Chapter 7: Not Alone

Baifeng carried a few rabbits back to the Battalion, and as he touched the rabbit fur, he felt that his loincloth finally had a prospect.

Skinning is a very time-consuming task, but it has no technical difficulty; because it is too bloody, I will not describe it further, everyone can imagine it for themselves.

Looking at the pottery kiln he had worked so hard to build, now battered and scattered by the heavy rain, Baifeng felt helpless and had no choice but to sigh and rebuild it.

The heavy rain had soaked the soil through; although the surface moisture had evaporated somewhat under the sun, a little digging was all it took to get mud for casual use.

After Baifeng rebuilt the kiln, seeing that it was getting late, he decided to start firing it now and work through the night.

He started a fire in the small kiln, continuously adding firewood to burn off the moisture in the kiln itself; when the kiln was basically dried out, Baifeng put the finished pottery pot, water jar, and two bowls inside, and burned them with a large fire.

When Baifeng saw that the pottery and the kiln walls had turned red, he sealed the kiln tightly and kept adding firewood.

In the gaps between adding firewood, Baifeng processed a few rabbits and obtained four rabbit skins—two large and two small; he planned to make the two large ones into a loincloth, and see if he could make shoes out of the two small ones.

Although the soles of Baifeng's feet had thick calluses and he wouldn't feel pain even if he ran casually on stones or in the wilderness, Baifeng was always uneasy, fearing that a thorn might pierce the soles of his feet.

The sky grew darker and the sun gradually set; owls hooted, which was very eerie.

Baifeng roasted two rabbit legs over the fire; they were very chewy, but had no flavor.

The kiln, burned red by the fire, along with the campfire, brought Baifeng an incomparable sense of security in the night; by the firelight, Baifeng repaired the smoked meat rack that had been damaged by the hail, and at the same time made a few larger ones.

The Smoked Fish he had made earlier had gone bad because it had been soaked by the rain and due to the summer temperature, so Baifeng could only throw it away.

He used a Stone Knife to chop the rabbit meat and pheasant meat into small pieces, then placed them on the rack to smoke.

Baifeng kept adding firewood to the kiln; he didn't know exactly how long it needed to burn, only hearing that it should be burned for a day or two, but Baifeng felt that his small kiln would be about done after half a day.

Baifeng took two eggs and threw them into the charcoal to roast; they cracked open after just a few minutes, and when he picked one up to taste, the flavor was very delicious.

He hadn't found many eggs, so Baifeng thought about roasting a few more and saving some for breakfast tomorrow.

But soon Baifeng had a bold idea: he wanted to try incubating the eggs himself to see if he could hatch chicks, taking the first step toward the artificial domestication of chickens, this most important poultry.

No sooner said than done, Baifeng took out four eggs to experiment; they wouldn't be very filling to eat anyway, but if he succeeded, that would be a historical first.

Unfortunately, there was no incubator in this primitive environment, and Baifeng had no way to catch a wild pheasant and tie it up to make it hatch eggs. Baifeng could only try to get close to Nature and leave the rest to Heaven; what if the wild pheasant eggs of this time were tougher?

Holding a Torch, Baifeng found some dry mugwort, Grass, and dry leaves near the camp, brought them to the camp, kneaded them into the shape of a bird's nest, put the eggs inside, covered them with Grass, and then set them aside, leaving it to Heaven.

It was already midnight; in the primitive era, the air was clean and pure, visibility was high, and there was no light pollution.

The Milky Way stretched across the entire sky; legend had it that the Queen Mother of the West used a hairpin to draw the Milky Way to separate Niulang and Zhinu, though at this time, Niulang and Zhinu probably didn't exist yet.

However, the Altair and Vega stars were very dazzling in the sky, and together with Xingsusan, these three brightest stars of the summer night formed the Xiaye Dajiangjiao.

The handle of the Big Dipper pointed to the south; because it was summer, a very bright star pointed to by the far end of the handle was the North Star.

This star was first discovered and named by Suiren; if he hadn't invented fire, humans could only hide in some corner at night, praying for dawn to come quickly, and it would be impossible to look up and observe what the stars were like.

Sighing at the impermanence of the world, Baifeng added the last bit of firewood to the campfire and the kiln, then spread out the dried Reed mat and lay down to sleep.

Waking up in the morning, Baifeng found that there were more mosquito bites on his body than the previous few days; once it rained, mosquitoes were everywhere.

However, the mosquitoes native to Huaxia were relatively small and less toxic; the mosquitoes with big striped legs seen in later generations were brought into the country during the great global exchange, and then bred crazily, becoming hateful creatures that existed all four seasons of the year.

Adding some firewood to the campfire, Baifeng went to look at the kiln; it had been burning for a long time and hadn't cooled down yet, and there were even sparks inside.

Baifeng stopped worrying about it and just let it cool down naturally.

Today Baifeng wanted to prepare to make salt, only to find that he had forgotten to make a water jar for filtering ash; Baifeng tapped his head in annoyance, truly unable to remember anything.

There was no other way, so Baifeng had to go find red clay and start treading mud again.

However, Baifeng found a lot of mud this time; besides making a water jar, he also planned to make some Tiles. Although his dilapidated wooden shed didn't need them, he could build a miniature house to store things, so he wouldn't be afraid if he encountered heavy rain again.

At the thought of heavy rain, Baifeng felt afraid; one had to know that as long as it rained once, the possibility of it raining again in the next few days was particularly high.

Baifeng felt that his wooden shed should also be upgraded and renovated to build a real house.

When Baifeng finished making the perforated water jar and a dozen Tiles, the kiln had basically cooled down; putting the water jar and Tiles in the sun to dry, Baifeng prepared to open the kiln.

Smashing the mud sealing the top and taking off the kiln lid, inside were yellow pottery; what made Baifeng most excited was that not a single one had exploded during firing.

Baifeng first took out a small bowl and flicked it to listen to the sound; it was crisp and solid. He then filled it with water to test it; it didn't leak, didn't absorb water, and the surface didn't look like it had dissolved into mud from the water.

Shaking it a few times, the water didn't change color, and tasting it, there was no earthy taste in the water; Baifeng was now completely certain that his pottery had been successfully fired!

Baifeng hurriedly took out the pottery pot and water jar and went through the same process as the bowl; there was absolutely no problem—he had truly entered the Pottery Age!

Baifeng couldn't wait to put the pot on the campfire, then put pheasant meat and rabbit meat into the pot, added water, and started to boil it, even covering it with the pot lid.

Baifeng felt this wasn't enough, so he took his Stone Knife and searched outside the camp, soon returning with a handful of dandelions and Bitter Lettuce.

Cleaning the roots and rinsing them with water, he threw them directly into the pot to boil together; Baifeng didn't care if it would taste good or not, he just wanted to eat some greens.

The main problem was that because of the long-term lack of fiber intake, Baifeng was suffering from constipation.

While waiting for the food to cook, Baifeng used bamboo to whittle a pair of very beautiful chopsticks for himself, with a standard round top and square bottom—this was another big step for humanity toward civilization.

The Stone Knife wasn't sharp enough or sturdy enough to whittle a spoon, so Baifeng took a different approach: he found a piece of bamboo of similar thickness, kept a part with sufficient depth above the bamboo node, and whittled the part above that thin.

Thus he obtained a straight-handled spoon; although it wasn't beautiful, it was fully capable of the job of scooping soup.

Baifeng sat by the campfire, not doing anything else, just constantly testing to see if it was done.

After boiling for a long time, Baifeng felt it was about right, then used a tree branch to hook the pot ears and took the pot out of the fire.

Baifeng scooped himself a bowl and was just about to start eating, but seeing the other empty bowl, a sudden sense of loneliness washed over him.

In modern society, even if you had no friends or family to eat with you, at least you could hear the voices of other humans. But here, besides the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves, Baifeng had nothing.

Baifeng still scooped a bowl in that other bowl, only he didn't know who to give it to.

Remembering that during the New Year, he would worship a tablet for "Heavenly Grandfather," and when he had tea and rice, he would first offer it to "Heavenly Grandfather."

Baifeng simply found a square stone, wrote the two characters "Heaven and Earth" on it with charcoal, then placed that bowl of rice in front of it as an offering; Baifeng also made a pair of chopsticks and placed them on the bowl.

Baifeng didn't want to gain the protection of gods or Heaven and Earth; he just felt too lonely. For a person born of Heaven and Earth, Heaven and Earth were also his kin.

Baifeng wasn't too lonely after all.