Li Chongrun didn't need help from anyone else, he just worked there by himself. Maybe it was because he exerted a lot of strength, but even though he was only wearing a thin shirt, there was still some sweat on his forehead.
Her hair was not dressed up as formally as usual, nor was she wearing a black gauze hat. Instead, her hair was simply pulled into a bun and briefly held up with a copper hairpin.
Seeing Gongsun Lan coming over dressed up, Li Chongrun stopped what he was doing, smiled innocently, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and said hello to a few people.
"What is your prince doing?"
Gongsun Lan and the others have long been used to it. Their prince will come up with something new every now and then.
"I promised to help Alan get a knife. I rarely have free time these days, so I thought about starting to do it."
By the way, what did the otakus in the previous life like to do the most on TikTok? No one would watch a girl with ten levels of beauty every day, and even turn on special effects to stretch her legs to dance with a girl as long as a giraffe. Even if the girl was as beautiful as a fairy, she would still get tired of watching it every day.
, what’s more, it’s more of a laugh than a dance. Watching too much is too much.
Naturally, otakus prefer fishing, washing carpets, refurbishing old objects, and the most popular one: knife forging competitions.
In addition, Li Chongrun was a relatively homely person in his previous life, and he still had some research on these things. As a street writer, Li Chongrun repeatedly mentioned things like knife forging and blacksmithing several times in the book.
So in theory, Li Chongrun has a rich reserve of knowledge, but he has never used it.
Gongsun Lan had dedicated her copper hairpin to herself before, so Li Chongrun was thinking about what kind of token he should give her in return. Just a few days ago in Runzhou, she broke the long knife that she never let go of, so Li Chongrun thought about beating her.
Give Gongsun Lan a long knife.
Just what happened last night, this token was upgraded to a love token. Li Chongrun thought that he should hurry up.
It's just that the mansion is short of some materials, and Li Chongrun just went to Yangzhou City to buy them.
But this coal was a bit hard to find, and several shops that sold it had already closed down in preparation for the New Year. Finally, we pulled a cart from the Lu family's iron-making shop.
With the materials in hand, Li Chongrun hurriedly started preparing the oven. Because he was preparing to give Gongsun Lan a piece of his heart, Li Chongrun deliberately started to do it himself from the first step.
But the oven had just been halfway built when Gongsun Lan, dressed as a bride, appeared surrounded by several little girls.
Although Aunt Shangguan is not in Yangzhou, she has followed Yang San. In terms of seniority, she is the uncle of Li Chongrun and Gongsun Lan, so she is naturally qualified to enjoy the bride's tea.
After a noisy night, both of them were a little tired, so they treated it as a wedding and just hugged each other and slept all night.
It's just that Wu Qi and the others wanted to repeat their old trick of listening to the wall root, but they were caught by Li Chongrun. So they were assigned a very tangled job, going to the stable to collect the urine of Gaixue and the others, and they had to do more and more.
good.
The next day, Yang San enjoyed the wine served by Li Chongrun as a member of her family.
Yang San, who had collected the reward twice, was very happy. His eyes wandered back and forth between his apprentices and Wu Qi and the others, wondering if he could earn more by switching from being a bodyguard to being a matchmaker.
.
After finishing the etiquette and preparing for the New Year, Li Chongrun didn't need Li Chongrun's help, so Li Chongrun continued his own knife forging project.
Hearing that Li Chongrun was going to make a new knife for himself, Gongsun Lan couldn't bear to watch him do it by himself. Two days had passed and the discomfort had long passed. Gongsun Lan changed into a smart outfit and started working with Li Chongrun.
Got up.
With Gongsun Lan's help, the oven was quickly piled up. After lighting the charcoal fire in the oven, Li Chongrun prepared the materials.
The Lu family's blacksmith shop has fine iron, which is most suitable for making swords. Although the price is a bit expensive, Li Chongrun's brewery can now be described as making a lot of money per day, so naturally he doesn't care about the money.
.
Gongsun Lan's previous long sword was made of iron. Although it was still inferior to Li Chongrun's meteorite iron fan, it was already a valuable product.
Blacksmithing is a technical job. Although Li Chongrun knew a lot of theories, it was his first time doing it himself, so he was a little panicked.
Moreover, Li Chongrun also took a lot of wrought iron to make a Damascus long knife, which further increased the difficulty of forging.
In the end, Gongsun Lan couldn't stand it any longer. If he followed Li Chongrun's method, he was afraid that his body would be burnt and blistered even before the knife was drawn out.
He secretly instructed a little girl to go to Lu's blacksmith shop and invite a few blacksmiths, and then Li Chongrun's knife forging business started in full swing.
It cost a lot just to refine the damaged materials. Fortunately, the emperor paid off, and the reward Li Chongrun promised was quite high. The first Damascus steel bar was refined on the night of the second day.
However, Li Chongrun was not very satisfied with the shape of the knife he made for the first time. It was a little too wide. It was more like a broadsword with a missing moon than a long knife.
"It's not pretty enough, and it doesn't match Alan's martial arts style."
Li Chongrun had seen Gongsun Lan take action several times. She, wearing red boots, drew her sword and slashed. Her violent attack power left a deep impression on Li Chongrun.
To draw a sword and cut, it is natural to need a curved blade like the Japanese sword of later generations, which is most suitable.
The slightly curved blade can reduce the resistance when drawing the sword, which naturally increases its power.
I discussed it with several craftsmen for a long time, but the curved knife shape was really difficult to deal with. In the end, I could only make a horizontal knife in the traditional sense.
Recalling a piece of information he had read back then, Li Chongrun mixed some fine yellow mud and carefully covered it on the blade. Then he dug out arcs like tooth marks on the blade before putting it in the oven.
Heat to medium and prepare for quenching.
Wu Qi stayed in the stable for several days in pain, and finally collected a few buckets of horse urine. However, grass clippings flew all over his body, and he looked very miserable.
After being teased by Li Chongrun for a long time, Wu Qi was freed from this drudgery, but Li Chongrun turned around and asked her to go to the kitchen to get some oil.
A basin of oil was placed on top of the oven, and while the fire was blazing, there was a faint smell of kitchen aroma emanating from the entire temporary blacksmithing site.
When the blade was burning red, the blacksmith said that it had reached the quenching temperature. Li Chongrun used large pliers to take the blade out of the furnace and dipped it into the horse urine that Wu Qi had prepared earlier. A pungent smell came out.
Then it rose into the sky with the rising smoke.
Unexpectedly, the blade covered with yellow mud actually bent faintly in the direction of the blade.
Li Chongrun was a little anxious, thinking that what he wanted to do was not the Gurkha knife, and how could he use such a reversed blade.
Thinking that the quenching had failed, Li Chongrun anxiously wanted to take out the blade, but saw that as the temperature dropped, the curvature of the blade slowly returned to normal, and then slightly bent towards the back of the blade.
It takes no effort to get there even if you wear iron shoes.
He had already given up on the idea of making a Japanese sword, but by chance, he succeeded. When the blade had almost cooled down, Li Chongrun took out the blade.
Regardless of the fact that it was still a bit hot and smelly, Li Chongrun took the blade in his hand and waved it around.
The blade cuts through the wind with a sound, and the center of gravity is appropriate. Apart from being slightly heavier than I thought, there are almost no shortcomings.
It's just that the blade is full of pits and looks a bit miserable.
After all, the parts hadn't been assembled yet, so Li Chongrun accidentally slipped his hand and smashed the scimitar directly into the pile of scrap materials.
Amidst the clang of gold and iron, a burst of sparks flew, and Li Chongrun hurriedly went to see if the blade was damaged.
As a result, the hardness of the blade far exceeded Li Chongrun's imagination. Even though it had not been carefully ground, deep marks were still left on the waste material, but the newly forged blade was not damaged at all.
Several blacksmiths who came to help were a little surprised by the hardness of the newly made blade, but they saw that the prince actually threw the newly tempered knife into the oil pan and started frying it.
The accessories for the blade were all ready-made, but the scabbard had to be made from scratch. After putting the blade that had been fried for more than an hour into the fine sand to slowly cool down, Li Chongrun raised his head and glanced at the sky. It was already bright.
Just leave the rest to the craftsmen. Li Chongrun was so sleepy that he couldn't stand it any longer, so he hurried back to his room to sleep.
Just when I was passing by the secret room, I heard that Mr. Song, who was still locked in the dungeon of the secret room, was crying like an ordinary child.