Chapter 6 Making Tools
People who do not eat salt for a long time will become weak, which will lead to symptoms such as osteoporosis and white hair. In daily life, salt is just a condiment. Only by not eating salt for a long time can you experience the taste of being unable to do so.
It’s obvious that I have strength but can’t use it!
"There is no major problem at the moment, but the problem of salt deficiency must be solved as soon as possible..."
Retracting his gaze looking outside the primeval forest, Liu Xiu stood by the river, bent down and grabbed a handful of mud and sand on his head and gently rubbed his hair.
Without detergent, he has been cleaning his hair and body with mud and sand these days. As long as he cleans it clean enough afterwards, the friction of mud and sand can remove stains on his body and barely achieve the purpose of cleaning his body.
When he grabbed and rubbed his hair, Liu Xiu paused, stretched out his right hand and placed it in front of him, rubbed his thumb and index finger gently, and he was already worried about it.
"It's actually clay..."
After taking a look at the plain by the lake behind him, Liu Xiu murmured in a low voice, turning around and continuing to clean his body.
After a uncomfortable scrubbing, Liu Xiu, who was refreshed, went ashore and began to dig mud on the ground with wooden sticks to play with mud.
Clay is a good thing and can be used to make pottery. Once successful, Liu Xiu doesn't have to eat only barbecue, but also adds some wild vegetables to make soup. Although the lake where mountain spring water gathers is clean enough, he wants to drink boiled water. If he adds some tea, it will be a pleasure.
"Take it slow, don't be too ambitious and spoil yourself..."
Liu Xiu was playing with mud. He has been playing in this area at the foot of the mountain these days and has not walked away rashly. It is not difficult to find one or two wild tea trees in such a vast place around.
The clay and water were kneaded delicately and softly. Liu Xiu collected a pile of grinding disc size and took it back to the cave.
Next is a meticulous job, and it is not difficult to make the clay brought back into clay pots and pottery bowls.
Slow work produces meticulous work, and time passes quickly.
Three hours later, Liu Xiu made three pots and five pottery bowls. The pottery jar was 40 cm high and 30 cm in diameter. The pottery bowl was about the same size as a normal rice bowl.
The reason why I do so much is to prevent subsequent damage and waste.
The prepared pottery pottery bowls are placed at the bottom of the cave and are naturally dry in the shade. This takes at least one day to go up and then burn after the shade is dry. There is no kiln, so you can only burn it with a bonfire. Of course, the quality of the pottery fired in this way cannot be guaranteed. If it is successful, it will be enough for the time being.
Because he wanted to make a pot, Liu Xiu temporarily gave up the idea of using mud to seal the gaps in Lei's stone wall. It was obviously not a wise move to transport mud back and forth from the lake. He could hold water and mix mud after he was ready to make the pot, which was convenient and fast.
The clay pot is not something that can be achieved overnight. Liu Xiu will start to build tools next. He decided to make a stone axe, which can not only be used to cut trees but also to defend himself.
"I hope I can make the stone axe today"
After looking at the sky, the sun was at its peak, Liu Xiu withdrew his gaze and left the cave to find the materials for creating the stone axe.
After searching by the lake for half an hour, I found a piece of blue rock with a hard texture, and the football is irregular in size and shape. It is the best material for making stone axes.
After a while, he barely knocked the green rock into the shape of an axe. Then Liu Xiu sat by the lake and polished it carefully. The process of polishing the axe was extremely boring, but Liu Xiu did it very seriously and meticulously.
The axe is slightly polished around the axe, and the focus is on the axe blade. It must be polished relatively sharply. In order to prevent the subsequent chopping of the axe blade from breaking, the axe blade polished by Liu Xiu is relatively thick.
It took Liu Xiu almost three hours to polish the axe, and the day almost passed like this, and the sunset was setting.
Having an axe is not enough, you need an axe handle. While it was dark, Liu Xiu struggled to break a small tree as thick as an arm with a stone.
When the tree was broken, the sky had already dimmed, so Liu Xiu had to drag the tree back to the cave. The wilderness at night was not safe.
Back at the cave, Liu Xiu first ate a grilled fish to fill his stomach, then smashed the small tree he brought back with a stone and took down a one-meter-long section.
"Make the stone axe tonight, otherwise you won't have a rest."
Liu Xiu, who has a bit obsessive-compulsive disorder, did it just by doing it. A one-meter-long wooden stick is an axe handle, but the axe cannot be installed directly, so he has to punch holes on it.
First, use a stone to knock out a depression on one end of the stick, then put a piece of charcoal in the depression, and then use a hollow tree tube to blow the charcoal. Without tools, Liu Xiu could only use this primitive method to punch holes on the stick.
The charcoal burned, bit by bit, changed again and again. After more than three hours, Liu Xiu was persevering, he finally burned an oval perforation on the wooden stick. He went to blow the charcoal fire for a long time, and his cheeks hurt.
But finally achieving the goal, Liu Xiu was happy inside.
The axe is installed in the hole that is similar in size, but it cannot fit tightly. Liu Xiu thinks it is good. After all, it is a stone axe, which is not as good as an axe made of steel. The vibration of the slash is very easy to damage, leaving some gaps to buffer and reduce the vibration damage of the axe slash.
"Tomorrow, find some vines to wrap and fix them, and a stone axe will be done."
Looking at the fruits of his labor with satisfaction, Liu Xiu added firewood to the campfire, then lying tiredly on the grass and sleeping on the bed, and soon fell asleep on the pillow.
The pillow was made of the complete rabbit skin from that day, and it was stuffed with pheasant feathers and hay. It was quite soft and comfortable, and there was no way to talk about its beauty.
When I woke up the next morning, Liu Xiu practiced Wuming's health twice, feeling the strength increase and his face was satisfied. It was really good that he had made progress every day.
As she practiced health care during this period, Liu Xiu experienced the benefits it brought to herself. It was not limited to the increase in strength, but seemed to be an all-round improvement in her physical fitness. Strength is one aspect, and even the resilience and movement sensitivity of her body have been improved. I don’t know if it is an illusion, but Liu Xiu felt that her memory and five senses have improved a lot. The time is still short, so further observation is needed...
The consequence of practicing the health care twice was extreme hunger. Liu Xiu ate two pieces of grilled fish that were so long that he filled his stomach. Then he cleaned his mouth with charcoal.
The weather was gloomy and it looked like it was going to rain. Liu Xiu decided not to go too far from the cave.
I was looking for vines near the cave and looked at the more than a dozen lasso traps I had set up these days. There was an unexpected harvest. A hare was a little fatter than the one I harvested on the first day.
It can be changed. After eating the fish for a few days, Liu Xiu wanted to vomit...
I first went to deal with the rabbit, peeled it and broke it, and did not waste my internal organs after finishing it. After spending more than an hour, I surrounded a circle with stones by the lake, smashed the internal organs of the rabbit and threw it in. As the fish flocked into the stone circle, Liu Xiu's face had a sincere smile.
The spring thunder rolls, and the rain comes as soon as it comes. At first it is raindrops, followed by a big pot... a big pot... a big rain... forget it, it's so heavy.
I returned to the cave in a mess with rabbit meat and vines. The heavy rain always made people feel bad. Fortunately, the bonfire in the cave is warm and can shelter from the wind and rain, so I won’t be so embarrassed.
Fresh rattans are used to tightly wrap the axe, circle after circle, and after being completely fixed, the binding part is placed by the bonfire to bake. In this way, the plant fibers shrink when the rattans lose moisture and can further fix the axe.
Liu Xiu has picked up a lot of firewood these days, and he doesn't have to worry about firewood on heavy rains.
Although the bonfire is burning in the cave at all times, the pottery pots made at the bottom yesterday were not completely dry, and it seems that they have to wait for another day.
It was raining heavily outside, and Liu Xiu couldn't do anything else, so he simply found a stone to knock it, and then used the rainwater at the entrance of the cave to polish out a second axe for later use. In this way, even if the axe he made was broken, it could be replaced.
The rain suddenly took a day, and the day passed like this.
The next day it was another good weather, with mist and crystal dewdrops. When I came outside the cave to breathe fresh air, Liu Xiu unexpectedly discovered that the group of sika deer on the grassland got up earlier than me, and some sika deer were still doing indescribable things.
"Spring is here..."
Liu Xiu smiled. It was not that he hadn't had the idea of hitting a sika deer during this period, but his ideas were just dashed. Judging from the current situation, I guess he could find a way to get two deer to keep in captivity in a few months.
The premise is that he was still here at that time.
After practicing health care and eating, Liu Xiu found that the pottery products in the cave were almost dry and could be calcined in the next step.
As an action-oriented faction, Liu Xiu did not hesitate and left the cave to search for firewood around him. He picked up a lot of them, which was enough.
Use the fire from the cave to raise a bonfire outside, then carry the pottery products out and put them around the bonfire. First, let the pottery products be familiar with the temperature of the flame for half an hour to prevent cracking during calcination, and then use a wooden stick to lift the hot pottery products and put them into the fire.
Then add firewood and increase the heat to calcinate.
The bonfire was burning for a few hours, burning the pottery products red and as if they were about to melt. Then Liu Xiu ignored it and waited for it to cool down naturally, otherwise all his previous efforts would be wasted.
In this way, the day has almost passed.
Once people are busy, they tend to ignore the passage of time. It took Liu Xiu three days to build stone axes and clay pots. When the clay pots cooled the next day, Liu Xiu harvested two fired clay pots and three clay bowls, and the others were cracked and unusable.
The results were good. I went to the lake to fill water one by one and tried it. Liu Xiu was quite satisfied with the results.
In this way, Liu Xiu could not only cook things in a clay pot, but also use a clay pot to hold water to the edge of the cave and the mud wall.
I clenched my fists. Although I persisted in practicing health care to steadily increase my strength, the impact of salt deficiency was deepening, and the feeling of being unable to do so became more and more obvious.
Chapter completed!