Some footsteps were heard mixed in with the sound of the dripping rain, and soon another person appeared in front of Han Cheng's house and walked towards the door.
The man was wearing a raincoat and had a rope tied around his chin.
The ears, hair and other things were all covered by the hat, with only the face exposed.
He came to Han Cheng's house, took off his raincoat and hung it on the wooden stick nailed to the wall at the door.
We are under the eaves here, so we are not exposed to the rain.
After all, not only are there more than ten centimeters of tiles sticking out of the eaves, but when the wall is about to reach the top and the tiles are about to be laid, two or three consecutive layers begin to consciously expand outward.
After three layers, there are more than ten centimeters extra outside.
Add to that the tiles that extend ten centimeters beyond the roof, and the width of the eaves is a little more than twenty centimeters in total.
With such a wide distance, a lot of rain can be prevented from hitting the wall.
"Son of God, Wu, what should we do with these lamb slices?"
After the eldest brother came into the house, he started talking. What he was concerned about was the mutton slices that could not be dried in the sun because of the cloudy and rainy weather.
"How about coating the meat slices with a thick layer of salt, stringing them together with a large needle and string, and hanging them in a room or under a well-ventilated eaves to air-dry and make bacon slices?"
After the eldest brother finished speaking, he spoke again and told us the solution he had thought of.
The witch sitting nearby's eyes suddenly lit up when he heard the solution proposed by the eldest brother.
This is indeed a good idea, much better than what I thought!
Although after such an operation, these mutton slices will definitely not become the mutton jerky that they and others had imagined, but compared to asking the people in the tribe to eat these mutton slices as a meal and finish them as quickly as possible in the next one or two days, this is indeed a very good idea!
At least in this case, the mutton slices can be preserved.
"Son of God, how about we do this?"
The witch shifted his gaze to Han Cheng and asked.
It was obvious that he was very fond of the solution that the senior brother had come up with.
Unexpectedly, after hearing Wu's question, Han Cheng actually shook his head and disagreed.
Such a reaction made Wu and the eldest senior brother stunned.
"I thought of a better way. Under the same circumstances, the lamb slices can also be dried and made into lamb jerky.
It can even make the mutton jerky taste better.”
Han Cheng spoke up.
Wu and his senior brother couldn't help but smile with joy when they heard this.
…
Under the shed outside the village, the tribe's masons were working quickly with bricks and mixed mud.
As they worked, simple buildings were built one after another.
These buildings are indeed simple, resembling bookshelves.
After the building reaches a certain height, a layer of bricks is stacked on top, and then a layer of yellow mud is spread on top. Then, many small branches as thick as chopsticks are evenly spread on top to serve as a partition.
After doing all this, they will place another brick at each end, apply a layer of yellow mud on the brick, and then evenly spread small wooden sticks one meter and six meters long as partitions.
Of course, the bricks are stacked vertically, so that the distance between each layer can be larger.
It was built up layer by layer until it reached a height of about 1.8 meters before the roof was completed.
At this time, this thing has a total of thirteen floors.
The distance between each layer is about ten centimeters.
Of course, overall it looks similar to the large bookshelves in the library, but in fact there are still big differences.
For example, the width of the compartment.
The width of each layer of partitions reaches 1.4 meters.
This thing was built according to Han Cheng's opinion to solve the problem encountered by the tribe with mutton slices.
This thing is nothing but a kang.
Different from the kang in the tribe that was used for sleeping and keeping warm, this kang was used to heat things, to be precise, it was used to heat dried mutton.
Han Cheng's idea was to use a fire kang to dry the mutton slices that had not had time to be dried in the sun, making them into mutton jerky.
The direct inspiration for this method came from Han Cheng's childhood experiences.
As mentioned earlier, Han Cheng’s family grew mushrooms when he was a child.
After picking the mushrooms, they are not sold directly to the mushroom market. Instead, they need to be dried at home and then sold as dried goods.
At this time, a thing will be used, and that thing is the kang.
At that time, the scale of Han Cheng's mushroom cultivation was not large. He had two houses and three greenhouses for growing mushrooms, so a kang like this was enough to take care of them.
When this happened in the tribe, Han Cheng suddenly thought of the kang.
He immediately asked the people in the tribe to rebuild it exactly as he remembered it.
In fact, in addition to this simple kang, Han Cheng had seen other styles of earthen kangs in his childhood.
That is the kang used to heat tobacco leaves.
The floor space is as large as that of a house, but it is much higher than an ordinary tiled house.
The roof is quite steep, the chimney is higher than the roof, and it is covered with small grey tiles.
The outside of the smoke-proof bed was covered with a layer of yellow mud mixed with chopped wheat straw.
However, as far as he could remember, these tobacco kangs were no longer in use, and there were fewer people growing and selling tobacco leaves at home.
Because this kind of kang is rather troublesome, it requires building a special house, and Han Cheng has basically never seen the inside of one and is not familiar with it.
It would take a long time to figure it out by trial and error, which did not meet the tribe's urgent need to turn mutton into mutton jerky.
There are many people in the tribe, it was raining, and it was the slack season for farming, so there were a lot of people available.
In just half a day, two rows of ten-meter-long kangs were built.
The reason why they are built in rows is that, except for the two walls at the two ends, the rest of the walls inside can be used as two walls.
It can save time and effort to the greatest extent.
This is the same as the houses built for ordinary people in the tribe, which are also built in rows.
After it was built, the people in the tribe started to carry the undried mutton slices and place them on the compartments of the kang one by one.
After everything was arranged, charcoal was put into the simple stove under the kang, the fire was lit, and the outside of the compartment with the mutton slices was covered with animal skins.
As the flame burns, the temperature gradually rises, and you can feel the temperature coming from inside even if you stand at a certain distance from the kang.
There will basically be no problems in processing mutton slices using such tools and methods, but to be on the safe side, Han Cheng did not light up all the kangs, but only lit up two kangs first.
The purpose is to gain some experience and see the effect, so as to avoid any accidents that would ruin all the mutton slices.
Han Cheng is waiting here now, and makes sure the person who is burning the fire pays attention to the temperature.
At the beginning, the fire was quite high. After a while, Han Cheng lifted the curtain-like thing and picked up a piece of mutton from the bottom layer with chopsticks. He felt it and found that the moisture in the mutton had decreased a lot and it was quite dry. So he asked someone to adjust the fire below and make it much smaller.
"Light up the rest of the kangs, that's all."
After Han Cheng put the piece of mutton back, he said this to the other people who were responsible for making the fire.
From the semi-finished mutton slice just now, Han Cheng was able to confirm that this kang and this method were both useful and there would be no problems.
After Han Cheng's order was given, everyone present who had been prepared began to take action.
"Don't make the fire too big, just enough. If it's too big, it will burn the kang and that won't be good."
Han Cheng spoke up to remind people.
The flame burned, carrying with it the heat, taking away the temperature of the mutton slices that had not yet dried.
As time goes by, the unique aroma of mutton jerky has begun to spread here.
Many children couldn't help but swallow their saliva, and the adults couldn't help but show their joy.
When the first two burning kangs were opened, the dried mutton inside was taken out and put into a bamboo winnowing basket. Han Dashenzi picked up a piece of dried mutton, tore off a little, and savored it in his mouth for a while. Then he warmly greeted the people present. After everyone had a piece, the laughter here became even more enthusiastic.
"Delicious, delicious! Really delicious!"
Some people couldn't help but praise it repeatedly.
Wu had lost another tooth, and it was obviously more difficult for him to eat.
But this did not prevent him from tasting the mutton jerky.
Because in addition to teeth, he also has hands.
Break off a little bit of the dried mutton with your hands, put it in your mouth, let your saliva soak it slowly, and taste it slowly. When it is almost soaked, chew it gently with your teeth. It has a unique taste.
Savoring the flavor of the mutton jerky cooked on a fire, the witch couldn't help but smile, and couldn't help but give a thumbs up to the Son of God who was also eating mutton jerky!
This method is indeed as effective as the Son of God said!
Not only can mutton be turned into mutton jerky in a short period of time, but the taste of the mutton jerky can also be made no worse than the previous mutton jerky. This really makes people happy from the bottom of their hearts.
Those people who had been praising the taste of the mutton jerky couldn't help but give Han Cheng a thumbs up after seeing Wu's actions.
Han Cheng's vanity was greatly satisfied, and a bright smile appeared on his face.
After eating the jerky, everyone worked more enthusiastically.
They put the uneaten piece of dried mutton into their pockets and started to move the still wet mutton slices over and place them on the empty kangs.
In a short while, it was put in place.
After something like a leather curtain was hung down to cover the outside of the kang, a new round of cooking mutton jerky began again.
Afterwards, the dried mutton in the row of kangs was also taken out.
Compared with the number of people in the tribe, the two slabs of mutton jerky produced earlier were obviously not enough to satisfy everyone in the tribe.
One slice per person is not enough.
Of course this won't work.
Lamb jerky is being made now, and mutton jerky is made to be eaten by people. Whether it is for the purpose of improving the work enthusiasm of the tribe members or making the people in the tribe feel more happy, Han Cheng will take out a lot of mutton jerky for the people in the tribe to taste and satisfy their desire.
This is similar to when you are cooking and you take out some food such as chicken or bones so that the cook and other people in the kitchen can taste it.
This kind of thing makes people feel most comfortable.
The happiest thing in Han Cheng's childhood was when his family finally killed a chicken. In the kitchen, he would use a spatula to scoop out two pieces of meat from the pot and put them in a bowl so that he could taste whether the meat was cooked.
Eating chicken at this time feels so delicious. It is more delicious than eating it properly after the meal is ready.
So all the people in the tribe worked together to fill the empty kang with moist dried mutton again and started to light the fire. Then Han Dashenzi waved his hand and asked those who had not eaten dried mutton before to come forward and take a piece of freshly baked dried mutton to eat.
The sound of laughter, mixed with a strong sense of happiness, burst out again and continued to spread here.
The autumn wind, autumn rain and the cold air seem less bleak and become warmer.
Wu slowly savored the mutton jerky in his mouth. Looking at the scene in front of him, his face was full of smiles, and even the wrinkles on his face seemed to have become more numerous.
Especially when he took some of the dried mutton and put it close to the mouth of his little daughter in Yuan's arms to tease her, and her little daughter blew a series of bubbles at him and turned her head to the side, the smile on Wu's face became even more intense.
Wu's gaze once again fell on the heated kang and the dried mutton.
Eyes sparkling.
Because he remembered some other uses of this kang.
For example, when the weather is bad, you can use it to heat up some blanched vegetables.
Some mushrooms that have been proven to be edible were picked up and dried and stored...
This kang is really a good thing. It can play many roles in the tribe in the future!
The Son of God has come up with another good thing!
…
The cold wind was howling, and snowflakes hit the window paper, making a rustling sound.
A piece of red paper with a big word "Fu" written on it with a brush was just pasted on the door and was blown away by the cold wind.
Immediately, the children who were standing by started shouting and running to chase after him.
Leaving a trail of footprints and laughter in the snow.
The year has come to an end.