Chapter 49

No one can resist the temptation of delicious food; if the meal Baifeng cooked were served in the past, he would have flipped the table if he had eaten such a thing at a restaurant, but having eaten nothing but stew-like slop for the past half-year, he suddenly found this carefully prepared meal incredibly delicious.

Sui once couldn't even get enough to eat, let alone pursue delicious food; with a pot of wild rice and a pot of bamboo shoots stir-fried with cured meat, Baifeng didn't eat much, but Sui ate so obliviously that when she finally realized, there wasn't much left, and she looked pitifully at him, terrified that Baifeng might be angry.

Baifeng just patted her head and went to wash the pot; a simp is incredibly tolerant toward their goddess.

After everyone in the tribe visited Baifeng's kang, they all went back wanting to build one for themselves, and they all automatically forgot their previous disdain for the Tribal Chief's inexplicable behavior.

Baifeng bore no grudges and instructed them on how to build them, and eventually, every house had a large heated platform, which was damp-proof in summer and warm in winter, and could also prevent some diseases like rheumatism.

Now they have absolutely no concept of avoiding illness; on cold days, they pour cold water directly over their bodies, and when they work up a sweat, they don't care how strong the wind is and just open their leather clothes to cool off; Baifeng can't manage it all, so he can only beat them one by one when he sees them—reasoning doesn't work, he can only use a whip to intimidate them.

The days passed without a ripple, like a secluded peach blossom spring, and nothing major happened within the tribe; everything was very dull and uninteresting.

When Xiaoniu first arrived, it hadn't been fully weaned and was stout and fat, but after arriving at the tribe, it could only eat grass, and Baifeng had no feed to supplement it; now its spine is clearly visible, and while it has grown taller, it is thinner and uglier.

Sui is changing in the direction Baifeng expects; without exposure to the sun, Sui's skin is rapidly whitening; it used to be wheat-colored, but now it is similar to the skin tone of ordinary girls in later generations, with signs of becoming even whiter; Baifeng is certain she has no skin disease, it can only be said that people with white skin are born that way, and it's not something one can envy.

Only in Baifeng's eyes is a white-skinned girl beautiful, with skin like congealed fat, where one shade of white hides a hundred uglinesses; furthermore, Sui's features are not ugly, and after gaining some weight, she has become even more cute and delicate; only in the eyes of the tribespeople is Sui becoming uglier and uglier, a sickly ugliness without the dark skin tanned by the sun.

Baifeng inwardly cursed them as bumpkins who had never eaten good pork; the higher a woman's status, the less she works in the sun, and the whiter and more delicate her skin becomes; in such a small tribe, everyone is the same, but once productivity develops further and true social classes emerge, the fact that men love women with white, tender skin will be engraved in their genes.

The city wall has been built to a height of one meter, and when Baifeng stands there, only his head is exposed; although wild people could easily climb over at this height, the tribespeople no longer have to face the unobstructed Wasteland the moment they look up, and their sense of security is increasing day by day.

The entire tribe already has over a dozen bows, and they are still being made constantly; Baifeng wants to use bows with power far exceeding those of the same era as his trump card.

Large-scale production has made the Artisans' craftsmanship better and better; the bows produced are no longer so rough, having grips made of fur, and the bow bodies are coated with the sap of the Lacquer Tree; although they say the Lacquer Tree sap bites, they still endure using it for the sake of aesthetics.

Xiong's bow is the most flashy; ever since the bow-making technology in the tribe matured, Xiong no longer looked down on Baifeng's bow, abandoning the bow Baifeng gave him like a heartless man, and instead made a bow with a body so strong that Baifeng wasn't sure if he could pull it; all the materials used were the best, and he even used Ox Horn glued to the bow body to increase resilience and for decoration.

On the day the Strong Bow was strung, he specifically brought it for Baifeng to see; Baifeng felt a bit guilty touching the terrifying bow body, but Xiong strongly requested he try it; Baifeng didn't load an Arrow, but pulled it empty, and he felt he was already failing before he had even pulled it halfway.

Afraid of losing face, he didn't say it clearly, only telling Xiong that a bow isn't better the harder it is; no matter how strong it is, if you can't pull it, what difference is there between it and a stick? A stick is even handier to swing around.

After listening, Xiong nocked an Arrow and drew the bow; the Arrow whistled past Baifeng's ear, moving so fast that Baifeng couldn't see it clearly, only feeling his scalp tingle; Xiong only shot at a tree that had been cut down and dragged back to be used as firewood more than thirty meters away.

When the two went over to look, they discovered that only the tip of the stone Arrowhead was stuck in the wood, while the rest had shattered on the ground due to the immense impact.

If it were an Iron Arrowhead, styled as an Armor-Piercing Arrow, Baifeng is certain that at such a close distance, Xiong could skewer three people like a shish kebab with one shot.

But such a Strong Bow is hard for Baifeng to pull even once, and that is while possessing the top-tier physique of this era; even if Xiong is born with divine strength, he can't shoot many times in a row, right?

After Baifeng finished stating his concerns, Xiong didn't nock an Arrow, but just pulled and released the empty bow six times in a row, only feeling like he couldn't pull it fully on the seventh time.

Baifeng was naturally extremely impressed by Xiong's strength; he never wanted to have a physical conflict with a man like Xiong in his life; of course, Baifeng wouldn't hide from Xiong that pulling and releasing empty causes great damage to the bow body; watching Xiong hold the bow and check it with a pained expression, Baifeng's bit of dark humor was satisfied, but with a Soldier as strong as Xiong, Baifeng couldn't treat him poorly, and he was already prepared to forge various Iron Arrowheads with different functions for Xiong.

The Iron Ingots in the Iron Smelting Workshop are now enough for Baifeng to use for a long time, and enough for him to try to refine steel without fear of waste; the apprentice he brought along has a Qilin Arm as thick as Xiong's and is good material for blacksmithing, but unfortunately, he lacks Xiong's marksmanship and his strength is far inferior to Xiong's.

Baifeng only knows that Iron must be refined to become steel, but he doesn't know exactly how to refine it; the Iron Knives forged in the past were very hard, but also very brittle, and many tribespeople's Knives have already shattered.

Baifeng only remembers terms like High Carbon Steel and Low Carbon Steel, which means carbon must play a crucial role in turning Iron into steel; unfortunately, he is just a damn Liberal Arts student, not a damn science or engineering student.

Baifeng added ground carbon powder into the molten Iron, not daring to add too much, just about a handful per pot of molten Iron; after melting what Baifeng thought was "High Carbon Steel" into steel bars, he had to clamp them to forge and hammer the Knife, but he didn't clamp it steadily, and it fell to the ground, shattering into more than two pieces.

Baifeng was a bit annoyed; did he add too much carbon or too little? After constantly changing the amount of carbon powder added, Baifeng finally figured it out after tossing and turning for two days: it wasn't about adding carbon, but removing carbon; no wonder no matter how much carbon was added, the only difference was how many pieces it shattered into.

After adjusting his state, Baifeng took turns with the apprentice who had the Qilin Arm, using hammers to strike the Iron Ingot, letting the impurities or oxidation layers on the surface of the Iron fall off continuously.

After Baifeng hammered the Iron flat, he folded it and continued to hammer it; only after folding it four times did Baifeng start to hammer out the shape of a Knife; let's make a Nepalese Kukri, this is a very practical Knife shape.