jdhmnovel Chapter 131 Incense Making (1)
Chapter 131 Incense Making (1)
The next morning, Su Nuannuan had a delicious and exquisite breakfast. Suddenly, fine, soft snowflakes began to fall outside the window, drifting down like willow catkins.
Looking at the snowflakes fluttering outside, Su Nuannuan said, "The weather is like a child's face, changing in an instant."
"Your Majesty, it's so cold outside today." Yaoqin hurriedly walked in, stood at the doorway and gently patted the meager amount of snow that had fallen on her, then said softly.
Su Nuannuan smiled as she looked at the children, holding a brightly colored rag doll in her hand, shaking it incessantly, which excited the two little ones. "Well, it's so cold. Let someone light the charcoal brazier in the side hall later. Let them stay there tonight, so they don't have to go through all that trouble." As she spoke, she continued to amuse the children with the rag doll.
Speaking of these dolls, it's worth mentioning that the ladies of noble families and wealthy households in the capital are all captivated by the various exquisite dolls. These dolls are not only uniquely shaped and lifelike, but also, because they are said to be the little princess's favorite toys, everyone loves them even more and competes to buy them.
It must be said that Su Nuannuan's third brother put a lot of effort into promoting these plush toys. He cleverly used various promotional strategies, even coming up with tricks like scarcity marketing and collecting cards. However, the so-called "collecting cards" here is actually just collecting different styles of plush toys.
When Jinse reported this matter to Su Nuannuan in detail, she was extremely surprised and almost suspected that her third brother had also traveled to this world like her when no one was paying attention, and brought with him the business acumen of a modern person.
Fortunately, it turned out to be a false alarm. This makes one deeply admire the business wisdom of the ancients.
After playing with the two children until she was exhausted, Su Nuannuan slowly stood up and moved to the side hall. She gently instructed Su Yueniang and Honglian to stay in the inner hall and take good care of the children until they fell asleep.
After stepping into the side hall, Su Nuannuan pondered for a moment, then parted her lips slightly and said, "Go and summon Zhixiang. I will make incense today."
As soon as she finished speaking, Jinse, who was following behind, hurriedly replied, "Yes." Then she bowed to Su Nuannuan to take her leave and hurriedly headed towards the small kitchen, where she would replace Zhixiang to serve her.
This small kitchen was a crucial location within the Cuiwei Palace. While the storeroom could be left unattended without consequence, the small kitchen absolutely required the supervision of a trusted member of the household.
This arrangement was made solely to prevent any unscrupulous palace servants from secretly causing trouble in the small kitchen. After all, food was a matter of life and death for everyone, and no negligence could be tolerated.
Not long after, Zhixiang hurriedly entered the side hall. She first bowed gracefully to Su Nuannuan, and then asked softly, "Your Majesty, may I ask why you summoned me?"
Seeing this, Su Nuannuan smiled slightly, waved to Zhixiang affectionately, and said, "Zhixiang, come here quickly. Today, I would like to invite you to make incense together."
Zhixiang stepped forward respectfully, her gaze falling on the table laden with various incense-making materials. A hint of doubt flickered in her eyes as she softly asked, "Your Highness, why are there orange peels here? Didn't you instruct me to keep these orange peels for stewing meat?"
Su Nuannuan smiled slightly, picked up a piece of orange peel, sniffed it lightly, and then replied leisurely, "Who said that orange peels can only be left for you to stew meat? Today, I suddenly had a brilliant idea to use these orange peels to make incense. This is turning waste into treasure and recycling waste."
Compared to the incense you usually make, which requires many expensive spices, this method saves a lot of money.” With that, she smiled and placed the orange peel in her hand into a small, exquisite stone mortar.
Immediately afterwards, Su Nuannuan turned to Zhixiang and softly instructed, "Now, I'll trouble you to grind these orange peels into powder. I'll move over there first and draw a blueprint for an incense burner." With that, she gracefully pushed the stone mortar in front of Zhixiang.
Zhi Xiang took the stone mortar with both hands, her eyes sparkling with excitement, as if she had discovered a new continent. She couldn't wait to ask, "Your Majesty, does this mean that other seemingly useless waste materials can also be made into incense?" The more she thought about it, the more excited she became, as if she could already see countless novel and interesting incense-making materials unfolding before her eyes.
Su Nuannuan walked to the small desk, paused slightly, glanced back at Zhixiang, and smiled as she replied, "Indeed, some of the waste materials can be used to make incense, but for now, let's not get distracted by the other waste materials. The most important thing is to concentrate on successfully making this orange incense." After speaking, she gracefully sat down at the small desk and began to concentrate on sketching the incense burner.
In the side hall, there was also a desk. However, compared to the spacious and grand desk in the study, it appeared slightly smaller and more delicate. The desk was neatly arranged with the Four Treasures of the Study—brush, ink, paper, and inkstone—but apart from that, there were no other books displayed.
Originally, Su Nuannuan only intended to carefully craft a batch of incense balls exuding a refreshing orange scent. But in a sudden moment, memories of the backflow incense from her past life surged forth from the depths of her mind like a tidal wave. She was extremely familiar with this backflow incense; not only could she make it herself, but more importantly, in the world she was currently in, backflow incense had never existed, nor did it even have a specially made incense burner to match it.
In this way, Su Nuannuan seemed to see a glimmer of light in the darkness, and a brand new way to make money was presented before her eyes.
So, she immediately instructed Zhixiang to grind the dried orange peels into a fine powder for later use. Meanwhile, she picked up her paintbrush and focused intently on drawing the design of a special incense burner for backflow incense.
After the sketch was completed, it was handed over to Li Quan, who was instructed to meticulously carve a wooden backflow incense burner according to the design using hard wood.
For the time being, Su Nuannuan could only make do with this hastily made wooden incense burner.
Speaking of the art of incense making, it was actually something Su Nuannuan learned by chance from a renowned incense master in her previous life. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, she couldn't fully dedicate herself to learning more advanced perfumery techniques, and thus only mastered a superficial understanding. Furthermore, due to various limitations, she was never able to formally become this incense master's apprentice, and naturally couldn't acquire the profound and unfathomable secrets of perfumery.
Later, whenever she watched videos, she would watch those about incense making. Like a thirsty sponge, she immersed herself in various short video platforms, learning with great enthusiasm about all sorts of amazing methods of making incense from waste materials.
Whether it's discarded fruit peels, withered flowers, or seemingly useless twigs and leaves, she can bring them to life with her creative hands. Through these short videos, she seems to have opened a door to the world of incense making, constantly exploring new methods.