Lin Feng felt as if he had drunk a pot of scalding hot wine in the dead of winter, feeling a warm and comfortable sensation from head to toe.
He devoured several skewers of incredibly delicious roasted lamb and gulped down a mouthful of cool stream water, feeling that life had reached its zenith and what more could one ask for!
He had long since forgotten about those women.
After eating and drinking his fill, he looked at the mountain of mutton and then at the wine jars quietly waiting to ferment in the corner. A new idea, like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, uncontrollably popped into his mind.
"To store this meat and to brew good wine, we need a lot of pottery! Those old, crooked and broken pottery pieces were ultimately not suitable for fine dining, and their capacity was too small."
He stroked his chin, his gaze falling on the babbling brook beside the wooden house.
He remembered that at a bend in the stream downstream, there seemed to be a patch of soil with a different color and texture.
"Clay! If I can find suitable clay, I can fire more, better, and bigger pottery! Then, wine jars, meat pots, bowls and plates... I can even try to make a bigger earthenware jar to pickle sauerkraut, or store more Golden Fox Rice!"
The thought of those finely crafted, large-bellied pottery pieces filled Lin Feng with excitement.
This is not just for practical purposes, but more like an advancement of civilization.
From eating raw meat and drinking blood to learning how to use fire, from crude stone tools to polishing pottery, every step is a testament to human wisdom.
Although he was not a historian, he was fascinated by the thrill of creating and changing his living conditions with his own hands.
On a deeper level, it is an indescribable sense of belonging and security.
This wooden house, this land, and all the possessions he had accumulated bit by bit gave his once wandering and homeless heart an unprecedented sense of security.
He finally had a place that was entirely his own, a home that he could build according to his own wishes.
In his homeland, which he called "Blue Star," had he ever had such luxury?
He was an orphan, rootless and adrift. His so-called "home" was nothing more than a cramped rental room of less than five square meters in a corner of the city.
Every month, more than half of the money he earns from delivering food goes to the high rent.
He endured the difficult customers, the onslaught of wind and rain, and the boundless loneliness of the alleyways late at night, all for the sake of having a small corner in that steel forest where he could curl up.
Now, in this primitive and unfamiliar land, he owns a simple wooden house that is entirely his own!
He can remodel it as he pleases, adding whatever he wants, without worrying about the landlord's attitude or next month's rent.
This sense of freedom and control almost brought him to tears.
"Damn it! Let's start looking for clay today. I'm going to turn this wooden house into a fully functional home!"
A determined light shone in Lin Feng's eyes, a yearning for a better life and a passion for creation.
He picked up a simple backpack sewn from animal hides, along with a stone axe and a sharp stone for digging, and followed his memory downstream.
Wangcai followed behind him, occasionally sniffing the roadside flowers and plants with curiosity.
Sure enough, after the stream bends and the current becomes calmer and wider, Lin Feng discovers an area whose soil color is completely different from the surrounding soil.
The soil here was a fine, grayish-white color, with some areas tinged with pale yellow. He squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil, and found it smooth and slightly sticky. He added some stream water and kneaded it in his hands.
"This is it!" Lin Feng's eyes lit up.
This clay has excellent plasticity after being mixed with water, making it easy to mold into various shapes. It also has a moderate stickiness, being neither too loose nor too sticky to the touch.
This is clearly top-quality pottery clay!
He immediately got to work, using sharp stone flakes to begin digging.
The clay layer was quite thick, and it took him most of the afternoon to fill the animal hide backpack. Although it was heavy, he was filled with joy.
Back in the cabin, he poured the clay onto a clean, large stone slab and began the tedious yet crucial clay processing procedure.
The first step was sifting. He spread out the clay and carefully picked out the pebbles, grass roots, and other impurities. It was a task that required sharp eyes and patience, but he did it meticulously.
The second step is mixing and aging the clay. He added an appropriate amount of water to the sifted clay, then stepped on it barefoot, repeatedly stomping and kneading it, as if he were kneading a huge dough.
This process, known as "treading" or "refining," aims to distribute the moisture in the clay evenly, enhance its plasticity, and expel air from the clay.
As he stomped on the pottery, he recalled fragments of knowledge about ancient pottery-making techniques from his mind.
He also added some leftover, crushed pottery fragments from previous pottery firings, as well as a small amount of fine sand.
He recalled that adding these ingredients reduced the shrinkage rate of the clay during drying and firing, thus increasing the success rate of the finished product.
He wrapped the refined mud in damp animal hide and placed it in a shady corner of the wooden house to "mature".
This process is somewhat like the fermentation of dough, which allows the organic matter in the clay to decompose further, improving the plasticity and binding force of the clay, making it easier to shape.
During the days he waited for the clay to age, Lin Feng was also busy.
He began to think about a more advanced "equipment upgrade"—building a kiln that could reach even higher temperatures!
His previous kiln, though usable, had limited temperature, resulting in relatively porous pottery. Moreover, it was far from sufficient for his bolder ideas—such as attempting to smelt ores or even create the most primitive glass.
"To smelt iron and make glass, you can't do it without a high-temperature furnace!"
Lin Feng's goals have long since moved beyond simply having enough to eat and wear. He yearns for a better life.
He began searching for suitable refractory materials in the vicinity.
Ordinary stones are prone to cracking under high temperatures; what he needs are the "hard bones" that have been tested in flames.
He recalled that when he was building the fireplace chimney, he had found some hard, dark-colored stones that would not crack even after being heated in the flames for a long time.
He decided to use this stone, along with refractory clay, to build his high-temperature furnace.
Location was also important. He chose to place the high-temperature furnace in an open area a little further downwind from the wooden house, which would prevent the smoke and fire from affecting the wooden house and also make it easier for him to operate it.
Over the next few days, Lin Feng devoted himself entirely to the construction of the high-temperature furnace.
First, he excavated the furnace bottom and flue. He dug a circular pit about one meter in diameter and half a meter deep as the furnace bottom, and then dug an upward-sloping flue on the side.
Next came the construction of the furnace walls. He carefully laid the collected refractory stones together with mortar mixed with wood ash and clay to form a cylindrical furnace body that was wider at the bottom and narrower at the top.
The furnace walls were built extremely thick, about half a meter high, to ensure insulation and structural strength.
He reserved several evenly distributed "air vents" at the bottom of the furnace, directly opposite the main air inlet. He also made some brick-shaped mud bricks from purer refractory clay, which he dried and prepared to use for lining the furnace interior and repairing gaps.
The most crucial and technically demanding part is the manufacturing of the blower equipment—the bellows.
Without strong blast air, it is difficult for the furnace temperature to reach the temperature required for smelting metal.
He racked his brains, recalling descriptions of bellows in ancient texts. In the end, he decided to make a very simple lever-type wooden bellows.
He selected several tough, crack-resistant hardwood planks, and used a stone axe and stone knife to polish and piece them together to make a rectangular box.
One end of the enclosure has an air intake valve (made of flexible thin animal hide, allowing only one-way air intake), while the other end has an air outlet pipe made from hollowed-out animal bones.
He used a suitably sized wooden board to wrap the edges of the piston (to ensure airtightness), and then connected it to a sturdy wooden lever.
The process of making bellows is extremely difficult.
The splicing of the wooden boards must be seamless, the sensitivity and sealing of the intake valve, and the fit between the piston and the box wall—every detail is crucial to success or failure.
Lin Feng failed several times, either due to air leakage or difficulty in pulling the lever. But he was not discouraged and repeatedly disassembled and improved the system, not even noticing the blisters on his hands.
Finally, one evening, when he finished assembling the bellows for the last time and pulled and pushed hard, a powerful stream of air gushed out from the animal bone duct, scattering grass clippings and dust all over the ground.
Lin Feng couldn't help but laugh out loud, his laughter filled with the joy and pride of success!
With the bellows, the "heart" of the high-temperature furnace has a place to be located.
He connected the bellows' outlet pipe to the main air inlet pre-installed in the furnace body through a hollowed-out section of thick bamboo tube coated with refractory mortar (this was a giant bamboo he had unexpectedly discovered, with thick nodes and tough texture).
After more than ten days of hard work, a cylindrical high-temperature furnace, two meters high, with a rugged appearance but a solid structure and a somewhat ferocious aura, finally rose from the ground!
Like a silent behemoth, it lies prostrate on this primeval land, waiting to be awakened by flames.
Looking at the masterpiece before him, into which he had poured countless hours of effort, Lin Feng felt an indescribable sense of accomplishment.
This furnace is not just a tool, but also the crystallization of his wisdom and hard work, a way for him to declare his existence to the world.
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