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Aunt Zhang was quite worried, "Can't you fix it today? I don't think it will last until tomorrow!"
The wall was connected to the kitchen. Once it collapsed, people cooking in the kitchen would be in danger.
Gu Jiao thought for a moment and said to Aunt Zhang, "Just a moment."
Gu Jiao went back to her house, headed to the kitchen to find some glutinous rice, boiled a pot of glutinous rice soup, and then poured the thick glutinous rice soup into a well-mixed lime mortar.
"Big sis, what are you doing?" Gu Xiaoshun asked curiously.
Gu Yan also crouched over and looked at her earnestly, "Why did you pour the rice soup in there?"
Gu Jiao handed each of them a stick and signaled them to keep stirring, "This is glutinous rice mortar, which is easier to use than rammed earth. It's more perfect for binding walls."
In fact, the process for making rammed earth was very arduous. After mixing three raw materials together, it was necessary to pound them again and again with tools. The more times you pound them, the stronger the rammed earth would be.
Glutinous rice mortar, on the other hand, wasn’t so complicated to make, and its firmness and sturdiness was much higher. This was because cooked glutinous rice soup contained amylopectin, which was a perfect natural adhesive. If you exaggerate it a bit, the strength of lime mortar mixed with it was almost comparable to that of concrete in her previous life.
"Be careful, don't let it get on your body." Gu Jiao warned.
"Oh!" The two people nodded in order.
When Gu Jinyu arrived at Bishui Alley, what she saw was the scene of three siblings mixing mortar together.
Gu Jinyu's eyebrows furrowed.
As far as she could remember, Gu Yan had always been a sickly lad who would be out of breath just by walking. She didn't expect to see him doing such rough work.
She saw Yao shi sitting at one side, mending clothes leisurely, feeling nothing wrong with Gu Yan's actions.
After a pause, Gu Jinyu went into the yard and said, "Mom, sister, brother, what are you doing?"
Gu Yan gave her a look and then ignored her.
Gu Yan didn’t like her at all.
That was already the case when he still didn’t know her origin, and now that he knew, his dislike for her only grew even more.
Gu Jiao also didn’t pay her any attention and just continued to make her own glutinous rice mortar.
Gu Jinyu didn’t even greet Gu Xiaoshun, so Gu Xiaoshun certainly wouldn't talk to her.
Yao shi looked up at her, "It's Jinyu. Why are you here?"
Gu Jinyu replied softly, "I didn't see Mom in the estate and guessed Mom must have come here. I brought some things for my sister and brother."
Gu Yan rolled his eyes, "Who wants it?"
The mortar was ready in a short time. Gu Jiao found a bucket and filled it up.
"I'll do it!" Gu Xiaoshun carried the bucket to Aunt Zhang's house.
Gu Yan also wanted to, but unfortunately he couldn't, so he just clung to the small shovel in his hand.
The three siblings went to repair the wall of Aunt Zhang's house.
Yao shi sighed.
Looking at the dirty mortar on the ground and a pot of unused glutinous rice soup, Gu Jinyu frowned in disgust and turned to Yao shi, "Mom, how can sister let brother do rough work? My brother is feeble."
"Because he’s feeble, that's why he has to exert himself more. Haven't you noticed that your brother is more energetic now than before?" Yao shi allowed it not because Gu Yan was taking medicine every day, but rather, she thought that her son was now a regular person.
Gu Jinyu curled her lips and said, "But the imperial physicians all say that my brother should not work too hard, and should rest more."
Yao shi replied, "Your sister is a physician; she knows what's best for Yan'er!”
Gu Jinyu wanted to open her mouth: She’s just a medicine girl, which part of her is a physician?
Gu Jinyu's eyes rested on the glutinous rice soup and mortar, which she thought a product of their fooling around, nothing more. Glutinous rice soup was for eating, but Gu Jiao mixed it with the mud.
Indeed, she grew up in the countryside, she didn't have any common sense.
Gu Jinyu was ignored but put up with it and said, "Mom."
"What's the matter?" Yao shi asked.
Gu Jinyu smiled, took out the golden seal and precious scroll from her wide sleeve and handed it to Yao shi.
Yao shi was slightly stunned, "This is ..."
"Open it and have a look." Gu Jinyu said proudly.
Yao shi opened the box with the golden seal and turned it over to see that it was the Commandery Princess's seal.
Gu Jinyu waited for Yao shi's praise.
Yao shi had heard about the bellows. Yao shi didn't understand the title bestowment rules of the imperial court, but being a Commandery Princess was such an honor after all.
Yao shi nodded with gratification, "Mom’s Jinyu is really amazing."
Gu Jinyu was very happy with Yao shi's compliment.
After a while, the three siblings came back. The three people got dirty all over from repairing the wall, their hair also covered with dust.
Aunt Zhang came in with a jar of pickles in her arms and said to Yao shi, "Ah Yao, your children are really capable! They got it done for me at once!"
Yao shi's eyes almost overflowed with joy and pride, and she was even happier than when she saw the golden seal for Commandery Princess of Gu Jinyu, "Yes, they are all quite capable."
It’s just repairing walls, what’s so capable about that?
Gu Jinyu curled her lips.
Gu Jinyu brought a lot of gifts bestowed by the Emperor to let everyone know the good news of her becoming a Commandery Princess. However, apart from Yao shi's small appreciation at the beginning, Gu Jiao’s group of three simply took Gu Jinyu and her valuables as air.
Gu Jinyu didn't feel the joy of flaunting at all.
The gold and silver jewelry she brought wasn’t as good as a worthless jar of pickles.
Sure enough, people were from the countryside, they didn’t know what was what!
At night, Gu Jinyu returned to the Marquis Estate.
The little servant girl told her that during the two hours she had been away, there had been a number of other young misses who had come to visit her and had left gifts, all in celebration of her becoming a Commandery Princess.
Gu Jinyu felt a little better.
Marquis Gu went back to the estate, and Gu Jinyu told her about her visit to Bishui Alley. When she mentioned that Gu Jiao had repaired her neighbor’s wall, she gave a special compliment, "Sister is actually quite capable."
If Marquis Gu had been there at that time, perhaps he would have thought that the three siblings were indeed quite capable, but Gu Jinyu, who invented the piston bellows, had to be the one to say it, creating a sharp contrast instead.
Marquis Gu scoffed, "What so amazing about repairing walls? That's all she can do! I repeatedly convince her to go to school but she just won't! Instead, she has to do these unseemly things! Can't she just learn from you? Study hard, practice the guqin well, and be the young miss of a Marquis Estate!"
Gu Jinyu said in a warm voice, "The most important thing is that my sister is happy."
Marquis Gu snorted coldly, "She’s happy indeed!"
He took his son away!
They said, those who handled cinnabar were stained red; those who worked with ink were stained black. He was really worried that Yan'er would become a little country bumpkin because he was with that girl all day.
Gu Yan, who worried other people that he might become a little country bumpkin, was playing checkers with Little Jing Kong, the number one child prodigy of the State of Zhao at the moment, successfully losing the eighteenth game tonight.
With a dark expression, he went to the study of the number one child prodigy of the State of Zhao, and asked his brother-in-law to play five-in-a-row for a while to find comfort. As a result, he was defeated five times in a row.
The heartbroken baby Gu went to the elderly woman’s room, played leaf cards with the elderly woman and her two card friends for a while, and then had his homework checked by Old Chief, thus completing a satisfactory (frustrating) and full (bitter) day.
……
The first batch of jinchuang medicine sold to the military camp had received good feedback, and the military camp quickly placed their second order.
Gu Jiao was busy making money every day.
Gu Jinyu was not idle either.
The invention of piston bellows stimulated her to a great extent. She believed herself to be intelligent, so much so that she didn't believe her brain couldn't figure out what others could come up with.
Besides, bellows were just all the same.
Exquisite was exquisite, but the principle behind it was very simple.
Wasn’t it just increasing the wind to make the flames burn more vigorously?
What's so hard about that?
Gu Jinyu had a brainwave. She took out a brush and a piece of paper, and improved the furnace-bellows ratio.
She doubled the number of bellows, which would make the firepower more powerful and the iron smelting more effective.
Gu Jinyu took the blueprints she had drawn with her and entered the palace. She told Imperial Concubine Shu her idea, "...what could have been finished in one month can be done in half a month after this improvement!"
[T/N: Hello, I don't think I can post an update tomorrow as I have somewhere to go. Sadly, I didn't have time to translate an extra chapter today either. So I'll post two updates on wednesday. Thanks for understanding :D]
References
1. — You become who you spend your time with. 2. — An abstract strategy board game. It is traditionally played with Go pieces (black and white stones) on a Go board. It is played using a 15×15 board. (via wiki
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