Chapter 83: Opening Up New Sources Is Enough

Since the water was about to stop, I simply decided not to drain the Fish Pond for now. The Fish Pond is quite large, and the Cement produced by my own tribe is nowhere near enough to pave the bottom, so I only used Cement to build the pond foundation.

The pond foundation is a slope with steps for easy access, and platforms were built in some places, which will be much more convenient for fishing or whatever else in the future.

The matter of having the tribespeople practice swimming must also be hurried. Currently, only most of the Fishing Team knows how to swim; the other tribespeople do not. Now that we have a large Fish Pond, not learning to swim won't do; if someone were to fall in, they wouldn't be able to be saved.

On the day the water pipes were fired, I had someone bring them over to replace the old ones, and only then did the tribe's water volume return to normal. It had been trickling for a few days, and the water for the cattle herd had to be drawn from the water cellar bucket by bucket.

The tribespeople tasked with fetching water for the cattle found a chore even more painful than cleaning up the cattle's dung; after a day of carrying, it felt like their waists were no longer their own.

Once the Cement dried, the Fish Pond immediately began to be filled with water. The Fishing Team has already started bringing back various animals and plants from Dahu, though they are temporarily being kept in large vats, waiting for the Fish Pond water to clear before being released in.

It's just that Baifeng didn't expect the species in Dahu to be so rich. Besides the various fish they had always been catching, the tribespeople also brought back field snails, which they considered inedible, spiders with hard shells, and rice field eels and loaches from the mud, etc.

As for plants, they brought back various water Grasses. Baifeng looked at them and figured they were likely inedible. After picking through them, Baifeng actually found lotus root segments and Euryale ferox in the mud.

Baifeng hadn't even been to Dahu many times, so naturally, he didn't know what was in Dahu. He had always kept his thinking focused on fish and hadn't thought about anything else at all.

The tribespeople also didn't think these strange things were edible; if it weren't for the Tribal Chief wanting a bit of everything this time, they wouldn't have been digging for these things in the thick mud.

Rice field eels and loaches are perfectly fine as food, though the eel has a rather strong earthy smell. However, in this era, that doesn't count as a flaw at all; as long as there is meat, no one cares what it tastes like.

The eels were actually dug up while they were digging for other plants. When they wriggled out of the mud, it gave them a big scare, and they thought they were snakes. They wanted to run but were stuck in the mud and couldn't move. Upon closer inspection, they looked like snakes, but even more like fish.

Since they couldn't escape, they might as well fight for it. They grabbed them directly and crushed them to death, just in case they were bitten and the poison didn't kill them.

So he reached out directly to grab the eel, not expecting that the eel only wanted to run. Its body was slippery and hard to catch, and it was only when he crushed it to death that he realized it was just a fish.

Crabs and such were all caught with bamboo tongs because they didn't know if they were poisonous or edible, but they just tried their best to satisfy the Tribal Chief's request.

Only then did Baifeng realize he had been guarding a treasure mountain without knowing it. He didn't dare to eat field snails because there were too many parasites, and he couldn't distinguish which ones had them and which didn't, so he just used them to feed the fish.

In the future, one will be able to go to the banks of Dahu and feel for eels and catch loaches in the mud; this is yet another very important food source.

As for the crabs, or what the tribespeople call "large spiders," they grow to a massive size. Although it isn't their fattest time yet, the taste is fresh and delicious enough, it's just that the tribespeople don't quite dare to eat them. The first person to eat a crab is a warrior.

Lotus roots are rich in starch. In the days without potatoes, Baifeng felt life was difficult. He could go without any vegetable, but he couldn't go without potatoes. It's just that potatoes are still on the other side of the ocean, which is something beyond what he can imagine in this era.

Lotus roots can be said to be the substitute for Baifeng's favorite potatoes, and lotus flowers are beautiful when they bloom, and lotus seeds can also be eaten as food. It seems he should plant more lotus flowers in his Fish Pond.

Baifeng also asked if this thing was abundant in Dahu. They said that in a bay of Dahu, it was almost entirely this stuff. Now that flower buds have grown, they don't have the ability to dive down to dig for the roots, so they can only dig a little bit on the shore.

Baifeng could already imagine the magnificent sight of a large patch of lotus flowers in bloom. When the lotus flowers are at their best, he must take Sui to see them, to pick flowers and harvest lotus roots in the Lotus Pond.

Euryale ferox is covered in thorns, so they only picked a few and never thought this thing could be eaten. Baifeng immediately peeled one open and threw it into his mouth; the taste was actually quite good. The tribespeople were once again shocked by Baifeng's profound knowledge.

Both opening up new sources and cutting down on expenses is something only poor tribes do. Like the Baifeng Tribe, with such massive opening of new sources, whether or not to cut expenses no longer matters. The tribespeople can eat their fill every day, and with such a rich variety of food, they can even try to make some new dishes.

It's just that there isn't that much oil, so they can't stir-fry vegetables and can only steam or boil them. If they get tired of boiled food, then they eat steamed food. However, without adding seasonings, Baifeng feels he can't enjoy such a primitive taste. What "fresh and tender" means to him is nonsense; that only applies to specific ingredients.

Gujiao rice is an important food for the Baifeng Tribe, and everyone is familiar with it, so the tribespeople symbolically dug one up and brought it back to Baifeng to fulfill the task. Baifeng was afraid that if he tried to induce the Gujiao in Dahu to produce water bamboo shoots, the entire Dahu's Gujiao might go extinct. But it's fine for his own; anyway, he doesn't lack the space to grow Gujiao rice, so he might as well try to turn it into water bamboo shoots for food.

Baifeng picked out some things he recognized that were edible or had value, and told the Fishing Team not to just catch fish, but to also go and get those things. If there aren't enough people, then expand; give them another hundred people, and surely they will be able to develop the resources of Dahu.

The water in the Fish Pond is full, but there is definitely seepage, so some water must be added every day to replenish it. The water is still very turbid, and it will have to settle before Baifeng stocks the fry.

As for things like field snails and lotus roots, just toss them into the pond at will, and they will always live; after all, their vitality is quite tenacious.

In the meals the tribespeople have eaten these past few days, there have started to be things like rice field eels, loaches, and crabs. They didn't dare to eat them before, but now they'll get used to it.

Baifeng was happily eating while prying open the shell of a large crab. In his past life, such a large crab was something he could only look at but never reach; the price was not something a miserable mortgage-slave like him could afford. He could at most have a good meal of crab at a buffet.

No matter what Baifeng does, Sui is his firmest supporter. So when Baifeng set out to boil and eat the crab, although she was afraid, she still steadfastly helped Baifeng.

When the crab was cooked and taken out, Baifeng first opened a crab shell for Sui. The yellow roe looked very strange, and she didn't know if it could be eaten, but Sui thought that Baifeng couldn't possibly lie to her, so she plucked up the courage to eat it.

As a result, once she started eating, she couldn't stop. Baifeng still had to sit by her side and crack crab legs for her to satisfy Sui's non-stop mouth.