She stood up and surveyed the terrain, then glanced at everyone. "Take the bamboo tubes I told you to bring and go to the river to fetch some water. I'll need it later."

The eight people responded and left.

Qiao Yu chose a tree, quickly made a wooden shovel, and started digging the soil.

She was strong and efficient. By the time eight men came back from the river to fetch water, she had already dug a pit two or three meters square and pulled out a large pile of soil.

"Everyone follow my lead."

Qiao Yu dug some soil out in front of her and began to mix it with mud. When it was soft and hard enough, she molded it into a bowl shape.

To make pottery, a turntable is essential. I'll have Shi polish the turntable out of stone later. Right now, everything is still in the experimental stage, so let's make do with it for now.

The eight women imitated Qiao Yu and made eight strange-shaped things.

Qiao Yu took a look and found that Xiaoxi was the most dexterous. The bowls she made were the best and roundest, and the thickness was consistent.

"It should be made like this." She pointed at Xiaoxi's bowl and said, "Xiaoxi, put the finished product on the stone to dry."

She pointed at the others and said, "Yours is uneven in thickness. It will crack easily when fired. It's unqualified. Try again."

The others had to do it again.

Qiao Yu watched for a while, then picked four people with skillful hands to stay and make bowls. She also gave Xiaoxi some instructions, and then she took Ye and the other four back to the vicinity of the tribe to prepare to build a kiln.

She is particularly interested in space construction, otherwise she would not have chosen civil engineering as her major in her previous life.

Although she didn't pursue building after graduating from university, her passion is the best teacher. With both money and free time, she traveled the world, and wherever she went, she was always interested in exploring the unique architecture of each location, whether it was a variety of buildings, fortresses, or small structures like kilns and kangs. As long as it had anything to do with civil engineering and spatial fabrication, she would take a look and understand the underlying principles.

So even though she had never fired a kiln herself in her previous life, she still knew the structural principles of pottery kilns and porcelain kilns.

Conditions were rudimentary, and she was aiming to create top-tier pottery. Excessive refinement would only lead to trouble and hinder advancement and the harvest of wealth. Therefore, the kiln didn't need to be overly elaborate. She only needed to cover it to block out most of the air, leaving a burner open for the fire.

She told everyone to pick up stones and mud, and she picked up a round stone herself, took it into the tribe to find stones, and asked him to make a turntable.

After leaving the tribe, she dug a shallow pit two meters square and built a simple kiln of moderate size with stones and soil. The height of the kiln was about one and a half meters, and one could crawl into it by bending over.

"Okay, let's stop here for today." Qiao Yu stopped, leaving the stove opening unbuilt.

"Wait until the clay bowls made by Xiaoxi and the others are dry, and the earthen kiln has cooled down, then we'll start the fire tomorrow." She added, "Everyone continue collecting firewood, and the hunting team will come back to finish their work."

The three hunting teams had become increasingly skilled at trapping, and now with the addition of snares, each team had a bountiful harvest. When they returned, the tribe erupted in laughter and joy.

The next morning, when Qiao Yu walked out of the cave, she saw a man standing in front of the cave, which almost scared her.

"Who?" she asked.

It was still dark and I couldn't see the person's face clearly.

"It's me." Shi's voice came.

He pointed to something at his feet and said, "I've polished the thing called a turntable that you asked for. Take a look and see if it works."

Qiao Yu was surprised.

She had asked Shi to make a turntable yesterday afternoon. If the tools were right, it could be done in a day and a half. But in an age without even iron tools, using stone to polish stone was a sheer waste of effort. Qiao Yu thought two or three days would be good enough.

As a result, the stone is now polished.

She squatted down, gazing at the circular stone slab in the faint light that had just begun to emerge from the horizon. Its surface had been polished to a relatively smooth surface. Beneath it was a stone pillar, made to her specifications, and the area where it met the slab was polished to a relatively smooth finish. She gave it a firm spin, and when the slab finally stopped after two or three turns, she was delighted.

"Great." She looked up at Shi, happy but also blaming him, "Did you stay up all night polishing this?"

"As long as it works." Shi was relieved and happy when he saw that what he made met Qiao Yu's requirements.

He waved his hand. "It's okay. What you want is more important. The first snow will fall soon. We need to make the pottery sooner rather than later. It's okay if I lose one night's sleep."

"I will definitely finish it as soon as possible." Qiao Yu promised.

After Shi left, she went into the cave and explained a few words to the mountain. After washing up and hurriedly eating some dried meat, she led the eight women to the river and continued making pottery.

The turntable was crude, with no alternative power source. Fortunately, there was no shortage of labor and strength. Qiao Yu simply had Ye and another strong woman take turns turning the turntable, while Xiaoxi and the other woman mixed the clay, and she specialized in making pottery.

She had at least dabbled in pottery in modern times, so she was quite an expert. The first time, because the speed of the turntable didn't match her rhythm, she stumbled and fumbled, but the second time, she successfully made a bowl.

She didn't plan to make it too fine, not to trim the blank, and certainly not to draw any patterns on it. As long as the thickness was even and basically round, it would be fine.

Seeing the turntable spin and a round object appearing in Qiao Yu's hands at an extremely fast speed, the women widened their eyes, their faces full of surprise.

“It’s amazing.”

"Yeah, Yu, you're amazing."

If there hadn't been any traps or condoms, these women would have continued to question how Qiao Yu had figured it out. But now that Qiao Yu's intelligence was so well-known, it wasn't surprising that she'd be even smarter and come up with more ideas.

Therefore, these women marveled at it for a while and then let it go without pursuing the matter to the end, which made Qiao Yu feel relieved.

From now on, she no longer had to explain where her clever ideas came from, and she felt much more relaxed.

After making a few bowls, getting familiar with the rhythm, and developing a tacit understanding with Ye, she began to make jars.

Qiao Yu made a jar with a round mouth and a large belly from the turntable and placed it on the stone slab that everyone had found. The women's eyes lit up as they exclaimed in amazement, "It's so beautiful."