The Great Song Dynasty: You were put in charge of teaching, and you produced a whole bunch of prime

Outside the city, abandoned kilns.

In the days that followed, this place became a veritable "powder keg".

"boom--!!!"

With a loud bang, a corner of the newly repaired furnace top was blown off, and thick black smoke billowed out.

Zhao Lingjun was so frightened that she turned pale and immediately hid behind a pillar.

Qian Duoduo fled in terror, yelling, "It's blown up! It's blown up! Sir, run!"

As the smoke and dust cleared, Shen Kuo crawled out of the ruins.

His once clean scholar's robe had been turned charcoal black by the smoke, a tuft of his hair was singed and stood up in curls on his head, and his face was streaked with black and white, making him look like the Kitchen God who had just crawled out of the stove.

But he grinned, revealing a set of bright white teeth:

"The twelfth attempt failed. Reason: Too much pure alkali was added, causing an overly violent reaction."

He pulled out his little notebook, calmly jotted something down, and then waved his hand dismissively:

"Fix the furnace! Again!"

The thirteenth time.

It wasn't fried. But what came out was murky and looked like a pot of overcooked mung bean soup, and it had a strange smell.

Shen Kuo smelled it and shook his head: "Too many impurities, not cleaned enough. Let's start over."

The fourteenth time.

The glass produced is finally transparent!

Shen Kuo excitedly reached out to grab it, but as soon as his fingers touched the still-cooling glass, with a "crack," the thing shattered into pieces, turning into a pile of glittering powder.

"The internal stress is too great... and the cooling is too fast..." Shen Kuo muttered to himself as he continued to record.

The fifteenth time...

The sixteenth time...

The twentieth time...

Half a month has passed.

The once spirited Shen Kuo now looked worse than a beggar on the street. His eyes were sunken, his beard was unkempt, and his clothes were torn in several places, but his eyes were growing brighter and brighter, so bright that people dared not look directly at them.

It was an obsession bordering on madness.

For every person who goes mad, there is someone who breaks down.

Qian Duoduo sat in the drafty thatched shed, looking at the account book in her hand, her eyes reddening.

"Two hundred strings of cash..."

His hands trembled like he had Parkinson's: "Only half a month! Half the money's gone! It's not just coal burning, it's my flesh burning!"

He couldn't take it anymore and rushed into Jiang Lin's temporary camp with the account book in his arms.

"Sir! We're really going bankrupt!"

With a sob in her voice, Qian Duoduo slammed the account book in front of Jiang Lin: "Look at this! We've already spent eighty strings of cash just on coal! If we keep burning like this, forget about a month, we'll be starving by the Bian River in three days!"

Jiang Lin was lying on the recliner with his eyes closed, resting. Hearing this, he didn't even lift his eyelids:

"What's the panic?"

"How can I not panic! That's real money!" Qian Duoduo was jumping up and down anxiously. "When will that glass project be completed? Can't you give me a definite answer?"

Jiang Lin picked up his teacup and took a sip: "Soon."

"You've been saying 'it'll be soon' for half a month already!"

"Then let's wait another half month."

Qian Duoduo was on the verge of tears. He realized that his husband was a hands-off manager who didn't care about money at all.

He turned and went straight to Zhao Lingjun. This was his "sugar daddy," surely he'd be worried about the cost of his money?

"Young Master Zhao..." Qian Duoduo approached Zhao Lingjun with a fawning expression, "You see, our budget is a bit tight... Could you add a little more of your four hundred strings of cash?"

Zhao Lingjun was squatting by the stove watching Shen Kuo operate it. Hearing this, he turned around, spread his hands, and smiled innocently: "That's all."

"what?"

"All my secret stash of money is invested, not a single penny is left." Zhao Lingjun blinked. "If we lose this time, I'll have to go home and eat porridge."

Qian Duoduo's vision went black, and she almost fainted on the spot.

It's all over, completely over. We've been hooked.

Although she said she had no money, Zhao Lingjun was not as desperate as Qian Duoduo.

She may not understand technology, but she understands people.

She looked at Shen Kuo.

This usually taciturn bookworm displayed a resilience that astonished even the princess, who grew up in the palace, when faced with repeated failures.

Shen Kuo never gave up after each failure. He would lie on the ground, collecting the fragments bit by bit, analyzing the reasons, and then writing them down in a small notebook.

Now, that little notebook is full of three entries.

"Don't you find it annoying?"

Zhao Lingjun couldn't help but ask. At this moment, Shen Kuo was squatting on the ground, sifting quartz sand with a sieve over and over again, his face covered in dust.

Shen Kuo raised his head, his eyes blank: "What's bothering me?"

"You've failed so many times. Your money's almost gone, and everyone's questioning you." Zhao Lingjun looked at him. "Aren't you afraid of ending up with nothing?"

Shen Kuo was taken aback for a moment, then laughed.

That was the purest smile Zhao Lingjun had ever seen.

"What's there to be afraid of? Every failure brings me one step closer to success."

Shen Kuo held up the small notebook in his hand and pointed to the densely packed records on it:

"I have identified thirty-four incorrect recipes, eliminated ten incorrect temperatures, and discovered five incorrect cooling times."

"Once all the wrong answers are eliminated, the remaining one—"

A gleam of wisdom shone in Shen Kuo's eyes:

"That is the truth."

Zhao Lingjun was stunned.

Looking at the dirty man in front of her, she suddenly felt a strange sense of respect.

Is this the charm of "investigating things"?

……

The turning point came in the thirty-fifth experiment.

Late that night, the fire in the stove went out.

Shen Kuo took out a palm-sized object from the stove.

It was transparent, didn't break, and was hard enough. But... it was filled with countless tiny air bubbles, looking like a frozen Sprite.

Although it's better than the glazed tiles from Fanlou, it's still far from meeting Jiang Lin's requirement of "crystal clear".

Shen Kuo stared at the bubbles all night long.

He sat by the stove like a statue until the sky began to lighten.

Suddenly, he jumped up and let out a strange howl like a wolf:

"I see!!!"

Zhao Lingjun, who was dozing off, was so startled he almost fell off his chair: "What happened? It exploded?"

"It's not a problem with the proportions! Nor is it a problem with the temperature!"

Shen Kuo grabbed Zhao Lingjun's shoulders, so excited he was incoherent, and his two black hands left two large black handprints on Zhao Lingjun's expensive brocade robe:

"It's cooling! It's annealing!"

"The temperature dropped too quickly, and the gas didn't have time to escape, which is why bubbles formed! It needs to cool down slowly!"

He released Zhao Lingjun, pulled out his notebook, and frantically calculated, the pen scratching across the paper.

"This time...it will definitely work!"

The thirty-sixth experiment.

Shen Kuo improved the process, readjusted the formula, and added a special "annealing kiln" next to the furnace.

Open the furnace, melt, shape, and anneal.

This time, Shen Kuo did not rush to open the furnace door.

"Seal the furnace! Let it cool naturally!"

This wait lasted for two whole days.

The atmosphere at the brickyard has been extremely tense these past two days.

Qian Duoduo couldn't even eat. Every half hour, he would go around the stove, muttering "May the Bodhisattva protect me."

Zhao Lingjun was also getting restless. She paced back and forth in the courtyard, glancing at the silent earthen kiln from time to time.

Jiang Lin, however, remained as calm as a rock. He even had the leisure to roast sweet potatoes and eat them, as if none of this concerned him.

On the morning of the third day.

The first ray of sunlight pierced through the thin mist and shone on the abandoned kiln.

Shen Kuo stood in front of the furnace door and took a deep breath. His hands were trembling slightly, but he forced himself to calm down.

"Open the furnace."

The workers carefully removed the sealing clay and opened the furnace door.

Shen Kuo stretched out his hands and put them into the still-warm furnace.

A moment later, he slowly walked out, holding something in his hands.

Everyone held their breath.

Shen Kuo stepped into the sunlight and slowly loosened his hands.

For a moment, time seemed to stand still.

A cup lay quietly in his rough, dark palm.

It contains no impurities and not a single bubble.

The rising sun pierced through the cup without obstruction, refracting a magnificent rainbow at the bottom, which reflected onto Shen Kuo's face, which was covered in coal dust.

Crystal clear, translucent, and pure.

It is more transparent than the finest crystal, and more than a hundred times better than the glass that the owner of Fanlou cherishes!

Zhao Lingjun was stunned, his mouth slightly open, unable to close it for a long time.

Qian Duoduo rubbed her eyes and pinched her thigh hard: "Ouch! It's not a dream! My goodness..."

Shen Kuo held the cup as if it were his own heart.

He stared at the seven-colored light, and tears streamed down his face without warning, washing away the coal dust and leaving comical white streaks.

This man in his twenties, who had been bombed countless times and hadn't slept well for half a month, suddenly squatted on the ground and burst into tears like a child.

"It's done..."

"Sir! It's done!!!"

In the distance, Jiang Lin threw away the sweet potato peel in his hand, clapped his hands, and a faint smile appeared on his lips.

"Why are you crying?"

"This is just the beginning."