The door opened a gap, and an old man with a gray hair about fifty or sixty years old, poked his head out and looked out. When he saw Zhang Ran and the other two outside the door, he couldn't help but laugh and said, "Yeah, it's Sankui and Brother Ran, you two, you are rare guests! Come, come and go into the room to talk!"

The old stonemason was extremely enthusiastic. After meeting, he pulled Zhang Ran and Sankui into the yard without saying a word, and even asked his son to pour two bowls of water for them.

After a lot of work, the old stonemason pulled Zhang Ran and the others to sit on the stone pier, smiled at Zhang Ran and said, "I haven't seen you two little babies one day, what are you busy with recently? I haven't seen anyone all day long?"

Seeing that the old stonemason was quite enthusiastic in his words, Zhang Ran also smiled and replied: "I have accompanied Sankui's Aweng to the county town twice in the past two days. After returning, I was busy working in the fields..."

"So that's how it is!" The old stonemason laughed and pointed at Zhang Ran and praised, "I haven't seen you for a few days. Even you two little monkeys know how to help your family work. It's good, good..."

After laughing, the old stonemason suddenly changed his mind and asked Zhang Ran and the other two with a smile: "By the way, what's the matter with you two coming to me?"

"I want to ask you for a little help~" Zhang Ran pointed to the various stone tools that filled most of the yard and said with a smile: "I heard that you are doing a good job in old stone tools, so I came here to ask you to make something!"

When the old stonemason heard this, he couldn't help but laugh and scolded: "I haven't seen each other for two days, but my words suddenly became very literary and came here to see me... I'm just a poor stonemason. What kind of fame do you want to admire? Tell me, what kind of object do you want to make?"

Zhang Ran looked around and looked at the various stone objects of different sizes in the yard. He found that most of them were common stone daily necessities such as stone hoes, stone mortars, stone troughs, stone slabs, etc.

These things are roughly made and look cheap, so Zhang Ran couldn't help but have some doubts about the craftsmanship of the old stonemason.

However, there are only such a stonemason in dozens of families in Zhangli, so Zhang Ran had no choice but to go straight to the point: "I want to ask you to make a stone mill, but I don't know if it's okay?"

"Stone Mill?" Hearing Zhang Ran's request, the old stonemason smiled and said, "What other fine things do I have at that time? It turned out to be a stone Mill! What kind of thing do you want? I have a freshly made one. If you want it, just take it away!"

As he said that, he pointed to a corner of the yard, where there was indeed a small stone mill.

Looking at the stone mill in the corner of the yard from a distance, Zhang Ran could see at a glance that the stone mill was extremely rough in workmanship, almost the same as the Sankui family, and was even smaller than the Sankui family.

Seeing this scene, Zhang Ran couldn't help but shook his head in disappointment and said, "This kind of stone mill is not good. What I want is a new type of stone mill, which needs to be made again!"

"New-style stone mill?" The old stonemason raised his eyebrows, pondered for a moment, and frowned: "I have lived for most of my life and have been making this kind of stone mill. This is the craft handed down by the ancestor Gongshu Ban (Lu Ban)... Moreover, in recent years, I have never heard of any new-style stone mill?"

Seeing the old stonemason's face showing confusion, he frowned. Zhang Ran pondered for a moment and explained: "That's right. In the past two days, I used the stone mill from Sankui's family to grind some soybean juice to taste. But I found that the soybean juice was very turbid, mixed with a large amount of soybean crumbs, which was very unpalatable when cooked. So I planned to improve it a little to make the grinding teeth more refined."

"Oh? Do you still understand this?" the old stonemason said in disbelief.

"It's just a little immature idea, please always see if it's OK!"

As he said that, Zhang Ran picked up a branch, drew out the diagonal patterns of the eight-zone diagonal patterns in later generations, and explained to the old stonemason: "I plan to change the pit surfaces of the grinding pieces into stripes, so that the stone mill will be tighter when they are run-in... I plan to divide the new stone mill into eight small pieces, each of which needs to be chiseled into such diagonal stripes. The upper and lower grinding pieces are all made of this eight-zone diagonal pattern."

Looking at the pattern under Zhang Ran's feet, the old stonemason touched his beard and pondered: "This kind of pattern is very simple and easy to chisel out. But is this kind of pattern really useful?"

"Haha~" Zhang Ran threw away the branches, patted the dust on his hands, stood up and smiled, "Is it useful to try it out before you know! You just need to tell me if you can do it and how long it takes to do it, it's fine!"

Hearing the doubts in Zhang Ran's tone, the old stonemason glared with his eyes, slapped his thighs suddenly, stood up, and cut the railway with a firm grasp: "Of course I can do it! Give me a day, I guarantee that before dark, I can replicate the stripes you just mentioned exactly the same way!"

"Okay! How much does it cost in total?" Zhang Ran took out his money bag from his arms and asked the old stonemason.

"Hmph!" The old stonemason snorted disdainfully, waved his hand and said, "Let's talk about it later if you don't have money. I'll give you the stone mill before I'll send it to your house... Let you see if you can get the money if you can!"

"Okay, then do what you said!"

As the saying goes, it is better to provoke the general than to ask for a general. The old stonemason didn't even need to provoke the general, so he took the bait himself. Zhang Ran was naturally happy and was even more lazy to argue with him.

So, Zhang Ran directly agreed to the old stonemason's method of inspecting the goods first and then giving money. Then, he took Sankui to leave.

It won’t work if you don’t leave. Zhang Ran is really afraid that the old guy will get up and pick up a stick to drive him away. If he can’t hide, he will be in trouble for a while, and Zhang Ran has no place to make sense... Who can make him an elder?

......

After coming out of the old stonemason's house, Zhang Ran and Sankui went to the riverside to collect the fish cage, took the fish back to Sankui's house, put it in the pool and temporarily raised it. Then he went into the mountain to cut bamboo, and came back to continue weaving the fish cage.

During this period, Zhang Ran also took time to make a tofu mold and some other essential items with chopped bamboo, and soaked some soybeans in a bucket at home, waiting for the arrival of the new stone mill.

In the evening, the old stonemason indeed brought his son and pushed a wooden cart as promised to Zhang Ran's house with his son.

Zhang Ran was quite happy about the arrival of the old stonemason and the new stone mill, and enthusiastically welcomed the two of them into the yard, and personally placed the stone mill in the backyard with the old stonemason.

"Look, is our stone mill exactly the same as what you said?" After installing the stone mill, the old stone mill patted the mill with awesomeness.

"Let me see!"

Zhang Ran also cooperated and circled around the stone mill, carefully checked every corner of the stone mill, and even lifted up the stone mill's grinding sheets, looking at the shape of the stripes inside...

Finally, Zhang Ran discovered that this new stone mill with a diameter of only about one meter was transformed by the old stonemason. Not only did the grinding teeth be exactly the same as the slashed lines drawn by Zhang Ran, but even a special groove was chiseled at the edge. In addition to the rough workmanship, both the shape and size were almost the same as the stone mills of later generations that Zhang Ran remembered.

The old stonemason has good skills, and the newly created stone mill is exactly in line with Zhang Ran's expectations. It is exactly the kind of stone mill that Zhang Ran wants that can be used to grind tofu.

"Fourth uncle, your craftsmanship is simply unspeakable! This stone is made of sophisticated!" The ideal result was achieved, and Zhang Ran naturally praised the old stonemason with great praise.

The old stonemason stroked his beard, raised his chin proudly, raised his head and glanced at Zhang Ran with his eyes, and said, "Hmph! Who said I couldn't make it before?"

"Uh" Zhang Ran touched his nose awkwardly, lowered his head and said, "That's my fault. You shouldn't doubt your skills!"

Hearing Zhang Ran say this, the old stonemason's expression immediately calmed down, and he stepped forward and patted Zhang Ran on the shoulder and said, "Brother Ran, we are just relying on such skill in our life to make a living. When we hear people say that my skills are not good, my temper is naturally arguing. I am not right to the person, so don't take it to heart!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Ran couldn't help but smile with a hearty smile: "Uncle Fourth, please don't worry! Actually, I didn't take my heart at all! I was deliberately trying to provoke..."

"You little sloppy~" the old stonemason was suddenly a little amused and crying.

After seeing that Zhang Ran was indeed not affected by his words, the old stonemason then comfortedly accepted the 200 yuan given by Zhang Ran.
Chapter completed!