The sound of firecrackers bade farewell to the old year, always exchanging new peaches for old talismans.
The atmosphere was warm and bustling at the end of the year. After that, there were all kinds of things happening all the way until midnight. Even as a son-in-law, it was impossible to avoid these things. Before the New Year, Su Tan'er had asked Ning Yi to accompany her to all kinds of visits in preparation for this period of time. The first and second branches, the relatives inside and outside the family, the merchants they worked with, all kinds of visits were inevitable. If they were relatives, Su Tan'er and Ning Yi would go together. If they were going out, they would mostly follow Su Boyong. After all, Su Tan'er had not officially taken over the first branch of the Su family. Before the New Year, they only talked about business. After the New Year, the first round of symbolic visits still had to be led by Su Boyong.
Before the New Year, Zhizhou Song Mao, who had visited many people, left Jiangning. And because of a few words of praise from Song Mao, Ning Yi's position in the Su Mansion became more important. As for the servants, in the past, there would naturally not be any incidents of servants bullying their masters, but there were not many people who had to interact with him. The others were naturally indifferent. At this time, there were many more enthusiastic servants, but this matter was not important to Ning Yi.
And as for the masters, the Third Young Master, the Fourth Young Master, the Fifth Young Master, and the Sixth Young Master did not have a good look at Ning Yi. In the past, they had only treated him coldly, but now they had to be vigilant. Of course, they could not do anything because the Old Great Grandfather clearly valued Ning Yi more. With the exam in Tibet, Ning Yi's weight had obviously increased. The Su family all knew the Old Great Grandfather's knot in his heart. He had always hoped that the Su family could produce some scholars and slightly shed their status as merchants.
No matter how rich a merchant was, if something happened, he could not protect himself and could only be at the mercy of those officials. Scholars were different. As long as they had scholarly honors, no matter how shabby they were, they would always have the ability to speak up for themselves. The Wu dynasty was famous for its martial prowess, and it had originally been founded on martial prowess. However, there had been several major upheavals at the beginning of the dynasty, and the upper echelons had learned their lesson and used scholar-officials to govern the country. Today, it was just like the Song dynasty that Ning Yi knew of, where scholar-officials were treated extremely well, valuing the civil and military forces.
Since Ning Yi had given the Great Grandfather a glimmer of hope, he was naturally valued even more. Especially during the New Year greetings, the conversation between the Old Great Grandfather and Ning Yi was obviously much longer than the others, and the others noticed. The main thing was that the Old Great Grandfather wanted to talk to Ning Yi about things like studying and school, and Ning Yi casually talked about the principle of combining education with fun. The Old Great Grandfather did not understand these things, and he was more likely to accept that a strict teacher would produce a good disciple. However, he was used to being the head of the family, and he would never point fingers at the professionals. After listening to the Old Great Grandfather happily, he only said, "If there are any disobedient ones, feel free to discipline them. You can discipline them however you want."
Then he sighed. "Brother Zian has a good grandson …" He was referring to Ning Yi's grandfather.
The Old Great Grandfather was in good health, and his spirit was hale and hearty. Although he did not have much control over his grandchildren, and he seemed kind and comfortable, he had absolute control over the family. In the current Su family, no one dared to offend the old man on such a matter. After this conversation on the first day of the new year, there was no lack of supercilious looks and gossip about Ning Yi. In fact, there was even a lot more. But if they wanted to make a move on him, cause trouble for Su Tan'er, and ruin the Old Great Grandfather's reputation, there were very few of them.
However, although the school was closed, when he occasionally met Su Chonghua, he could still feel a trace of vigilance in the other's eyes, which made Ning Yi feel a little funny.
These were just some of the changes that he felt. For Ning Yi, he did not care too much about these changes. Low-level people could not create huge waves, and those who could naturally roll their eyes would probably only make others roll their eyes, even if they racked their brains to do something. During the day, he ran here and there, and occasionally visited some businessmen who had business relationships with the Su mansion. Many of them knew of Ning Yi's reputation, and they would call some children to "get close" to Ning Yi. This was also a kind gesture. Of course, the other party had only read a few poems and played around a little.
Ever since the Mid-Autumn Festival Shuidiao Getou, Ning Yi had basically never appeared in the mainstream circles of Jiangning. Today, Shuidiao Getou was still being sung every day, but the discussion about him had basically lost its popularity. This guy was 20 years old this year, the son-in-law of the Su mansion. He was teaching at the unremarkable Yushan Academy, and it was said that he had some weird blackboard. He had almost no contact with scholars. Although this kind of hermit-like life was strange, at most, it could be said that he was a person with an eccentric personality.
Scholars with long sleeves and power may become famous faster, but there were also many scholars who were completely not good at it. It was just that situations like this guy's amazing words were relatively rare.
Since the conversation that night, the relationship between him and Su Tan'er had improved a lot. In the past, Su Tan'er treated Ning Yi the way she treated a bookworm, always trying to take control of the situation. After the initial "understanding" of Ning Yi, she relaxed a lot. Both of them were "eccentrics." This kind of understanding made her feel very satisfied, mainly because Ning Yi did not mind her appearing in public to do business. Occasionally, when she talked about some business with Ning Yi, she became more casual. Sometimes, when she brought up some difficult problems, she would then tell Ning Yi about her solution and ask, "What do you think, Husband?" Of course, it was more to satisfy her desire to communicate and express herself. After all, there were too few people who could understand and accept her. Even if she could occasionally talk to Xiaochan and the others, it was no different from talking to herself. To be able to talk about business with Ning Yi, who had nothing to do with business, was naturally a good kind of relaxation for her.
Naturally, Ning Yi would go along with a few teasing words, or show a bit of an expression of admiration. Su Tan'er felt very satisfied. This kind of desire to express had nothing to do with the level of ability. Even the most capable person would occasionally feel depressed, hoping that at least someone would know what they were thinking in their heart, and it would be best if this person had nothing to do with it. This was the same way to relieve stress by digging a hole in the suburbs, telling the secrets in your heart, and then burying the hole.
Of course, most of the communication was completely irrelevant gossip. When they returned home at night, they ate, told stories, and played Gomoku. Su Tan'er, who originally thought that Ning Yi's stories were a bit childish, listened to them with a purely relaxed mood. Occasionally, she would ask Ning Yi to say a bit more, or she would proudly show off a few words while playing Gomoku. In fact, in Gomoku, Xiaochan was the most talented and won the most. Ning Yi was the most difficult to deal with. If he was serious, he would not be in a hurry to win. As long as the other party placed two chess pieces together, he would immediately block them, and he would block them until the other party felt suffocated and placed a large piece on the chessboard. Then, he would take advantage of the time when the other party was not paying attention to launch a counterattack.
His style of playing was the most unbearable for the three little girls. In the warm room at night, Chan'er, Juan'er, and Xing'er could occasionally be heard protesting, "Son-in-law is too shameless." Su Tan'er was the best at learning, and she also did not lack patience. She pursed her lips and played boring games with Ning Yi to see who could last the longest. Once, the two of them filled the entire chessboard and played to a draw. The three little girls whispered to each other, saying that the young master and miss were demons. After two days of this situation, Ning Yi smiled helplessly, "Why do you and I have to kill each other like this..." Su Tan'er, who had a serious expression on her face, finally could not help but pursed her lips and laughed. Then, she smiled and blocked Ning Yi's chess piece.
After that, the two of them more or less developed a tacit understanding, and they no longer played chess in such a way that tested their patience.
Su Tan'er would occasionally ask Ning Yi about what he wanted to make. Ning Yi would always gesture and say, "Here, I need to make a cylinder out of iron sheet and put it vertically … I can pour some water over here to cool it down … But to be able to resist strong acid, I still have to increase the concentration of sulfuric acid, erm, that is, I have to increase the concentration of sulfuric acid. The problem is that without strong acid resistant container, it would be very difficult for me to increase the concentration. And if I can't increase the concentration, it would also be very difficult for me to make a strong acid resistant container. This becomes a chicken and egg problem … But it's not easy to make glass … erm, do you understand?"
Since she asked, Ning Yi did not care and said casually. Su Tan'er was just asking casually. At this time, she was stunned, "Uh... Husband... what do you want to do?"
"Oh, something to eat. If you want to think about it specifically... it is probably similar to salt. Hmm, kelp soup. Kelp soup tastes very good, right? We can boil 100 kilograms of kelp into soup, filter it, and dry the water. We can probably get a little bit of something like salt, but the purity is not high. But if we put it into dishes, it will taste very good … Hmm, that's it. "
"Uh... kelp soup... using 100 kilograms of kelp essence to cook dishes... how many dishes can we make?"
"A bowl of dishes should be no problem," Ning Yi blinked, "That is why I said the consumption is too high. I want to make it in another way."
"... Oh," Su Tan'er nodded, one hand holding the side of her face, looking like she had a pain in the balls — no, a toothache. If he could make something that could be equivalent to 100 kilograms of kelp essence, it sounded very amazing, but... kelp soup might not be that delicious...
"Husband is a strange person..." In the end, she still honestly said her thoughts.
What Ning Yi wanted to make was monosodium glutamate.
He had experience in this area, at least he understood the modern industrial process of monosodium glutamate production. But to be honest, this process was meaningless. Strong acid resistant containers, fermentation enzymes, bacteria breeding, crystal breeding, freezing, temperature control... these things were very simple a thousand years later, but in the Wu dynasty, it was pure nonsense. Besides the most modern production process, he only knew the history of the purification of monosodium glutamate from kelp soup. He did not understand the first simple industrial process at all. If he wanted to make sodium glutamate step by step, he first had to lead half of the industrial revolution.
Of course, it was not in his character to sit around and wait for death. He had to try something like monosodium glutamate. In the past few months, he had drawn up a basic flow chart and thought about alternatives when he was bored. Before the New Year, he had already walked around the various markets in Jiangning to measure the development of this world. He even found books like "Dream Creek Essays" to study.
In any case, as he said to Su Tan'er, this was indeed a concept that he did for fun when he had nothing to do. He did not expect to see any results in the next few years, so naturally, he would not find a team to make something. There would be countless derivative products appearing in the middle of the process, which could be significant or insignificant. For now, it was enough to do some basic research. Other than these things, he could not find too many interesting goals in this era.
However, there was something else that he was interested in, or rather, more than monosodium glutamate.
Learning martial arts.
On the night of the 15th of the first lunar month, he went out with Su Tan'er and the others, and for the first time, he saw the real legendary martial arts masters. Although they were not as powerful as in the movies, they were indeed quite powerful...
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