Chapter 82: Evil Land

Before going to catch fish fry, the water in the Fish Pond first had to be filled. Baifeng felt that his tribe's water conservancy system was no longer sufficient; after all, there was only one main conduit, and as a result, it had been split into so many water pipes. Although there was no shortage of water coming from upstream, the pipes below were already very chaotic.

Baifeng felt it was necessary to renovate the entire water diversion project, but for now, it would have to suffice. It wouldn't be too late to do it after the Autumn Harvest, when the ground hadn't yet frozen; digging then wouldn't occupy labor.

He temporarily dug a channel to the Fish Pond to release water, then opened the valve, and the water source flowed into the Fish Pond continuously. It was just that the water volume was truly too small; Baifeng felt it would take at least a day or two to fill it up.

Thus, he left two tribesmen to watch over the Fish Pond, and the others went to do their own work. Baifeng accompanied Sui to look at the vegetable garden they had planted; now, many vegetables had grown enough to be eaten.

To Baifeng, the Chinese cabbage looked pitifully small, similar to the baby cabbage he bought in later generations, but since it had been fertilized and Sui had taken meticulous care of it, it was still much better than the wild ones.

Picking two cabbages, Baifeng decided to make a stir-fried cabbage for Sui. Since they had an Iron Pot, Baifeng often made stir-fried dishes for the two of them, but most of the time they ate much the same as the other tribesmen. After all, Baifeng wasn't a good cook in his past life; many dishes he was familiar with lacked ingredients, and even when he had the ingredients, he couldn't necessarily make them.

There was no vegetable oil, so he used only rendered and solidified beef fat. He chopped the Wild Onion, sautéed it until fragrant after the oil was hot, then added the tender, freshly pulled and washed cabbage, stir-frying it briefly before taking it out of the pan immediately.

Sui liked the food Baifeng made, but for this almost purely vegetarian dish, Sui really couldn't muster much interest. So, after simply tasting a bite and expressing that it was very delicious, Sui waited eagerly for the big slices of meat Baifeng was stir-frying.

Now Baifeng had one more seasoning: Sichuan Peppercorn. The tribesmen were very curious about the red, strangely fragrant Sichuan Peppercorn, but the Sichuan Peppercorn tree had many thorns, and whenever one walked under the tree, one always felt a numbing sensation under the tongue.

Driven by excessive curiosity and the mentality that even if it were poisonous, eating one wouldn't kill them, that person picked one and put it in their mouth, using saliva to fully experience the taste of the Sichuan Peppercorn. As a result, the tip of their tongue was numbed to the point of near-insensitivity, so they hurriedly spat out the red fruit, but unfortunately, the numbing taste in their mouth wouldn't go away.

He often watched Baifeng explain to the doctor what certain plants in the wild were called and what they were used for, as if everything were medicine. The Tribal Chief might actually know what this tongue-numbing thing was; what if it were some important medicinal material?

When he brought a handful of split Sichuan Peppercorns, revealing black seeds, to find Baifeng, Baifeng was happy and immediately gave the tribesman a piece of meat the size of a fist as a reward.

Sichuan Peppercorn was a good thing; not only was it an important spice, but it could also barely be used as an anesthetic. For localized pain, in this era where one could only endure injuries, it could absolutely be used for temporary pain relief.

In the past, when Baifeng was a child and had to be punished with a hand-slapping in school, he would rub Sichuan Peppercorns in his hands; once his hands were numb, it wouldn't hurt when he was hit.

A tribesman asked Baifeng why this thing called Sichuan Peppercorn had such a strange taste, giving the tongue an indescribable feeling. Baifeng smiled; wasn't that just what Sichuan Peppercorn was? As the saying goes, "Red face, black heart, numbing leaves."

Sui also couldn't eat too much Sichuan Peppercorn, so he could only put one or two grains in when stir-frying meat, waiting until Sui got used to it.

A delicious meal left the two of them feeling incomparably satisfied. They were lying down enjoying their after-meal time, avoiding the task of washing the pot, when unexpectedly, the tribesman guarding the Fish Pond rushed over in a flurry to disturb them.

That tribesman said the channel releasing water to the Fish Pond had no water, and the water pipes in other parts of the tribe also had reduced flow; it seemed the entire tribe was about to be cut off from water.

Baifeng was stunned for two seconds before standing up immediately, then took people to check the water source. Now was not the later generations, where they would send you a notice if the water was cut off, and then turn it back on.

Sure enough, all the water outlets in the tribe had turned into extremely small trickles. This was a troublesome matter. Although there was still some water in the water cellar that could be used, there was also a herd of cattle that needed water. This year, the time hadn't come yet, so they hadn't stored water in the water cellar; he didn't know how long that little bit of water could last.

Baifeng only hoped that the water intake at Dahu was blocked, because the water pipes along the way were buried underground; if the pipes halfway were blocked, repairing them would be too troublesome.

Baifeng took people directly to Dahu to check. Walking along the water pipes, they didn't find any water seepage anywhere. Now Baifeng felt it must be the intake at the top that was blocked.

However, when Baifeng arrived at Dahu to check, he discovered that the intake was not blocked and was still slowly taking in water. Baifeng felt the situation was a bit serious; this definitely meant something had gone wrong on the way.

To quickly find the location of the faulty pipe, he used the bisection method, digging up the soil in the middle section to find the pipe. He didn't dismantle it, but discovered that the pipe joints were not leaking, because pottery pipes couldn't be made perfectly seamless, so there was always some seepage. Moreover, he couldn't hear the sound of water in the pipes.

This indicated that the problem was still upstream. After using the bisection method to search two more times, Baifeng and his group finally found the approximate location. Digging up the soil in that area, they finally discovered the cause of the problem.

It turned out to be a mole rat burrow. Looking at the damage, the mole rat had broken the pottery water pipe, and the fragments were stuck in the pipe, so the water basically didn't flow downstream but poured entirely into the hole the mole rat had dug.

Following the hole for dozens of meters, they indeed found another hole on a slope where water was constantly gushing out. That mole rat had probably already drowned, but there was nothing to be done now; they could only remedy the situation.

After clearing out the fragments, most of the water flowed along the pipe again, though some was still flowing out. This section could only be replaced with a new piece of pottery pipe.

Baifeng felt he was truly unlucky, or rather, that this land was evil. He had just thought about renovating this water diversion project, and then it brought him trouble. Fortunately, he had used pottery pipes at the time; if he had used bamboo pipes, he feared trouble would have arisen long ago.

However, there was no way to repair it today. The amount of water flowing downstream now could barely maintain the needs of daily life. As for the Fish Pond, he would release water at night; it might take a few more days if he wanted to fill it.

The water pipes couldn't be fired in a single day either. The Artisans who made pottery, through exploration, had built their own drying rooms with ventilation to dry them, which could also prevent the pottery blanks from cracking under the sun.

They wouldn't just make one section of pipe; Baifeng had them make several more as spares, so if the pipes broke again, they would have something to replace them with immediately.