Volume 1: Farming Chapter 15: Pottery Exploration Dungeon Successfully Opened
As the saying goes, if you make up a lie, you have to use countless lies to cover it up. The moment Xiao Yun told the lie "My dead mother taught me how to be a good person", he had already conceived the next whitewashing routine in his mind. That is, no matter whether others believe it or not, he first proved that he was the original owner and that he received the skills from the original owner's mother, and solved the problem of the source of his knowledge and his inseparable relationship with the original owner. Anyway, if they insisted, he would make his previous life the reincarnation of the original owner Ayun or the original owner was his reincarnation. After all, he could explain the order of the words however he wanted. The so-called mysticism does not require words to be too clear to leave room for YY.
What Xiao Yun never expected was that… after Uncle Ashan finished crying, he patted his dog head and walked out with a determined look on his face. He had no intention of having a deeper conversation with him to make him finish his lie and put it into practice…
Xiao Yun: “…” You should have cooperated with me but you turned a blind eye to it.
Xiao Yun, who was confused, was adding firewood while wondering if there was anything wrong with his performance. After thinking about it, Xiao Yun didn't find any problem... Ashan just followed his words completely and seemed to believe Xiao Yun's "my dead mother taught me how to be a human being" theory. He even cried his heart out. It doesn't make sense for him not to react?
"Or, did he go to consult with the wise men in the tribe, such as the chief?"
After thinking about it, Xiao Yun felt that it might be true. After all, the tribe leader had lived a long time and was an elder that tribe members like Ashan trusted. After calming down, Xiao Yun thought about how to improve this lie so that he could fool the tribe leader at once without any risk or flaws...
Xiao Yun, who had been squatting in the firewood room burning firewood for a whole day with a bitter and resentful face, at night, thinking that he had made a flawless and logical lie, took a fighting stance and prepared to confront the clan leader who had questioned him. However, he had no idea... The clan leader, who had been working hard to make bricks all day, was so tired that he could not even straighten his back. After eating the big pot meal, he quickly took a shower and climbed onto the kang.
Xiao Yun: “…” He silently turned his gaze to Uncle Ashan.
Uncle Ashan, who was about six or seven years older than him, gave him a slightly sloppy warm smile and stretched out his paw, which was covered with barbecue oil, to touch his dog's head.
Xiao Yun... Xiao Yun couldn't go and ask Uncle Ashan if he believed the lies I made up, or if he believed that your sister, my mother, enlightened me in a dream...
"At least he believes that I am the original owner, and he shouldn't think of me as a wandering ghost who has taken over the magpie's nest. Otherwise, his attitude shouldn't be so harmonious... Oh, forget it. If he believes all my nonsense and really thinks that his sister who died in the war is still in the world to protect his nephew, and becomes superstitious, that would be a bit too much... He has lost both of his relatives, so we should stop thinking about him and making fun of him."
Xiao Yun wiped his face, thinking that he had been out for almost a quarter of an hour to eat the big pot meal, so he stood up and prepared to go back to the firewood room. The fire in there must not be extinguished - to burn out usable pottery instead of slag that would break at the touch, there are some particularities. Even with Xiao Yun's extremely limited understanding of pottery, he also knew that pottery firing involves a process of heating and cooling down... He had the obligation to personally "open up wasteland" for such relatively technical work, and could not just draw a blueprint and talk and then throw all the work to others. First, no one who came through the tribe of the Snow Wolf Man had the capital to live a peaceful life. Even if you hold on to the thigh of the tribe leader firmly, if you don't take the initiative to improve productivity, you will be a life of eating raw meat and drinking blood; second, he at least knew a theory, and let the Snow Wolf Man who purely "follows his feelings" fire the kiln, and if it doesn't collapse, it is considered a face for the firer.
In modern society, pottery is fired in professional kilns that can control the temperature. More advanced equipment can burn the clay into shape in more than a day, while less advanced equipment can take more time as long as the combustion is sufficient. Xiao Yun has seen a guy on a forum put the clay in a small empty iron bucket, piled up rotten wood picked up from construction waste, and burned it hard. The most annoying thing is that the things that came out of the burnt pottery are quite good-looking.
Xiao Yun was not short of fuel at the moment. Every year, the tribe would collect firewood and cow dung as much as possible in the autumn in order to survive the winter. This year, he built a mud brick house and a kang for wintering, which greatly improved the utilization rate of fuel. Naturally, no one would object to him using the excess fuel to make pottery.
What really upset Xiao Yun was that this earthen kiln that he had spent countless efforts to build might not be as good as an empty iron barrel that can be picked up on the roadside in modern society...
Thinking about pottery making, Xiao Yun stood up and took two steps. Suddenly, he felt something was wrong. He turned back to look at Ashan, who was still sitting by the campfire eating with the tribesmen.
Snow wolves basically don't use ceramic bowls. They eat vegetables and meat with their hands and drink soup from ceramic pots. The oil on Ashan's paws was from when he was eating barbecue. The oil was almost dripping onto his sleeves.
And in Ashan's other hand, he was carefully holding a black ceramic bowl filled with some bean sprout soup.
This world is not a true primitive society. Both the Orc Empire and the Human Kingdom have civilizations. The pottery that the tribe buys from human caravans has a natural earthy red glaze that is produced through a more mature pottery firing process.
The black pottery bowl in Ashan's hand has a thick body, serious pits and an uneven surface. Even if a snow wolf is very short-sighted, he would not spend his fur to exchange for such a defective product... In other words, Ashan, an authentic snow wolf who is not used to using pottery bowls, is holding a semi-finished product that Xiao Yun had previously fired using a large stove for experiment.
Xiao Yun stared blankly at the black pottery bowl in Ashan's hand for a few seconds, and suddenly he felt warm in his chest, and a sense of guilt spread from the bottom of his heart - dozens of seconds ago, he was still feeling sorry for Ashan for not cooperating with him to whitewash the time-travel routine. Now, he felt that it was really pretentious for him to be so scheming in front of the simple-minded snow werewolf.
"Uncle Ashan, do you want to come and make pottery with me?"
"Ah?" Ah Shan turned around and looked at me in surprise, "Ah Yun, you called me?"
"Yes. It will keep burning all night. If you don't mind the heat, come over." Xiao Yun waved his hand.
Ah Shan immediately finished half a bowl of bean sprout soup, swiftly rolled up the rattan mat in front of him on which the food was distributed, and ran over...
Qingcao and Daha looked at Ashan with envy as he followed Xiao Yun into the mysterious firewood room. They looked at each other and sighed together - the clan leader ordered that no one was allowed to enter the mysterious room to disturb Ayun from making pottery, and Ayun did not ask them to go in either, which made them even more curious.
...Yes, that's right. Ah Shan sneaked in in the afternoon to avoid other people. He left immediately after he felt that Ah Yun's answer explained the changes in him. He was also worried that he would be scolded if he was discovered... As for Xiao Yun's expectation that Ah Shan would cooperate with him in the performance and use his knowledge to make his dead mother appear, Ah Shan's simple thinking mode would never think of this level...
Returning to the firewood room and sitting side by side with Uncle Ashan facing the fire pit, Xiao Yun really hoped to cultivate the relationship with his cheap uncle by making pottery together, whether out of guilt or compensation. When he lived on Earth, he was distant from his father's relatives and close to his mother's relatives. He had many country uncles who were kind to him, so it would not be awkward for him to have another little uncle.
"Last time, Qingcao and I put pottery bowls in the kang for trial firing. The temperature was not high enough and the heating process was too short. The fired bowls were not heated completely and were black without the texture of pottery. Two of the six bowls cracked before they came out of the oven, and one broke when touched by a cow horn. So I think that in order to fire successful pottery, we must first ensure high temperature, and secondly, the temperature must rise frequently. We must give the cave a process of increasing temperature to make the quality of the pottery clay compact. What do you think, uncle?"
"Eh...ah?" Ashan hadn't finished eating the barbecue he was given. When he heard Xiao Yun actually asking him, he was stunned.
"Today during the day I tried to slowly increase the frequency of adding firewood, so that the temperature inside the cave would have a longer heating process. Then I also went out to check the cave walls several times. Some of the temperature would dissipate from the walls, but the temperature inside should be much higher than that in the kang, which can retain high temperatures."
Xiao Yun didn't care whether Ashan understood or not, and continued to explain to him patiently. He wanted Ashan to participate in the pottery firing and experience the joy of exploration and creation: "Now, the fuel that can be filled in the burning tunnel has reached the upper limit. If we fill it up further, the firepower will decrease due to insufficient space for air to enter. So, we will temporarily regard the temperature rise as reaching the limit and start the next step: maintain the high temperature for a period of time."
"High temperature can make pottery denser, more delicate and stronger, and less likely to break. For this reason, I specially saved some charcoal from the time I burned the kang a few days ago, and asked you and Niu Jiao to bring it over for me, just to use it now. Come on, uncle, help me pass the charcoal over. From now on, no firewood or cow dung will be added, just use charcoal."
"Oh oh!" Ashan quickly stuffed the remaining meat into his mouth and stood up to move the charcoal pile.
"The high temperature lasts about one to two hours... well, that's about the time it takes from when you're very full and can't eat any more to when your stomach has partially digested the food and you can try to eat more."
"Huff... No one would eat like this, what a waste. Ah Yun, don't you feel hot? Can I lift the animal skin blocking the door to get some fresh air?"
"No, the cold wind will blow in. Stay away from the fire and take off your fur clothes."
"Ayun, is the pottery that the caravan sold to us also made in this way?"
"Well, but humans have more sophisticated technology. We need to experiment a few more times before we can burn to a similar level."
"Ayun, you have become so smart."
"......Yeah." Xiao Yun stopped comparing himself to what his mother had taught him, saying that everything he did was miraculous. He already felt a little regretful for using someone else's deceased relative to trick Ashan.
Ashan looked at Xiao Yun with a very cautious look. He seemed to be able to sense that Xiao Yun was a little depressed. He frowned and thought hard for a while. This snow wolf man who probably never learned how to comfort people in his life tried very hard: "Ayun, even if you are not so smart, I never thought that you are useless to the tribe. Snow wolf men are natural warriors. We can just turn into wolves. Besides, the humans in the caravan are much weaker than you. They are all annoying and arrogant."
"..." Xiao Yun turned his head silently and looked at Ah Shan who was sincere. It was no problem for him, a normal person with good mental health, to hear such words, but if the child of the original owner who was probably suffering from depression heard them, it would be a big problem...
"No matter what you are like, Ayun is Ayun." Ashan added with particular firmness.
Xiao Yun immediately understood why Ashan had that reaction during the day. He understood his own deception but he felt that it was not important. Anyway, Ayun was still Ayun and there was no difference to him - this simple, rough and direct reflex arc and brain circuit was completely the standard snow werewolf mode.
Xiao Yun raised his hand and pinched his brows again. He found that he was still accustomed to looking at the Snow Wolf People with human thinking, which made him seem a little self-inflicted and self-indulgent... The largest Snow Wolf tribe did not have the concept of sacrifice, which showed that whether there were real gods and demons, whether dead relatives and ancestors would appear, these things were not necessary for the Snow Wolf People to care about, because the Snow Wolf People were super pragmatic and only cared about the visible "present"...
The first question that Ashan asked him was that he wondered if Ayun had suddenly become smarter because of some stimulus she encountered when she was out, instead of thinking that Ayun had a replacement. This is the difference in thinking patterns caused by different concepts.
In contrast, Xiao Yun, who is not superstitious but has the traditional understanding that "the most important affairs of the country are sacrifices and war", seems to be paralyzed, rigid and feudal ...
"In other words, even if I shout that I'm not the original owner, Ashan, these Snow Werewolves will just think that I'm irritated and have a brain problem, and they will still keep me in the tribe. Anyway, they think I'm the original owner, Ayun, so I am the original owner, Ayun." Xiao Yun didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but he couldn't say it out loud. He could only silently feel annoyed, "Then what the hell am I struggling with..."
With mixed feelings, Xiao Yun dragged Ashan to accompany him to burn the kiln for a whole night. On the next day, Xiao Yun estimated that the kiln burning time exceeded 24 hours, so he began to reduce the fire power and slowly lower the temperature in the cave.
The entire cooling process lasted for another whole day. The main reason was that Xiao Yun had no experience in this area and didn't know when to open the kiln, so he used the dumbest method to do it slowly...
At noon, Xiao Yun stopped adding firewood, but the temperature of the cave seemed to still be very high. Xiao Yun did not dare to open the kiln directly. He half-opened the door of the firewood room and blew cold air slowly towards the fire pit. As dusk approached, the temperature of the cave walls was no longer hot, but only slightly warm. Xiao Yun then prepared to open the kiln.
Well, the main reason was that if the kiln was not opened now, the tribesmen who had returned to the tribe would come to watch later. Xiao Yun was afraid that the kiln would fail this time and be seen by too many people, which would really lose face for him.
The person working in the kiln with Xiao Yun was Ashan, who was forced to stay and idle for a day and had grown hair all over his body. When Ashan heard that he could be free, he was so happy that he was very active in removing the sealing mud and lifting the stone slabs - and then he let out a deafening cough.
"Shit, all the smoke and ashes from the burning tunnel are coming over here ..." Xiao Yun pushed A Shan, who was coughing up tears, away and stretched his head to look into the dark cave. He was immediately disappointed. Damn, could it be that all the clay models in the cave were burned?
The minimum temperature for firing coarse pottery must be above 900 degrees, otherwise it will be a black clay pot instead of pottery. Although it can be barely used as pottery, it is definitely not acceptable to Xiao Yun... He was still hoping that the kiln firing technology would mature and the temperature would be raised to above 1300 degrees to produce porcelain. When firing, he hoped that the temperature would be higher and higher. But now looking at the situation in the cave, he began to regret whether he had overfired...
Carefully squatting down, he nervously reached his hand into the dark cave to feel around. It had been so cold for so long but the ashes he touched were still a little hot... He shook off the ashes and touched the big-bellied water jar at the entrance of the cave. Xiao Yun felt a little comforted, at least what he touched was not broken and its shape was still there.
He stretched out his hands and carefully took out the big-bellied water pitcher that he had personally molded and put into the fire… Xiao Yun’s facial expression changed from fear to ecstasy in ten seconds: the dark earthy red surface, the straight body of the pitcher, seemed to have absorbed the carbon elements in the ash during the firing process and became delicate and tight. He flicked his finger and heard a crisp sound—a great success! This was a standard pottery big-bellied water pitcher!
"Ahem, eh? Ayun, this jar is so beautiful!" Ashan, who was coughing up tears, exclaimed in surprise.
"Unglazed pottery is fired in the natural color of the clay. We use swamp black mud and yellow clay, so the clay molded out is a bit earthy red... If the temperature is not high enough, there will be black and red spots. If the temperature is high enough, the overall color is consistent. As long as it is one color, it looks good." Xiao Yun excitedly touched the smooth surface of the jar with his fingertips. "I'll get some wood ash and lime later, and see if there are any natural pigments that can be used. It will look better if I apply a layer of glaze on it!"
The great success of the first water jar out of the kiln gave Xiao Yun confidence, and he then boldly took out the pottery in the kiln one by one. Because the cave was not large, even if Xiao Yun tried his best to use the space inside the cave, he could only put in four washbasin-sized clay pots, two large-bellied water jars for fetching water, and more than twenty large and small clay bowls at a time.
The big-bellied water pitchers were all made by Xiao Yun himself. They have uniform thickness and beautiful shapes. Fortunately, they were all successfully fired and had no black or red spots due to uneven heating or insufficient temperature. One of the four pottery pots collapsed, but this failure rate was acceptable. What surprised Xiao Yun the most were the twenty-three large and small pottery bowls that were formed. I don’t know if it was because the clay of the pottery bowls was thinner and they were placed lower to absorb more carbon elements from wood ash, but they were fired more successfully than the water pitchers, and the surface showed porcelain-like characteristics, and was particularly smooth and bright!
"Ayun, why is this bowl so shiny?" Ashan picked up a porcelain bowl with his paws and refused to put it down, turning it over and over curiously. "It's so shiny and smooth, even shinier than the pottery bowls in the caravan?"
Xiao Yun himself didn't expect the bowl to be cooked so well, and he also held the bowl and smiled foolishly...
Because Xiao Yun forgot to call for a stop, the clan leader spent the entire day making mud bricks on the river bank. His old waist was almost unable to straighten, and he had to be supported by an ox horn to come back.
After entering the tribe, the chief found that the tribe, which should have some people coming back and become lively on normal days, was now a little deserted. Standing in the middle of the tribe where he could see all the tents and two mud brick houses, he looked around and realized that Yangmao, Qingcao and others were sitting around the kiln where he had told them not to go.
"What happened?" The clan leader was a little nervous. He didn't need the support of Niu Jiao and ran over. After running two steps, he felt pain in his waist. He had to suppress his anxiety and move forward bit by bit.
Before he approached the group, the tribe leader was dazzled by the sunset light reflected by an object on the ground. He quickly raised his hand to cover his eyes and looked again... On the open space where Yangmao and others were sitting, there were several small, shiny, reflective... bowls? Eh? Bowls? !
Facing the river, she saw the tribe leader. Her eyes lit up, and she held out her hands to pick up one of the shiny bowls, and held it out to the tribe leader like offering a treasure: "Look, a shiny bowl!"
Xiao Yun looked at Daha in surprise. What the hell is Liangwan? Wait, the snow werewolves actually have their own named intelligence?
The clan leader didn't care about his back pain and ran over, took the bowl from Daha and took a closer look. He said frankly that the beauty of this bowl was actually very limited. After all, it was not kaolin clay without glaze, and the color was dark red. The only bright spot was that the surface was smooth and bright enough, but it couldn't be helped that a porcelain surface was fired. On the timeline of the earth, Chinese porcelain was sold all over the world, and it was obvious that porcelain was far superior to pottery.
The clan leader, who was so excited that he was speechless, stared at Xiao Yun with his watery eyes, who was smiling pretentiously.
Xiao Yun gave a thumbs up and said, "We succeeded, Chief. We made better pottery than the human caravan."
The patriarch nodded desperately and slapped away the ox horn that wanted to touch the bright bowl. He did not forget that the ox horn had broken the pottery bowl.
Xiao Yun added, "These ceramic bowls are unglazed, so they are worthless to sell. It would be a waste of effort. Let's just use them for ourselves. Use these bowls to share food at night. It will be enough for us. I will make another batch and try to get everyone a set of tableware... Hmm? Why are you all looking at me like that?"
The clan leader, Ashan, Qingcao, Dahe, Yangmao and others all looked at him with horror. The clan leader and Qingcao even protected the bowls in their hands with both hands, as if Xiao Yun was going to do something bad to the bowls.
