Translator: @xercia

Queen Mother is a Scientist

Chapter 8 – Chemical Composition of Soap

“Time is too tight. The empress has issued three orders in a row, I’m afraid that His Majesty’s time is running out. The imperial court needs the crown prince to return as soon as possible to take charge of the overall situation. We can save the crown prince and then find a way to bring her out of the city. By then, there will only be a woman. It will be more convenient for us to act, we don’t have to be as fearful as now.” 

Qin Laowu nodded, “En…what big brother said is right. What we need most now is to immediately send the crown prince out of the city…Alas, I don’t know if Uncle Liu has made the proper arrangements.“

When Fu Tingye heard this, his eyes drifted and looked out of the window—

The outside scenery was ash white, with layers of snow and chilliness.

“When the Liao soldiers occupied the states of Xi, He and Mo, be it the country, cities, town and villages…be it the judicial system, or trivial affairs, they need to be connected together, one by one, layer upon layer….it’s naturally time-consuming and laborious to sort it out…”

Once he thought about the land under his feet, something changed in the silence and Qin Laowu couldn’t help but be silent. 

“I hope this trip will go smoothly…” Qin Laowu said.

……

At dawn, Hua Qingxue got up.

Li Jingnan rubbed his eyes and watched incredulously as Hua Qingxue climbed out of the warm quilt.

God…

Did the sun rise from the west? 

Didn’t they always wake up late in the morning? 

There was no choice, it was too cold. Even if they woke up, they had to squeeze in the quilt with open eyes. They had to wait until the sun was high in the sky before they could get up and bask in the sun contentedly. 

Hua Qingxue shrunk from the cold and put on clothes one by one.

She had been foolishly unable to distinguish the inner and outer clothes of ancient clothes. Li Jingnan had pointed it out several times. She was unmindful of it every time. At last, she only remembered to wear light colors inside and wear dark colors outside. It was never wrong. 

It was too cold, and the clothes were also cold. Only the garment that had been covered with the quilt ahead of time was warm. 

“There are some leftover baozi from yesterday. You can heat them in the oven later. I’m using the pot,“ after she finished dressing, she braided her hair as she spoke to Li Jingnan. 

With only one person left in the quilt, it was not as warm as before. Li Jingnan tilted his head on the bedstove and asked her: “What are you going to do?”

Hua Qingxue was in a good mood and smiled, “I’m going to make soap, didn’t I tell you yesterday?”

Li Jingnan was instantly wide-eyed and looked at Hua Qingxue as if she was a madman, “Did you say fragrant soap? You know how to make soap?” 

Although Li Jingnan was ignorant of common things, he also knew that fragrant soap was not something ordinary people could afford, just like how not everyone could afford white rice.

Hua Qingxue smiled and shook her head. “I can’t make fragrant ones. I don’t have any fragrances and essences on hand. I can only make plain ones, but it will be better than the ones you have used before. I also bought sulfur, we can make sulfur soap to use. En! I’ll make more to sell, so we don’t have to be afraid of starving in the future!”

Hua Qingxue finished speaking, picked up the pot behind the door and some things that she bought yesterday, and went happily to the yard.

Li Jingnan naturally would not return to sleep, he was very curious. He agilely got up, put on his clothes, put on his shoes, and ran to the yard.

Hua Qingxue poured quicklime into the pot. Seeing Li Jingnan running out to get in on the action, she smiled with embarrassment, “I don’t know if I can succeed…In theory, it shouldn’t be a big problem. But I don’t have any measuring cup or measuring tool, so I can only estimate the weight.”

Li Jingnan looked at the contents of the pot and asked: “Are we going to start making the soap?”

“Not yet. I need to get the sodium hydroxide out first…”

“Ah? What is that?”

“The ingredients of soap are sodium hydroxide and oil. As long as I get the sodium hydroxide out, the later steps will be easy.”

Li Jingnan listened, but he didn’t really understand and urged: “Then be faster, I want to see!”

It was rare for Hua Qingxue to have such patience. She explained as she worked: “We need to calcine the quicklime first, then add water…you see, it turns into lime slurry. The chemical composition of lime slurry is…forget it, you can’t remember it. Now it’s time to add Glauber’s salt, wu…with this much lime slurry, you roughly need this much Glauber’s salt…”

TN: Just guest translating for this project. Hope you guys like it!

Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter