At noon, Wang Lun returned to the camp. Early that morning, he had cut two baskets of dry grass—the really heavy kind. After carrying the baskets back, Li Ling had already prepared lunch. Wang Lun ate first, and then he laid another layer of dry grass on the roof to reinforce it.
While they were eating, Wang Lun cautiously asked, "Are you on your period today?" Li Ling blushed slightly and nodded. Seeing her admit it, Wang Lun said, "I've thought of a way to make sanitary napkins. You can make a couple and try." Li Ling asked, "How do I make them?" Wang Lun explained the process simply. It was the same as Liu Ruoxi's method—sewing it from a shirt sleeve and stuffing it with absorbent material. Wang Lun had rabbit fur in mind; it's soft, absorbent, and most importantly, they had rabbit fur. Li Ling understood after hearing it once and planned to start making them after dinner, but Wang Lun stopped her. He needed her help. He needed to lay another layer of dry grass on the roof, weigh it down with thick branches, and then use some long stones to further secure the branches. It was a lot of work, and it involved going up and down, which would take a lot of time. Normally, Wang Lun could do it alone, but not today. The rain was expected to continue for a while, so he needed to finish as soon as possible.
Soon, the two finished their meal. Without resting or washing the pots, they went to spread out the hay. Wang Lun and Li Ling first hoisted the hay onto the roof, then Wang Lun went to spread it on the roof while Li Ling could rest. They would call her when needed.
As Wang Lun laid out the hay, he checked the previous layer over and over again. It took him nearly an hour to complete the rooftop haystack. He then had Li Ling hand him the selected branches. Li Ling passed the branches down, and Wang Lun placed them on the hay, first laying about ten horizontally, then a few more sideways. Afterward, Wang Lun climbed down the ladder, picked up his basket, and went to the stream to collect stones. Li Ling, of course, remained in the campsite, mainly in case it rained and she got wet.
After Wang Lun left, Li Ling took off her shirt and started picking at the loose threads with a fishbone. Actually, she had already started while Wang Lun was still laying straw on the roof. After Wang Lun went up onto the roof, Li Ling washed the pots and pans and then began picking at the loose threads. It took her a long time to remove one sleeve. Just as she was starting to remove the second sleeve, Wang Lun called her.
Twenty minutes later, Wang Lun returned, carrying a basket of stones on his back, and climbed the ladder to the roof. Actually, Wang Lun was still a little worried that the ladder wouldn't be able to support the weight, but fortunately, the ladder held up the weight of one person carrying a basket of stones, so Li Ling didn't need to help.
Wang Lun climbed onto the roof, placed the basket on a crossbeam, and then carefully carried two stones across the roof. He had to consider both whether the stones would weigh down the branches and whether they were properly positioned on the crossbeam. Soon, Wang Lun had placed the stones correctly, ensuring they were all weighing down the branches.
Wang Lun finally breathed a sigh of relief. But he didn't stop there. He grabbed his machete and went out of the camp again to the nearby woods, looking for straight, long branches or trunks, preferably six or seven meters long, so they could just cross the entire house. Suitable branches were a bit hard to find, but they were available; it just took some time. It took Wang Lun nearly two hours to cut down five branches before returning to camp. Back at camp, Wang Lun took a sip of water, then grabbed his shovel and went to the lawn behind the camp to start digging a drainage ditch.
Wang Lun dug a drainage ditch in a V-shape on the lawn behind the camp, allowing water to flow to both sides so that it wouldn't all flow under the eaves. He also dug a drainage ditch under the eaves, also flowing to both sides, though its curve wasn't as pronounced as the first one. After finishing the drainage ditch on the upper lawn, Wang Lun went to dig another drainage ditch along the camp's perimeter wall, this time digging almost entirely along the wall to drain the water to the lawn below. Soon, the drainage ditches on both sides of the camp were also finished. That was basically it; everything that could be done had been done, and they wouldn't have to worry so much about rain anymore.
Back at the campsite, Wang Lun finally got a proper rest. Since it looked like it was going to rain, the campfire outside hadn't been lit, leaving only the fire pit inside. After sitting for a while, Wang Lun remembered that usually, when the two of them needed to relieve themselves outside the campsite, they could just use the open pit on the grass below. If it rained, they wouldn't be able to. Actually, it wasn't impossible, but Li Ling couldn't, though Wang Lun could.
So Wang Lun got up again, went to the edge of the shed, cleared a one-meter-wide gap in the hay, then planted two sticks on either side and tied one horizontally across the top. Then he carried some hay back into the shed, and also carried two bundles of firewood inside.
After Wang Lun finished doing all this, it grew even darker. It was indeed getting late; it was already past five. Wang Lun decided not to go out. He first took the mountain rats he had retrieved from the traps while mowing the lawn that afternoon to the pond to process them. He disposed of the inedible entrails in the grass below, usually burying them in a hole, but it was too dark outside today, so Wang Lun didn't go out. Then he washed the meat and secured the hide with a frame.
Including this one pelt, Wang Lun and his group now had a total of one rabbit pelt, two mountain rat pelts, many snake pelts, and one sheepskin. Of these, only the sheepskin was usable for making clothing. Thinking this, Wang Lun realized he would need to hunt some larger animals again, but large animals weren't easy to kill; close combat could easily result in injury. For ranged attacks, only javelins were an option, but then Wang Lun suddenly remembered they had an alloy arrow that could be used to make a bow. So, Wang Lun found himself another task to do.
Wang Lun hurried inside with the mountain rat meat. Li Ling had already finished sewing the sanitary napkin and was now disinfecting it with hot water. Of course, she wasn't putting it directly into the pot, but rather into the cracked earthenware jar. Right, two earthenware vessels had cracked before. After a water-filling test, the crack in the small bowl didn't affect its use, but the jar was too large and leaked. So Li Ling used the leaky jar to hold the hot water for disinfecting the sanitary napkin. The other, non-leaking jar was used by Li Ling to store the lower-grade kudzu root powder. She filled it more than halfway; she had originally considered putting the kudzu root powder in as well, but after thinking about it, she decided against it and left it in the bamboo tube.
Wang Lun placed the meat in the pot on the stove, then carried in the ladder and the five long tree trunks. He arranged the five trunks along the doorway, about a meter apart, and placed them on the first step of the roof. Later, when he had time, he hung the fish on the trunks; they couldn't be left in the baskets forever, lest they get damp and mold, affecting the entire batch.
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