For now, this was all she could do.
All of Zhou Lihua's bad habits had been indulged by her grandmother when she was at her maternal family's home. They probably wouldn't be easy to change anytime soon.
Su Qiao sighed helplessly and walked out of the room.
She found a clean wooden stick in the corner, moved the stone slab off the large water vat, and stirred the mulberry bark and Chinese wingnut bark soaking inside.
She wasn't actually sure whether she could make paper at all.
The method Xiao Si had found was written very simply. Overall, it consisted of just four steps.
First, the bark had to be retted or steamed and boiled in an alkaline solution to remove the gum and separate it into fibers.
Then the fibers had to be cut and pounded until they became pulp.
The pulp was mixed with water to make a slurry. Finally, a bamboo screen was used to scoop up the slurry, weaving the pulp into thin sheets of wet paper.
The wet paper was then dried in the sun or air-dried. Once peeled off, it became paper.
It sounded simple, but it was actually rather complicated.
Still, Su Qiao didn't have high expectations. As long as it could be used as coarse paper in the end, that would be enough.
She had originally wanted to use wheat straw, but the wheat hadn't been harvested yet, and almost all of the previous year's straw had already been used up.
Ernie came over carrying a stack of small white bags about the size of a palm. She curiously leaned toward the vat and took a look. "Qiao'er, what are you soaking?"
"Something good."
Su Qiao stirred the bark in each of the three large water vats in turn, then covered them