Chapter 84: Food and Sugar

The Stone Mill that had been awaited for so long was finally finished; three Knives were ruined just from the carving and chiseling alone, but Baifeng felt it was worth it. Now that he had this thing, he could make flour, and with flour, there were countless possibilities.

It was a small mill that could be pushed by hand; one would sprinkle the wheat in handful by handful, turn the Stone Mill, and slowly, relatively coarse flour would flow out.

However, this flour was not white at all; it was yellowish and not very good-looking, and the wheat bran was still mixed inside, so it needed to be sifted once more.

Grinding was truly too troublesome, so Baifeng did not grind much, only producing about the amount of a pottery basin. He then used a relatively fine bamboo sieve to sift it once, and only then did Baifeng feel it was usable. The sifted-out wheat bran must absolutely not be thrown away; that was also good stuff.

If one wanted to make noodles but had no alkaline noodles to use, then one could use alkali ash. Alkali Grass was very common; after being burned into ash, it could increase the elasticity of the dough. In the famous Lanzhou Beef noodles, alkali ash was used when kneading the dough.

Kneading the dough, letting it rest, working it, and then pulling it—Baifeng couldn't pull it, and the quality of this flour wasn't good enough, so the dough he kneaded was a bit brittle. Therefore, he had to give up on pulled noodles and obediently roll them out by hand and cut them.

The soup was a clear broth boiled from beef bones; the color was clear and bright, and the smell was good too. The noodles were dropped in, and after they were cooked, they were scooped out in the direction of the noodles and stacked in the bowl, which also looked very beautiful.

Some chopped wild onions, a few slices of radish—it was a pity there was no chili; chili oil was the soul of the dish. But even so, the saliva in Sui's mouth was already more than the water droplets formed by the steam on the pot lid.

Baifeng and Sui each had a bowl, squatting at the entrance slurping away. Many tribespeople were attracted by the fragrance; seeing the Tribal Chief eating something in long strips that smelled especially good, but not knowing what it was, they were very curious.

To keep their saliva from falling to the ground, they all took a relatively restrained look and then left. Only people like Xiong, who had figured out Baifeng's temper, dared to brazenly wait on the side. Generally, as long as there were leftovers of good things, Baifeng was willing to share them with those he considered talents.

However, Baifeng hadn't made many noodles; Sui and Baifeng had eaten one bowl, and the other few people who came could at most be divided half a bowl each. It was just that Sui kept staring at Baifeng with eager eyes, wanting to eat some more.

Winning the hearts of the tribespeople was just as important as winning the heart of one's wife, but since Sui had already eaten a bowl, Baifeng could only promise her he would make more later, and he would let her eat her fill at once.

But since these people had eaten the noodles, it wouldn't be too much to ask them to help grind some more flour together, right?

Whether it was the Buckwheat with its large leaves currently blooming with white and pink flowers, the Millet that already had ears, or the Sorghum that was still growing in height but not yet growing ears, all of them filled the tribespeople with infinite anticipation. They didn't know how much these crops would produce, nor did they know how they would taste.

In any case, the wheat tasted alright, it was just that they heard the Tribal Chief would grind the wheat into powder to make other delicacies. They hadn't eaten the noodles, but they could eat wheat porridge; the outer skin of the wheat was relatively thick, so it felt like the porridge cooked from it wasn't as good as that from white rice.

It was just that the rice had already been eaten up, so they were just waiting for that large patch of Wild Rice in the fields to reach Harvest.

Baifeng had only planted the Sorghum with the attitude that there was plenty of land and plenty of seeds anyway. As for the taste, he was afraid it wouldn't be very good, and it only grew stalks without growing ears. If it really didn't bear fruit, he would just store it as fodder for the cattle herds.

The wild flowers in the mountains were blooming beautifully. A careful tribesman discovered that bees were often on a type of low-growing flower, so he squatted down to observe the entire process of the bees collecting pollen.

He didn't expect that by sitting like that, he would become somewhat mesmerized. He even followed the bees to other flowers to watch, and in the end, he muddledly followed the little bees back to their nest.

The Soldiers of the Hunter Team first discovered that their people didn't seem to be all present. Looking left and right, none of them were familiar faces. After shouting a few more times, he still didn't appear.

Now things were bad. They hurriedly returned along the original path to search. Along the way, they didn't hear him scream or anything; he had disappeared inexplicably. The people of the Hunter Team were a bit panicked again—what kind of thing could snatch away their tribesman without making a sound?

Starting the search from the position where the person went missing, they didn't find any lost weapons along the way, nor did they find any bloodstains. So why did he disappear? Could he be a spy?

The tribe had always wanted to find honey, but they had never found a large beehive, let alone eaten any. This time, this tribesman could be considered lucky to have stumbled into this massive colony of beehives.

The beehives were built on a tall stone wall, at least twenty meters high. The hanging beehives were at least a meter long. Honey was flowing out of the hives and falling onto the ground beneath the stone wall, forming a large area of crystallized honey on the ground, golden and bright.

That tribesman was awakened by the noisy buzzing of the bees. Originally, he had just been following a bee to watch, forgetting the time and forgetting what he was doing. By the time he reacted, he was already very close to the beehives.

So many bees scared him to death. He no longer felt that the bees were interesting and began to walk back along the tracks he had come from, slapping himself as he walked.

If he messed around like this, not only would it disrupt the team's hunting plan, but if the team discovered he was missing, they would have to waste time and manpower to look for him. He was really dragging the team down.

Thinking of this, he was filled with regret, but he could only run back as fast as he could to salvage what he could. Just thinking about this matter, he forgot that finding the beehives was originally the job of their Hunter Team, and such a large-scale beehive could be said to be a very great contribution.

When he found the unit, he was crying as he admitted his mistake to Xiong, and he almost knelt down. Although the tribespeople were angry, they were also happy from the bottom of their hearts that he was still fine and hadn't been snatched away by wild beasts.

It wasn't until Xiong asked him why he had left the team without permission that he told the story, and only then did he suddenly remember what an important thing it was to discover a patch of beehives.

For the sake of safety, Xiong still took a team of men to the giant beehive location he mentioned. As a result, the moment they saw it, they were stunned by the scale, and the sound of the bees, which could be described as a roar, was even more terrifying.

Having found the beehives, why bother hunting? Xiong immediately led the team home to discuss with Baifeng, asking Baifeng to give an idea on how to ensure they could get the honey safely.

However, they still wandered around the stone wall for a while. Besides the bees that could be seen everywhere, they also found several separate beehives. Seeing that a lot of honey had already fallen under the hives, such hives were relatively safer to harvest.

When Baifeng heard about this, his mood was also very excited; he could finally harvest honey. It was just that, listening to their description, this honey harvesting seemed a bit too dangerous?

But it was impossible not to harvest the honey; he would make the equipment first and then talk. Anyway, the beehives were there, and they couldn't move house.