She brought the glass kiln to ancient times

After the hunting party set off, Xiangbei led Big Fool and the young people who stayed behind at the estate out of the west gate and into the mountains. She instructed Jingjing to take SiNan and JiaWei to the surrounding area to find a flat stone slab and pick up some lemon stones and stalactites.

In karst landscapes, the most abundant minerals are these high-calcium carbonate limestone deposits. Meanwhile, Xiangbei arranged for Huzi, Biaozi, and Tongxi to dig and smooth the walls of the pit, moving the excavated clay to one side. They mixed it with lime, volcanic sand, and crushed graphite, forming a mud mixture with water.

Inside the cave, they constructed a partition about a meter off the ground, pierced with rows of holes using wooden sticks, and applied a thick layer of mud to the entire wall, smoothing it out. They also dug three shallow trenches connected to a slightly deeper wind passage extending outside the cave.

Xiangbei and Big Fool began by picking up some dry wood branches to burn under the partition. Meanwhile, the younger ones ran back home to fetch several baskets of lotus coal and coal gangue. Once everyone had smashed the collected stones into small rocks, the new mud partition had dried to a certain hardness. They piled the stones on top, placed wood and coal balls underneath the wind passage, and started mortar work with wet mud. After sealing the cave entrance, leaving only a square vent on top and a slightly larger opening at the bottom than the stone slab, they lit the wood and waited for the flames to envelop the middle partition. Then, they sealed the stone slab with wet mud and hurried off to the bamboo forest, letting the kiln smolder for half a day.

During this time, Xiangbei handed Big Fool a blueprint for a tall bamboo workshop and instructed him to set it up quickly.

She had a faint suspicion that although Big Fool was mentally ill, aside from the martial arts skills he displayed, he must still retain some of his past knowledge and abilities. She wanted to probe a bit deeper, and she wasn't disappointed.

From wielding swords to directing everyone in laying the foundation and erecting the beams, in less than half a day, they had built a tall bamboo workshop exactly according to the blueprint. This would be the future ceramics and glass workshop for the Tong family!

When the mist in the new kiln chimney had almost dispersed, Xiangbei struck the first shovel to open the kiln. Whether it was clay or graphite, both were excellent refractory materials. After being fired, they had become hard and solid. The limestone on the board turned to ash upon touch, and the coal and firewood on the ground also turned to ash.

Xiangbei instructed everyone to put on the fine cotton masks they and Lishen had made, carefully separating the burnt lime and crushed lime residue. A large portion of it was transported to the stone platform on the estate, which would serve as the raw material for building new guest rooms.

Xiangbei joined everyone in transporting back and forth, and stealthily moved half a warehouse of tea tree charcoal from the estate into her space.

Previously, when they were at the seaside base, Xiangbei had arranged for Chengdian to forge long iron pipes, asbestos gloves, and volcanic ash crucibles, which were stored in the bamboo workshop by the reservoir. She now went to the seaside to fetch some quartz sand.

When she returned to the kiln workshop, only Dasha was excitedly organizing the workshop operation table according to the plan. Xiangbei filled the large crucible with quartz sand, soda, and lime, and instructed Big Fool to fill the kiln with tea tree charcoal, leaving only a small opening for operation.

By the time everyone else returned, they could already see the sand and stones glowing red in the fire.

Xiangbei inspected the luggage Chengdian had brought up the mountain and stored in her space—various tools, ironware, and even large iron shears—everything was prepared.

The glass melt in the crucible had turned into a jelly-like substance. Xiangbei took Big Fool's hand and walked forward, grabbing a long iron pipe and stirring the glass jelly with him. She then showed him how to rotate the pipe along the operation table, wearing asbestos gloves and shaping the glass continuously on damp parchment until it formed an oval sphere. In front of everyone, she demonstrated the miraculous art of glassblowing, coloring the glass powder, reheating it, and annealing it, resulting in a perfectly translucent and brightly colored glass bottle!

Everyone, absolutely everyone, was stunned by the scene before them. Was this glass? It seemed lighter, clearer, purer, and more... accessible? Could glass be made so easily? Those rare treasures that they had only heard of or never seen before, surely they couldn't be obtained so easily, could they?