I am a Primitive Man
Chapter 232 – The adobe kiln that nurtures treasure
Recently, Han Cheng built an adobe kiln to burn charcoal using a simple mud method similar to the one used for making pottery in the beginning. However, instead of scraping it off every time, which was too troublesome, he slightly modified the mud method.
He started by making a hollow cylinder on the ground using well-prepared mud. At the bottom of the cylinder, twelve evenly spaced fire vents were left. When burning charcoal, they place vertically broken or smashed wood inside the cylinder. Then, they would use mud to form a conical top, similar to the last time.
When it was time to open the kiln, they would need to break open the conical top without touching the cylinder below, which could be reused. This significantly reduced the workload and improved efficiency.
Han Cheng and Hei Wa also neatly arranged the firewood they had brought inside the cylinder.
“Divine Child, why arrange it like this?” Hei Wa, seeing Han Cheng placing the thickest firewood in the middle of the cylinder, asked, somewhat puzzled.
Due to the previous method of igniting from the edge of the cylinder, to minimize the situation where the wood on the edges had turned into ashes while the wood inside had not burned yet, after some thinking, Han Cheng placed the thickest firewood on the edges.
This method proved to be somewhat effective. So when Hei Wa saw Han Cheng doing the opposite of what he usually did, he couldn’t help but speak up.
Han Cheng explained his idea of igniting the fire from the top to Hei Wa.
Hei Wa was quite puzzled as he had never heard of igniting a fire from the top before. Wanting to ask Han Cheng for the reasoning behind it, but seeing that Han Cheng didn’t want to discuss it further, he stopped asking and followed Han Cheng’s instructions to arrange the firewood.
Han Cheng naturally wouldn’t delve into details with Hei Wa. After all, he couldn’t tell him that it was his impulsive decision, right?
As it was getting cold, the well-prepared mud needed to be applied quickly, or it would freeze after a while.
Han Cheng and Hei Wa quickly applied the icy mud to the cylinder and then eagerly warmed their frozen hands in a nearby hot pottery basin, feeling relieved once they felt warmth returning to their hands.
As someone with dreams, Han Cheng was always spirited and passionate when doing things.
Not long after Han Cheng dried his hands by the fire, and while most of the kiln hadn’t burned yet, the Eldest Senior Brother and others had returned from afar.
Among the crowd, Third Senior Brother carried a freshly cut mulberry tree on his left shoulder. Some unnecessary branches had been removed from the mulberry tree, but instead of being discarded, they were bundled together and brought back.
Bringing back a mulberry tree as thick as a bowl rim directly, Third Senior Brother certainly didn’t have the strength for that; he wasn’t Lu Zhishen, after all.
When it’s said to carry, it’s just carrying the thick end of the tree trunk on the shoulder while the rest is dragged on the ground. This way, it saves a lot of effort.
Although Han Cheng was eager to ignite from the top to burn charcoal this time, he didn’t hold too much hope for the result.
Human thoughts are sometimes strange and complicated. It’s like coming in high spirits but leaving disappointed.
Therefore, after seeing the Third Senior Brother carrying the mulberry tree back and looking at the kiln that still needed some time to seal after instructing Hei Wa, Han Cheng happily became a bystander and went to make bows and arrows using mulberry wood.
The best wood for making bows and arrows is purple cedar, reportedly because of its unique hardness, which naturally produces the effect of a composite bow.
Han Cheng hadn’t seen purple cedar, but the next best thing, mulberry trees, were not in short supply.
This time, the bow Han Cheng was going to make wasn’t the simple kind made by bending a branch but rather, he planned to use the image of bows he had seen in movies and TV shows, making a bow body out of a mulberry tree trunk.
Because the trunk of the mulberry tree was wide enough, as long as there were no human errors, the bow body made from it wouldn’t be like the one made in the morning from a stick with uneven thickness on both ends, causing the apex of the bent bow to not be in the middle, thus affecting shooting accuracy.
Han Cheng measured out a length of 1.2 meters with a ruler, made a mark, and then asked Lame to cut it off from there using a stone axe.
A freshly cut tree was easier to cut with a stone axe.
While Han Cheng and the others were doing this, Hei Wa had begun to block the hole left under the mud kiln.
They could already see the firelight from these lower holes, which meant the flames had reached this point.
At this point, they needed to block the ventilation holes. Otherwise, after a while, the firewood inside would be wholly burned.
Although they had failed many times before when burning charcoal, Han Cheng and Hei Wa had also gained much experience from this series of failures.
With Divine Child gone, Hei Wa naturally cared for the charcoal kiln. After blocking all the ventilation holes around, he directly sealed the top of the conical kiln with mud, without, as in the past, taking a look inside before sealing it, taking advantage of the diminishing fire.
Therefore, they didn’t notice that the wood at the ignition point this time didn’t turn into ashes like before after the wood elsewhere had burned, but remained glowing red, still retaining its previous shape.
Hei Wa loved firing kilns, but it depended on what was inside.
If it was pottery inside, he could stay up all night without sleeping, but it was a different story if it was firewood.
He also wanted to see the bows and arrows made by Divine Child again. Because in the past two years, he had primarily dealt with clay and pottery and wasn’t very skilled in throwing. He liked the bows made by Divine Child, which could shoot arrows far away just by releasing the string.
He felt that such things were just right for him to use, even though, in the morning, his arrows were far from hitting the target…
The neglected adobe kiln was not even emitting smoke, quietly staying there, nurturing its treasures.
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