The girls also came to help, helping to place things, lift things, and move things.

"Oh, Zhou Bo, just to pick up girls, you're even willing to do the work of a stonemason? The power of love is really strong." Yingchun said sourly.

"Don't talk nonsense. The purpose of having a stone mill is to grind out flour so that everyone can eat it. Besides, my uncle in the countryside is a stonemason. He taught me and originally expected me to inherit his mantle. Unfortunately, I joined the army later." I said.

"I don't believe it. This kind of craft is very difficult and dangerous, and requires great skills. He has this skill, but he didn't pass it on to his son, but only passed it on to you? Don't lie to me, you made it up." Yingchun said.

"He gave birth to a daughter," I said.

The other girls all laughed when they heard this. Song Yingchun was also confused by my questioning and was unable to answer for a moment. She felt embarrassed and turned away angrily.

Yunwen has been feeling better in the past two days, and it has been seven days. I think she has passed the first hurdle of the rabies virus. Next, we will see what happens after twenty-one days. If there is no problem, then she will be basically fine. Besides, with Song Bailu's careful care and daily acupuncture, I estimate that she will be able to survive the hundred days.

Her wounds have scabbed over, and her arms can move fully, so she can help with some small chores, but she can't do heavy work for the time being, so she now plans to work with me to get the millstone out.

"Brother Zhou Bo, what should we do specifically? This stone mill is both a physical job and a skillful craft." Bai Lu asked.

"It is indeed a skillful work, but we are not selling it to outsiders, so it's OK as long as the appearance is acceptable. The stonemason only uses two tools, a hammer and an awl, and these two can complete half of the job. The other tools are some chisels, which can be used for chiseling, carving, turning and cutting. But we are not stone carving, so we don't need those fancy things. We just need to find a way to chisel and grind the teeth on the two grinding surfaces when the time comes." I said.

"Can we help?" Bai Lu asked.

"Okay, I'll make some arrangements, and we'll work together to make it done, so we can eat our food sooner rather than always going hungry. Yunwen, I'll use charcoal to draw the design of the stone mill on the ground later. After you understand it, please help me draw it again. You have dexterous hands, so you can draw more clearly. This stone mill was invented by Lu Ban, and most of the things made by him are based on the principle of simplicity. So it won't be too difficult. It's easy to make if you understand the principle. Now I'll tell you how to make it." I said.

All three girls came over and sat in front of me with innocent and curious looks on their faces.

I picked up the charcoal and drew three parts on the ground. It looked a bit ugly, but the meaning was what I meant. I said, "The stone mill is divided into three parts, upper, middle and lower, namely the grinding disc, the stationary disc and the rotating disc. They are stacked up from bottom to top. The grinding disc is required to be groove-shaped, and the stationary disc and the rotating disc need to be chiseled with grinding teeth to fit the grinding navel to ensure that they will not fall off during grinding." I said.

"So, basically, all you have to do is make the three parts neatly and then put them together, right? It's not that difficult," said Song Yingchun.

Since it is not a large stone mill, it is not too difficult to make it after planning how to make it. There are plenty of tools. There are many weapons on the second floor of the cave along the spiral staircase. The spear heads of lances and spears can be removed and used as awls. As for hammers, there are copper hammers, meteor hammers, one-handed hammers, two-handed hammers, Ming Dynasty hammers and the like, some big and some small.

I took a few with me and used them to chisel rocks.

Yunwen roughly renovated my design and made the drawing much clearer. Yingchun and Bailu decided to use an awl to knock out the grooves on the millstone, and I was responsible for the stone mill part above.

However, as the saying goes, if you want to do your work well, you must first sharpen your tools. Before excavating, I still need to modify the tools into suitable ones. Therefore, I asked everyone to use stones to grind the gun tips and the like into sharp edges, making them into two-sided angular shapes, which will be convenient for use later.

After finishing these, they each hammered the awl in their hands and did their own work.

The difficulty on my side was to chisel both rocks into cylindrical shapes, so I asked Yunwen to use charcoal to draw a circle on the rock. I didn't expect that her hands seemed to have their own compasses. She used a special method to draw a circle in an instant. It was a perfect circle, very neat. I compared the circles drawn on the two rocks.

The diameter error is basically only a few millimeters, so much so that I couldn't find the error even after repeatedly measuring it with my fingers.

The next thing is physical work. Chisel out the parts outside the drawn circle, and then smooth out the four sides so that when they are stacked, they can overlap completely and no gap can be seen.

Now here comes the key point. The most difficult part is to chisel out the grinding eye and to make holes in the two stone cylinders to connect the grinding navel. This is the most difficult part because if the force used in the hole-digging process is too heavy, the entire rock will crack. If the force is too light, the effect will not be achieved. The only way to do the job is to use even force and work slowly.

The Song sisters on the other side were chiseling very quickly. When they saw me looking at them, Song Yingchun immediately stuck out her tongue at me and made faces, meaning that she thought I was too slow and wanted to compete with me in speed. But I couldn't be provoked.

After each blow with the hammer, I was extremely careful, fearing that any mistake would ruin all my efforts.

Yunwen couldn't help me with anything else, so she fanned me. This fan was woven by Song Yingchun using the useless wheat straw at the other end of the wheat field. It was used to prevent mosquitoes. Now I was sweating profusely, and it was just right for someone to help me cool down.

Yunwen has slender fingers, and she looks so beautiful and gentle when waving the fan. It is cool and pleasing to the eye. It gives me a lot of strength. It really makes sense that it is not tiring for a man and a woman to work together.

We kept chiseling from day till sunset. Yunwen and Bailu went to prepare food, while Yingchun and I were still chiseling the millstone.

Slow work makes fine work. We basically finished more than half of the work in one day. After that, we had a stew, which was basically black fungus, wild vegetables and mushrooms. The beef had been eaten long ago. After eating, we lit the candlesticks, went down the spiral staircase, and arrived near the underground river, where we washed our faces and drank water to quench our thirst.

During this time, the underground river water began to churn again, which scared everyone. Then, under Bai Lu's anxious urging, we hurried away.

We returned to the stone chamber on the third floor and arranged the night shifts. Bailu was on the first shift, Yunwen was on the second shift, I was on the third shift, and Yingchun was on the fourth shift. After all, we had more work to do today.

We stayed silent all night, and the next day we continued chiseling. I finally finished it, and then chiseled teeth on the four stone mill surfaces. That way, it was finished. Yingchun also finished the other side, a millstone with a design similar to a washbasin, which was quite neat.

Then Yingchun used a knife to carve out two small wooden cylinders. One was used as a grinding wheel and connected to the holes I had drilled on the upper and lower doors. I also left a hole on the side and carved the other one into the right size and placed it in there to be used as a handle. I tried grinding it twice and it was really a match made in heaven.

Yunwen looked at me and I looked at her. Only when we accomplish something big together in tacit understanding can this special feeling be generated between us.

Afterwards, I took the girls, carrying wicker baskets, winnowing baskets, and half-earth basins of wheat to the spring pool on the top of the mountain. We washed the wheat repeatedly to remove impurities, scooped out the bran floating on the water, changed the water and washed it several times, then sifted it with a winnowing basket, and the washing was complete.

After drying, we can use a stone mill to grind into stone flour tonight. We haven’t eaten grains for more than a year, and now we will be able to eat freshly-made steamed buns!