Chapter 47

Zhang Fan started to worry after the sweet potato bumper harvest; although having lots of food wasn't bad, when he saw that the two of them, who weren't hiding anything, had taken up one and a half of the sweet potatoes at home, he couldn't help but furrow his brows in worry. With so many sweet potatoes, only he and Ba Ke Er lived at home. If they just ate them like this, they could probably last a long time. However, sweet potatoes are only tasty at first; they become unpleasant if stored too long, and now it's the rainy season, very damp, so he fears the sweet potatoes will rot.

After coming out of the storage room, Zhang Fan began to stand blankly at the front gate, thinking about how to minimize the loss. Seeing Zhang Fan come out of the storage room and start staring blankly, Ba Ke Er found it strange and asked:

"What's wrong? Fan Fan, don't we still have plenty of food at home? Enough for the two of us to last until harvest season. Even if it's not enough, it doesn't matter; aren't we still raising so many livestock?"

"No, Ba Ke Er, I'm just thinking the sweet potatoes are really too many; only the two of us live at home, and if we can't finish them, a lot will rot, and sweet potatoes stored too long also taste bad. I'm thinking about how to reduce the loss as much as possible, and also let us eat our fill."

"Like that, then Fan Fan, have you thought of something?"

"I'm thinking about it, aren't I? You go ahead and get busy; I'll stand here for a moment."

"Alright then, stand for a moment and then come in, okay?" Ba Ke Er knew that Zhang Fan would stare blankly whenever he thought about something, until he came up with a good plan, so he also didn't want to disturb his thinking.

"Got it, you go in first."

"Okay." After saying that, Ba Ke Er turned around, preparing to go inside. At that moment, Zhang Fan suddenly exclaimed:

"Ah! I've thought of it! We can turn all the sweet potatoes into sweet potato flour, and then they can be stored for a long time!" After saying that, he turned and lunged at Ba Ke Er.

Ba Ke Er quickly reached out with both hands and pulled Zhang Fan into his embrace. Since he had thought of making sweet potato flour, they would need a tool to do it. This tool is the millstone commonly found in the countryside.

"Ba Ke Er, making sweet potato flour is troublesome; we need a millstone to do it. But there is no millstone in the Tribe now, so we have to make a new one."

"Fan Fan, what does this millstone look like? Tell me, and I'll make it."

"This millstone consists of two parts: the upper part is a disc engraved with many small grooves, and the lower part is also a disc engraved with many small grooves, but at the very bottom there is an protruding groove. These two parts are fixed by the central spindle. Right! The upper disc needs a small hole near the spindle to hold the material to be ground." As he spoke, Zhang Fan found a small stick in the courtyard and began to draw a diagram on the ground.

After hearing Zhang Fan's description, Ba Ke Er somewhat understood, and after looking at the diagram he suddenly became enlightened! After greeting Zhang Fan, he ran off to look for stone.

The place where the Heaven Lion Tribe is located has plenty of stone, but finding stone suitable for making a millstone is still not easy. Ba Ke Er searched around the Tribe for several days but found none.

Every time Ba Ke Er brought back a stone, he had Zhang Fan check whether it was that kind of stone. After Ba Ke Er's (n+1)th time bringing back a stone, Zhang Fan was about to lose patience. However, this time the stone Ba Ke Er brought back was different—it resembled the stone used on Earth to make a millstone extremely closely. After seeing Zhang Fan walk around those two stones a few times, Ba Ke Er finally nodded in satisfaction. Ba Ke Er also finally, excitedly, hugged Zhang Fan and gave him a hard kiss.

"Ba Ke Er, where did you find these two stones?"

"I saw them on my way back from hunting, thought they looked like the kind you described, and brought them back."

"Ba Ke Er, you did a great job!"

The materials have been found, and the millstone can now be made. Ba Ke Er took out a stone hammer and an ox horn, and began chiseling the stone with repeated force. After Ba Ke Er chiseled it alone for four or five days, finally, the first stone millstone on the Shouren Xingqiu came into being!