Chapter 81.2
Face-Slapping the genius from another world (7.2)
Editor: chestnuwhale
Yan He looked at the pointy things and still felt that he didn’t understand, but he believed in Zhou Xu. He left some warriors to a.s.sist Zhou Xu while he rapidly headed back. One hour later, he brought back 300 warriors.
Upon his command, the warriors began to farm for the first time. Though it was clumsy and extraordinarily slow, no one would die doing this kind of work.
Thirty people collected all the wild wheat rapidly. In the afternoon of the next day, these people were once again called upon by Zhou Xu to thresh wheat.
Before threshing the wheat, Zhou Xu met He Xiao again. Zhou Xu also met with the Lingshan clan’s leader. He took the leader’s pulse and discovered the reason for his illness. It was mostly due to a lack of nutrition, which had caused his bodily functions to deteriorate and made him feel lightheaded.
Perfect, Zhou Xu thought, this kind of medicine, perhaps he could make more of it in the future.
From then on, Zhou Xu met with He Xiao once a week. Each time, he would bring her some pills and food. At the same time, Zhou Xu also made lots of inquiries regarding the Hexi clan, discovering in the process that Ruan Shijin had already sought shelter there.
Zhou Xu didn’t care about Ruan Shijin at all. He wasn’t in the mood to bother with someone who had already left the clan. What he thought at the moment was that they didn’t have a machine for threshing wheat. Zhou Xu could only ask the warriors to smash the wheat ears with rods, and then call the women of the clan to rub the wheat whose ears had not been completely collected so that the wheat would all come down.
It took them three days to finish such little work.
However, looking at the two big sacks of wheat, Zhou Xu felt it was worth it.
From the two sacks of wheat, Zhou Xu took one to improve the wheat seeds, and for the other one, Zhou Xu called the people responsible for making food in the clan to teach them how to wash wheat and how to dry it. Then, Zhou Xu also taught them how to transform the wheat into a dish.
Being able to eat a whole meal composed of wheat for the first time, Zhou Xu felt moved. It had been too long since he’d eaten anything other than meat.
However, because the wheat had not been domesticated, the quant.i.ty of flour that could be produced was average, meaning, the skin of this kind of wheat was too thick. The improvement that Zhou Xu wanted was one that would make the skin of the wheat thinner and at the same time have more flour inside.
After the meal, Zhou Xu asked for the opinions of the other clansmen. Most of the clansmen still liked it, and even if some of them didn’t, it was because of the thick skin of the wheat. But as for the taste, none of them said they hated it.
After he understood this point, Zhou Xu also felt relieved. He was afraid that because the clansmen had been eating meat for a long time, they would not be used to it.
Zhou Xu’s wheat improvement was finished rapidly. After half a month, Zhou Xu called people to set up farmland of about ten mu.
In fact, the process of setting up farmland was very arduous. Ten mu of land could be considered neither small nor large.
First, the warriors dug a ditch at the edge of the ten mu of land. Then, Zhou Xu burned all the gra.s.s and trees on the ten mu land. Finally, Zhou Xu asked all the warriors to plow the farmland together.
The important point was that at the time, they didn’t have any decent farming tools, so this work inbetween was exhausting, even for warriors.
This world’s iron smithing skill had started to develop, but the farming season couldn’t wait. If this period of time pa.s.sed, Zhou Xu was afraid that they wouldn’t have enough time left in autumn to harvest.
Despite the fact this world’s winter was really short, it was too cold. The temperature would, at times, drop to around -30°C. The crops had basically no way of getting through the winter. So even if Zhou Xu could get the farming tools he needed, he would still have to wait until he had finished planting all of these crops.
The whole ten mu of land had been fully planted with wheat. Next to it, Zhou Xu had the warriors open up another field of around two mu, as well as a plot of around one mu. In the two mu plot, they planted corn and in the one mu plot, they planted the soybeans that Ruan Shijin was previously going to plant.
When he had finished planting all of them, Wei Xin’s two disciples finally finished the slurry for building houses.
Zhou Xu went to inspect the situation. He found out that not only did the two disciples add the gra.s.s inside, but they also put something in between, which was sand.
It had pa.s.sed their experimental trials, and would not break down in any type of wind or rain. It was almost like the cement of the modern world.
Zhou Xu was very satisfied. He let them start building the first house. No matter how many stones were needed, Zhou Xu would find them.
After that day, the warriors began their daily journey up the mountain in search of rocks.
During their break, the warriors would ridicule the fact that they were no longer warriors, but laborers instead, for the newly appointed leader. But all ridicule aside, they knew that Zhou Xu was doing this for the good of the clan.
n.o.body was blind. How st.u.r.dy that newly built house was, they obviously knew. That was also the reason why they were trying so hard to find the stones.
On one side, Zhou Xu was awfully busy, and on the other side, Ruan Shijin also started to get really busy as he already gained the trust of Hexi clan’s leader and became his most capable a.s.sistant.
It had to be said, Ruan Shijin was very good at gaining people’s trust. However, since he didn’t really know anything about agriculture, he discovered that sixty percent of the soybeans he planted hadn’t sprouted.
He Xiao only watched. Even though she was very clear on what caused Ruan Shijin’s problem, she didn’t say anything. She hated the Hexi clansmen and she hated Ruan Shijin even more for betraying his own clan and for his action of running away to become the hero of another clan.
In fact, Ruan Shijin was wrong only on one point: when he set up the farmland, he did not plow it.
After the seeds were scattered, a heavy rain came, the soil was moist and the seeds were about to germinate. However, because the ground was too hard, the seeds couldn’t break out of the ground at all, which was why farmers had to plow the field before planting.
However, despite all this, half of the soybeans Ruan Shijin planted sprouted, so he didn’t feel too embarra.s.sed.
Not long after the soybeans had been planted, the Hexi clan finally finished preparing the “ransom fee”.
The people they wanted to redeem were the warriors of the Hexi tribe. The last time they fought with the Hedong tribe, they were defeated, so they had to compensate. In the end, because they didn’t have enough, they had to let a hundred warriors in the hands of the Hedong tribe.
The warriors went back. However, when they returned, they found out that the food they ate when they were captives were unexpectedly better than the food they ate in their own clan. After returning, they couldn’t even get enough to eat.
The returning warriors were very depressed. They went home and told their families about the huge difference between the two clans. The warriors’ families also felt depressed because they had even less to eat than the warriors.
Food had always been a big problem for their clan, and their land had always been relatively barren. There weren’t many animals in the forest, so when they came back from hunting in groups, the catch was always only enough for two to three days, but every time they went to hunt, lots of warriors would die.
When Ruan Shijin came, he taught the warriors how to set traps and how to catch the most difficult birds. The clan had already made some progress, but it was still not enough, not by a long shot.
Ruan Shijin also knew. Not long after he joined the Hexi clan, he found out about the current situation of their clan. Thus, he very actively helped them change. However, because he was too inexperienced, he could never find the locations of the beasts, and many traps became useless.
However, one thing he had discovered after arriving here was that the sea here was actually very abundant, and completely different from the sea on the Hedong clan’s side.
He had taught the Hedong clan how to sun dry things in salt, and after coming here, he had also taught the Hexi clan how to do it. After he went to the seash.o.r.e, he found out the secret of the sea here.
But for some reason, the people of this world had a fear of the sea. They thought that the sea was vicious and would devour people’s lives. But looking at those sh.e.l.ls on the cliffs by the sea, Ruan Shijin still decided to give it a try.
Ruan Shijin knew how to swim, so when no one was looking, he sneaked to the coast.
The seawater temperature was very suitable. He softly jumped in. After he jumped in, he realized the sea in this world was not only abundant but was basically an immense farm.
After going ash.o.r.e, Ruan Shijin caught quite a few things, including abalones, octopus, and even a large lobster.
Putting these things into a sack, Ruan Shi went in to find the Hexi clan’s leader.
The leader of the Hexi clan was very shocked. Ruan Shijin told him that he had gotten all of these from the sea. And the original shock of the leader immediately turned into anger. He even threw Ruan Shijin out of his house.
Ruan Shijin didn’t understand. He Xiao just happened to pa.s.s by, she coldly looked at Ruan Shijin and said, “The sea G.o.d is malicious, so all the things in the sea are the same. You took all these evil things to look for the leader, it’s already considered good that he didn’t kill you.”
Looking at He Xiao, Ruan Shijin was a bit confused. This was obviously his first meeting with this woman, so why was this woman speaking to him with such a peculiar tone?
“Who are you?”
“Just a pa.s.serby.”
After she finished talking, He Xiao left. Ruan Shijin was very concerned about He Xiao, because he still thought that the look in He Xiao’s eyes was abnormal.
Softly sighing, Ruan Shijin decided to secretly go to the Hedong clan to take a look. Or at least learn how they set traps, because they could easily obtain a lot of food.
Thinking so, Ruan Shijin went on his way. He dirtied his face so that even if he was caught, he would not be recognized.
After walking for more than three hours, Ruan Shijin finally reached the territory of the Hedong clan.
Ruan Shijian knew that this forest was the place where the Hedong clan obtained the most food, and the design of their traps were very good. As long as prey went in, they would never be able to escape. Besides, the bait they used was also different from Hedong clan’s.
In the past, Ruan Shijin hadn’t cared about this kind of thing at all, because he was never willing to go hunting. He wanted to be a commander. Now, he cared but he already left the clan.
Ruan Shijin then searched for a long time. Unexpectedly, he didn’t find any trap. He was a little bit doubtful, could it be that the people from the Hedong clan had not hunted for a long time?
He also discovered that he seldom saw stones in this place. He remembered that there had been a lot of stones in this part of the forest, how had they disappeared?
Continuing to walk forward, Ruan Shijin still didn’t find anything, but standing there, he could see Hedong clan’s village.
However, why was the village different from before?
The village in the past was all composed of small gra.s.s huts. Now, the houses in the back of the village didn’t appear to be gra.s.s huts.
This time, Ruan Shijin was really startled. Had the Hedong clan actually built stone houses? But how had they solved the issue of cement? They didn’t build it purely from soil, did they? If so, a heavy rain would surely destroy the house.
Really curious. Ruan Shijin decided to go a little further to see what the people of the Hedong clan did. However, after a few steps, he saw a thin figure and suddenly, he slipped and fell into a trap.
Lifting his head, Ruan Shijin saw that at the entrance of the hole he fell into stood someone. It was He Xiao.
T/N : Only 3 chapters left from the end of the arc ~ Why are there so many agricultural contents in this arc X.X I don’t even know the words in French…