fifth form

Chapter 2565: Water Becomes Flesh
Since there was a girl named Aqiao from the Huainan Palace at home, Zhang Xuezhou was not too bold to show off.

He believed that Aqiao took good care of him, and that Aqiao did her best to treat him in order to gain his freedom, but Zhang Xuezhou would never gamble on people's hearts.

He took Dong Zhongshu's gypsum ore, brushed half a bucket of gypsum water as required, and then went directly to visit Pingyang Marquis Mansion.

Behind Zhang Xuezhou, a horse-drawn carriage was pulling a cart of beans, and many young men were waiting beside the carriage, rubbing their empty stomachs.

Eating too much beans can cause bloating and diarrhea, which may seem like a minor problem, but under limited medical conditions, it can be a cause of death.

If a food ingredient could kill people, it would inevitably lead to people staying away from it. Even hungry children know that dried beans should not be eaten carelessly.

Dried beans and roasted nuts are very cheap, and some vendors add beans to meat for cooking and seasoning. If too many beans are mixed into the meat they sell, it will cause scolding.

These beans are indeed not very appealing, and there is no possibility of selling them at a good price.

You only need to spend two and a half taels to fill a bag of beans.

One hundred and a half taels of silver brought a cartload of beans, of which five and a half taels of silver was required for the carriage fare.

Many young men raised their necks, with fear but also anticipation in their eyes.

No one cares if you hide in the house and eat meat, and no one has the ability to investigate. Even if there are prohibitions from above, there are countermeasures from below.

In short, it's okay to do things secretly, as long as you don't get caught, everything will be fine.

"Brother Huo, isn't this your home?"

"Uh-huh!"

……

The young men behind him were muttering from time to time, and Huo Qubing was a little nervous. He had no idea that Zhang Xuezhou would bring everyone to the Pingyang Marquis Mansion.

Pingyang Marquis Mansion is where Huo Qubing lived, but it was not Huo Qubing's home.

Huo Qubing dared to rummage around outside, but he did not dare to do anything wrong in Pingyang Marquis Mansion. He only moved around in a limited area and had not even set foot in some areas of Pingyang Marquis Mansion.

No matter how daring he was, Huo Qubing would not dare to do anything reckless and end up homeless.

There was a hint of nervousness on his face, and he didn't know how Zhang Xuezhou would exchange a cart of beans for meat at Pingyang Marquis' Mansion.

"The young master has returned home, it turns out to be Master Dongfang!"

The Mansion of Marquis Pingyang remains the same as it has been for more than ten years. Marquis Pingyang Cao Shou has never returned to Chang'an City, and there are only a few dozen people in this huge mansion.

Zhang Xuezhou came to Pingyang Marquis Mansion not many times, but Zhang Xuezhou was close to the new emperor and even slept in the same room with him.

Wei Qing and others had not returned to the Marquis' Mansion because they were on official business, so Zhang Xuezhou communicated very smoothly with Cao Bao, the manager.

Cao Bao even gave enough face to Huo Qubing when he brought his friends into the mansion.

"Come on, come on, crush these beans, and then we can cast a spell and start eating the meat!"

The tool used to grind beans is a stone mill. This tool is used to grind medicinal materials or to grind millet to make rice pancakes, but it is not often used to grind beans.

After Zhang Xuezhou asked Cao Bao about the situation, he found the place. He called Huo Qubing for help, and Huo Qubing had no choice but to help.

"You're quite strong!"

The little brats in Zhangjiazhuang were good at archery and had developed extraordinary strength due to the extensive upbringing. Some of them could weigh three or four hundred kilograms when they were in their teens. Zhang Xuezhou felt out of place in many ways at that time.

When Zhang Xuezhou saw Huo Qubing turning the millstone with his lean and muscular arms, he felt that Huo Qubing's arms had a strength of over a hundred kilograms.

This kind of strength is enough to kill a kid with one punch, no wonder these bastards are so obedient.

"As long as you can give us meat to eat, let alone grinding one cart of beans, even if we grind ten or a hundred carts, that's no problem." Huo Qubing pushed the millstone and said, "Just don't lie to us kids!"

"Look at my face, do I look like someone who would lie to children?" Zhang Xuezhou said with a smile.

"That's not good!"

Huo Qubing replied angrily.

So far, Huo Qubing has not seen any meat, he just thinks Zhang Xuezhou is probably a liar. If Zhang Xuezhou had not run to the Pingyang Marquis Mansion and the mansion was next to the Pingyang Marquis Mansion, he would have suspected that Zhang Xuezhou would run away after playing tricks on them.

Half believing and half doubting, Huo Qubing had no choice but to turn the millstone.

"Look here, if you want to build up your strength, you have to practice turning the millstone from time to time. I had your strength when I was five years old. When I was eight or nine years old..."

From time to time, Huo Qubing would educate the many young children, and from time to time he would ask others to help him turn the mill.

Zhang Xuezhou took the bean dregs and found a cloth bag to squeeze and filter them, doing everything according to Dong Zhongshu's instructions.

"Why don't you soak the beans before grinding them? Soaked beans are easier to grind!"

While making a fire in the kitchen to cook soy milk, Zhang Xuezhou was also criticized by Huo Qubing.

“Soak next time!”

Zhang Xuezhou waved his hand, indicating that it was okay for those who were stronger to do more work, as it was his first time making the work and it was inevitable that there would be some mistakes.

At the moment, it is not clear whether he will succeed or fail, and Zhang Xuezhou doesn’t care about efficiency at all.

A ladle of gypsum water was slowly poured into the boiling soy milk water. Zhang Xuezhou saw turbidity appear in the juice, and then gradually turned into milky white shaped tender blocks.

"Great! This is simply a solidifying agent for beans. This method of combining internal and external elixirs to derive new things is so clever!"

When gypsum water is added to soy milk water, a new food ingredient is born.

The tender white lumps can be eaten directly, or they can be put into a mold and squeezed to remove moisture to form a more solid lumps.

Watching the white meat finally solidify into large chunks in the cauldron, Zhang Xuezhou scooped a bowl and tried the taste first.

"It's tender, smooth and refreshing, sweet but not bitter, and the bean flavor covers up the gypsum taste. This kind of white meat can be called a strategic material!"

This was my first time making white meat, but everything was pretty successful except that I didn’t soak the beans, which made the kids a little tired.

In the real world, making tofu is at most just adding a food ingredient, but in a society where daily necessities are scarce, this food is enough to become a strategic asset to fill the stomach.

The strategic value of turning waste into food is too high, so it is not unreasonable that the Huainan Palace is sharpening its knives.

As long as the water is squeezed out of white meat and it becomes firm, there is no problem for people who don't know the reason to eat it as meat. After all, in the eyes of ordinary people, vegetarian dishes are all green plants, and it will take some time for them to change their mindset.

"It's incredible! The Eastern master stretched out his hand and all the soup turned into meat!"

Zhang Xuezhou was impressed that the use of gypsum water to dilute soy milk was an ingenious way of combining internal and external alchemy. Rong Tianding, who was helping Zhang Xuezhou to make the fire, was stunned for a few seconds, while Huo Qubing stared at the magic in front of him with wide eyes.

Huo Qubing had heard of the fake technique of turning stone into gold, but he had never heard of anyone turning water into meat.

He looked at the white stuff in the cauldron and felt that it was all white meat.

As long as Zhang Xuezhou grinds a little bit of soy milk, it will be an endless supply of meat.

Huo Qubing glanced at his friends who were grinding beans in the distance and felt that they would never be able to finish the whole cart of beans even if they died of fullness.

"I want to take two bites to taste it!"

"Stay full!"

After asking Zhang Xuezhou for a bowl of white meat with light yellow water, Huo Qubing blew on it several times and swallowed the hot white meat with a gritted mouth.

"I don't taste it, give me another bowl!"

Apart from being hot and slippery, Huo Qubing didn't taste any meat, but his stomach did feel a little fuller.

“Eat as much as you want!”

Zhang Xuezhou conducted tests personally and found that the toxic side effects of white meat were so low that they were not noticeable. Ordinary people could eat too much white meat and die from overeating, but would never die from diarrhea.

He also allowed Huo Qubing to eat it.

If we say that he was a monk with body resistance, and he was an adult with fully developed organs, it would be easy to generalize when testing white meat. The lower limit of the five-year-old Huo Qubing could always be measured.

In addition to the five-year-old Huo Qubing, there are a bunch of six, seven, eight, nine, and ten-year-old boys spinning millstones who can be tested.