Interstellar Live: Work hard and you will have a fortune of trillions!

A few days later, on a winter afternoon, the sun shone through the window, making people feel warm.

Bai Xi picked up the pen and drew the final stroke.

This is my first finished painting, a copy of Wu Guanzhong's "Withered Lotus".

She looked at the painting and was satisfied with it, so she decided to keep it.

She wrote the date and name in small letters in the lower right corner of the paper.

After painting for two or three days, she cultivated her sentiments. Seeing that there were only seven or eight days left until the Chinese New Year, Bai Xi didn't plan to stay at home anymore and wanted to go out.

She had originally planned to live broadcast the papermaking process during the winter vacation.

It happened that she had looked up some information these two days and contacted Zhang Li. To see the papermaking, she had to be accompanied by a local, otherwise, she was worried that she would not be able to enter the workshop.

After waiting for feedback from Zhang Li, Bai Xi booked the train tickets, talked to his father, and set off with Lin Yi and Lin Er, heading for Xuancheng.

It is not far from Nanshi to Xuancheng, and it only takes one hour by high-speed rail.

The "Xuan" in Xuancheng refers to the "Xuan" of Xuan paper.

Xuan paper has a history of more than one thousand years in China. It is called the national treasure because of its characteristics of being resistant to aging, not changing color, not being moth-eaten, and having a long lifespan. It is said that the lifespan of paper is a thousand years.

Xuan paper was not only included in my country's first batch of intangible cultural heritage lists, but also in 2009 it was included in the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of the United Nations.

As soon as we got out of the high-speed railway station, a car came to pick us up. The person who picked us up was a young man. He was stocky and strong, and it was obvious at first glance that he was a good worker.

The visitor was stunned for a moment when he saw Bai Xi, then smiled shyly, "Hello, my last name is Cao, you can just call me Brother Cao."

"Hello, Brother Cao, I'm Bai Xi."

"Well... let's go, let's go." Brother Cao led her out and walked towards a car.

Bai Xi got in the car and said, "Let's go."

Her destination today is Xiaoling Village, Jing County, Xuancheng.

The scenery along the way was beautiful, with the sound of mountain springs and the breeze blowing. On the way, Brother Cao was very curious and asked, "Are you coming to our village to see the rice paper?"

"Yes."

"But you didn't bring a camera..."

As the birthplace of Xuan paper, their village is often visited by media and internet celebrities. They are used to being watched by cameras, so not many of them come empty-handed.

Even if they come, they are just here for tourism and won’t look for anyone to pick them up.

Bai Xi smiled and said, "I just came to take a look."

Brother Cao touched his head and said, "Look at the papermaking. I tell you, you came at a wrong time. Come back after March. The scenery will be better then, and we will just start to collect sandalwood bark."

Pteris chinensis bark is one of the raw materials for Xuan paper.

In China, the papermaking technique is passed down in various parts of the country. For example, in a small mountain village in Guizhou, paper is made from mulberry trees, which is called parchment paper. Tianfu has bamboo paper, and Zhejiang Province has rattan paper.

Jing County is the hometown of Xuan paper.

In just an hour, they drove along the winding county road and arrived at Xiaoling Village.

After getting off the bus, a centuries-old ancient celestial sandalwood tree came into view. Brother Cao patted the tree and said, "Do you know why we produce good paper here? Because we grow celestial sandalwood here, and the fiber of the celestial sandalwood bark is long and thin, which is suitable for papermaking."

They first walked around the village. The small mountain village was surrounded by beautiful mountains and clear water, and the stream was so clear that you could see the bottom. It was an ancient village with white walls and black tiles and beautiful scenery.

It really should be spring, winter seems a bit depressing.

The village still has the remains of a paper-making pond from the Qing Dynasty and some small workshops.

"These small workshops are rarely used now, and we have built several paper mills in our village."

Brother Cao said, "In the past, the demand for Xuan paper was not high, so we collected sandalwood bark locally. Now it is no longer possible, and we have to transport it here from several neighboring cities."

"The bark of the Chinese cinnamon tree is not easy to peel. After the branches are cut, they have to be boiled in a big pot before they can be peeled."

As he spoke, he took Bai Xi into the warehouse of a handicraft workshop and said, "This is the cut bark of the Chinese cedarwood. It is piled in the warehouse after being dried."

This is one of the main ingredients for papermaking.

Bai Xi reached out and touched it, and it was very hard.

In the warehouse next door is piled up another main ingredient for Xuan paper, rice straw.

"To turn the bark of the Chinese ash into white fiber, it has to go through several steps, soaking it in lime water for three days and steaming the ash for two days."

This is to remove organic acids, oils, gums, microorganisms, etc. from the bark.

Bai Xi saw the people working in the workshop. They opened the lid of the big pot, their figures were submerged in the steaming heat, but they didn't care about the heat. They held tools in their hands, dug out the freshly cooked zelkova bark, put it into a basket, and walked out with it on their backs.

Bai Xi followed.

I saw a line of five or six people in front of me. They soaked the sandalwood bark that had just been boiled and was still hot in the stream water to clean it, put it into a backpack, and carried it to a small hill next to the stream.

There is no soil or plants on this hillside, only stones. On the stones, there are endless sandalwood barks drying. Standing on a high place and looking at them, some are black, some are gray, and some are white.

Some are still steaming, having just been served.

Brother Cao led Bai Xi through the black and gray cinnamon barks to the white area. He grabbed a handful of white bark and said, "This is called liaopi. It has been exposed to the sun for a year."

The bark of the Chinese zelkova is naturally bleached after being exposed to wind and sun for a year and becomes the raw material for papermaking.

"What about the sand straw?"

"Lime is the same. Soak it for two days, boil it for a day, and dry it for a year, and it will turn into burnt grass."

Bai Xi looked at the endless expanse of scorched bark and grass on the mountain and sighed, "It's so difficult!"

Without bleach, you can only use time to bleach it. Wind, frost, rain, snow, alternating hot and cold weather will wash away the impurities, leaving only clean skin.

It’s so hard to make a piece of paper!!

Brother Cao squatted on the riverbank and said quietly: "This is just the beginning."

……

According to Tiangong Kaiwu, there are five steps in papermaking: chopping bamboo and floating it in a pond, boiling it over a sufficient fire, putting the paper into a screen, covering the screen with paper, and drying it over a fire.

But underneath that, there are countless small steps.

Just at this moment, someone came to collect the bark of the shaoxing fish. The person pressed the dry bark of the shaoxing fish into a backpack and carried it back. Bai Xi followed him, wanting to see the next step.

The shao husks are brought back and poured into the large workshop, where several workers are selecting them, carefully picking them out one by one, removing those that are not in color, leaving only the white shao husks.

Then, the processed shao pi and shao cao were passed to the workshop next door, where several uncles beat the shao pi again and again.

Beat the peel into one piece.

It is called pestle material.

Then after several processes such as cutting, treading, and washing in bags, the bark and turf finally become pulp-like and are put into two large pools and stirred vigorously.

The pulp is very thick at this point.

Bai Xi looked at the large pools, eyes sparkling, and asked, "Can we copy paper now?"

She had seen it on TV and thought it was amazing how one could copy a piece of paper at a time.

"It's almost there! Don't worry!"

Brother Cao pointed to the pools and said, "The water used here is directly from the source of the stream. It is the cleanest spring water, which meets the pH value of the paper used for cultural relics restoration."

Bai Xi was a little dazed.

Is it so harsh?

Brother Cao nodded, it was just that harsh.