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As it turns out, the best way to learn a foreign language is to talk to the locals.
Around six months after being reborn as a newborn baby, I could understand most of the conversations around me.
Of course, there wouldn't be many difficult words in the words spoken to a baby. However, considering my lackluster English skills from an extensive education in my previous life, it was nothing short of a miracle how quickly I was able to grasp and understand conversations.
Of course, no one around me knows this.
The idea of a baby being able to converse fluently at half a year old is the stuff of ancient mythology.
For a brief moment, my parents might be excited about me being a prodigy.
But as I grow older, my mediocrity will be revealed. So why put more pressure on myself to meet my parents' expectations now?
Determined to hide my temporary excellence, I began imitating the contents of the monthly baby developmental charts found on YouTube.
These charts covered a wide range of behaviors, including common actions seen in most babies and some advanced skills that only a few infants could do.
Still, I didn't want to be too ordinary.
Although I wasn't a prodigy, I wanted to be a child that could bring some pride to my parents. So, I decided to imitate the few "exceptionally fast developing" babies.
And the advanced skills of a 6-month-old baby were "crawling forward" and "advanced babbling with combined syllables."
"Ang-ah! Ang-ah!"
"Yes, Young Master. It's me~."
At the sound of my cute voice, a girl who was busy cleaning the room, blushed and approached the bed.
Her real name, which she pronounced as 'Ang-ah' to imitate a baby, was Hang-ah, but I didn't know her last since I hadn't seen the characters of her name before.
I, on the other hand, now know my name for sure.
The name I had firmly believed to be mine all this time, "Hui," was nothing more than a nickname.
My real name was Zhao Ga-hui (趙佳輝).
I only learned this after recording a video of my parents writing our family names on paper and scouring through a simplified Chinese character table someone had posted on YouTube.
My father's name was Zhao Ja-hun and my mother's name was Bi Jiao En.
As a former Korean, all three of my family members have names that don't seem too out of place to me.
Actually, besides the names, I had many other things I was curious about.
I wondered exactly where I was reborn and what my parents did for a living, among other things.
But there was no one here who was free enough to talk about these things in front of a newborn baby.
Thanks to my search on "Chinese costume history," the most significant discovery I made was that the attire worn by the people around me resembled clothing from the Ming Dynasty.
For the rest of the information, I had to listen intently to Hang-ah’s chatter.
"Young Master, look here, look! Peekaboo!"
“Ang-ah!”
"Hehe, you're so clever. Aww, so cute."
You're even cuter.
Could you be only twelve or thirteen years old?
Hang-ah, with chubby cheeks still full of baby fat, was the handmaiden who had begun taking turns caring for me with my mother around the time I grew weary of breastfeeding.
A handmaiden.
Add to that the workers and wagons hauling loads in a yard the size of a college football field that I saw on occasional outings with my parents, I felt like I was reincarnated from a fairly wealthy merchant family.
Above all, what I was most grateful for was the presence of my affectionate parents, who never failed to have a smile on their faces whenever they looked at me.
Even in the modern era, where we have better standards of living and human rights, stories of babies being abused or starved to death are often on the news.
If I had been reincarnated in such a family, I might have died again without being able to put up much of a fight. When I thought about it, I realized that I was fortunate to be in my current situation.
As I was reflecting on my good fortune in this life,Hang-ah, who was staring at my face, suddenly began to behave strangely.
After a few moments of scanning the outside world, she loosened her collar to reveal her breasts.
"Young Master, look-"
"Huh?"
With a flushed face, she approached me again and gently embraced me on the bed. Feeling embarrassed, I quickly turned my head away, avoiding her chest.
However, she was persistent and didn't give up.
"Aren't you hungry?"
"Uh-uh."
Perhaps she developed curiosity from observing my mother breastfeeding me, she approached me like a playful little girl, attempting to mimic nursing.
But no matter how innocent her intentions were, the situation was too much for my modern consciousness.
"Umm!"
"Huh? Why aren't you eating? Isn't this how it's supposed to be done?"
"Umm. Uuuh-."
"Ah! Young Master, good boy. I won't do it."
Seeing me pretending to cry out of frustration, she finally got startled and adjusted her clothes.
I, too, wiped off the cold sweat and calmed my startled heart.
"Please don't tell Madame Zhao, okay?"
Hanga, who was playfully patting my head and smiling, resumed cleaning as if nothing had happened.
For all her occasional misbehavior, she was basically a good and sincere person.
But if there was one fatal flaw, it was...
Her smell.
***read at https://novelworldtranslations.blogspot.com***
Whenever I was in her arms, I would smell a pungent odor that I had never smelled from my mom.
Actually, it wasn't just her. In fact, compared to others, her body odor was relatively mild.
The lingering body odor of the hired help, which I would catch a whiff of during my occasional strolls around the house while cradled in my mother's arms, was undeniably and disgustingly foul.
In contrast, there was only a subtle herbal scent emanating from my mother and father's bodies.
The two of them couldn't be the only ones who didn't have particularly smelly bodies, so it was clear that the difference was probably caused by their bathing habits.
I remembered something the color of vanilla ice cream, about the size of a walnut, that Mom would use to bathe me with.
It felt slippery and didn’t lather as much as modern soap, but judging by the small amount she used, it was evident that it was a rather expensive product.
I suddenly realized that I could make soap.
Come to think of it, I vaguely remember seeing it in a webtoon my girlfriend used to read in my past life.
It was about a high school girl who was reincarnated in another world like me, starting with soap and made a fortune using various inventions based on modern knowledge.
It seems like I was reborn into a merchant family, so if an ordinary high school girl can make it easily, then I should be able to do it too, right?
Unlike the webtoon’s protagonist, I don't know anything about soap making, but it didn't pose a problem.
Because I have YouTube!
After some thinking, I immediately closed my eyes and typed "DIY natural soap making" into the search bar.
However, as I cheerfully scanned through the search results, I couldn't help but furrow my brows in no time.
[Soap Making Ingredients]
Prepare a soap base.
"...?"
Soap making requires a soap base?
It reminded me of my girlfriend who used to make me chocolate by melting chocolate for Valentine's Day.
After a brief moment of nostalgia, I clicked on the next video.
Fortunately, the introduction of the next video seemed quite reliable.
[First, add a small spoonful of sugar. Then, add a spoonful of coconut oil. If you don't have coconut oil, you can use another vegetable oil.]
Sugar and oil. Finally, something seems to be going right.
[Yes, once you've added everything, just gently add the soap base here.]
Keok!
"Oh! What was that? Did it go down the wrong way?"
Hang-ah, who was organizing the books in the room, was startled by the sound of my cough and quickly rushed to the bed.
However, even while she made a fuss to calm me down, my eyes were nailed to the five letters in the video.
That soap base, damn it!
***
The process of making soap was by no means smooth sailing.
Among the popular videos displayed at the top of the screen, the majority were recipes using 'soap base.'
Soap base was a substance that could be solidified by mixing additives, similar to curry powder in a metaphorical sense.
Of course, such convenient items didn't exist in this era.
I had to find a method of ‘making curry by mixing spices’, rather than relying on the ‘curry powder to make curry’ approach.
That quickly eliminated 11 of the 12 most popular videos. And the last one left was…
[Creating Minky's Slime]
MinkyTV · 49.1 million views · 2 years ago
"Today, I made a slime using natural ingredients without adding water gel and baking soda.”
Wait, what is a slime? Why does it always appear in search results?
I set aside the lingering questions from my previous life and began examining the remaining videos that were excluded from the popular ones.
Among them, I discovered that in natural soap making, there are MP soap and CP soap, with the latter being closer to the natural soap I was looking for.
I immediately modified my search query to 'CP soap making.'
Then, to my surprise, I was greeted with a method for making soap with "CP Soap Base".
"Ahhhhh. Base!"
After Hang-ah finished her work and left, I let out a scream to my heart's content. Furrowing my brow, I entered a new search query.
How about this!
I typed in "make soap without a base," "make soap base," and "soap base," and finally found what I was looking for.
[Making Natural CP Soap with Used Cooking Oil]
You can make soap without using a soap base by using caustic soda and used cooking oil.
It's a beginner-friendly method that anyone can easily follow.
"Oh!"
But what is caustic soda?
After a few moments of thinking I finally figured it out, I shook my head and typed "caustic soda" into the search bar and realized it was sodium hydroxide (NaOH). It turns out that mixing fats with a strong base like NaOH or KOH to harden them is the basic principle of making homemade soap. In the soap industry, these two substances are referred to as caustic soda and caustic potash respectively… But I can't make soap and I keep gaining obscure knowledge instead? I started searching for methods to make caustic soda, putting aside the video I was watching. However, once again, the results were disappointing. [Process of Obtaining Sodium Hydroxide Through Electrolysis of Brine] E-electrolysis? Do I have to know how to do electrolysis just to make soap? As my mouth dropped open in disbelief at the use of a word that seemed light years ahead of its time, I remembered that there was still a ray of hope. Caustic potash. There's still caustic potash remaining… [Process of Electrolyzing Potassium Chloride to Obtain Potassium Hydroxide] "I can't believe it's posted by the same guy! It's the same guy!" Exhausted and overwhelmed with frustration, I found myself resting my hands on my cheeks and pouring out my screams. I resented a webtoon artist who depicted soap making as a piece of cake. Eventually, I succumbed to sleep, completely worn out.
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