I played as an assistant in ancient times

Shen Xiaoye slowly walked over to them and said shyly, "How about we fade the color?"

Huang and her mother-in-law looked at each other and reluctantly took off the cloth. "I'll go to Qian Wu's house and find a handful of straw to burn into ash."

Very few families in Jiuli Village grow rice, but there are a few fields close to the river bank with fertile soil and sufficient water, so these families plant a little rice on the side next to the river.

Rice straw is different from wheat straw. It can be used to make mats and roofs. If it is sold as fodder, one hundred kilograms can be sold for one hundred and eighty cents.

Therefore, every year the straw will be collected and stored at home by the farmer along with the rice.

"How about I go?" Shen Xiaoye looked at the cloth on the bamboo pole. The color of the first water was really beautiful. She was reluctant to let the rice ash water fade away.

Then she added, "By the way, I'll show this piece of cloth to Aunt Tang. If it doesn't fade, it will look pretty if you just embroider a few cloud patterns on it."

"Forget it, just stay at home." It was the first time for Huang to dye cloth for an outsider, so she couldn't do it casually, so she got up and left.

Shen Xiaoye squatted on the ground, holding her chin with her hands and looking up at the fluttering red cloth. The color was really beautiful. "Grandma, when I saw the fresh dye, I forgot the most important gray dye..."

"It's just one mistake. Just be more careful next time." Lin smoothed her hair. The little girl was busy like a little bee all day long to earn money for the family.

Last summer and autumn, the child spent all day long mixing flowers, leaves and grass roots with his hands full of colors in order to make dyes.

The old lady patted her shoulder and said, "There are several pieces of cloth on the chopping board that are all red. Are you sure you only want to focus on this one?"

Shen Xiaoye stood up upon hearing that, and immediately revived to his full strength, trotting to the long chopping board, and smoothed out a piece of cloth that was more than ten feet long.

First, use a damp cloth to wet the area where you want to print.

Then I picked up the kraft paper template handed to me by my grandmother and pressed it on the cloth. Then I used a scraper to apply the ointment made of bean powder on the template. This required quick and careful application so that the ointment fell on the cloth, and then I carefully lifted the template.

After that, press down another piece and apply the ointment again, then peel off the template.

Then she moved to the other end of the cloth and started the same operation.

After applying four pieces in a row, gently peel off the shape plate, and a flower and bird pattern will suddenly appear on the white cloth. The anti-dyeing layer formed in this way will effectively prevent the red pigment from being applied to the cloth during dyeing.

With the help of her grandmother, she carefully hung the cloth to dry in a cool place. It was hot, so the ointment would be dry by the evening and could be dyed.

"Fortunately, to make a horse-faced skirt, only the hem needs to have patterns. Otherwise, it would be too time-consuming to apply the pattern on such a long piece of cloth." Lin fanned her. Fortunately, the trees planted on this piece of land before the house was built had grown for many years, and the lush shade of the trees was just enough to provide shade.

She said, "It's almost noon, can we move to the main room and work as usual?"

"Of course, wait until I finish painting these pieces of cloth." Shen Xiaoye took the flower and bird pattern plate to wash it, but her grandmother was worried that her old plate would not be good for water, so she snatched it away to wash it.

As the sun grew bigger, she hurriedly moved a large basin of dye into the middle room of the west wing. Behind the door of this room were two stoves, which were specially used to heat the kangs in the bedrooms on both sides in winter.

When I have free time in summer and autumn, I can use it as a studio.

When she was carrying the second basin of dye into the house, Huang came back holding straw.

"Mom, did Qian Er really give his Dabao to his fifth aunt?"

"How could that be false? He even said he would set up a banquet and invite the head of the village to rewrite the family tree."

"But, what if Dabao fails the exam..."

“That’s hard to say.”

The mother-in-law and daughter-in-law exchanged a brief conversation. Under Shen Xiaoye's command, they burned a handful of straw into ashes and then mixed it with water.

Huang took the still wet red cloth and asked, "Now drip the gray water on it?"

"This... I'm not sure. It seems so, and it seems that the gray water needs to be filtered?" Shen Xiaoye was in a dilemma. She had only seen it in books. When her classmates dyed their hair, they would not intentionally fade it again.

She said, "How about trying a dozen drops?"

"Come on." Lin brought another empty basin. Her family didn't have much else. Her two sons, who were practicing with their hands, had made a bunch of wooden basins. She scooped a ladle of water and said, "Even if it doesn't work, you can always try using the filtered one."

Huang put the cloth into the basin of water and directly picked up a few drops of rice ash water with his hand and dropped them on the cloth. After a while, the water in the basin began to become turbid, and the color on the cloth was disappearing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Shen Xiaoye remembered that there was a mark in red pen on the copy of "The Exploitation of the Works of Nature" at her classmate's house: If you want to return the dyed cloth sample, just soak the dyed cloth and drop dozens of drops of alkaline water or rice ash water on it, and the red color will be absorbed and returned to its original nature.

(I am not sure whether I need to filter out the rice ash water, so I will just describe it this way for now.)

She couldn't help but sigh: "Sure enough, safflower-dyed cloth cannot be washed with wood ash. The ancients were right."

Seeing the water in the basin gradually turning red, she struggled with her thoughts for a while and decided not to collect any mung bean powder, but to filter it directly to dye the shoe upper cloth.

Otherwise, my aunt would be furious if I had to use a pound of mung bean powder, which is more expensive than wheat, to collect the dye.

After a while, the cloth returned to white and was wrung dry and rinsed by Huang.

Before Shen Xiaoye could even think of using the faded water to dye the scraps of cloth, her grandmother had already splashed it away.

Well, save time and effort and benefit the earth.

"Xiao Ye, why are you standing there? Let's carry the chopping board to the main room. It's too hot this afternoon." Huang came back after putting up the cloth.

"Can we print a few more flowers before moving?" Shen Xiaoye turned to look at her grandmother, but did not get the old lady's support.

Huang came closer and rubbed her head: "You think you haven't gotten a tan after a summer of tanning, right? Don't waste time, come and move."

Ugh……

When Shen Xiaoye sighed, his cousin Shen Cungeng also sighed at the same time. He looked at the woad he had dug out. There were really too many of them.

"Uncle, we need to find two carts to transport it away, right?

Are you sure the masters in the temple won't have any objections?"

"Ten copper coins per person, just dig as much as you want, they won't care."

"But I am concerned. With so many of them, don't we have to bundle them up and carry them down the mountain first?" Shen Cungeng was so busy digging that he accidentally created a problem for himself.

Shen Changsui tied up a bundle and said, "Go down the mountain and look for some villagers in Tangjiaji. They will be willing to help us deliver it home from the top of the mountain for a few copper coins."

"Okay!" Shen Cungeng was about to go down the mountain listlessly, but suddenly turned around and said, "No, where did we get the copper coins?"

"The pigment made by Xiaoye was sold for less than three taels, and the temple gave him a hundred copper coins." Shen Changsui thought this was also a way to make money, but the key was to have big customers.

Shen Cungeng praised: "It's amazing! Xiaoye earned a hundred coins just like playing at home."

"Time is money. Hurry up and go down to find someone, otherwise you won't be able to get home before noon." Shen Changsui continued to tie the body without even raising his head.

Shen Cungeng responded loudly: "Okay, I'll find it right away."

He was lucky. When he was almost at the foot of the mountain, he met a man driving an empty cart coming down the mountain on a large flat ground. When the man heard that he wanted to give him some grass for the cart, he gave him dozens of copper coins and readily agreed.