Oops, a little late to release the chapter today. Was bingeing on Boyce Avenue acoustic cover XD
List of characters :
帕特里 Patrik (Python) / 林沐 Lin Mu (Female)
科恩 Cohen (White tiger) / 拉尔 Lal (Centipede)
洛克 Locke (Horned lion) / 萨沙 Sasha (Female)
杰森 Jason (Black cobra) / 莱丝 Lais (Female)
罗伊德 Lloyd (???) / 菲尔 Phil (Female)
球球 Qiuqiu (pet?)
卡索 Casso (Winged wolf)
达蒙 Damon (??? / Casso’s father)
米莎 Misha (Female)
马特 Matt (Silver wolf / Misha’s father)
Ryan (Lion)
Howth (Golden winged lion)
Ba-Ao (Brown winged bear)
Please do not repost elsewhere and do not re-translate to other language from my English version.
Chapter 71 Pottery
Because Lin Mu is eager to realize his desire to turn grapes into wine, he grabbed Huang Yuan after the picnic and insisted that he must find suitable clay tomorrow. In Lin Mu’s opinion, if they are late in making the pottery, all the grapes might become spoiled. At that time, he will regret it to death!
And so, Huang Yuan with a task in hand, hurriedly ate breakfast the next day and followed Ryan out. Huang Yuan’s work was done very well, as it took less than a day to find the right clay. The next step is to get the strong beastmen to transport the clay back. And Patrik mobilized the people of the tribe very well. After letting them understand that pottery has a lot of benefits for them, everyone is very active in their work.
Looking at the piles of soil, Lin Mu who didn’t understand how to make pottery, approached Huang Yuan and asked him what to do next.
Lin Mu: “What can I do to help?”
Huang Yuan stretched out his hand and patted Lin Mu on the shoulder, “Brother, you can do a lot. Next, I will be teaching the beastmen how to make pottery greenware1. I hope those rough beastman can handle something like this.” After all, most beastman is bad at delicate works.
Lin Mu nodded, “Then when are you going to start?”
Huang Yuan looked up at the sun, “It’s almost noon now, let’s start later in the afternoon.”
Lin Mu nodded and agreed, thinking that Patrik had been busy all morning, Lin Mu started to think about what good food to cook for Patrik’s lunch
Huang Yuan saw Lin Mu’s expression that says ‘I’m thinking right now, don’t bother me’, so he stopped talking. Seeing that Ryan had returned with the soil, he went to see him instead.
Lin Mu glanced around the square, but he couldn’t help much, so he planned to go home and cook first. He tidied up all the emptied bamboo tubes, and put the ones that belong to him into the basket, and went home.
When Patrik came back, he saw the smoke in the kitchen and knew that Lin Mu is cooking. He went to the kitchen to help but was pushed out by Lin Mu.
“Go to the living room and sit and rest, I have prepared tea for you. Go, go, go.”
Patrik could only smile helplessly and went to the living room. It makes him feel happy that Lin Mu cared for him, but the work in the morning was not too tiring for him. Patrik sat in the living room while drinking Lin Mu’s tea. The special bitterness made Patrik unexpectedly like it. This is Tieguanyin tea that Lin Mu accidentally found. Patrik still remembers how excited Lin Mu was at that time, his excited red face is really cute.
Because there’s practically no entertainment in this world, Lin Mu is very determined in his mission to find new/good food. Therefore, it makes him happy to find any food that can improve the quality of life. Of course, Lin Mu classify tea under the food category.
As Lin Mu said, one has to taste the tea to enjoy it2, so when Patrik finished drinking a big bowl of tea, Lin Mu has just finished cooking all the dishes.
Patrik looked at the dishes on the table; today’s dishes are extremely rich.
After eating, they didn’t take a nap as usual but went straight to the square. Lin Mu brought his tea leaves with him, so he could boil a big pot of water on the square later for the others to drink the tea.
When Lin Mu arrived, Lais and the others were already there. That makes Lin Mu smiled. It seems that everyone is quite curious about making pottery. But he still didn’t see Matt, so Lin Mu couldn’t help but sigh. The pain in Matt’s heart made him wonder how to help each other. Lin Mu sighed helplessly. Everyone said that time is the best antidote for pain while some people say that the best way to forget a relationship is to start a new one, but it seems that both of the suggestions are not suitable for Matt.
Patrik saw that Lin Mu is a little depressed. When he saw his eyes seemed to be looking for someone, and thinking about what happened recently, Patrik knew what Lin Mu is thinking. He whispered some comforting words, “Don’t worry, it will be fine.”
Lin Mu smiled, “I hope so.”
Lin Mu walked to Huang Yuan as he talked about how to make ceramic greenware, and then everyone started this afternoon’s task – playing with mud.
The method of making pottery greenware is not difficult, but it is not easy to do it. This job is really not an easy task for a beastman like Patrik. They would put too much force and accidentally squeeze the mud into a distorted shape. In comparison, females are more suitable for this job, but there are too few females in this tribe. Looking at the piles of soil on the ground, how can the beastmen have the heart to let the females shape all the mud? So they keep shaping one after another and worked hard. Isn’t there a saying called ‘practice makes perfect’?
In just 1 afternoon, some people were quite fruitful with their effort. Lin Mu made 2 jars and 3 pots (En, it can also be regarded as beastman’s plates)3. As for Lais and the others, their results were similar to Lin Mu. It’s around 2 or 3 pieces each. Misha arrived a bit too late, so he only made a few mini bowls. Of course, Huang Yuan had the best result. For the beastmen, they only successfully shaped a clay jar at most. Moreover, the sizes were way larger than the females’ clay items, and they were a little distorted. Lin Mu couldn’t help thinking in his heart, will these things really come out fine?
Huang Yuan was very satisfied with the results because the group he taught before this was even more horrible. The beastman here has at least 1 finished product, while his previous tribe has none. After the pottery greenwares were made, they were taken to the woods to air dry in the shade. Huang Yuan also arranged other tasks regarding pottery, such as collecting firewood.
Because the females were very enthusiastic about making pottery, they didn’t go home for dinner but have a barbecue on the square. Since they have been busy all afternoon, they were quite famished. The moment they smell the scent of cooked meat, their stomachs start to rumble and Lin Mu also feels that the meat tastes special today. After they finished eating, the group sat for a while by the fire, until they got forcibly taken home by their respective beastman. Though the beastmen think that there is a lot of time left, and they supported the female’s wish to play more, it is not good for them to be too tired.
The next day, some people rushed to the square to make more pottery after breakfast. To Lin Mu’s surprise, Matt also came today, and it made Lin Mu feel very happy.
Because of yesterday’s experience, Patrik managed to produce one more smoothly today, but Patrik felt a little bit jealous to see Lin Mu feeling happy for the arrival of another beastman. Although he knew it’s reasonable for Lin Mu to feel happy but as a beastman and a partner, Patrik has the right to be jealous. Just that he can’t show it out, o(╯□╰)o.
Anyway, back to making pottery, in order to avoid confusion about which item is whose, everyone made their marking on their work.
…
After making pottery greenware for more than a week, the first batch that they left drying in the shade is ready and can be burned today! Due to their limited technology, they naturally cannot use kilns to burn pottery, so they use the oldest method to do it – fired in a pit. Well, this is what Huang Yuan explained to them, the method of burning pottery without a kiln.
To use this method, they need to lay appropriate firewood in a shallow pit on the ground, then place the sun-dried or dried pottery together. Next, surround the greenwares and the top with dry firewood. Before that, they need to apply a thin layer of yellow mud (about 1 cm) on the outside and leave small ventilation holes to avoid the fire from burning too fast. Then they light up the firewood and let it heat up naturally. It takes about 2 to 8 hours to burn the pottery. Because this pottery firing method cannot control the heating rate, especially when the surrounding firewood is burned and the pottery is directly exposed to the air, it can only be burned in a low-temperature (about 800 °C) oxidizing atmosphere, so the fired pottery will come out in red or brown color. Part of the pottery that comes in contact with the plant’s ashes will turn into gray pottery or black pottery due to smoke.
Lin Mu has never got the chance to get involved in this kind of expertise. The reason why Huang Yuan, who is studying medicine, managed to learn about this is because he learned it from the Yunnan minority – the Dai nationality when he went out to travel. At that time, he thought pottery was interesting, so he tried it. He didn’t expect that one day it could be used to benefit the people, en. . . beast people. Regardless, Huang Yuan is still very happy.
Because the quality of the greenwares they produced was not good, plus their pottery-making technology was immature, the success rate of their first pottery firing was very low. There were only 3 of Lin Mu’s almost ten-odd greenwares that could be used. The others were either broken or cracked. The successful ones actually have a little crack too. However, Lin Mu didn’t take it to heart because it’s still usable. What makes Lin Mu most pleased is that there is a fine pottery pot in his 3 finished products. Although the shape is not very beautiful, it is usable, so Lin Mu decided to get Patrik to pick some grapes for him later.
Even though the success rate is very low, it is still a success no matter what. Several people were very happy with their finished products. They originally doubted how things made of soil could hold water and that the water could be dirty. But Lin Mu demonstrated and showed them that the water remained clear inside the pottery, and it makes everyone really happy.
So, after Patrik announced the success of the pottery work, everyone cheered.
Raw word count : 2714
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