Chapter 18 (2/2)

After Muxu finished feeding Ji Man dinner, Ji Man impatiently said, ”Open that bag.”

The bag was neither big nor small. The young servant girl had been able to bring it into the room by hiding the bag under her skirt. Muxu curiously opened the bag and saw two packages of beeswax, a jar of almond oil, and a few jars and containers.

”Master, why did you want these things?”

Ji Man faintly smiled, ”It's for an experiment. I read about a recipe in a novel before. There shouldn't be a product like that here. Let's test it out for the time being and see if we can successfully make cold cream.

Master had recently been using words that she didn't understand, but Muxu understood the last part, ”What's cold cream?”

”You apply it to your face and the cream will make you face whiter and softer.” Ji Man slightly moved and cold sweat appeared on her forehead again from the pain. She clenched her teeth and said, ”I can only rely on this to change my fortune.”

Muxu still didn't quite understand, so Ji Man ordered her, ”First, go outside, pluck all of the osmanthus flowers in the courtyard, and bring them back inside.

This cold and cheerless courtyard naturally didn't have any expensive flowers. Plus, it was autumn. The only flowers that she could use were osmanthus flowers.

Muxu swiftly completed her order and brought back a basket of osmanthus flowers.

Lying on a pillow, Ji Man instructed, ”Fill the pot over there with a little bit of water and dump all of the flowers into the pot. Cook the flowers with lid on.”

Muxu did as she said. Once the pot full of osmanthus flowers had been simmered into a liquid, she poured them into the clean jars and sealed them up.

”Next, warm up the beeswax, but keep it separated from water.” Ji Man looked at the sky. Before the sky darkened, they should be able to produce a sample.

Compared to the dense skincare products made with lead that were available in ancient times, cold cream was naturally much better. The cost to make it also wasn't expensive. It was just slightly complicated to make it and each batch might not be successful. As a modern day person, she should have a cheat. She had already previously thought about this. Cold cream was her only choice if she wanted to appeal to a woman's desire to improve her appearance.

After the beeswax had melted, Ji Man had Muxu pour the almond oil into the melted beeswax. Finally, the osmanthus flower water was poured in. It was only a small pot, but it was very fragrant.

Muxu's eyes were glimmering as the pale yellow liquid became denser and creamier. By the time she had finished listening to Ji Man on how much of each ingredient to add and blew out the fire, this item had already finished becoming a lovely cream.

”Remove the cosmetics from the containers on my dressing table, wash those containers, and use them to hold the cold cream.”

”Understood.” Muxu quickly carried a pile of the boxes out. Ji Man touched her face and gritted her teeth. She would have to act as a human guinea pig for those women.

The small pot of cold cream was enough to fill five large containers and three small containers. Ji Man sighed. It was only because Nie Sangyu had a lot of cosmetics. Otherwise, they wouldn't have had enough containers. The cold cream was still slightly hot, so Ji Man had Muxu leave them on the table to cool off. She would check on them tomorrow.

T/N: Here's a recipe for homemade cold cream . This type of cream was very popular in China during 20's to 40's. There's even a much more detailed recipe for cold cream on Baidu (Chinese wiki.)

Someone in NUF's spoiler thread mentioned they were confused with what Ji Man is trying to achieve. I interpreted her actions in this chapter and following chapters as procrastinating. Ji Man continues her original goal of improving her living conditions and her relations.h.i.+ps with everyone else except Ning Yuxuan because she doesn't know how to fulfill Nie Sangyu's seemingly impossible wish yet. She would rather focus on work because that's what she's good at it. What do you guys think? This is just my interpretation.