Orc Girl's Tribal Daily Life

Chapter 125 Process of Treating Hook Vines

Once it was decided that the children of Yuerdong would participate in making fishing lines, the process was quickly put into action.

Jiang Luoluo served as the overall commander, with Xiaoyu Wangbiao assisting in management and translation.

The first step in making fishing line is to soak these hook vines in water, probably to soften them or something... Jiang Luoluo wasn't quite sure, but since there were the first successful examples, following along wouldn't go wrong.

The soaking time is initially planned for one day.

Jiang Luoluo made this judgment based on the time the first batch of fishing lines were exposed to rain. After all, being drenched in rain and being completely submerged in water are two different situations, and the soaking time should be adjusted according to the time spent in the rain.

Of course, to ensure that no accidents occur, Jiang Luoluo also specially arranged two other batches of different soaking times for comparison, and finally selected the most suitable soaking time.

Hundreds of hook vines need to be submerged in water, requiring too much space. Ordinary caves simply cannot hold them, and there are not enough containers to hold them either—please leave them alone.

If it is done in multiple batches, it will take too long.

Moreover, this way, we wouldn't need as many children from Yuerdong to do it.

So after careful consideration, Jiang Luoluo thought of the place where the children on Little Stone Mountain used to take a bath.

On the day Jiang Luoluo went to Yuer Cave for the first time because of the poison, the children on Xiaoshishan were covered in mud because of the rain, so He led them to the river to bathe. That pool was just right.

One advantage is that the pool area is large enough and it is close to a large river, making it convenient to draw and release water. Another advantage is that even if the pool area is not enough, more and larger pools can be dug next to it, so there is no need to worry about not being able to hold them all.

Even digging a new pit doesn't take long. Aside from other advantages, the tribe members are incredibly strong.

In Fish Cave, there are only about twenty children over the age of ten, which is not a large number. In addition, they usually take turns going out to collect some wild vegetables to enrich their meals. The shaman had previously discovered that eating meat directly would be difficult to digest, especially for children whose stomachs are not as strong as those of the adults.

So even if the wild vegetables are unpalatable, the shaman will still ask the tribespeople to add some to their meals. This is probably the earliest form of herbal therapy. Over the years, it has become a habit. Many tribespeople will choose the wild vegetables they think are delicious and dry them into dried vegetables. This is also the reason why drying some wild vegetables they like is better than being forced to eat wild vegetables they hate when the season is over.

Although the children of Yuerdong cannot go to Taz Forest to pick wild vegetables, there are many edible wild vegetables growing near Silver Peak Mountain. However, most of the tribesmen do not care for them, and only the children of Yuerdong know how to pick them. It may be that they are specially reserved for the children of Yuerdong.

There's also catching fish. Although it's been changed to fishing now, which frees up some manpower so not everyone has to participate, Jiang Luoluo doesn't plan to use them, or rather, she doesn't plan to use them completely.

The main workforce consists of children under ten and over six years old from Yuerdong Village.

They are at an age where they have a certain capacity to act, but not enough to go out and do anything independently, which makes them seem very awkward.

Jiang Luoluo then decided to entrust the task of making fishing lines to the children, believing that they could do it well.

For these children in Fish Cave, this was their first time leaving the cave.

Following behind Little Fish King Biao, they walked outside with expressions of curiosity and apprehension, much like the fear and unease felt by humans living underground when they first stepped onto the surface and looked at the sky.

However, no one made any noise or shouting. They had to learn to be quiet from the moment they were born and brought to the fish cave.

Because crying and making a fuss is useless.

Everyone just silently watched the little fish king, Biao, at the very front, just like how they would subconsciously look at their companions who were ahead of them in the order when sharing food, waiting for them to finish eating before they would eat themselves.

There is a clear class distinction at some level.

Jiang Luoluo had already explained the important points to Xiaoyu Wangbiao, so that he could teach the children in the fish cave who needed to do the work.

This would save Jiang Luoluo from performing a pantomime all by herself, which would be difficult for others to understand.

So Little Fish King Biao used himself as an example to personally demonstrate to the children of the Fish Cave how to deal with these hooked vines.

The hook vine is called a hook vine because it has many tiny hook-like structures on its surface, which can easily hook onto the fur of wild animals or the flesh of humans. Its seeds are hidden in these hook structures and are released when they hook onto foreign objects, hanging on the wild animals or humans that pass by, and are carried to various places.

The first batch of fishing lines that Jiang Luoluo accidentally created were made from hooks on untreated hook vines. As a result, after the hooks on the hook vines dried, some raised particles formed on the fishing line, making the fishing line less smooth and easy to handle.

Therefore, Jiang Luoluo decided to learn from her experience and remove all the unnecessary hook structures from the beginning.

Fortunately, these hook-like structures are relatively small in area compared to the hook-like vines themselves, so their sturdiness is also relatively low.

Although it is still difficult to tear by hand... and it is not recommended to tear by hand, with a little force, it is possible to cut it all off with a stone knife.

So the children from Fish Cave were separated and arranged according to their age.

The older children, those who were strong enough, took the stone knives that Jiang Luoluo had collected from the small rocky hill and began cutting hooks.

There are dozens of stone knives for people, even if they are just miniature versions for children. Jiang Luoluo would definitely not be able to sharpen them in a short time, and she probably wouldn't want to do it anyway.

So the source of these dozens of small stone knives was actually arranged by Jiang Luoluo and He. She took a jar of jam to Little Stone Mountain and asked the children there to help sharpen the stone knives.

It took less than a morning to make all these stone knives.

Besides the stone knife, Jiang Luoluo also acquired many other stone tools, all of which were made by the children from Xiaoshishan.

Jiang Luoluo suddenly discovered the benefits of bartering.

The younger children from Yuerdong were responsible for tearing the hook vines apart one by one and arranging them in a straight line so that the older children from Yuerdong could easily cut them.

The older children from Yuer Cave used stone knives to remove all the excess hook structures from the hooked vines from top to bottom.

Behind them, the children from Fish Cave, who were responsible for spreading out the hook vines, gathered the prepared hook vines into bunches in order.

Finally, it was placed in a water-filled pit to soak.

The steps sound simple, but they are actually quite time-consuming. On the first day, we only managed to make less than fifty hook vines.

The first reason is that these children are doing this for the first time, so they don't dare to move too fast, afraid of breaking one or two pieces. They are very careful. The second reason is that these children in the fish cave know that they will have food if they make these things, so they want to do them better, afraid that if they don't do them well enough, they won't have to come next time and there will be no food for them.

So they all did it very carefully and meticulously. Jiang Luoluo looked at it carefully for a long time and found that there was not a single unnecessary gap.

Jiang Luoluo initially felt conflicted, as if she were the unscrupulous capitalist exploiting labor. Then it suddenly dawned on her that these fishing lines weren't made for her after all.

Although the shaman made a decision, the children in the Fish Cave had to give the proceeds from one fishing line to Jiang Luoluo after making ten fishing lines—which could be replaced by a soft-shelled fish.

More accurately, these fishing lines should all be considered as things they made for themselves, which would eventually become more food for them.

And now that they've finished, they can use it when they're a little older, um... if these fishing lines can last that long.

The fishing line was divided into three batches with different soaking times.

The first batch only needed to be soaked for one day, so after the day was over, they were quickly taken out and the second step began.

Jiang Luoluo arranged for someone to keep a close eye on the remaining hook vines to prevent them from rotting and spoiling in the water. If anything seemed amiss, such as the hook vines becoming soft and mushy, they had to be removed immediately.

As a result, even after soaking for three whole days, these hook vines never showed that problem.

This plant can grow even during the rainy season; its ability to thrive in water is indeed a bit too strong.

The second step in making fishing line is actually sun drying, which involves completely drying the water from soaking the hook vines.

The time spent sunbathing is not fixed; it mainly depends on the intensity of the sun and the condition of the sun.

Jiang Luoluo still divided them into two different types: one was dried just right to dry the moisture off the hook vines.

The second method involves drying the hook vines slightly, building upon the first method.

As for completely drying the moisture inside the hook vines, Jiang Luoluo had thought of it, but it would take too long, so she had to cross out the idea and try it again when she had the chance.

There are actually many rules to drying things. Simply placing them under the sun is one way to dry them, but to increase the efficiency of drying, you can also spread out all the hooks and vines.

Jiang Luoluo not only arranged for all the children in Yuerdong to stretch out the hook vines that were rolled up and soaked in the pool, and then put them in the sun to dry, but she also arranged for the children to come over regularly to turn the vines over to increase efficiency.

The drying process lasted from three to ten days. After all, it is quite difficult to completely dry the hook vines. The temperature is not as high as before the rainy season, and the sun is not as strong.

Then comes the second soaking.

The second soaking time should be a little longer, since the first batch of hook vines had been exposed to rain for at least ten to fifteen days.

And the heavy rains during the rainy season are, to be precise, not much different from being soaked in water.

Therefore, Jiang Luoluo initially decided that the second batch would be soaked in water for about ten to fifteen days.

Of course, just like the first rinse, people will be assigned to keep an eye on it and check it to prevent any rot or spoilage from occurring.

Jiang Luoluo patrols the surveillance system every day like a factory owner, directing a group of child laborers to work. Fortunately, she herself is a child, so it actually looks quite harmonious.

It's a bit like playing house. Some of the older members of the clan like to stop and take a look whenever they pass by, like watching a play. It's quite interesting.

Sometimes these tribespeople would come to help with some physical labor. After all, they were just children, and no matter how strong they were, they couldn't compare to the adult tribespeople.

But Jiang Luoluo was busy with more than just this one thing.

After the first batch of finished bricks came out, they were left to sit for a while to check their quality. After all, we had to worry about whether they were sturdy right out of the box or whether they could maintain their sturdiness after being left to sit for a while.

After about ten days of storage without any changes, the shaman and the monk confirmed that the bricks were usable, and the second batch of bricks was about to be fired.

Yes, the location for the kiln has been chosen, and people have even been arranged to dig a cave—but the first batch of bricks produced is not enough to build the kiln! It was just a batch of experimental bricks.

Furthermore, due to the arrival of the Great Beast Season, everyone is hunting in order to store more food to get through the subsequent snow season, so the project to excavate the fire kiln cave has actually been temporarily suspended.

Fortunately, there's no rush. We'll have to wait until we've fired enough bricks, at least two more batches, which will take about a month.

While waiting for these bricks, Zao wasn't idle... To be precise, Zao actually led people to make brick blanks, which took more than ten days from production to air drying and shaping. He also took the opportunity to check the quality of the finished bricks.

After all, you can't wait until one thing is finished before doing another; there's no time to waste.

As for the tribesmen who made the brick blanks—the same tribesmen who were making linen before.

The supply of linen was already saturated within the tribe, but for the sake of these people's livelihood, they still had to keep making it. Now that there was something else for them to do, the shaman, who had worn so many linen clothes that he couldn't change them all, finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Making brick blanks is not easy, but fortunately it is all physical labor, which is suitable for these people with limited mobility.

The soil is transported from the Taz Forest or other places by healthy tribesmen. They only need to mix the soil according to a fixed ratio. If needed, some of the healthier tribesmen will fetch water and mix it again.

It's not just about mixing; you also need to vigorously pound the clay to remove all the air bubbles. This will prevent the bricks from being pitted and uneven, resulting in a smoother, more even surface and a stronger interior.

Jiang Luoluo specially prepared some large sledgehammers for this purpose, large stone hammers that were taller than a person, which only the tribe members could wield.