Re-embroidering life

Chapter 144 Exchange

After Shen Xin moved into the courtyard, Minister Ying basically lived in Haifang to avoid suspicion and never came back. But every now and then, a doctor would come to the courtyard, some from Linhai, some from Suzhou, and some from further away, all of them were famous doctors in Jiangnan.

These were all painstaking arrangements made by Minister Ying. With the efforts of the famous doctors, Shen Xin's health gradually improved.

On the other hand, the Ji family also received a reply from the capital. In the letter, Dong Daru said that he had a student working in the Honglu Temple, who happened to be in charge of receiving the Enoria delegation. He asked this student to ask the delegation members, and they answered that the person they most revered was Jehovah, and also presented a small statue of this person. Dong Daru sent the small statue with the letter.

The couple had different reactions when they saw the small statue.

Shui Qinghua was horrified: "Why does this man look so painful? Why are his hands and feet nailed to the rack?"

Ji Zimo was pleasantly surprised: "What kind of painting method is this? How can the portrait be so lifelike? What kind of paint did they use?"

Ji Zimo suddenly thought that Wei'er had been tinkering with her new paint for a while, and he didn't know what she had come up with. He held the little statue in his hand and rushed to find his daughter like a gust of wind.

Shui Qinghua was the only one left, continuing to read the letter.

"Oh, Yajing has given birth to a little grandson!" Shui Qinghua cheered.

According to the time, the little grandson should be two months old now.

While Shui Qinghua was thinking about what to embroider for the little grandson as a gift, she was thinking with a tingling mind that her daughter would be sent to the palace one day to be the little guy's study companion. She didn't know whether she should pity her daughter who was separated from her flesh and blood, or pity the little grandson who had to be accompanied by a little devil.

Little Devil was looking at the small picture that her father had brought. Her face was calm, without a trace of surprise or surprise, as if she had seen this thing thousands of times.

"Oh, Jehovah," she said, and began to fiddle with her pile of paint.

Ji Zimo stared with wide eyes, watching her pounding the raw stone into powder again and again, pounding it into a very fine powder. Unable to bear to see a three-year-old child suffer, Ji Zimo snatched the wooden stick from her hand and pounded it with a few thumps.

Then, Ji Wei poured a little bit of grease into the powder and signaled her father to stir it vigorously. Ji Zimo resigned himself to doing so. When the stirring was completed, the powder turned into an ointment.

Ji Wei added a little more resin and wax, and ordered Ji Zimo to continue stirring until it became a thick and fine paste.

Ji Wei brought a brush and motioned for Ji Zimo to dip some and apply it on the paper.

Ji Zimo still did as he was told, and then his pupils suddenly opened as wide as possible. This kind of paint was thick and colorful after being applied to paper. Moreover, he looked at the small statue of Jehovah in his hand, and the effect was almost the same as on the statue!

Ji Zimo's breathing suddenly became rapid and his face turned red. This was the instinctive reaction of a painting fanatic when he discovered a new technique.

"Weier!" He came back to his senses and picked up his daughter. "How did you make this kind of paint?"

Without waiting for his daughter to answer, he had already started spinning around with Ji Wei in his arms: "Your mother is right, you must have been a golden boy under the Bodhisattva in your previous life! You are Daddy's little fairy!"

Ji Wei was held in her father's strong arms. She felt the joy of weightlessness during the rotation and couldn't help but laugh like a silver bell.

From that day on, whenever Ji Zimo was not on the coastal defense mission, he would stay in the study with Ji Wei to make paints. Ji Wei also had a sudden idea to use the charcoal sticks her mother used for embroidery sketches to paint, which she called "sketches".

Ji Zimo was interested and tried it several times. He found it really useful, especially for drawing his construction drawings. He shaved the charcoal sticks very thin, wrapped them with paper, leaving only the tip of the charcoal. He carried it with him and could take it out to draw sketches at any time. Soon, everyone in the coastal defense department started using this charcoal pencil.

Minister Ying was much more experienced in the officialdom than Ji Zimo. He keenly discovered the value of this charcoal pencil to the Ministry of Works, and immediately made a large batch of them and sent them back to the capital, distributing one to each member of the Ministry of Works. At the same time, he wrote a memorial to the Minister of Works to ask for credit for Ji Zimo.

The Minister of Works was also impressed by the charcoal pencils and gave them to the emperor. The emperor ordered the craftsmen in the palace to polish and improve them. The craftsmen replaced the paper wrapping with wood, so that the charcoal sticks would not break easily. Since then, cheap and practical charcoal pencils have become popular on a large scale.

Because of this small invention, Ji Zimo was awarded a fourth-class medal by the imperial court, which was exactly the same as the one Shui Qinghua received.

He did not take the matter to heart, but instead focused all his attention on trying to copy the small portrait of Jehovah with the new paint, but unfortunately the results were never satisfactory.

Shui Qinghua's progress was much smoother than her husband's. After Shen Xin's health improved, they began to embroider the image of Jehovah. The two did not do it themselves, but handed it over to Xiao Hulu and Liu Ye'er. Xiao Hulu was not yet fourteen years old, and had been with Shui Qinghua for less than a year, but he had already learned natural embroidery and random needle embroidery to a certain extent. Liu Ye'er was only seventeen years old and was best at double-sided different-color embroidery. Shui Qinghua carefully observed Liu Ye'er's craftsmanship and found that she was slightly better than Meng Xiu Niang, and could not help but nod in approval.

The two children started to quarrel over this embroidery. Xiao Hulu thought that this portrait was best embroidered with random stitch, because the characteristic of random stitch embroidery is that it uses silk thread to perfectly express light and shadow, and the effect is extremely realistic. Liu Yeer thought that double-sided embroidery with different colors should be used, and the reason is simple: she doesn't know how to embroider with random stitch.

Shen and Shui had to step in to mediate. Shen Xin said, "Sister Shui, we decided to embroider together in order to create a masterpiece that has never been seen before. If we just use the needlework that we are good at in the past, wouldn't it be boring?"

Shui Qinghua felt the same way. Ever since she created the free-stitch embroidery, she felt like she had been stagnant for a long time and had no new ideas. She wanted to get inspiration from Shen Xin.

"When I was in Jiangxia, I was extremely envious of double-sided embroidery with different colors, but unfortunately I had no way to learn it. Now is a good opportunity for me to ask Master Shen for advice in person. I will also share with you the method of random needle embroidery. Maybe we can find a new needlework method together?" Shui Qinghua said.

Shen Xin smiled and took a booklet from the side: "This is easy. I have been organizing the embroidery patterns. I just finished it. You can take it and have a look."

Shui Qinghua also took out a booklet from her bosom: "Since Sister Shen said she wanted to write an embroidery manual last time, I didn't want to fall behind you, so I also secretly wrote down the embroidery manual for random stitch embroidery. Today is a good opportunity for us to exchange."

The two smiled at each other, then took each other's booklets and flipped through them. The most advanced embroidery techniques in the world, which countless people dreamed of, now lay quietly in their hands.