Ch78 – Pottery Shard
The Big Bear Tribe had really been short of people recently!
The earth eggs and barley planted in the fields needed to be carefully cultivated, but hunting couldn’t be abandoned either. Not to mention, the priest had also started messing around with pottery.
Not only did they have to dig mud for pottery, they also needed firewood. All these tasks required a lot of effort.
Originally, the Big Bear Tribe had thought that they had a lot of people. Now, they felt that… they didn’t quite have enough people to do all the work.
Because they were too busy, even Yang Su and Yang Ying who had previously always managed to find opportunities to slack off no longer had any chance to anymore.
When Xiong Ye saw them two days ago, he discovered that they were now a lot more tanned. They also no longer had time to always glare at him the way they used to.
That was great.
However, it was precisely because they were short on people that they definitely wouldn’t go fight the Giant Tiger Tribe.
The Giant Tiger Tribe had many more people than they did, and they were also very strong. If they went to fight against the Giant Tiger Tribe, it would be like sending themselves into the mouth of a Tyrannosaurus Rex!
The little monkey heard him, and his face filled with despair, making him look rather pitiful.
Xiong Ye added, “In order to live well in our tribe, you can’t keep hiding in your animal form doing nothing… Go help the priest with his work. Even if you can’t do heavy work, you can still do some miscellaneous things.”
This person was really very weak. He claimed to be twelve, but he was smaller than the ten year olds in their tribe. That was bad enough, but his strength was also very limited.
It was likely because of this that the priest had left him alone and hadn’t arranged any work for him.
However, Xiong Ye felt that he still needed to work. He had no parents to take care of him, but he was living in the tribe and eating the tribe’s food. He had to contribute somehow.
After talking to the child, Xiong Ye stood up and said to Zhou Ji, “Zhou Ji, I’m going to go dig for mud.”
Zhou Ji said, “Wait a moment.”
“Is there something else?” Xiong Ye asked.
Zhou Ji rose from the recliner, “Today is the first time we’re firing pottery. Help me bring the recliner over.”
He didn’t know much about firing pottery. After talking about briefly with the priest, he had let the priest go about everything on his own.
However now that the pottery was in the fire, he still needed to go and take a look.
Zhou Ji’s reclining chair was something that the priest had asked someone in the tribe who was good at carving to make. It was made out of a single large piece of wood. It was very solid and very heavy, and was usually moved around by Xiong Ye or some of the others.
Everyone felt that Zhou Ji wouldn’t be able to move it.
“Sit down, then.” Xiong Ye said.
Zhou Ji glanced at Xiong Ye, then sat down on the recliner so that Xiong Ye could move him and the chair to the place where the priest was about to start firing pottery.
It was quite chaotic there.
Some people were kneading mud and creating all kinds of strange things. There were others who had created rectangular bricks and set them aside. Next to the place where everything was being made, the priest had arranged for people to dig out a hole.
“Later, when we fire pottery, do we just place these things that were made out of mud into the fire and burn it?” The priest noticed Zhou Ji’s presence and immediately asked him, “Approximately how long do we burn it for?”
Zhou Ji didn’t know either.
He had only ever seen the technique of making pottery in history books and other random books, but he had never tried to memorize it. Later, after spending so many years in the apocalypse, he had completely forgotten it all.
“The Beast God doesn’t like people who don’t do things for themselves. We’ll have to figure it out on our own.” Zhou Ji said. He couldn’t tell these people how to do everything; it was better for them to find their own way.
Of course, he could give them a little help. For example, he could use his spiritual powers to observe the situation of the pottery in the fire from the side and provide them with some suggestions.
Those clay bricks were placed in the middle of the pit, then surrounded by a circle of stones. Outside of that was another circle of firewood.
“Do you guys think that it will be successful?”
.
“This fire pit… I think we can make one like this inside the collective cave. It must be very warm when the fire burns like this in winter.”
……
The flames were burning vigorously. Zhou Ji looked at the situation and felt that the pit hadn’t been dug properly.
If the pit had been dug down at an angle, it would have something of a cover, which would keep the area within the pit even hotter.
Now, if they wanted to keep this fire going strong, they had to keep adding firewood to it endlessly.
It was summer now, and the weather was extremely hot. Everyone was drenched in sweat from the heat emanating from the fire pit as they worked.
The priest was still keeping count, “Eighteen bundles of firewood have already been used. Now it’s nineteen…”
Zhou Ji didn’t concern himself over what the priest was thinking. Instead, he observed the situation inside the fire with his powers.
After the clay had been inside the fire for about two hours, the priest asked, “Zhou Ji, is the pottery ready?”
“No.” Zhou Ji said. The bricks were a little cracked. Some looked pretty good, but the clay in the middle hadn’t hardened into pottery yet.
Since it hadn’t been fired properly yet, it was necessary to keep the fire burning. The priest added even more firewood to the pit.
While the people of the Big Bear Tribe were all busy with their tasks, the people of the Giant Pig Tribe, who had free time since it wasn’t a hunting day, had also run over to be part of the excitement.
Zhu Zhan felt that this Big Bear Tribe was quite amusing.
The people of the Beast God Temple would busy themselves for an entire year to create just a few hundred pieces of pottery. It was said that the method of making pottery was very complex. This Big Bear Tribe… was too funny!
They casually brought out some mud, shaped it, and then placed it in a fire. Did they think that they could make pottery this way? How could that be!
According to the Beast God Temple, pottery was a treasure that the Beast God had given to the beastmen. How could it be made out of baked mud?
Nevertheless, pottery was really useful. If nothing else, a pottery bowl was already much better than a stone bowl and was even very light.
Of course, the average person would have no chance to use pottery in their life. Within their tribe, pottery was a status symbol. Some people would even wear broken pottery shards as jewelry.
“Didn’t the Beast God Temple say that pottery was made out of a special kind of stone? What are they doing, trying to make pottery out of mud?”
“How could pottery be made out of clay!”
“So much firewood was wasted just like this…”
The people of the Giant Pig Tribe looked at the scene in front of them and felt rather helpless.
Of course, what made them feel the most helpless was Zhou Ji.
At first, Zhou Ji had been rather close to the fire pit. Later on, he felt that it was too hot and moved away from the area, resettling under the shade of a tree in the distance.
Someone immediately came over to help him move his recliner as soon as he moved.
Later, Xiong Ye returned and was called over by Zhou Ji. He even managed to obtain some fruit from who knows where that the two of them ate together.
One of Zhu Zhan’s subordinates tsked twice, “This Zhou Ji is enjoying life a little too much, right? His quality of life is even better than the priest of our own tribe.” The priest of their tribe had to bustle about every day and work hard with both his body and mind. This Zhou Ji was different; they had already been in the Big Bear Tribe for a few days now, and every time they saw him, he was either making food, or lying down and resting, or going out for a walk outside, bringing back all sorts of flowers and grasses.
Yet even though that was the case, the people in the tribe still obeyed his words, Xiong Ye even more so than any of the others.
They had already learned that Xiong Ye was a low level Beast Warrior, and a powerful one amongst that rank. In a few years, he would most likely become a medium level Beast Warrior.
Such a powerful person actually allowed his life to revolve around Zhou Ji…
Zhu Zhan looked down on him a little.
However, at the end of the day, they were outsiders, and it wasn’t convenient for them to say anything…
Xiong Ye had no idea that his behavior had caused Zhu Zhan to disdain him.
At the moment, he had been pulled over by Zhou Ji to learn how to write.
Before, when Zhou Ji had had him solve math problems, he had already found it very difficult. Unexpectedly, he had now encountered something even harder!
These words… What exactly were these things?!
How could there be something this difficult in this world?!
Just regarding his own name… Why was the word ‘bear’ so hard to write? He found himself regretting that he had awakened as a bear, but the words for other animals were also very hard to write!
People’s names shouldn’t start with the word for their animal form. That way, he could be called ‘一一’!
In this primitive tribe, someone began to think like the people from Earth, and began to wish they had called themselves ‘一一’.
“Zhou Ji, why do we have to write words. I feel that it’s better to just draw a bear.” Xiong Ye complained.
Zhou Ji: “There are so many bears in the world. If you just draw a bear, how will someone know whether this bear is you or someone else from the tribe?”
That was true… Xiong Ye nodded.
“But if you write ‘Xiong Ye’, that will represent you.” Zhou Ji continued.
Xiong Ye nodded again, then said, “But… The priest often gives a person’s name to someone else in the tribe after they die… There was another Xiong Ye before me.”
Zhou Ji: “……” He really hadn’t known about this matter…
Zhou Ji tried again, “You can carve my name and your name together on the stone for future generations to see.” Teaching someone who had never been exposed to words how to write simplified Chinese characters was actually very difficult. Zhou Ji had never had any plans to do so at first.
However, since he and Xiong Ye would be together for the rest of their lives, they needed to find more stuff to do together.
Moreover, the meaning behind words was very important. Only with words could some knowledge and cultural information be passed on and inherited.
Of course, it wasn’t a big deal if it wasn’t passed on. He was very unlikely to be able to use an iron pot again in this lifetime. Since that was the case, what was the point in talking about culture…
Xiong Ye was very interested in Zhou Ji’s suggestion. How great would it be if he and Zhou Ji’s names were engraved in stone and passed on forever?
He suddenly had the motivation to learn to recognize and write words.
Zhou Ji slowly taught him how to write, and while he was writing, he casually made some clothes.
He had made clothing for Xiong Ye, but Xiong Ye didn’t wear it often. After all, those clothes would be scrapped as soon as he switched into his animal form.
In contrast, an animal hide skirt was much simpler. Only the tie would break when he changed into his animal form, so when he turned back into human form, he could pick it up and continue to wear it.
Zhou Ji was considering making him several skirts that were similar to Xiong Ye’s animal hide skirts for him to wear.
He didn’t know if the people here would develop in the same direction as they had on Earth. If that was the case… the people on the streets who were wearing suits would suddenly burst out of their clothing when they turned into their animal forms or something…
Zhou Ji suddenly rather wanted to see that scene.
Gradually, the sky turned dark.
Today hadn’t been a hunting day for the hunting team. As time went by, even the people who had gone out to collect firewood were making their way back… Everyone was gathered together next to the fire pit.
The priest even waved his hand and allowed everyone to eat directly next to the fire pit.
After the priest agreed, the people of the tribe borrowed some fire from the fire pit and began to roast earth eggs and reheat some smoked meat nearby.
Out of all these people, Zhou Ji and Xiong Ye were eating the best food.
Zhou Ji fried the chili peppers with oil again, then stir-fried the smoked meat slices along with a bean-type vegetable. It tasted very good when paired with roasted earth eggs.
And they didn’t only have that one dish.
Zhou Ji had sun dried some mushrooms before, and now he made mushroom soup with salted vegetables. In this era that didn’t have MSG, soup like this could be considered delicious beyond what words could describe.
The people of the Giant Pig Tribe could feel their eyes burning with envy as they looked on.
Although they looked down on Zhou Ji, they had to admit that the food that this person made was really good.
After glancing at the feast laid out in front of Zhou Ji, they continued to gnaw on their smoked meat and fill their stomachs with their earth eggs.
In fact, the food they had was already very delicious. Why did they now feel that the taste wasn’t good enough?
It wasn’t only the people of the Giant Pig Tribe who thought this way.
The people of the Big Bear Tribe were just as greedy.
At this time, Zhou Ji said, “The things inside the pit are basically done. There’s no need to add any more firewood.”
Zhou Ji had been observing the situation inside the pit with his spiritual strength and reminding people to add firewood from time to time.
Even so, the vast majority of bricks and pottery in the pit were still blackened and cracked.
However, for better or worse… they had still managed to create ‘pottery shards’?
Hearing Zhou Ji’s words, the people of the Giant Pig Tribe prepared to watch this farce play out in front of them.
How could pottery be made so easily? If the people of this tribe were really able to create pottery out of mud and fire, they would also join in and serve Zhou Ji in the future!
The people of the Giant Pig Tribe didn’t believe that the Big Bear Tribe could make pottery with tricks like these, but the people of the Big Bear Tribe believed in Zhou Ji.
“I wonder what pottery looks like…”
“When will that fire go out?”
“I must see this pottery thing before I go to sleep tonight!”
……
The fire in the pit slowly burnt out as no more firewood was added.
About seven hours after they had begun the fire, the priest had people stamp out the still burning embers from the pit, and everyone finally saw the things piled up in the middle.
One of the stones that made up the ‘kiln’ had fallen down, and the pottery things inside couldn’t be seen clearly because it was already dark.
They had to wait another hour or so for it to cool down before someone turned into their animal form and went down into the pit to get to the things inside and bring them out.
Many of the bricks were cracked. Some were red, some were black, and they looked strange. There were some other stones that looked like… they had become pottery from the outside.
As for the dishes and pottery that Zhou Ji had told them to make that they had placed in the middle, most of them were shattered.
“It’s all broken.” The priest was a little downcast, but he then said, “This piece of pottery shard is very beautiful, I want to decorate my cave with it!”
“There really isn’t a single usable piece.” Zhou Ji found a plate that was barely intact out of the pile of things, then discovered that there were still some structural problems with the plate. It would likely break if it was used.
Zhou Ji was lamenting, but Zhu Zhan and the others were completely dumbfounded, “You guys… actually made pottery!”