Ye Feng pursed his lips... and exhaled a breath with a half-smile...
"Let's hope so... otherwise... we'll suffer a huge loss..."
An hour passed quickly, and it was around noon...
After eating the sour horned eagle meat, the group rested for a while...
They immediately gathered around the stove...
They all wore expressions of excitement and anticipation…
This is the result of their hard work over the past two days. If they manage to get this done...
Today is definitely a milestone day...
A group of modern urban youths, relying solely on handcraftsmanship, created a civilization that seemed to belong nowhere else in this jungle…
This will greatly boost everyone's will to survive...
"Everyone!"
Ye Feng gripped the edge of the chimney with both hands, staring excitedly at... the ceramic jar filled with knives...
"Let's...begin!"
Having said that, everyone immediately began to act…
Fu Changxiong placed the tinder into the stove opening, and then slowly began to add firewood…
Before long, a fire broke out, the charcoal gradually turned red, and wisps of smoke rose from the chimney...
After waiting for about ten minutes, and seeing that all the charcoal in the stove had been lit, Ye Feng quickly shouted:
"Fan it now!"
Upon hearing this, Fu Changxiong and Qi Xiaojie immediately waved the palm-leaf fans in their arms…
They fanned the stove opening vigorously, switching hands when their left hand got tired, without stopping for a moment.
There was no other way; steelmaking is different from charcoal production. Yesterday, they were just fanning the flames to speed up the formation of charcoal.
Actually, as long as you have enough time, waiting patiently is fine...
But in steelmaking, the worst thing is to go through sudden temperature changes... otherwise the knives in the pot will not reach their melting point for a long time.
Therefore, it must be continuously smelted over a high flame; the temperature can only be high, never low…
Not only that, but we also need to grasp the approximate timeframe and add fuel to the fire promptly…
Generally speaking, there are no modern instruments to calculate the time in earthen kilns like this.
Therefore, Ye Feng could only rely on visual observation, adding more charcoal as soon as it started to melt...
Otherwise, it will affect the temperature inside the furnace and prolong the refining time...
After about 10 minutes, Ye Feng could clearly see that the bottom of the pottery jar had begun to slowly turn red…
This is the heating process, and for an earthen kiln, the progress is faster than he expected...
"Not bad, not bad! Nobita, stutterer, go faster!"
By this time, both of them were drenched in sweat, and their speed had slowed considerably compared to before…
Qi Xiaojie wiped the sweat from his face, groaning incessantly…
"Feng... Brother Feng, my... my... my hands... are sore."
Fu Changxiong also looked troubled, but he didn't say anything...
Seeing that the two were about to give up, Ye Feng handed the backpack containing the charcoal to Qi Xiaoyan, and then looked at Liu Sisi…
"It's our turn..."
"Um!"
After saying that, the two hurried up and replaced them...
As soon as Ye Feng reached the furnace opening, he felt the scorching heat...
The temperature is so much higher than when they were smoking charcoal yesterday…
However, he revealed an excited smile...
This shows that he made both the smelting vessel and the smelting ladle very successfully…
After fanning himself for more than ten minutes, Ye Feng felt his cheeks burning and his arms aching and numb...
But at that moment, Qi Xiaoyan excitedly shouted:
"Hey! Brother Feng! You're famous!"
"ah!?"
Ye Feng was fanning himself and couldn't go forward to watch...
"Is the jar red?!"
"Not only that, the knife inside is red too!"
"Ha ha!"
Upon hearing this, Ye Feng and Liu Sisi couldn't help but burst into laughter...
They all understood that when a steel knife was heated to a red-hot state, it meant it was nearing its melting point…
The two, whose arms were already sore and numb, fanned themselves with all their might again...
A few minutes later, Fu Changxiong and another person took their place...
And so, the two groups took turns fanning the air...
Finally, an hour later, the knife in the jar melted…
"Ah! Brother Feng! Come and see! We did it! We really did it!"
Liu Sisi screamed in surprise, clapped her hands, and jumped up...
His excited demeanor suggested he didn't take the bet seriously at all...
Ye Feng put down the kettle and immediately leaned closer to take a look. Sure enough, the knives were no longer in the jar…
Only a small portion remained, the molten silver steel bubbling and churning...
Some mineral sediment was also floating on top...
"Haha! Great!"
Ye Feng wiped the sweat from his face. All the hard work of the past two days had finally paid off…
Everyone present was filled with excitement and laughter; perhaps this was the sense of accomplishment that survivors felt…
Ye Feng then looked at Qi Xiaoyan…
"Great calligrapher, I'm counting on you for this final step."
"Okay! Don't worry. I won't waste everyone's hard work."
Qi Xiaoyan resolutely pulled out two long wooden sticks, precisely clamped them between the clay pot, and slowly removed it…
Although the sticks would soon be set on fire, there were no better tools available at the moment.
Ye Feng quickly moved the mold over and laid it flat on the stone...
At this moment, everyone stared at Qi Xiaoyan with solemn expressions, not daring to utter a sound...
Because all the sweat shed was only to make this moment possible…
Qi Xiaoyan slowly turned her wrist, and the molten steel flowed out little by little from the spout of the ceramic pot…
Finally, the quadrilateral holes in the mud bricks were gradually filled in…
She immediately replaced the stick with another one; the temperature was too high, and the stick had already caught fire.
Then came… the second, the third, the fourth…
Ye Feng wasn't idle either; he carefully smoothed out the opening of the hole with a small piece of wood...
Strive to ensure that every drop of molten steel flows into every crevice...
This way, once the arrowhead has solidified, it will save him a lot of polishing time…
Soon, the molten steel in the can was all used up...just enough to fill all the holes in the three mud bricks...
After it was all over, Qi Xiaoyan breathed a sigh of relief, because she had never felt such pressure before.
"Brother, is that all?"
Fu Changxiong asked…
Ye Feng smiled and nodded...
"It's basically done, but the specific effect will depend on what the molten steel looks like after it solidifies."
Qi Xiaoyan asked:
"When can we get started?"
Ye Feng squatted down and carefully examined the square molten steel on the mud brick...
"Generally speaking, it should take about 40 minutes for it to solidify completely, which depends on the ambient temperature."
We've done everything we could; now all we need to do is wait.
Remember, all of you, never touch these mud bricks. If you spill the molten steel, the arrow will change shape.
All our efforts will have been in vain…
Upon hearing this, everyone nodded and quickly moved away from the mud bricks…
Qi Xiaoyan asked again:
"What about the remaining knives? Should we continue forging them?"
Ye Feng slowly stood up…
"Of course I have to keep refining them, otherwise why would I take apart so many knives?"
Remember this: every extra arrow might save our lives in the future.
Come on! Keep going! Once the arrows are finished, I'll treat you to real river delicacies!
"good!"
Seeing that their hard work had yielded positive results, everyone, though tired, was still full of fighting spirit and agreed in unison...
And so they repeated the same steps... working until after 3 p.m.
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