Sixteen Ingredients in One Ink Stick
金不易 — "not easily traded for gold" — is made by Wang Chunlin, a provincial-level intangible-heritage transmitter for traditional 徽墨, Anhui ink. It's oil-soot ink, made by burning animal and plant oils down to soot, bound with hide glue — straightforward in principle, except for what gets added next: sixteen separate medicinal and aromatic ingredients, among them clove, sandalwood, mint, and borneol, worked in through traditional methods alongside more exacting, modern proportioning.
The finished stick is described as 似乌金 — like dark gold — glossy, faintly fragrant on its own, silent when ground rather than scratchy, and fast to release color. The instructions that come with it describe an actual ritual: a few drops of water in the center of the inkstone, ground clockwise, traditionally counted out to 九九八十一 — eighty-one, nine nines — before adding a touch more water and continuing until the ink reaches the density wanted. Add water too quickly, the instructions warn, and the ink won't release properly at all.
It's a small, easy detail to miss: a number embedded in the instructions for using an everyday object, there because grinding ink slowly enough to count to eighty-one is, itself, most of the point.