No matter if you are a human or an immortal, you can still farm for me after traveling through time!

As the news of the murder of the Hu merchant spread, other Hu merchants in Chang'an fell into panic, and everyone was in danger for a while.

You should know that there are currently more than 100,000 Hu people staying in Chang'an, most of whom live in Chang'an as Hu merchants.

The Dali Temple receives inquiries and urgings from the public about the progress of cases every day, which can be described as "Alexander".

The huge number of Hu merchants makes the investigation extremely difficult. It takes a lot of effort just to review the information of the Hu merchants entering Beijing and find the identities of the murdered Hu merchants.

It is not known whether the Dali Temple was eager to solve the case due to pressure from above and the masses, or whether the key clues were hidden too deeply as Li Erlang expected, but five days later the Dali Temple hurriedly posted a notice announcing that the case had been successfully solved.

In order to get the case information as soon as possible, Ji Qingyue went to the notice board to find out the situation.

The notice detailed the course of the case, claiming that the three victims were all Hu merchants from the Southern Barbarians. Because a large amount of Shu brocade and hidden mulberry silkworm seeds were found in their residence, it was speculated that the three men came to Dali for the purpose of smuggling mulberry silkworm seeds. During their temporary stay in Chang'an, they accidentally exposed the secret when they were getting along with other Hu merchants from the Southern Barbarians, which eventually led to their deaths.

Most people don't care what the truth is, they just want a reasonable result.

As they expected, the attention to the Southern Barbarian merchants was not high, not to mention that their purpose of coming to Dali was not pure, and they were killed because of the jealousy and greed of their fellow countrymen. Naturally, they could not get the resonance and sympathy of the people, and no one cared about the truth behind the case. Closing the case was a natural thing.

On the night when the case was announced closed, Li Sanlang finally ended his busy overtime life and went home on time.

It was still early in the evening when Li Sanlang returned home. Ji Qingyue had already had lunch. Because the weather was getting hotter, he specially cooked a pot of mung bean soup and hung it in the well to cool. Now that Li Sanlang was back, he could drink two bowls to fill his stomach and cool down.

"Second brother, are you busy today too?" The two of them set up a small table by the well, surrounded by vibrant vegetable fields. In addition to giant pumpkins and watermelons, there were also mature grape vines.

Ji Qingyue scooped himself a bowl of mung bean soup from the pottery and sipped it while mumbling, "The Pingyao Marquis's Mansion sent someone to invite him, but he left this morning. By the way, how's the case going?"

Although the case has been solved, some overlooked suspicious points were discovered during the investigation.

"I figured Qing Yuan, coming from Lingnan, might know something, so I asked him about Jinzhou. Just as Brother Ji said, Jinzhou has many minerals, cinnabar being the most famous." Li Sanlang excitedly finished his bowl of mung bean soup as he spoke. "Besides strict government control over salt, iron, and copper, the government doesn't restrict the development of other minerals. Even salt, iron, and copper can be mined privately. All a private miner needs to do is apply for a permit from the government and pay taxes based on their revenue."

Ji Qingyue thought about it for a moment and knew why the government did not ban private mining.

The main reason was that the government needed this tax revenue. Regardless of how private mining was conducted, as long as taxes were paid on time and in full, the government would naturally not restrict it. Another reason was that government mining was insufficient to meet the needs of society as a whole, requiring private mining to fill the gap. The low mining efficiency stemmed from backward industry and metallurgical technology, which hindered efficiency and naturally led to a shortage of supply.

"cinnabar?"

Li Sanlang added: "Cinnabar is also called cinnabar, because Jinzhou was called Chenzhou in the previous dynasty, and the cinnabar produced in Chenzhou was cinnabar, which is the main raw material for refining mercury."

"Mercury?" Ji Qingyue couldn't keep up with Li Sanlang's train of thought. Why did it bring up mercury?

"I've reviewed the complete case file. The relics left behind by the three Hu merchants consisted entirely of Shu brocade mixed with silkworm eggs. What's unusual is that more than half of the silkworm eggs had died, and the remaining surviving eggs had hatched prematurely due to the rising temperature."

"Besides Shu brocade, was there anything else in the box that caused the silkworm eggs to die?"

Ji Qingyue's guess coincided with Li Sanlang's, but due to the lack of evidence, he could not confirm whether anything else had been installed.

"That's exactly what I suspected. The Dali Temple pulled some stone fragments from the box, but no one could tell what they were." Li Sanlang pondered for a moment, then poured himself another bowl of mung bean soup. "But the facts are indeed as Brother Ji said. This group did hide some stone inside the Shu brocade and secretly transported it to Chang'an."

"Hmm..." Ji Qingyue did not answer immediately, but sat in the recliner thinking about something.

Li Sanlang didn't disturb them and just drank the sweet water silently.

Every summer, Brother Ji always cooks some sweet water and herbal tea. Some of them taste strange, while some are very delicious and refreshing. This time, the mung bean soup is very refreshing.

"..." Ji Qingyue suddenly stood up: "You said there were stone fragments in the sealed evidence?"

"Yes."

"We now suspect the stone fragments may be cinnabar, but we cannot definitively prove the composition of the stone due to the lack of evidence."

"Yes."

Ji Qingyue paused and sat up. "If I have a way to verify whether the stone is cinnabar, does that prove that this group of people have indeed been to Jinzhou?"

When Li Sanlang heard Ji Qingyue's words, his eyes lit up with joy. Holding the bowl in his arms, he excitedly asked, "Brother Ji, what method do you have?"

"We need to do some relatively complicated chemical experiments..." When Ji Qingyue was about to explain in detail, Li Erlang came back, and the two of them quickly invited him over to drink sweet water together.

"Brother, what happened when you went to the Pingyao Marquis' Mansion?"

"It's nothing serious. The young master's birthday is coming soon, and he asked me to ask Yue Lang if he will attend the birthday party." Li Erlang took the mung bean soup handed to him by his younger brother and drank it in big gulps.

After returning to the clan, Yang Jinyu naturally knew his birthday, which was on the 24th of June. It was not only his birthday that was exactly ten, but also his first birthday after returning to his ancestral home. Of course, the Pingyao Marquis Mansion had to hold a grand birthday banquet.

Ji Qingyue was overjoyed: "Can I go?"

"The young master missed Yue Lang very much, so he mentioned Yue Lang to the Marquis' wife and asked for a cherry tree as a birthday gift to be planted in the courtyard of the mansion."

"Did the Marquis agree?"

"Of course the Marquis's wife agrees." Li Erlang smiled and continued in a somewhat riddle-like tone, "Does Yuelang know that your reputation in Chang'an has grown considerably?"

how do I say this?

"Do you, Yuelang, still remember the pumpkin seeds you sold to the Duke's Mansion?"

Mentioning the giant pumpkin, Ji Qingyue looked towards his own vegetable garden.

The green vegetable garden is full of vitality, and a large area of it is filled with pumpkin vines.

Although the vegetable plot designated for pumpkins is very large, there are only three pumpkin vines growing in it.

The seeds were planted at the end of April, and now sixty days have passed and the pumpkins have begun to bear fruit.

Less than ten days have passed since the end of flowering and pollination, and it already weighs nearly 100 kilograms!

The Duke's son must have sown seeds earlier than him...

“He planted it?”

Li Erlang nodded. "It is said that the heaviest one is over 100 kilograms. According to Yuelang, the fruiting period is at least 50 days. When it matures, it will probably easily exceed 1,000 kilograms."

"Of course it can exceed a thousand pounds as long as there's enough nutrients, but what does that have to do with attending a child's birthday party?"

Li Erlang smiled and said, "Since Yuelang is so famous, the Marquis's wife promised the young master to invite Yuelang to attend the birthday banquet with us."

Li Sanlang was of course also on the invitation list.

"When I came back, what were you and Saburo talking about? I heard something about chemistry..."

Back to the original topic, when Li Erlang heard that Ji Qingyue had a way to identify whether the stone fragments were cinnabar, he couldn't help but reveal an expression of surprise and pride: "Yue Lang is really knowledgeable and intelligent!" He actually knew these non-mainstream knowledge that many people considered to be unorthodox, and he still kept surprising people until now. Yue Lang is really a treasure more precious than a gold mine!

Ji Qingyue was modest for a second: "No, no..." Then he introduced his chemical experiment: "To test whether the stone fragments contain cinnabar, I need gallstones."

"Bile alum?"

The two brothers were confused and couldn't remember what gallstones were for a moment.

"Balthion is also called blue alum or copper alum. Besides being used as a pigment, it can also be used as medicine. Perhaps it's sold in a clinic."

When he heard that the clinic was selling alum, Li Sanlang said he would go buy it right away.

"Besides gallstones, what else do you need?"

Next, Ji Qingyue listed the utensils needed for chemical experiments one by one - pottery jars and porcelain jars.

Not long after, Li Sanlang came back excitedly with a large bag of ground alum powder. He saw his second brother and brother Ji setting up a stove in the open space in the backyard with a clay pot on the stove, while his second brother was mixing mud in the vegetable garden.

Ji Qingyue poured alum into the pottery jar, covered it with a lid, leaving only an opening for inserting a curved, thin bamboo tube. He then asked Li Erlang to completely seal the opening of the jar with mud, and insert the other end of the bamboo tube into a small pottery jar filled with water. The opening of the bamboo tube must be deeply immersed in the water, and then it was roughly sealed with mud as well.

Then, Ji Qingyue lit the stove, and the high fire roasted the pottery jar containing gallstones. The sealed pottery jar made it impossible to check the situation inside. He only heard the "gurgling" sound of bubbles coming from the small pottery jar on the other side. Ji Qingyue knew that the experiment was half successful, and now he just had to wait for the gas and water to fully react.

Ji Qingyue led the two away from the stove, and the two brothers stared blankly at the gurgling pot. "Brother Ji, what's in that pot?"

"It's sulfuric acid, also called green vitriol oil."

"Can you use this sulfuric acid to test whether there is cinnabar in the debris?"

Ji Qingyue chuckled, "How can it be that simple? Next, we have to use this sulfuric acid to make hydrochloric acid, and then we can use hydrochloric acid to test the stone fragments. After that, we'll need salt and copper coins."

Both of them believed Ji Qingyue's words without a doubt, and they couldn't wait to complete the experiment in front of them so that they could start the second experiment right away.

The gas in the jar continued to gurgle for half an hour before finally stopping slowly. Ji Qingyue quickly extinguished the fire and moved the small clay jar aside.

Next, use a simple distillation device to convert dilute sulfuric acid into concentrated sulfuric acid before proceeding to the next experiment of making hydrochloric acid.

Pour salt and concentrated sulfuric acid into a clean ceramic pot, stir evenly and seal the container. Heat the container to generate gas that flows to another ceramic pot filled with water. The gas reacts with water to produce hydrochloric acid.

By the time Ji Qingyue got the hydrochloric acid, it was already dark. The neighborhood was quiet and people had already gone to bed.

Ji Qingyue handed the small bottle of hydrochloric acid he had worked so hard to obtain to Li Sanlang, and then explained to him the method of testing the stone fragments: just grind the fragments into powder, soak them with hydrochloric acid, and rub them on a copper coin. If a silvery-white solid is produced and the silvery-white solid disappears after heating, it proves that the fragments contain cinnabar. If there is no reaction, there is no cinnabar.

Li Sanlang looked serious and took note of Ji Qingyue's words. He decided to take the bottle of hydrochloric acid he had worked so hard to obtain to the Dali Temple to inspect the stone fragments early tomorrow morning.

That night, Ji Qingyue returned to the painting due to time constraints. Now his outing time is fixed at eight hours every three days, so he always tries to return to the painting at night.

The longer he stayed outside, the less he wanted to go back into the painting. Although the world in the painting was becoming more and more perfect and there were more and more species of creatures, in some ways he felt more and more lonely. Moreover, every time he came out of the painting, he had to climb up the mountain from the bottom to the top, which was very inconvenient.

I don't know where the last barrier is.

Ji Qingyue had tried his best to explore the world in the painting, and even imitated the fisherman to make a raft and paddle to the swamp bay across the stream, but he did not go beyond the boundaries of the reed marsh.

As he explored more places in the painting, he gradually discovered that the mountain range behind the thatched cottage and pine forest was indeed a huge circular mountain, so large that he could not walk around the ridge.

There is a deep valley in the circular mountain range. Looking down at the valley from the top of the mountain, one can only see lush trees and a thick layer of vegetation in the valley, and one cannot see anything in the forest at all.

Because there is a barrier on the top of the mountain, we cannot go down the other side of the hill to the deep valley.

Gazing at the dark green forest in the valley from afar, Ji Qingyue couldn't help but feel a sense of pursuit in his heart, which kept drawing him into the valley.

The wind on the top of the mountain is cold, but the foot of the mountain is warm and cozy. The dark green pine forest is lush and verdant. The two-story wooden brick houses on the low slope are covered with vines around and even on the roof. At this time of year, clusters of crystal fruits begin to grow on the vines.

Because he stayed outside the painting for a long time, most of the farmland originally opened up for growing cotton on the low slope has been abandoned, and now only two or three pieces are left for growing cotton.

The small brick house hidden behind the low slope has become a bedroom for the livestock.

Ji Qingyue specially used bamboo strips and wooden sticks to make a fence, enclosing a very wide area to raise chickens, ducks, geese and sheep. Even if he was not there, the livestock could find food on their own in the enclosed area.

Using only goats to transport seeds up the mountain was very inefficient. With the help of Li Erlang, he bought two mules from the West Market, intending to let the mules and goats share the burden of carrying the seeds.

The vegetable and rice fields required the most attention and meticulous care, while the orchard and flower fields were left alone, only being observed briefly during the flowering and fruiting seasons, and waiting until next year. The mushrooms and herbs on the ground were left unchecked and uncared for. Since the first sowing, Ji Qingyue had neglected them, relying solely on their own robust growth capacity to reproduce.

There are more and more types of mushrooms growing in the pine forest, most of which Ji Qingyue does not recognize, so he has never dared to pick them casually. Now they are showing a trend of proliferation.

In addition to matsutake and several easily recognizable mushrooms, Ji Qingyue also discovered the rare white fungus.

Aren’t the ingredients for Qingbuliang complete now?