite into water, dry it for 16 hours, and then enter the furnace for firing. Only 800-1200 temperature is needed to harden the clay inside and form a more Smooth and effortless pencil lead.

The ink fountain had already collected coal before, and the flame could fully meet the temperature requirements. With the objective conditions already met, the ink fountain very calmly handed over the firing task to Ping.

Of course, it's not that the ink fountain is lazy, but that the ink fountain is indeed inferior to Ping, who has been in charge of firing glass all year round, in terms of sintering.

But Mo Dou didn't intend to just let it go, it was just because of Ying Zheng, Mo Dou didn't have the energy to pay attention to this matter, but Mo Dou had confidence in Ping, he didn't misjudge people at the beginning, Ping was really very good in this respect talented.

So when Ping came to find him, Mo Dou, who was quite confident in his apprentice, directly asked, "Did the burning succeed?"

Mo Dou asked Ping a little at a loss, and he answered cautiously: "I don't know..."

Ping really didn’t know if it was successful, because the ink fountain didn’t know how to tell him what the finished product looked like, so he just asked him to burn clay and graphite in different proportions, and then came to him after the firing. Ink fountain.

Mo Dou patted his brain annoyedly, and asked Ping to bring over all the burnt pencil leads for him to choose, after all, only he who has used pencils before can really understand what is the best to use.

Ping's movements were quick, and he brought all the pencil leads as soon as the ink fountain took the paper. It could be seen that he had prepared it long ago, and made the ink fountain feel ashamed not to praise his apprentice.

After simply praising Kuiping and embarrassing the other party, Mo Dou finally recovered a little mood, bowed his head and concentrated on picking out the refills.

Don’t use dry ones, don’t use too brittle ones, useless ones that are too soft, and eliminate those that can’t be written...

The conditions for the ink fountain are very strict, but fortunately, Ping planned the formula very meticulously, covering almost all the possibilities of mixing ratios. Even if the selection was based on the conditions of the ink fountain, there were still a few refills that survived.

With the pen core, the pen holder is very simple, just insert the lead lead into the grooved wooden strips, and then glue the two wooden strips together.

The wooden stick ink fountain is ready-just now the ink fountain cut his own hand just because of this... But everything is worth it, the world's first pencil has successfully come out.

In line with the principle of not wasting, Heping also made the remaining refills like brewing.

Mo Dou heaved a sigh of relief, and told Ping, "Write down the recipe and go to Qianjin Pavilion to apply for a patent."

Ping nodded and asked, "What reward does Master want?"

Although Mo Dou provides a modern reward system, due to some economic objective conditions, sometimes dividends are not as good as direct bonuses, and compared to long-term returns, it is more attractive to directly throw money.Therefore, Yingzheng still kept the condition of rewarding a thousand dollars, and let the person who donated the patent choose one of the two.

"This is your patent, you choose it yourself." Mo Dou waved his hand indifferently, and blocked his apprentice's mouth by the way, "You made the formula of the pen core, I just made a pen holder, and the patent naturally belongs to you."

Ping was a little helpless, the last time the stirrup was like this, and this time the pen refill was also like this, it was obviously the idea of ​​the master, but in the end it turned out to be his benefit inexplicably, the master made him very guilty, okay?

However, Mo Dou is more guilty than he is, which is why he insists on letting Ping grind the formula slowly. If he were to do it himself, he would not be tempted to use the ready-made formula long ago.

Ping thought about it hesitantly, and then chose a compromise method: "Then I choose the share, and there should be a share of the master."

"Let's do it..." Mo Dou couldn't refuse, so he had to agree, and then told Uncle Niu on the side, "Pick two of these pens and send them to Gan Luo Shangqing. Remember to tell him that the words written by this pen can be wiped with steamed cakes." go."

Uncle Niu was stunned, and asked repeatedly: "Momo?"

Mo Dou nodded seriously: "Yes, Momo."

Before the invention of the eraser, Europeans used bread to erase pencils, and steamed buns should be able to do the same, but at this time, steamed buns are not called steamed buns, but steamed cakes, or steamed buns in dialect.

There is a legend that steamed buns were invented by Zhuge Liang, but this is not true.This is because at that time, Shu State was in Sichuan, and Meng Huo was in Yunnan. Both places ate rice instead of wheat, so it was impossible to invent steamed buns. In fact, the army went on an expedition and carried yeast with them, which on the contrary showed the processing technology of steamed buns at that time. It's very mature.

Steamed buns should have been invented during the Warring States Period, or even earlier. It is estimated that there is no way to verify who invented it.

The earliest records can be traced back to the Warring States period. "Things of the Pearl" recorded that "Qin Zhaowang made steamed cakes", and according to the "Name Test": "Those who eat steamed noodles are called 'steamed cakes' and 'cage cakes'. ', that is, today's steamed buns".In the Song Dynasty, in order to avoid the name taboo of Song Renzong Zhao Zhen, "steam cake" was renamed "cooking cake".So the "cooking cakes" sold by Wu Dalang in the classical novel "Water Margin" are "steamed cakes", which are actually steamed buns.Note 1

Although it was a bit weird, Uncle Niu still took it down seriously, and asked by the way: "How many sticks do you want to send to the king?"

Ying Zheng...

As soon as Mo Dou thought about it, he felt a bit of a toothache: "Let's send a few too..."

There is always a bad feeling...

Mo Dou's premonition was soon fulfilled, and in the evening, Ying Zheng, who usually sneaks over at night, appeared in front of him, and made it clear that he would sleep with Mo Dou tonight—in order to reward the pencil.

Mo Dou: I beg you to let me go!