"Thud, thud, thud..."

Thumping echoed through the Green Sparrow Tribe as Han Cheng, holding a large wooden stick, beat rhythmically at the stone mortar that hadn’t been used since the watermill was installed.

Inside the mortar was not grain but strips of tree bark that had been soaked.

Pulp is needed to make paper. Han Cheng recalled this information after thinking deeply, though the memory was still blurry.

Since it’s pulp, it’s not too complicated—he recalled the occasional straw fibers that were not fully broken down in some school notebooks in the future. From this, he could roughly understand what needed to be done.

Grinding with a stone mill would make it easier to turn things into pulp, but it wasn't suitable for tree bark because the fibers would get stuck inside.

Perhaps when the Green Sparrow Tribe’s paper-making technology becomes more advanced, they could consider improving the stone mill and creating a specialized one for grinding pulp.

Compared to grain, pounding tree bark was not easy at all.

After sweating for nearly an hour, Han Cheng managed to turn the bark into something barely resembling pulp.

Things didn't go smoothly because he wasn’t familiar with the process. After pounding the bark, he scratched his head, thinking back to the large pool in the ancient illustration and comparing it to when he made tofu, trying to make connections. Finally, Han Cheng put the pounded bark into a large jar and soaked it in water.

Then, mimicking the person in the illustration, he stirred it haphazardly.

The pounded tree bark scattered in the water, but much debris floated on the surface.

This was the outer layer of the bark—older, tougher bark.

When pounding the bark, Han Cheng mixed all the pieces together, but the outer bark was much harder to break down than the inner layers.

As a result, there were still lumps that hadn’t been pulverized.

Recalling how awkward it felt to write with unprocessed fibers in the past, Han Cheng instinctively grabbed a piece of leftover burlap, tied it to a crooked branch, and fashioned a makeshift net.

It looked more like a slightly uneven fly swatter than a proper net.

First, Han Cheng wasn’t particularly skilled, and second, the tribe wasn’t rich in materials. The burlap he used was a leftover piece from making clothes—he was extremely frugal with resources, which made creating the net more difficult.

However, despite looking like a fly swatter, it was sufficient to scoop the debris on the water’s surface out of the jar.

After finishing, he looked into the jar again, and it was much more pleasing to the eye.

Now that the bark had been turned into pulp, the next step was to figure out how to transform it into paper.

Standing there with his fly-swatter-like contraption, Han Cheng found himself stumped.

What was that rectangular object the ancient person in the illustration held?

How could having that item allow them to turn pulp into paper?

This had been on Han Cheng’s mind for some time, but he still hadn’t figured it out.

His brain was in the same state as the jar filled with pulp—just a big, sticky mess.

Many things are like this: once you know how, it’s easy; if you don’t, it’s difficult. The saying "different fields are like different mountains" applies perfectly here.

Turning pulp into paper, which seems trivial to those familiar with the process, felt like enough of a challenge to make Han Cheng pull his hair out.

And then, suddenly, he had an idea!

After feeling down for a while, Han Cheng suddenly became excited. His eyes sparkled as he looked at the "fly swatter" resting by the edge of the water jar.

It wasn't that the "fly swatter" had suddenly become beautiful, but it had somehow picked up some pulp.

When Han Cheng saw this, he was about to put it back in the jar but was pleasantly surprised when he touched it. It felt very much like paper...

"Hahaha..."

A burst of wild laughter echoed through the Green Sparrow Tribe as Han Cheng, holding the fly swatter, was overjoyed.

After laughing, he tossed the fly swatter to the ground and quickly ran to where the burlap was stored.

He called for the carpenter, Lame, and the tribe’s expert seamstress. After cutting, sewing, and hammering, a rectangular object about 1.5 meters long and 80 centimeters wide was created.

The frame was made of wood, with burlap stretched across the middle, resembling a metal sieve used for sifting sand when building houses in later times.

This was the idea Han Cheng had figured out using the "fly swatter."

Han Cheng returned to the pulp jar with the new tool in his hands. He placed the makeshift sieve on the side, propped it up with some objects, and began scoping pulp from the jar with the fly swatter. After draining some water, he spread the pulp onto the makeshift sieve.

One piece after another.

After a while, Han Cheng paused and frowned slightly.

The pulp he scooped with the fly swatter was relatively smooth, but it often became wrinkled when he placed it on the sieve.

Also, the pieces of pulp the size of the fly swatter were hard to join, and they tended to break apart easily.

After some thought, Han Cheng suddenly had a flash of inspiration.

He dumped all the pulp from the sieve back into the water jar, stirred it with a stick to loosen it, and then scooped it directly into the sieve.

He skipped the step with the fly swatter and filled the sieve.

Upon trying this method, he immediately felt that it worked much better. The fibers in the water were loose, the thickness was easy to control, and the pulp remained relatively flat once lifted from the water.

Moreover, the pulp stuck to the burlap of the sieve, forming a single sheet, solving the problem of pieces not sticking together.

The only downside was that the sieve was too large for the small jar, so only one batch could fit in at a time, but it was still manageable.

Han Cheng laid the sieve with pulp flat on top of the jar, and a small amount of water slowly seeped out, dripping back into the jar.

The late summer sun was still hot, quickly evaporating the water from the pulp.

Eagerly waiting for the paper to form, Han Cheng ran over several times in the next few hours to check on it.

As the water evaporated, the fibers began to bind together, forming something that resembled paper.

He said "resembled" because it was still very rough.

The paper was about twenty times thicker than the paper used for school notebooks in the future. It was also uneven, with many unprocessed fibers scattered across the surface.

But that wasn't the worst part—many small black particles were embedded in the paper.

These were the outer layers of the tree bark that hadn’t been fully broken down.

Han Cheng had scooped out the large chunks floating on top, but the small particles that had sunk to the bottom were beyond his reach.

Moreover, the paper was very brittle. When Han Cheng tried to lift it from the sieve, he accidentally tore it off a corner.

But despite all its flaws, Han Cheng held the rough, almost unusable paper in his hands, smiling broadly, overjoyed by his progress.

The paper was rough, but it was probably the first sheet of paper in the world created in the tribe.

It brought a ray of hope, a glimmer of light that could save people from unspeakable suffering.

The second greatest Shaman of the tribe came over again. After observing for a while, he reached out and touched the paper. He thought deeply for a moment before finally asking a question.

The Shaman’s eyes were sharp. He had been paying close attention to the Divine Child’s recent actions. Based on past experience, anything that the Divine Child treated so seriously had to be extremely important and would significantly impact the tribe.

However, the Divine Child hadn't said what he was doing this time, so the Shaman hadn’t asked.

Rather than directly inquiring about the result, the Shaman preferred to observe and use his wisdom to guess what the Divine Child had created. This was a trait of a wise person.

He enjoyed cross-checking his guesses with the Divine Child's explanations. It brought him much satisfaction, especially when his guesses turned out to be correct. When this happened, he would be happy for days.

Before asking, the Shaman already had his answer in mind: fabric.

A brand-new kind of fabric that could be used for clothing or other purposes.

He arrived at this conclusion because, as the use of burlap had become more widespread in the tribe, the people realized the benefits and importance of this material, similar to animal hide but different.

Additionally, the object the Divine Child had created seemed to resemble fabric in size and shape. It could also be folded just like fabric.

"This is paper," Han Cheng chirped, finally answering the Shaman’s unspoken question.

"Paper?" The Shaman was momentarily stunned. How was it, not fabric?

Or was this paper just a type of fabric but with a different name?

It was like how the Divine Child’s child was sometimes called Han Tong and sometimes Han Pea.

The Shaman nodded to himself, thinking his reasoning must be correct.

Then, he asked Han Cheng what the paper was for.

"To wipe your butt!" Han Cheng said excitedly.

Han Cheng had been obsessed with the paper's function as a cleaning tool ever since he entered this primitive world. When the Shaman asked, he answered without a second thought.

In his excitement, Han Cheng didn’t realize how shocking his answer was to the Shaman, eagerly awaiting a serious reply.

The Shaman stood there, stunned, as if frozen by a spell, not even noticing that the rabbit he was holding had jumped out of his arms and onto the ground.

After all the effort and time, using so many materials, and often worrying about the outcome, Han Cheng was now laughing triumphantly, grinning from ear to ear, happier than if he’d eaten a joy-filled bird.

And now, the Shaman was told that this thing, created after so much effort, was only meant to wipe the butt?

The Shaman felt like the situation had taken a sharp turn too quickly.

He couldn't help but recall the image of the tribe’s wheel barrow breaking down and the wheel flying off.

After a long silence, the Shaman finally regained his senses and made a final attempt, still struggling to accept what he’d heard.

He hoped he had misheard, so he asked again what the paper was for.

His hope was quickly dashed, as Han Cheng, still grinning like a fool, answered the Shaman’s question with an unhesitating and matter-of-fact response: the paper was for wiping one’s butt.

The Shaman was utterly flabbergasted. After all these years of learning new things from the Divine Child, he believed he was knowledgeable. The Divine Child had made him much wiser, after all.

But now, he felt that his wisdom wasn’t enough. He couldn’t keep up with the Divine Child’s way of thinking.

How could something that took so much effort to make be used just for wiping one's butt?

Wiping a butt is all well and good, but did it require this much work?

Were stones and wooden sticks not useful anymore?

It seemed like a simple matter of picking a handful of grass, but instead, so much fuss had to be made...

And the thing you created is thick, hard, and covered with small black bumps. It’s certainly not as comfortable as grass...

The Shaman, completely confused, couldn’t understand the Divine Child’s actions.

Immersed in the joy of creating paper, Han Cheng finally noticed that the Shaman’s expression was off.

He, too, was a little stunned. At this point, wasn’t the first thing to do with the paper supposed to be this?

After a moment of confusion, he realized that he had been looking at things with a mindset from the future, and when viewed from the perspective of people in this era, what he had done might seem hard to understand.

“Uh... besides wiping your butt, it can also be used for writing.”

Han Cheng awkwardly tried to steer the conversation back on track.

"Write?"

Upon hearing this, the Shaman, who had been dazed, seemed to come back to life.

He stepped forward, ran his hand over the paper, and examined it closely. He thought that using it to write didn’t seem ideal.

He pondered momentarily, then picked up a common stone stylus and tried to carve some words onto it. After a while, he began to shake his head in frustration.

Writing on this was not only awkward but the marks barely showed up. And it couldn’t be pressed too hard; if you used too much force, the paper would tear.

Could this be used for writing? It was even worse than a stone tablet, not to mention fired clay tablets.

The Shaman scratched his balding head, extremely perplexed.

The Divine Child, who rarely failed, had put so much effort into this, yet created something useless.

It couldn’t even compare to stone or clay tablets for writing and was worse than stones or grass for wiping. How could this be...?

Han Cheng couldn’t help but sniffle as he watched the Shaman sitting on the ground, using a stone stylus to scratch up the only sheet of paper, shaking his head in frustration.

This was just the first sheet of paper. After improvements, the quality would significantly increase!

Also, the tool you’re using isn’t right. The stone stylus used for engraving on clay tablets is too harsh for paper! No matter how good the paper is, it can’t handle that!

Han Cheng, too, felt a sense of grievance.

He had just wanted to make paper; once it was useful, he’d start working on finding tin ore and making bronze. Why did things always have to go sideways like this?

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay