She came out from behind the house and slowly approached the fire. When she was still a short distance away from the fire, she suddenly felt that the touch under her feet was different from the path she had just walked.
There were plants where she had just walked, but here it was full of small stones, and there was a certain slope, as if someone had piled a pile of small stones here.
An idea struck her, and she squatted down and scraped the ground, pulling up a handful of something that looked like stone. It was too dark to see clearly, so she put it into the animal hide bag, grabbed a few more handfuls, and then stood up and walked towards the fire.
She stopped when she reached the point where the firelight could almost illuminate her shadow.
The fire was burning in something like a stove. The fire was not big. If no one added wood or charcoal, it would soon go out. And there was no one around the stove.
I think this is a smelting site, and the people working here have just returned to the tribe not long ago, so the fire in the bonfire has not yet gone out.
Since no one was around, she felt safe and confident wandering around the smelting grounds. They weren't locked these days, so she went into the rooms and took a look. She found some unfamiliar tools inside, tools she didn't recognize. They looked like they were used for smelting bronze. The other rooms were either filled with charcoal or miscellaneous items.
What Qiao Yu wanted to find most was iron ore. She guessed that the piles of small stones that were not clearly visible on the ground should be ore.
She quickly came out of the house and began to take stones. No matter what it was, as long as she saw a certain height of raw materials, she would grab some and put them into the animal skin bag.
After she had grabbed all the piles of stones and felt that she had done enough, she returned to the mountain where she had stayed during the day and climbed up a tree to sleep.
When she woke up the next day and it was completely light, she opened the animal skin bag and looked at the large and small stones inside.
There was indeed the kind of iron ore she was looking for, and quite a bit of it, though it looked burned. Besides this, there were many other stones that didn't resemble iron ore. One of them was golden yellow with a shiny surface, probably copper ore. This type of stone was the most abundant in the animal hide bag, and it showed no signs of burning.
Qiao Yu felt delighted.
She felt that her guess was correct, and the iron ore she wanted should be the co-existing ore of copper ore.
It seems that she has to go there again in the evening to find out what is going on.
She stayed in the tree all day and took a nap.
In the evening, she went to the smelting site again.
She first grabbed a handful of similar stones from a pile, then went to a deserted area and lit a fire to examine them. She discovered she was holding what looked like copper ore. She returned to the mine and grabbed a few more handfuls from another pile. Returning to the fire, she saw the stones she had brought back were of varying sizes, shapes, and types. Among them was the iron ore she was looking for. All of them had been burned.
Qiao Yu couldn't help but laugh.
It’s true.
The people here must have discovered a rich ore containing copper and other minerals, and either intentionally or unintentionally burned these ores in a charcoal fire, resulting in the production of bronze. However, due to the high melting point of the iron ore, it burned with the other ores but was not melted, so it was separated during the smelting process.
The iron ore she wanted was garbage in the eyes of these primitive people.
Very good.
Qiao Yu was so happy that he couldn't stop smiling.
Since the iron ore had been separated and became garbage, it was bound to be thrown away. Now she had to find out where it was thrown and then find a way to secretly transport it back.
This time she didn't go back up the mountain, but stayed not far from the smelting site, still choosing a large tree to hide in. In this era, there were few people and many trees, so everywhere was lush with vegetation, making it a perfect place to hide.
Daylight slowly dawned. Someone emerged from the city gate and headed toward the smelting site. Then, more people arrived. Qiao Yu counted them and found they numbered thirty-seven.
They brought a fire out, lit it, took tools from the house, and began to work at the furnace. Qiao Yu couldn't see how they were smelting bronze because she was too far away. She only focused on the six people busy at the pile of mineral waste.
I saw them take baskets, shovel the mineral waste into the baskets, then lift the baskets in pairs and head west.
Outside the city gate, no one was seen coming in or out except for the group of people busy in the smelting plant, which made it convenient for Qiao Yu to act.
She secretly followed behind them, following them for a while. After about ten minutes, they dumped the mineral waste in the baskets on the ground and headed back to the smelting site. It was obvious that they were cleaning up the mine waste.
After they walked away, Qiao Yu went to the place where they dumped the mineral waste and saw that it was indeed full of burnt ores, including the iron ore she had been thinking about.
She walked around the mineral waste dump and discovered that it covered an area roughly the size of four basketball courts. Perhaps for convenience, the people dumped their garbage starting at the farthest point and then continued toward the tribe, forming an oval shape. Grass had already begun to grow in the farthest area, gradually becoming obscured by vegetation.
Qiao Yu began to explore in a direction away from the large tribe, hoping to find a river nearby. This way, she could lead the tribe members over by water and secretly transport all the mineral waste back to the tribe for screening.
It is definitely not possible to stay here for screening, it is too dangerous.
She never figured out whether the land under her feet belonged to China; if it did, where in China it belonged.
Perhaps due to the lush vegetation of primitive times, water resources were plentiful here. From the Sun Tribe to the Dragon Tribe and then to this larger tribe, she'd encountered small streams along the way. These streams flowed along the terrain, merging into larger rivers. So, as long as she could find a stream, she'd have a good chance of finding a larger river.
Tribes are always built in places with abundant water resources, such as rivers or lakes, so that they will not lack water during the autumn drought. So she felt that her idea was feasible.
As expected, she was not disappointed. After walking for more than ten minutes, she found a stream. After walking for more than ten minutes, she found that the stream merged into a small river.
Although the creek was too small for the raft to turn, it was still sufficient for sailing. She walked up and down the creek again but found no piers built by the tribe, nor any rafts or boats.
In this way, she just needed to make sure that the river was suitable for the raft and could lead to the river near the dragon tribe.
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