Chapter 6: Fire Seed

Baifeng did not know when the rain stopped; it was only when the next day's sun shone upon him that Baifeng knew he had survived.

The rain might have fallen all through the night; first rain, then hail, then the hail stopped for a while, and after that, it hailed again.

Fortunately, it was summer, so Baifeng's hypothermia was not too severe, and this body's constitution was good enough; if it had been the Baifeng of his past life, that body definitely would not have lasted until the second round of hail.

As it continued, Baifeng was both cold and afraid, and combined with the day's fatigue, he fell asleep when the rain eased.

Baifeng struggled to stand up and looked at the white hail covering the ground, not knowing what mood to use to express it; looking downward, the entire mountain and valley were filled with hail flowing down along with the rainwater.

The leaves were all beaten to shreds, all the trees looked half-bald, and the shattered leaves were mixed into the hail; the whole world looked like a pot of white porridge with a lot of chopped green onions added.

Baifeng thought to himself that after this hailstorm, all animals would have a very difficult time, as there was no food; at this time, many plants still had very small, unripe fruits, so such a disaster was equivalent to a total crop failure.

Baifeng no longer held any hope for his fire; with the gale and torrential rain, and without having added firewood, it should have long since extinguished.

So Baifeng simply used tree branches to sweep the hail and accumulated water downward first.

Fortunately, as soon as the sun came out, the hail in the higher places melted quickly, making it relatively easy to clean up.

Baifeng arranged the gathered firewood to dry; the firewood was lucky, also because it had been stacked high enough, so the firewood placed in the very center was almost not wet.

After finishing this, Baifeng carefully went to retrieve the things he had covered, threw away all the tree branches and such on the Reed mat, and then took down the water-soaked, nearly deformed Reed mat to spread out and dry.

What Baifeng did not expect was that those Pottery could be said to be intact; this was entirely due to the cushioning of the tree branches and the Reed mat, as the hail did not damage the Pottery at all, only the seeping water soaked and softened another layer on the outside of the Pottery.

But as long as it was dried a bit more, it could return to its original state. The Smoked Fish had already been soaked soft by the water; Baifeng smelled it, and it hadn't spoiled, so he simply took it and started gnawing on it directly; the ice-chilled, water-soaked Smoked Fish had a unique flavor, though it was actually a helpless choice.

In this hailstorm, a large number of animals must have been beaten to death; whether birds or beasts, as long as they didn't have a sturdy place of shelter, it was hard to survive it.

This should be a good time to scavenge for meat, but the valley was full of water gathering from all directions, and the flash flood was constantly roaring; Baifeng did not want to take risks, having barely saved his life.

Baifeng finally began to dismantle the stone stove that protected the fire; the stones were already frozen through, and the fire must have gone out; it seemed that Baifeng's task today was to try every possible means to obtain a fire seed.

After removing the stones layer by layer, the fire was full of ash; it seemed the fire had withstood the rain, only it had extinguished itself for lack of firewood.

Baifeng used his hand to push aside the ash, intending to clear it out, but unexpectedly, the ash was actually warm; Baifeng hurriedly and carefully blew a breath onto the ash, and unexpectedly, there were some very small sparks.

Baifeng was overjoyed; one must know that whether it was drilling wood for fire or using stones to strike, one had to produce sparks and place them on tinder to ignite an open flame; it was impossible to drill wood and have the wood catch fire directly.

Just for these few sparks, Baifeng might have had to spend an entire day drilling.

Tinder, tinder; Baifeng anxiously wanted to find something to ignite the fire, but it had just rained heavily, so where could there be anything dry? Let alone tinder.

Just when Baifeng was about to give up, the Reed catkins lining his wooden shed caught Baifeng's attention; although they were soaked through, weren't these light and fine Reed catkins the best tinder?

Baifeng hurriedly dug a pile of soaked Reed catkins out from the floor of the wooden shed and spread them out under the sun; in summer, even the rising sun was still very hot.

Some stone slab areas on the platform were basically dried, and the Reed catkins also went from being soaked and stuck together to slowly becoming fluffy and dry.

After Baifeng confirmed the Reed catkins were dry, he rubbed off the finest fluff from the top and finally rolled it into a ball the size of a fist.

He tore this ball of Reed fluff open from the middle and took it to the side of the campfire; Baifeng blew a breath and saw the red dots burning in the ash getting fewer and fewer.

Baifeng used his hand directly to scoop out the ash along with the sparks and poured them into the Reed fluff; after wrapping the sparks in the middle, Baifeng began to gently blow air toward the Reed fluff.

One breath, two breaths, smoke began to emerge; Baifeng then increased the force of his blowing slightly, the smoke grew larger, and Baifeng blew one heavy breath, and an open flame instantly ignited from the center.

Baifeng held the flame in his hands and jumped for joy on the stones, just like the first time humanity obtained fire.

Baifeng put the fire into the campfire pile and immediately found some firewood that hadn't been too soaked; only after the thick smoke passed and the fire burned vigorously did Baifeng feel that he had truly been saved in this disaster.

Having regained fire, Baifeng was no longer anxious and began to proceed with post-disaster reconstruction in a leisurely manner; in fact, there was nothing to reconstruct, but the flash flood outside was still raging, and there was no way to do anything else.

By noon, Baifeng roasted and ate a meal of water-soaked Smoked Fish, and the hail outside had melted almost completely; judging by the sound, the flash flood was also gradually beginning to subside.

Baifeng felt he should go out and take a look; by scavenging, he should be able to pick up quite a bit of meat.

Carrying his axe, Baifeng set off; the current Baifeng had returned to the state of wearing the universe as his underpants; there was no help for it, the Grass had all been beaten to shreds, and he couldn't even make a grass skirt; this situation would likely continue for a long time.

Baifeng tried to choose flatter places to walk, because steep areas might have reached a critical point due to being soaked by rainwater, and if you stepped on them, they would slide.

Baifeng did not walk toward places with many trees; only in open areas was it possible to pick things up, as they were all things that hadn't had time to find a place to hide.

Sure enough, not long after walking, Baifeng picked up a bird that had been beaten to death, but it was too small and had no meat, so Baifeng ignored it directly.

Walking toward the Reed thicket, Baifeng picked up several wild chickens and also pigeons. He checked them and they were all beaten to death.

Because of the ice, they were still very fresh; Baifeng plucked the feathers and removed the internal organs right there on the spot, then carried the three processed wild chickens and two pigeons back to the camp.

Baifeng felt it wasn't enough and set off in another direction to search; unexpectedly, he saw several eggs on a slope.

Although most of them were already broken and the egg liquid was flowing everywhere, Baifeng still managed to pick up eight; Baifeng estimated they were wild chicken eggs, with a size between a chicken egg and a quail egg, and shaking them produced no sound, which meant they were fresh.

Having nothing to carry them in, Baifeng had to return to the camp to put them down before coming out to search again.

On the last trip, Baifeng picked up four rabbits, gray and dusty, two large and two small; perhaps their nest had been flooded by water and they had to escape, but unfortunately, they hadn't escaped the hail.

Baifeng felt that going any further would not be safe, so these were the things Baifeng had scavenged after the great disaster.