Chapter 37 – Sticky Mud?
After discussing with everyone, they finally decided to choose the place to set up the tent in the middle of the basin. The terrain there is gentler than that at the foot of the mountain, and the growing weeds did not have so many thorns so it was easier to clean up than other places.
There is also a small stream that flows down from the mountain behind, which just flows through that area before finally merging into the river at the foot of the mountain so that they won’t need to go to the river to fetch water and grab land with staghorn horses. That stream is enough for them to use.
After deciding on the place, the group stopped staying by the river, packed up their things, and followed Hei Fu to the chosen place.
Even if they have some more animal skins during this period, it is not enough for everyone to build animal skin tents. They already have experience in building haylofts on the high slopes that sheltered them from the rain. There are all kinds of weeds and trees nearby so building a hayloft is much simpler than an animal hide tent.
Before the day went dark, a dozen huts appeared near the creek. Although the surrounding weeds hadn’t been cleaned up yet, at least everyone had a place to rest.
Luo Zhen’s thatched shed is next to Jiao Zhu’s family and in order to save firewood, they share a fire. The fire can drive away some timid beasts at night. Their settlement has just been built and there is not enough defense, so the fire at night should be kept burning all night.
“What are you doing?” It’s not the first time Hei Ya saw Luo Zhen holding a wooden board and painting there so now that the other party is still working on the wooden board in a new place, he can’t help but ask.
A-Shui was using a bone knife to chop up the newly picked weed leaves and put them in a wooden bowl to feed the two cuckoo birds. He curiously put his head over, wanting to see what Luo Zhen was doing. Recently, he discovered that Luo Zhen’s things are very interesting and easy to use, such as bone knives, wooden bowls, and wooden dishes, and even various plants that he didn’t know could be edible before. The most important thing is that the things will become more delicious after Luo Zhen’s hands handle them.
A-Shui licked the corners of his lips. He was full of admiration for Luo Zhen now. As long as Luo Zhen got things that they didn’t understand at first, A-Shui would want to stick to Luo Zhen to see what the other party did.
The two cuckoo birds couldn’t wait for their food anymore. Looking at their empty wooden bowl, the quiet bird calls were like trying to draw all the animals on the other side of the mountain by calling out vigorously.
When Luo Zhen saw this, he took the bone knife from A-Shui’s hand amusedly, cut the weeds into scraps with a few sharp cuts, put them in a wooden bowl, and pushed them in front of the two cuckoo birds, and finally, their dish was filled with water and put aside.
The two cuckoo birds screamed with satisfaction at Luo Zhen, tilting their heads, flopping their wings to the wooden bowl, and pecking their heads.
“We’ve been raising it for so long but they haven’t even laid an egg.” A-Shui curled his lips and muttered.
Luo Zhen touched the other’s head, “We have been running around before, and we haven’t stopped. They probably haven’t had time to adapt to the new environment. After a while, they should be able to lay eggs.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
“Really?” A-Shui asked suspiciously.
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“House?” Hei Ya looked at the painting on the wooden board. This was the first time he saw paintings like this. Except for Da Wu, no one of them knew how to record. He just felt that the piece in front of him was so extraordinary, the planks were full of novelty.
“It’s something brighter and stronger than the animal hide tent you lived in before.”
“Then what is this kind of house made of? Is it also animal skins?”
Luo Zhen shook his head, “I plan to use wood to make it.”
All the cascades around here are mountains, and dense trees are growing on the mountains. It is most convenient to use local materials to build houses.
“But I don’t know whether this most common wooden dowel can support the whole house.” Although Luo Zhen only designed the most common single-room square house, he only needed to build using a few pieces of wood, but he considered that there may be snow here in winter. Luo Zhen wants to build a slightly sloping roof so that even if the snow is too heavy to clean up, the house will not collapse all at once.
However, Luo Zhen has not studied architecture after all. Even though he has seen all kinds of houses, his memory is good enough to tell the shape of the house in detail, but he has no idea how to build the internal structure of the house. If there is a strong adhesive like cement, novices like him should be able to build a frame that can barely shelter from the wind and rain, right?
For people who don’t have the concept of a plane surface, it’s hard to imagine the line drawn on a wooden board when it becomes three-dimensional. Even if Luo Zhen explained it to Hei Ya in detail, Hei Ya still has a little understanding. He understood that this kind of thing is stronger than an animal skin tent, and it can also make windows or something to make the room brighter, and you can make a house as big as you want, as long as you can make the house not collapse.
“Then let’s make this house.” Hei Ya rubbed his palms and looked eager to try. Now that they have come to their new residence, the warriors do not need to leave for as long as a month just to hunt in winter. Everyone can help build this house together, so when it snows in winter, they don’t need to worry that their tent will be crushed by the heavy snow every minute.
Everyone has someone they know that had been buried in the heavy snow in winter, now that he recalls such a thing, Hei Ya can’t help but shudder.
“Luo Zhen, Luo Zhen.” The two were talking, and Lu Zhan’s voice came from afar. After setting up the tent, Lu Zhan said that he was going to chop two firewood and come back as fuel. Along the way, he picked a little salty fruit and came back and he took a few warriors and set off. He didn’t expect them to be gone for most of the day, now that the sky was completely dark, Luo Zhen saw them coming back.
Lu Zhan was still carrying a person behind him, and that person was carrying a prey with him. This combination was a bit nondescript, and the two fighters who followed Lu Zhan looked a little anxious.
“What’s wrong?” Luo Zhen stood up and looked at a few people suspiciously.
The surrounding straw sheds have only one roof, and all sides are ventilated, Lu Zhan shouted so, everyone saw them coming back, the edge of the sheds is a bit far away but the people who live there are still there. He drew them in together, wanting to see what the warriors brought back.
Lu Zhan put the person on his back down, and Luo Zhen could see that the person was actually Jiao Zhu. The expression of Jiao Zhu was not very good and when Lu Zhan put the opponent down, he saw the prey behind Jiao Zhu as Jiao Zhu hissed in pain.
Hei Ya hurriedly walked over when he saw this. Before he could ask, Hei Fu, who was coming back with him, stepped forward and stopped him, “Don’t touch him for now.”
Hei Fu’s tone was probably too solemn, and Hei Ya’s heart swelled a bit, he was so anxious that his injured leg was aching, and A-Shui stepped forward and took his father’s hand and called to Jiao Zhu in worry.
“Don’t worry, it’s okay.” Lu Zhan didn’t forget to comfort them. Then he stepped forward and pulled Luo Zhen over, pointed at the back of Jiao Zhu, and said, “Take a look at Jiao Zhu quickly, he is sticking to this prey. We could not separate them and had to carry him back like this, do you have a way to separate them?”
“Sticky mud?”
How could the prey stick to the human?
Lu Zhan hurriedly told what had happened before Luo Zhen understood what was going on.
It turns out that when they were picking salted fruits, Jiao Zhu saw a hog deer, because the hog deer was too close to Jiao Zhu, and the distance was long enough for him to catch the prey, so he took the shot without thinking too much.
Who knows that the hog deer was also quick to react, and with a kick of its hoof, it stubbornly avoided the capture of Jiao Zhu. Originally, Jiao Zhu thought that if the hog deer escaped too far, he would give up. As a result, the idea was not there yet. After a while, the hog deer slid into a pit under its feet, and Jiao Zhu walked over and found that it was a muddy ash. The hog deer who wanted to escape was struggling in the pit but it was sinking deeper and deeper.
Jiao Zhu was delighted, isn’t this the prey being delivered to his door? So he got the hog deer up from the pit, directly choked it, and did not dislike the dirty silt on the hog deer, threw it on his back, carried it, and went back to find his companion.
At first, Jiao Zhu did not realize that anything was abnormal, but as time passed, the silt on the hog deer slowly began to dry up, and Jiao Zhu felt that the skin that was in contact with the prey became more and more stiff. At this time, he wanted to take the hog deer off his back but he realized that it was too late, and the hog deer had already stuck to his back.
Others wanted to help him get the prey down, but no matter how they pulled it, the prey seemed to grow on Jiao Zhu. They almost tore off the skin of Jiao Zhu and they still couldn’t get the prey half off.
Lu Zhan thought that Luo Zhen always had a lot of novel ideas, so he hurriedly came back to Luo Zhen with Jiao Zhu on his back.
Hei Ya listened to the whole process and saw that the skin on Jiao Zhu’s back had been slightly torn, and the part that was in contact with the hog deer had been stained with blood. With a twitch of his heart, he turned his head and looked at Luo Zhen eagerly. “Luo Zhen, do you have a way to get that prey off A-Zhu?”
Luo Zhen rubbed his eyebrows under pressure. He is not a doctor. How could he know how to get the prey down? However, he also knew that there was no Da Wu among them and Hei Ya had seen himself use a big thistle to stop Lu Zhan from bleeding, and he would naturally think of asking him for help first.
“Let me take a look first.”
Everyone quickly gave way to Luo Zhen, and Lu Zhan brought Jiao Zhu closer so that Luo Zhen could see more clearly.
The mud that sticks the prey and Jiao Zhu together is completely dry and grayish-white, and it feels a bit cool to the touch. It felt a bit like a hardened stone.
Most of the hog deer’s body is covered by this dry gray-white mud. If they want to separate Jiao Zhu from the prey without injury, it is best to dissolve the mud first and then slowly separate them.
Thinking of his previous experience his fingers were stuck with glue. Now there is nothing that can quickly remove the stickiness, but there is a way to try first if it works.
“Go back and get a big tree stump that can hold a person, and empty it out. Let’s soak him in hot water to see if we can soften the mud on his body.”
Lu Zhan had gotten a big tree stump back as a container for water before. He knew this thing well, and when he heard that he stuffed the torch into Hei Fu’s hand, he rushed to find what Lu Zhan needed.
Others followed Luo Zhen’s instructions to clean all the stone pots, fill them with water and burn them on the fire, and prepare hot water to fill the big wooden stump.
Luo Zhen asked Hei Fu to help, using a bone knife to cut off the hog deer’s fur, trying to leave only the part that meets the skin of Jiao Zhu, so that Jiao Zhu can be soaked in hot water.
Looking at the separated hog deer with half of its fur, Luo Zhen cleaned it with a bone knife and then pulled it hard. The parts covered by the dried off-white mud couldn’t even leave a mark on the bone knife.
Thinking of the house design draft that was still in the sketch state, Luo Zhen’s eyes lit up, wondering if such a sticky mud could be used as an adhesive for building houses.
If this kind of thing can be used, then he doesn’t need to just tie the wood together when building the house, at least he can use sand and stone to make a stronger wall.
Uch it s good that they have found white mud but it s so sorry to read about sticking animal to his back😓
I can’t imagine what they look like attached like that. It’s kinda funny even though it’s a serious situation 🤣