Chapter 71: The Fire Kang

  The next day, Xiao Hei was completely cured. When Mo Yi'er went to see him, he was happily chirping and chattering away, a carefree little kid.

  Mo Yi led the four men left by Chu Yan to dig yellow mud in front of a cave not far away, preparing to dry the brick embryo. The tools were very simple, just using stones with suitable shapes to dig, so the efficiency was not high. On the second day, when Mo Yi came to the pit he dug yesterday, he found that there was a rabbit inside, which seemed to have jumped for a night and was exhausted. The four walls of the big pit were traces, and now it was dying at the bottom of the pit.

  Mo Yu'er saw the situation and suddenly slapped her head: "I was so stupid, I actually forgot that I could dig traps to catch prey, what a convenient way!"

  "What's wrong? Mo Yier!" asked one of the men who stayed behind, Li Ke. They were still following closely behind Mo Yier and hadn't seen the roe deer in the pit yet.

  "Look." Mo Yier pointed to the pit, and the other three men also looked inside with Li Suo. Then they exclaimed excitedly: "It's a roe deer! Haha, no need to go hunting in the woods, the gods have sent us food, great!"

  Mo Yu'er heard the words and couldn't help but think that this foolish guy had fallen into a big hole by himself, how could he blame it on the gods? This god was also too easy to deceive!

  "Alright, let's get the wolf cub out and kill it." Mo Yier ordered, now the urgent task was still to make bricks.

  The men easily caught the exhausted rabbit and killed it, then continued to dig up the yellow soil. By noon, there was already a large pile of yellow soil. Mo Yi'er walked back into the cave and found Kaso, who had made six molds after two days of hard work, all of which were quite good in shape.

  "Alright, you few follow me to do it." Mo Yi'er said while using the water in the wooden bucket to mix mud, adding some sand and dry grass to the yellow earth mud and filling it into a mold. On the empty ground, many such mud blocks were made, and then let them air dry naturally. Next is to burn them dry and make them solid. Mo Yi'er had never touched these before, only saw bricks, roughly knew they were burned out, so started to grope little by little.

  In the cave, a small and simple kiln was built using stones and mud on the mountain body. The dried bricks were put into the kiln and burned with firewood. Several men took turns adding firewood day and night for two whole days and nights before Mo Yi finally stopped it. In fact, she also had some worries in her heart. If they failed, all their hard work over the past few days would be wasted.

  The kiln had been burning for two days, with a very high temperature. Mo Yi'er had the men pry open the opening to ventilate and avoid being scalded by the hot air, and everyone kept their distance. It wasn't until about half a day later that Mo Yi'er cautiously approached alone.

  Looking into the cave, it was pitch black and nothing could be seen. Mo Yier's heart had already felt a slight disappointment, she held a thick animal skin in her hand, then grabbed a brick and took it out, its dark green color was completely different from the red bricks of the 21st century, had she failed?

  "How are you, Mo Yu'er?" Li Ke had already walked over and asked with restraint.

  Mo Yu'er shook her head and didn't say a word, she just used the brick to test it. She exerted herself and smashed it onto the ground, all that could be heard was a "pa" sound, the dark green brick smashed out a small pit on the ground, without any damage at all. In other words, it was a success.

  "Haha, great!" Mo Yuer excitedly laughed out loud. The efforts she and her tribesmen made over the past few days hadn't been in vain after all!

  Others looked at Mo Yier and laughed, knowing they had succeeded, and everyone burst into joyful laughter. After the excitement, Li Suo asked Mo Yier, "What's next?"

  "We're going to build a kang in the cave, it can keep warm and cook food without smoke!" Mo Yier said, then squatted on the ground, the four men also sat around her with extremely shocked hearts, seriously looking at her writing and drawing on the ground with twigs.

  Mo Yu drew the outline of the earth bed, and then roughly drew out the internal shape. She pointed to a blank area and said: "This place needs to be cleared, used for ventilation, we will directly vent the smoke through this channel outside the cave. This is used to support stone pots and ceramic pots, and add firewood below. The place where we add firewood is called a stove... You can also express your own opinions..." Mo Yu said a lot, considering as she spoke, but she wasn't a professional, if other tribespeople had good ideas, she would be even happier.

  "Oh, can we do it this way..." Lí Kū quickly expressed his own thoughts. He was probably a bit older than Chǔ Huì, and he could accept new things quickly, with a relatively flexible mind, so Chǔ Huì had assigned him to Mò Yìer. Among the four men, Lí Kū was a small leader, and the others were all under his command.

  Li Ke was very interested in this fireplace and had his own insights, and several suggestions were adopted by Mo Yi'er. In the end, Li Ke was solely responsible for building the fireplace, while Mo Yi'er only proposed the initial idea.

  It didn't take long to discover that the rabbit's belly was getting bigger and bigger, and Mo Yi'er became more and more certain that it was going to give birth to little rabbits. To avoid harming the little rabbits when they were born, she separated the two adult rabbits and now only looked forward to the arrival of the little rabbits.

  The team led by Sang Zhen found less and less food, so Mo Yier simply told them not to go anymore, which was just a waste of effort. As the weather got colder, they needed to make winter clothes made of animal hides. This time, everyone's animal hide coats used thicker animal hides, and the style was based on 21st-century pajamas, with an animal hide belt tied at the waist, and the previous animal hide shirts and pants could be worn inside.

  At this time, the first kang built by Lirong and four men was also completed. The kang was built on the west side of the cave, about 2.3 meters wide and 10 meters long. There was a large stove in the kang, and to maintain the temperature, four small stoves were added in the middle, so that the heat could be evenly distributed. These were all thought of by Lirong, but it was very troublesome to build, so it took many days to complete.

  That night, they started the fire experiment, and the effect was unexpectedly good. The smoke path was also perfectly built, and there was no smoke in the cave at all. Mo Yier couldn't help but praise: "Lizong, you're really amazing."

  Li Qi rubbed his head and chuckled: "Mo Yier, your idea is still good."

  "Haha, if it weren't for you guys, this kang wouldn't have been built. Once the yellow mud on top is dry, the women and old people can sleep first." Mo Yier said, hoping that after everything was done smoothly, she could have a separate space to sleep.

  The first night the stove was finished, a rabbit gave birth to 9 little rabbits, what a big harvest! Mo Yi Er was so excited when she went to feed them the next morning that she couldn't contain herself.