Those mixed soups tasted pretty good, but you couldn't see any soup in them; all that was left was a pot of pure mixed stew.

This was mainly due to that guy Top, who added a lot more taro into the pot when I wasn't looking.

Taro absorbs a lot of water when it's cooked until it's soft, and now the water in the pot has turned into a whole pot of taro paste.

Seeing this, I felt like crying. I was thinking of having some soup, but oh well! I'll just have to make do with this.

Actually, apart from the lack of broth, this soup was quite good. The taro was soft and sticky, and after absorbing the broth, it became even more flavorful.

Taro noodles, needless to say, are still smooth and chewy, and paired with the rich broth, they have a rather unique flavor.

I scooped up most of the taro noodles and ate them myself, but Top likes taro, so I left them for him.

Even though I was very careful not to make too much food, after adding so much taro and other miscellaneous ingredients, I found that it was still a bit too much.

In order not to waste this hard-earned food, I kept the plate of stir-fried rabbit meat and put it in the earthenware jar for storage.

The rabbit meat has been stir-fried until quite dry, so it will keep for a longer time. Tomorrow morning, I can have a bowl of rabbit meat noodles with taro noodles – the ingredients are really generous!

There might be a lot of rabbit meat, but I estimate that Top and I, one monkey and one person, could each share more than half a bowl.

Finally, adhering to the principle that perseverance leads to victory, I forced myself to finish all the offal and taro noodles, while Top's taro was left in large quantities.

It turned its gaze to me, and I suddenly felt a bit of a stomachache. I decided to let Top eat slowly by himself and go to the toilet.

I don't really care about a few taro roots; after all, the taro field is there, it's not going anywhere. As long as I have enough time, I can grow as many taro roots as I want.

After finishing my meal, I filled a slightly cracked earthenware jar with some peat moss that I had dug up from the taro field that day.

As for those two precious potato tubers, I dug two holes in this terracotta pot that I was using as a flowerpot, buried half of the potatoes and left the other half outside.

Potatoes have a unique characteristic: if kept in a dark environment, even at a suitable temperature, they will not sprout; instead, they will only become drier and drier.

Therefore, in rural areas, potatoes are stored in dark, shaded cellars, where they can sprout normally even after two or three years.

This also demonstrates the potato's tenacious vitality; the sweet potato, which is also a tuber, cannot do this, as it contains not only a large amount of starch but also fructose.

It can only be stored for a maximum of one year; any longer and it will all rot.

Leaving it halfway outside is to allow its photoreceptor cells to receive sunlight, at which point its epidermis will turn bluish.

As long as the temperature is suitable, they will sprout new shoots and grow roots even without water. They use their stolons to search for suitable soil to take root and grow.

I placed it on the balcony, or more precisely, in a recessed crevice on the edge of a cliff.

This spot provides perfect sunshine, but the cliffs prevent the sun from getting too intense. Crucially, when it rains, it provides the potatoes with the water they need to grow.

In any case, this is the first crop that I've grown in my residence.

...

I was worried that the rabbit meat would spoil, so I got up early the next morning and cooked some taro noodles, which seemed to be a side dish.

Looking at the bowl containing what appeared to be more than half a bowl of rabbit meat, I felt it was inappropriate to call it rabbit meat noodles; it would be more accurate to call it noodles with rabbit meat.

After finishing my meal, I returned to the kiln shed. I had to finish that powerful weapon today; the rainy season was getting closer and closer.

I need to store as much food as possible before the rainy season arrives, because the rainy season in this tropical rainforest is nothing like the rainy season back in my hometown.

This heavy rain could last for an unknown period of time, and there's a high risk of flash floods, rising water levels, mudslides, and other natural disasters. I still have a lot to do.

Therefore, I still need to explore that resource-rich eastern hilly area, whether for food or to discover something new and useful.

Today, those natural rubbers have completely lost their moisture, and now they feel like the balloons we played with as children; they can be stretched very long and have quite good elasticity.

However, the piston I'm making needs more than just elasticity; it also needs a certain degree of toughness and strength to properly release the air pressure.

This requires processing these dehydrated natural rubbers first.

The best way to increase its toughness and strength is to add some stable carbon powder, just like in the manufacture of car tires.

This not only increases the overall strength and toughness of natural rubber, but also greatly enhances its wear resistance.

I took out the cork charcoal I got from the fire and crushed it into charcoal powder with a stone. Then I used the fine bamboo sieve I had made before to sift out the fine charcoal powder for later use.

Now I need to check my mold first. This mold is a ceramic mold that I made yesterday specifically for those two different models of cylinders.

The mold is a one-piece mold with two models closely attached together, which is for the convenience of firing and future storage and management.

I applied a layer of glaze yesterday, and I need to apply another layer today before I can start firing this mold.

I made this mold based on the precise dimensions of the two previous square cylinders. The reason for applying two layers of glaze is mainly to fit the cylinder body.

Because the natural rubber will expand slightly in volume after adding carbon powder and some subsequent processes, the mold needs to be made smaller than the original size in advance.

After the glazes dried, I spent an hour firing this molded porcelain piece that I would use for a long time.

I didn't sit idle during that hour. I took out my notebook, which contained the dimensions and model of my new weapon, the arrows.

Not long ago, I took some time to make a soft measuring tape about two meters long using a precisely cut piece of leather.

The markings on the scale were made using a hot iron needle, similar to how a steelyard balance is used. Four short horizontal lines and one long horizontal line represent five millimeters, and adding four more short horizontal lines and one long horizontal line marked with the number 1 gives one centimeter.

As for accuracy, I used a folding method to mark the mark, folding it all the way to the 5mm mark before taking the precise value. Therefore, the error of my ruler should be within 0.5mm.

This doesn't affect me, because as long as I don't change my measuring tape, even if I mark a two-meter tape as ten meters, its actual length will not change. As long as it's measured with the same tape, the result will be accurate.

The arrows I want to make next are a bit different from regular blowguns. Since it's only using a tiny amount of poison, how can that be safe? I'm thinking of making them hollow, so they can store more venom like a syringe!