Volume 1: Farming Chapter 10 I Play in the Mud in Another World
After the young men had woven their straw sandals and washed their feet at the river, they did not follow Xiao Yun immediately. Instead, they returned to the tribe and woven a bunch of shoes… The Snow Wolf people still had a spirit of sharing. Perhaps life on the grassland had made these grassland tribes accustomed to helping each other and not being isolated. Even Sar, whose bed was dismantled, got a pair…
That's right, because what's mine is yours, and what's yours is mine too. With this simple sharing spirit, the young people had no psychological burden at all when dismantling Sal's bed.
After making a bunch of straw sandals to contribute to the tribe, the youngsters followed Xiao Yun out of the tribe. Of course, their activities had to be within the patrol range of the tribe's warriors, and being too far away from the nest was still dangerous for the cubs.
"We need to find a container that can hold water, one that is larger than the pottery jars and buckets in the tribe." The tribe had never used water jars, so it was difficult for Xiao Yun to explain his intentions to the young people. "The bottom of this container must not leak, and the top can be covered with something to block light. Only such a container meets the standards. Do you have any ideas?"
His string of unfamiliar terms made Yangmao and the others look at each other in bewilderment. After scratching their heads for a long time, Yangmao asked, "Then why don't we dig a hole by the river? Just like the one we dug for the water source."
"Eh..." Xiao Yun had never thought about this. He thought that the containers for sprouting bean sprouts are all pots and buckets. If all else fails, he could just dig a stone trough. Obviously, making pots and buckets requires professional craftsmen. If he made them himself, he would not have the skills or the tools. If he dug a stone trough, the workload would also be heavy. "Let me think about it. Digging a hole along the river bank... seems feasible. Let's go and give it a try."
Coming to the river again, Xiao Yun carefully observed the land along the river bank this time. He pulled aside the grass, pulled out a few clumps of weeds, and dug up some soil with his hands to take a closer look.
The soil on the grassland is excellent. After tens of thousands of years of humus accumulation and natural fermentation, most of the land is black soil. Xiao Yun went to take a look at the water pit dug by the snow wolves. At a depth of about one meter, the bottom of the water was still black.
"It seems possible... Keep the pit a little distance away from the river, connect it with a ditch, dig the ditch to drain the water when changing the water, and then add new water... Put a layer of pebbles on the bottom of the pit, and then a layer of rattan grass mat to avoid it from touching the ground... For the lid, just weave one with reed stalks..."
The more Xiao Yun thought about it, the more he felt it was feasible. He observed the terrain again, selected a river bank with higher terrain, stepped on the ground with his feet, and estimated the drainage height required when changing the water in the bean sprout pit. He clenched his fist and clapped his hands: "Okay, dig here!"
Using the ox-horn knife from A, he carved out a rectangle about half a meter wide and one meter long on the ground about two meters away from the river bank. He also pulled out a reed stalk and broke it into four sections about 30 centimeters long as a basic reference. Then Xiao Yun asked the three young men to dig the bean sprout pit with him...
Although there were reference objects, it was difficult for the young people to dig out a shallow pit with a relatively small difference in average height. After digging out the rough outline, Xiao Yun sent them to pick up pebbles, and he was responsible for the "fine processing": to ensure that the submerged water can be drained out when changing the water, the bottom of the pit must be an inclined surface, with the north side higher and the south side lower.
Well... anyone with manual labor experience knows that no matter how thorough the design is, problems are bound to occur when the work is done. Xiao Yun tried to dig out the sloped bottom of the pit himself, but he found that there were always places with uneven heights and mistakes... He had no choice but to work on the bottom of the pit for a while and then stand up and step back a few steps, trying to measure the slope of the sloped bottom of the pit with his naked eyes.
The bottom of the pit was almost ready, and the young men also picked up a lot of pebbles. Xiao Yun drew a straight line on the south side of the bean sprout pit facing the river and asked them to dig a drainage ditch. He squatted over and selected pebbles of similar size, and carefully spread them on the bottom and edge of the pit.
After paving with pebbles, the irregularly shaped bean sprout pit looked like a handmade swimming pool for children. Xiao Yun was pleased with himself for a while, but suddenly discovered a new problem: even if the pit was paved with pebbles, it still couldn't stop the water from running away. The water all ran into the soil, so how could the bean sprouts grow?
After scratching his head for a while... Xiao Yun remembered a video of a foreign internet celebrity using mud and water to make a swimming pool.
"If there is no cement, then finer mud mixed with water and kneaded into a paste may also be able to act as a water barrier?"
Xiao Yun did it right away. He squatted beside the dug mud and pinched the soil. He felt it was okay and relatively fine. So he piled up the soil, picked out the stones mixed in it, and asked Yangmao to go back to the tribe to get a bucket of water.
After picking out the stones from the soil, he added water to the mixture and kneaded it vigorously until it was half dry. Then Xiao Yun picked some reed stalks and mixed them into the mud... He remembered that the old houses in the countryside would also mix reed stalks into the mud bricks, which seemed to increase the toughness and stickiness of the mud bricks.
Apply the mixed mud to the surface of the bean sprout pit like playing with plasticine, and smooth the surface with the back of a bull horn knife. Xiao Yun stood up and pounded his waist: "Let's do it this way first... Wait until it's completely dry and then see if it can be waterproof."
After doing all this, it was almost noon. The snow wolves, who only ate two meals a day, were now hungry, so Xiao Yun and the young men went back to the tribe to get food.
By the afternoon, the young people were unwilling to run around with Xiao Yun anymore. They had things to do every day, and Xiao Yun even found them a job of collecting wild vegetables, so they had no time to play by the river.
Xiao Yun had no choice but to fulfill his duty like any other tribal teenager. He spent the whole afternoon picking up cow dung and gathering wild vegetables. In the middle, Yang Mao also found a mouse hole, and the group of teenagers spent a long time catching the mouse. The mice on the grassland are not the same size as field mice and house mice. Each one weighs four or five kilograms, and after peeling the skin, it is all meat, and is particularly plump.
While catching mice, Xiao Yun discovered purslane. Needless to say, another item was added to the wild vegetable menu.
On this day's tribe's dinner, wild vegetables accounted for half of the meat. The reason, of course, was not that the young men could expand the scope of collecting wild vegetables in addition to picking up cow dung, but that the tribe leader went out of his way to identify the appearance of plantain, perilla, dandelion, and gray grass the night before. Today, when grazing during the day, the tribe leader led the two tribesmen to do part-time work... When seeing the newly found wild vegetables, the tribe leader happily said that he had also seen this kind of wild grass during the day.
All the wild boar oil was used up yesterday, so the wild vegetables for this dinner were cooked together with the meat. As we all know, vegetables absorb a lot of oil, so for this day's dinner, the wild vegetables, which tasted nothing like the thoroughly domesticated vegetables, were more popular than the meat...
The evening breeze blew all night, and the next morning, Xiao Yun immediately rushed to the river to check his bean sprout pit, and then he found that... the mud surface was dried by the wind and, at the same time, cracked.
Xiao Yun: “…”
He squatted down and touched the mud surface with his hand, and the mud fell down with a rustling sound... Well, even if it didn't crack, with this quality, it would be ruined if it was soaked in water.
"What's wrong? Is the mud not mixed well? Is this kind of mud not okay?"
Xiao Yun squatted beside the bean sprout pit and scratched his head anxiously, but his tribesmen did not understand his anxiety at all. A group of people laughed and carried the straw sandals they were given to wash their feet by the river. The river surface was stained by their dirty feet that had not been washed for who knows how many years...
"Ayun, don't let playing in the mud delay your work today." The clan leader kindly advised Xiao Yun.
"I'm not playing..." Xiao Yun looked so painful, but he couldn't explain it.
"Do we need to use clay... the yellow mud? I remember when I went to the countryside, the old houses I saw were all made of yellow mud... Damn, where can we find the yellow mud?"
Xiao Yun tried hard to recall his short memories of rural life. After thinking it over, Xiao Yun finally remembered that when his uncle's family was repairing the pigpen, they seemed to have dug mud from the river.
Xiao Yun's spirits perked up. He immediately transformed into a wolf and chose a spot far away from the river bank and started digging frantically.
"Ah, Ayun is having fun playing in the mud~" The tribesmen who were washing their feet looked at him happily heartlessly. The tribe adopted a separate dining system, and once you finish your share, the food is gone. If anyone turns into a wolf and plays crazy, he must either find wild food by himself or starve for two days.
Xiao Yun dug a pit more than three meters deep and finally found yellow soil under the fertile black soil...
As we all know, it takes 300 years for one centimeter thick black soil to form naturally. The Loess Plateau was originally fertile land, but severe soil erosion exposed the loess underneath, which led to poverty for hundreds of years until the Communist Party of China made great efforts to control the situation. Now Xiao Yun does not need yellow clay, which is quite strange.
Things became easier after digging out the loess. Xiao Yun quickly climbed out to regain his human form, put on his animal skin pants, ran back to the tribe, got a few straw mats and buckets, and called Niu Jiao who had not left the tribe yet: "Niu Jiao, I can make some delicious food here, but I need your help. Do you want to come?"
"Come!" Niu Jiao said without hesitation.
With Niu Jiao, a strong laborer, things were really easy. The yellow soil carried up from the bottom of the pit was mixed with water, and Niu Jiao took off his shoes and stepped on it hard. After it became very sticky, it was spread on the bean sprout pit. Just with the naked eye, one could see that the surface of the yellow soil was finer and denser than that of the black soil.
"What do you make this for?"
Niu Jiao worked on the yellow mud for a long time without getting red in the face or breathing hard, and his physical strength was that of an animal.
"Wait for this to dry up, and test if it's watertight, then you can use this hole to grow bean sprouts." Xiao Yun was a little out of breath from digging the hole and pasting the wall. "The black beans grown in the tribe can be spread out in this hole and soaked in water. In four or five days, one bag of black beans can sprout into ten bags."
Niu Jiao tilted his head to understand the difference between one bag and ten bags, and his expression was a little horrified: "Can it change so much? But, black beans are not delicious either?"
"No, the bean sprouts are countless times tastier than black beans. The taste is similar to the wild vegetables we eat now, but better than wild vegetables."
Niu Jiao stared at Xiao Yun for a long time with his mouth open. After he understood, he said anxiously: "Then let's dig a few more holes!"
"Let's see if this works first. If it does, we can dig other holes after the bean sprouts have grown. If we grow too many bean sprouts at once, we won't be able to eat them all. It's safer to do it in batches." Xiao Yun waved his hands and suddenly thought of something. "Wait... Niu Jiao, you know I'm not playing in the mud, right? But others don't know that yet. Yang Mao and the others are unwilling to help me today."
"Everyone will know about the delicious bean sprouts when they come out." Niu Jiao An Wenren's words are particularly in the style of the Snow Wolf Man.
"No, no, wait a minute... I think we can do something else with this mud." Xiao Yun stroked his chin and thought, "In the past, the old houses in the countryside were made of yellow mud or mud bricks. Mud bricks seemed to be made out of wooden molds - ox horns, why don't we just build a mud brick house?"
"Mud bricks, houses?" Niu Jiao was puzzled.
"Is it okay for you to take a few days off from hunting?" Xiao Yun asked.
"Well...it's okay to let Ashan walk more and help me patrol." Niu Jiao said.
"Okay then." Xiao Yun took a breath, made up his mind, and looked at Niu Jiao with sharp eyes, "Then let's do something that will shock the tribe. Niu Jiao, let's build a very sturdy mud brick house that is windproof and warm. We won't feel cold when we sleep in it when it snows."
"Uh..." Niu Jiao was reluctant. He really didn't think there was anything wrong with the tribe members thinking that Ayun liked playing in the mud. Anyway, the tribe members would understand what Ayun meant by the bean sprouts growing. As for mud brick houses, Niu Jiao had no idea about them. He felt that it was wrong to not go hunting for a few days just for something he didn't understand.
"How about you just work with me in the morning, and you can still go hunting or patrolling in the afternoon." Xiao Yun tried hard, "Anyway, I have to go collect cow dung and dig wild vegetables with Yangmao in the afternoon, so we can just use half a day to do this. In the future, if there's anything delicious, I'll think of you first, okay?"
"Okay!" Niu Jiao replied immediately.
Xiao Yun: "..." Did this guy only hear the last sentence clearly? Why is he so uneasy?
The amount of calories consumed by the body when freezing and when not freezing is different. Now the tribesmen are not considering letting him go grazing (only cubs taken care of by their parents can go to the pasture), and he has no chance to get involved in spinning yarn with the wool of the grazing cows. So, solving the housing problem first is also an idea - Sal's tent is dense enough, and when it is windy in the middle of the night, you have to cover yourself with animal skins when sleeping in it. After all, the cold-proof capabilities of tents and houses are not on the same level.
Find a tree with a relatively straight trunk on the river bank, cut off the branches and carve them into wooden pieces three fingers thick, two palms wide, and elbow long, and then laboriously dig out the simplest mortise and tenon structure... that is, dig out two square holes at both ends of the two longer wooden pieces, and leave protruding square wooden blocks at both ends of the other two wooden pieces, and then combine them together. Xiao Yun described this technical job to Niu Jiao for a long time, but Niu Jiao just looked confused. Xiao Yun had no choice but to use the Niu Jiao knife and use his claws to grind it bit by bit. He finished the mud brick mold in the morning, but didn't accomplish anything else.
When it was time for voluntary work in the tribe in the afternoon, Xiao Yun felt the malice of the world... He spent such a short time digging holes as a wolf in the morning that it was as if he had not eaten any lunch. It was Yangmao who heard his stomach growling and roasted the mouse he caught that day on the spot to fill his stomach - so Xiao Yun felt the taste of white barbecue without salt again.
Dinner still consisted of a large amount of wild vegetables and meat. With the addition of wild vegetables as a new side dish, the Snow Wolf people's meat consumption was significantly reduced. After dinner, the chief summoned the four young men who stayed behind and asked them to do an extra job of cutting the extra prey into strips and drying them during tomorrow's work... In previous years, the meat was dried only during the big hunting operations before the heavy snow came, but this year with wild vegetables as a side dish, they can do it earlier.
After squeezing the Sal for another night, Xiao Yun ran towards the river at daybreak to check his bean sprout pit - this time this evil world finally didn't cheat him, the mud on the surface of the bean sprout pit was almost dry, without any cracks or falling off.
Xiao Yun thought that he should wait until the mud surface was completely dry, so he didn't rush to add bean sprouts and water. He first used Niu Jiao, a labor force that was easier to deceive than wool and others, to make mud bricks... He added yellow clay with reed stalks and water, put them in wooden frame molds to shape them, and spread them on the flat ground by the river bank to dry in the sun; Xiao Yun used his almost forgotten high school arithmetic to calculate the area of the mud brick house and the number of mud bricks needed, and based on the principle of "better to have too much than to have too little" (no mistakes), he made as many mud bricks as possible - the extra ones could be used to build an earthen stove and a kang, or he could try to make a small brick kiln that could burn pottery and green bricks, so that nothing would be wasted.
After two days of hard work, when the mud surface of the bean sprout pit was completely dry and no water seeped in after being poured, Xiao Yun finally started his bean sprout project...
