Father can be an enemy country

Chapter 929: Using local materials

Lao Liu's 'toilet paper' is a silk fabric specially supplied by the Weaving and Dyeing Bureau, allowing His Highness to enjoy the silky smoothness. Each piece is as big as a handkerchief and was given as tribute to him in the name of handkerchief. It's just a one-time use, throw it away after use.

It is said that those who are close to red are red and those who are close to ink are black. If the eldest brother does not talk about the second brother, how can he really get angry with them?

I can only educate them: "You can't do this. In the eyes of scholars, paper is very sacred. If you let them know, this king will have another crime."

As he spoke, he pointed at Mu Ying's soldiers and said, "Look at these people. They are also noble children. They all grew up with a silver spoon in their mouths. They know not to cause trouble for the Marquis."

"Your Highness, stop talking..." Mu Ying handed him a roll of white cloth with a face full of shame and said: "They use kapok cloth produced in Shaanxi."

"Good guys." Zhu Zhen said completely speechless: "You guys will enjoy competing one by one."

"Your Highness, those who ride horses all day should be kind to their butts." Everyone knew that he was not really angry, so one of the soldiers said with a smile.

"Okay, you can use whatever you like. Just don't use paper that can be written on." Zhu Zhen waved his hand and offered amnesty to the world.

"Thank you, Your Highness!" The guards breathed a sigh of relief.

"But all the crime tools were confiscated." Zhu Zhen added.

"Yes, yes." The guards nodded and said, "We can use tree leaves."

As a result, everyone's "toilet paper" became the material for making the skin of the Kongming Lantern.

As for how to connect these small pieces of paper and small rags, you can use the flour you brought to make a paste.

~~

Early the next morning, the guards followed the guide and started working separately in the deep mountains and old forests.

Zhu Zhen divided them into several groups. One group went to find suitable bamboo, cut it back and cut it into strips to make the skeleton.

Another group was responsible for collecting rosin for fuel. There are large tracts of pine forests in Wumeng Mountain, and the guards specifically select the thick and gnarled pine trees facing the sun. Cut a long slit high on the trunk, all the way to the root. Then use the dead bark that can be found everywhere in the forest to catch them, and you can catch many in one day.

With the skin, frame and fuel, the Kongming Lantern is actually complete. But the plain lanterns were not scary enough, so they had to be decorated again. Zhu Zhen ordered a group of people to go to the forest to collect plant dyes.

The forests of Guizhou are truly a treasure trove. The dyes used by the locals are also taken from forest plants. Red can be obtained from madder, purple can be obtained from comfrey, black can be produced from soap bucket, and blue can be produced from indigo... It is colorful. Everything you need.

They don't need anything that is durable and durable, they just need to be able to keep the color from fading overnight and that's it. Therefore, the dye plants collected do not need to be specially processed. Just mash them and use the juice.

Everyone worked together, and before dark the next day, more than a hundred huge Kongming lanterns were built. Colorful ghost heads are also painted upside down... Luoluo people have a legend that hungry ghosts are top-heavy because they haven't eaten for a year, so they can only float to the world with their heads down.

Those green faces with fangs, ferocious looks, and all kinds of strange faces scared the guides in Shuixi West even before they took off. Everyone said that it was lucky that Aaron went back to report the news, otherwise if he were here, he might be scared to death again.

When the team that collected rosin came back and refilled the Kongming Lanterns with fuel, everyone couldn't wait and lit twenty or thirty Kongming Lanterns with tethers according to His Highness's instructions.

As the grease burned, the sky lantern gradually filled with heat, and soon, amid the exclamations of Luo Luo people, they rose slowly one after another...

~~

Fort Pudding across the canyon. The ‘Shallow De De’ ceremony started again as scheduled. Wearing a mask with a ghost face and disheveled hair, Pudingbu Bimo was still dressed in the same outfit as yesterday, holding a short sword and a long sword, and yelled along the city wall.

A group of men with their faces, hands and feet blackened followed, wearing raincoats upside down, leading sheep and dogs, holding straw men and horses, walking and dancing...

They walked half a circle around the wall and reached the western end. When they were about to continue dancing to the south, someone inadvertently looked up at the sky and was suddenly stunned by the scene above the canyon to the west.

Hearing the horrified cry of his companion, the men next to him also raised their heads and followed his line of sight, and then they were too frightened to move.

Only the ghost-faced Bimo was jumping, jumping, shouting and yelling attentively in front of him. It was only after he had gone a long way that he felt something strange. When he looked back, he found that there was no one behind him.

Bimo looked back through the mask and saw the group of men who were supposed to be following him closely. They were all standing in the distance and looking up at the sky, as if they had been immobilized.

Bimo was so angry that he turned around and asked the question: "Tomorrow night is the day when the gates of hell will open. How can you be so lax in your work?"

"Bi, Bimo..." A man stretched out his trembling hand, pointed to the sky, and stammered: "Ghost, the gate of ghost has been opened."

"Nonsense, the day hasn't come yet..." Bimo didn't believe it, but following what the man pointed at, he was shocked.

I saw twenty or thirty groups of blue will-o’-the-wisps floating over the canyon in the distance, floating up and down, circling left and right...

"Ghost, hungry ghost..." Bimo couldn't help but lost his voice. Although it was the first time for him to see such a sight, it was difficult to have any other answer to this situation.

Hearing Bimo's affirmative answer, all the tribesmen couldn't stand it anymore. Some people sat down on the ground, some dropped the sacrifices and ran away, and some knelt down and kowtowed, begging the hungry ghosts not to come.

Bimo was also frightened, but he was a professional after all and had to stay calm. He suppressed his fear and stared at the ghosts floating in the air, and finally made a discovery: "Don't panic, those hungry ghosts can't get through, they are obviously blocked by something."

The panicked tribesmen looked again after hearing this, and saw that just as Bimo said, the ghosts were only hovering in a fixed area and did not fly towards them.

"Bi, Bimo, what's going on?" Then he calmed down and asked stammeringly:

"What's blocking those ghosts?"

"It should be that the ghost gate has not been opened yet, so they can only show off at the door..." Bimo guessed: "After all, tomorrow is the official day."

"That's it." All the clansmen breathed a sigh of relief, at least everything will be fine tonight.

"Stop talking nonsense. Hungry ghosts were invisible before, but this time they are so clear!" Then Bimo said in a stern tone: "So tomorrow night, the hungry ghosts will definitely be more ferocious than ever before. If you don't want to die, hurry up." Come back and continue with 'Shallow De De' with me!"

"Hey, hey." The tribesmen quickly picked up the sacrifices that were thrown on the ground, retrieved the white dog and the goat that had run away, returned to Bimo, and continued their hard work of "Qian De De".

After the ceremony, the will-o'-the-wisp in the distance disappeared. Everyone was relieved and relieved, but their hearts were filled with greater fear, because tomorrow is the right day to open the ghost gate...

(End of this chapter)