I am a Primitive Man
Chapter 150 – No More Stones
Han Cheng touched the warm bed with a delighted expression, while Shaman, feeling the warmth, shook his head repeatedly.
“How can you sleep on this? Even now, without moving, I’m sweating. If I sleep on this, I’ll probably spend the whole night restless. I’d rather sleep on my hay pile.”
To avoid dampening the mood of the Divine Child, Shaman chose not to voice these complaints.
He didn’t say it, and Han Cheng naturally wouldn’t know that Shaman, who was usually quite wise, had moments of confusion like this.
Dry kindling meeting a fierce fire would erupt into passionate flames, but there would be ashes all around after the passion.
Han Cheng couldn’t bear to throw away these ashes and swept them into a corner of the room, preserving them.
These ashes, now, were extremely important in the Green Sparrow Tribe.
They could be used to scrub the greasy utensils after drinking meat soup and fertilize fields.
After Han Cheng remembered that water soaked with ashes could be used to tan fur, the previously neglected ashes gained significant importance in the Green Sparrow Tribe.
These ashes were accumulated, soaked in water, combined with the deer and rabbit dung pile outside the courtyard wall, and then applied to fertilize the fields when right.
Outside, the sky was gloomy. The newly constructed houses, not yet fitted with doors and windows, were much brighter inside than the caves. Looking at the spacious and clean houses, everyone in the Green Sparrow Tribe felt genuine joy.
The Divine Child was right; these newly built houses were much better than the deer pens, but the sleeping area was too hot.
Following the Divine Child’s instructions, the Elder Senior Brother and the others sealed the roof’s edges, and the construction of the second house in the Green Sparrow Tribe began.
This time, the specifications for building the house were different from the first one.
It wasn’t about the length and width; the second connected house had twelve rooms.
Twelve rooms lined up together would look spectacular when completed.
Han Cheng didn’t design the second house to be spectacular; connecting them like this was simply more labor and material-efficient.
The initial three-room house required the construction of four mountain walls, and according to the specifications of three rooms per house, building twelve would require sixteen walls.
However, by connecting twelve rooms, only thirteen walls would be needed.
For the people of the Green Sparrow Tribe, who had already built one house, digging foundations had become a familiar task, making the process relatively fast.
Learning from the previous experience where construction had to stop due to a lack of stones right after digging the foundation, Han Cheng didn’t let everyone dig the foundation. Instead, he assigned some people to search for stones and transport them into the tribe.
Due to the rain, the artificial ditches dug around the Green Sparrow Tribe’s walls had accumulated about twenty to thirty centimeters of water.
This water was somewhat troublesome, affecting the subsequent excavation of soil and even the transportation of stones into the tribe.
After some contemplation, Han Cheng set up a makeshift wooden bridge with four tree trunks supported by logs over the ditch’s northern end. Through this simple bridge, people carrying stones from the northern slope could directly reach the western side of the courtyard wall without having to throw stones across the ditch as before.
In the Green Sparrow Tribe, while busy building houses, another troublesome matter quietly descended.
“Stone, no more.”
Shang, transporting stones, put down his empty load and approached the wild chicken coop, peeking beside the Divine Child spying on the chickens with his clothes off, to report this frustrating news.
Shang’s expression was somewhat disheartened. A few days ago, he had accompanied the Divine Child around the tribe and knew there were many scattered stones around where they had previously transported them. In other places, there were only a few scattered pieces; the rest were those immovable giant rocks.
Like everyone else in the Green Sparrow Tribe, Shang loved the three houses already built. He wanted to work together with others to build more houses so that everyone in the tribe could live in spacious and bright homes.
It was precisely because of this that he felt so disheartened upon discovering the shortage of stones. Yes, the greater the expectation for something, the greater the disappointment when things worsen.
Han Cheng withdrew his gaze from the chicken coop, looked at the disheartened Shang, and said with a smile, “Don’t worry, I have a solution.”
“Really?”
Shang suddenly became excited, widening his eyes and looking at Han Cheng with a face full of joy.
Of course, he was thrilled. He had a clear idea of how many stones could be transported around the tribe, and unlike other things, moving stones could only be done through sheer strength.
Shang didn’t believe that the usually wise Divine Child could solve the stone problem. He came to inquire because the Divine Child had created too many miracles, and deep down, he had a slight expectation, hoping that the Divine Child could find a solution to the stone issue and lead the tribe out of this predicament.
However, this hope was too weak, and even he thought it was impossible.
In this situation, he learned unbelievable information from the Divine Child, which excited him. Han Cheng asked the joyful Shang to fetch two pottery jars used for carrying water from the tribe and carry them with a load. They walked out of the tribe gate together, heading towards the place where the Green Sparrow Tribe often collected stones.
At the same time, they called the others responsible for stone collection to join them. They were instructed to gather some dry branches from the fallen trees on the way.
Meanwhile, Shang fetched two jars of water from the ditch on the west side.
Fetching water from here was much closer than carrying water from the small river.
Everyone followed the instructions, dragging firewood and carrying water, feeling an indescribable excitement as they followed the Divine Child, who was carrying half-broken pottery jars of burning charcoal, towards the stone collection site, which was now devoid of small stones.
They wanted to see how the Divine Child would solve this seemingly unsolvable problem.
The stone collection site, not too far from the Green Sparrow Tribe, had many rocks exposed.
Unfortunately, these rocks were either too big to move or connected to the mountain. Under the current conditions, they were simply impossible to deal with.
Impossible to deal with.
Han Cheng repeated these words in his mind, then chose a rock about the size of three large oxen lying side by side, half more than a foot above the ground and the other half deeply embedded in the soil.
Using the charcoal and firewood brought along, he lit a fire under the suspended rock.
Fierce red flames soared, and the orange flames were blocked by the stone slab, spreading out in all directions. The heat wave followed, reverberating in all directions.
Shang stood with the others, watching the burning flames.
Under the continuous burning of the flames, the stone only turned slightly black, without any other changes.
He looked at the shaman, who seemed relaxed, suppressed his doubts, and, like everyone else, waited for the miracle to happen.