"What's the matter?" Zheng Sheng asked curiously. Although Wang Xiang was very willing to annoy him, he rarely did this in front of him.

He was already preparing to go back to Ba County, Wang Xiang had been away from home for nearly a year, and his return date was approaching. Zheng Sheng couldn't help but wonder, didn't he still want to go home and wanted him to help escape?

But it's hard to do.

Because, the head of the Wang family couldn't rest assured that this grandson with a detached personality was worried that something would happen to him on the way, so as early as the Chinese New Year, he sent a letter over, saying that he would send someone to pick him up and go home. Otherwise, Wang Xiang would have set foot on his way home.

But, people are coming soon!

However, Wang Xiang just whispered a little embarrassed, "It's not a big deal." It's ......, I sneaked out of the house this time, and I will definitely be punished when I go back, I want to bring some gifts back, so that the punishment can be reduced, and I think about it, your family's paper can make your grandfather and my grandfather happy. ”

Zheng Sheng nodded, "No problem, how much do you want?" 1,000 or 2,000? "Zhengzi paper has a lot of inventory, even if there are a few thousand more, it can be taken out at any time.

Zheng Sheng suddenly remembered that he had acted in the name of his grandfather's family for so long, but he didn't give them anything in return. Did Madame Wang mention it to them? He didn't know.

In fact, Zheng Sheng found that Mrs. Wang had very little contact with Ba Jun. Is it because it's too far away and the road is inconvenient? He had never seen anyone from Ba County come to Shunyang, nor had he ever seen Mrs. Wang send someone to Ba County. Wang Xiang's appearance is really just an exception.

The only memory of that side is that Mrs. Wang went back to Ba County when Zheng Sheng was about three years old, and he didn't know if something happened.

Maybe he was thinking too much, but Wang Xiang wanted to take Zheng Zizhi back, and Zheng Sheng felt that he had to do something.

Wang Xiang waved his hand and said nonchalantly, "It's too much, just a hundred or ten sheets." ”

Zheng Sheng almost choked on these words, "A hundred? What is this for? ”

"No matter how much I have, I won't be able to get it back. I'm just using this paper as a gift for the old man, and I don't use this paper to write and draw, so I don't need so much. Wang Xiang explained.

Zheng Sheng understood and went with him. It was Wang Xiang's words that made him think of another thing.

Zheng Sheng didn't know what Zheng Zi's paper was used for after it was sold, but it was nothing more than writing and painting and copying books by hand.

But he has never seen books made of Zheng Zi paper appear on the market, uh, in fact, at this time in the Western Jin Dynasty, there was no so-called bookstore, even in a big city like Wancheng, there were only shops selling pen, ink, paper, inkstone and other stationery.

Bookstores, which simply do not exist.

Then he came up with the idea of selling books, printing them out and selling them.

But printing is another problem.

As early as last spring, he wanted the nearby carpenters to carve out the wooden engravings, and he planned to make the engraving printing first, and then give them the idea of movable type printing when the carpenters were familiar with it. But Li Sansu, a carpenter in Lijia Village, was at a loss after hearing Zheng Sheng's thoughts, he didn't know a single big character, and asked him to engrave words, isn't it embarrassing for him?

But according to Zheng Sheng's idea, Carpenter Li spent half a month carefully making a very good engraving, but the problem soon came, Zheng Sheng found that the words on this plate were a bit big, printed on Zheng Zi paper, and could only be printed with more than a dozen or less than twenty large characters.

This is the highest level of carpenter Li.

Therefore, Zheng Sheng asked Zheng Wen to find a lot of carpenters.

Maybe the places of Shunyang and Nanyang are too small, and these carpenters are not skilled, and they have carved woodblocks for a year intermittently, but they are still not satisfactory.

The best result now is still made by Carpenter Li's craftsmanship (probably forced by Zheng Sheng to stimulate his potential), which is the book used in Qingzhuling now. What about this book?

For example, the 16-page format has two to three hundred pages of Analects.

Zheng Sheng's face was full of cows, thinking that the Analects of later generations were just books, and now the books he printed were all dictionaries. To read an article of a few hundred words, it takes about ten pages, and one page can contain up to fifty or sixty words, while a hand-copied book can have more than 100 words per page.

Although the printing technology has been made, the technology is not up to standard, the cost is too high, and if you want to forcibly promote the sale of books, Zhengzi paper will not be available, and these papers naturally cannot be used to print books.

Therefore, Zheng Sheng could only hone the skills of the carpenters while first promoting the use of a thick dictionary in Qingzhuling.

Wang Xiang left happily, and Zheng Sheng walked into the bamboo house, which was built by Mrs. Wang not long ago. After arriving at Qingzhuling, Mrs. Wang seemed to be a little "happy", and she ordered people to build a new bamboo house in the open space on the east side of Qingzhuyuan, and then stayed and did not leave.

Inside the bamboo house, Zheng Sheng saw Mrs. Wang playing with a white, shiny oval-shaped thing with great interest.

He said helplessly, "Mother, what's so beautiful about this thing, it's been a month, aren't you tired of it?" ”

Mrs. Wang glanced at Zheng Sheng, "Don't get tired." ”

"Another day, I'll make you something better." Zheng Shengdao.

"Okay, is that the case?" Mrs. Wang's eyes lit up.

Zheng Sheng shook his head, he knew that he shouldn't have given this thing to them.

That's right, what Mrs. Wang has in her hand is a thing called glass in later generations.

In February, Zheng Sheng exchanged for several glass balls the size of a baby's fist with many facets that resembled diamonds in later generations.

Clean, translucent, shiny, Zheng Sheng was very satisfied with the things exchanged.

Then, Zheng Sheng plans to try it out and see how attractive this thing is to people. If he dares to take it outside, he can't eat it for sure. Therefore, the targets he chose were Mrs. Wang, Qing'er and Liu Wei'er.

Zheng Sheng gave them the glass ball as a gift.

Then, they were fascinated by the glass balls. Not to mention Qing'er and Liu Wei'er, Mrs. Wang also can't put down this glass ball and likes it very much.

Zheng Sheng couldn't help complaining, mother, you are the wife of the Pavilion Marquis, can you not do this?

But when Zheng Sheng didn't think so, Mrs. Wang and the others were really attracted by this kind of thing they had never seen before, and then she also asked about the origin of this thing.

Zheng Sheng had already prepared, saying that it was refined in the blast furnace of the West Courtyard.

After that, Mrs. Wang stared at a few blacksmiths and made another furnace of "glass".

She looked at the freshly baked black charcoal, then at the shiny ball in her hand, and left thoughtfully.

Helpless, Zheng Sheng had no choice but to continue to fool her and say that it was good luck to be able to refine this ball.

As for whether Mrs. Wang believes it or not, he doesn't know.

But their attitude towards the glass ball convinced Zheng Sheng that his train of thought was right.

After seeing Mrs. Wang, Zheng Sheng walked out of the bamboo house and went back to his house.

Then on the way, he saw Wang Zhong riding a low pony, and he came from the bluestone road in the north with a panicked expression, "Shizi, woe, the palace Xia steward has brought people!" ”