Chapter 194 - 86: Extermination (Part 2)
If it weren't for him rescuing Xiao Huihui from the boat back then, painstakingly nursing him back to health until now, Chen Zhou would really want to expel him from the home, letting Xiao Huihui experience the hardships and twists of life in the wilderness and feel just how cruel this world can be.
...
The harvest from the dawn and dusk rabbit-clearing activities is becoming increasingly sparse.
Gazing at the dozens of rabbit skins on the platform and eating rabbit meatballs, Chen Zhou's anger finally dissipated, and he shifted his focus to other matters.
...
Reflecting on these 12 days, the time outside of rabbit-clearing was mainly divided into two parts.
The first part was tending to the crops transplanted from the River Valley Plain, especially the suspected wild pepper plants and mountain celery.
To better observe the state of these plants, he not only installed the windows on top of the greenhouse but also laid a sheet of plastic over it to conveniently control the intensity and area of light exposure.
The plants were separately planted in carefully chosen fertile soil inside the greenhouse, with three water buckets placed in the room.
With some spare time, Chen Zhou even designed a small irrigation system for the greenhouse made from hollow wooden tubes, although he hadn't started making it yet.
Every morning, after returning from setting rabbit traps with his spoils and accompanied by Lai Fu, he would go to the cabin for breakfast, taking the opportunity to check on these far-transplanted crops.
Sugarcane and aloe, two robust plants, didn't enjoy the greenhouse, and were planted by Chen Zhou beside the mountain stream instead.
Possibly due to insufficient sunlight in the forest or too much competition among plants, they were clearly unadapted; though alive, they were listless and lacking vigor.
Concerned about the health of the sugarcane and aloe, Chen Zhou planned to cut down some large trees that were blocking the sunlight.
He wanted to clear a plot beside the mountain stream specifically for sugarcane and aloe, but due to time constraints, he hadn't taken action yet.
The grapevines, tobacco, suspected wild pepper, and suspected mountain celery were planted in the more fertile soil of the greenhouse, each performing differently.
The grapes and tobacco were clearly more adaptable to this warm, windless, semi-enclosed environment, especially the grapevines, which were growing nicely.
The peppers were performing moderately, neither adapting as quickly as grapes and tobacco nor withering.
The mountain celery fared the worst; some plants showed signs of wilting and root rot, and the surviving few were weak and sickly, resembling short-lived things.
Chen Zhou tried controlling the watering for the mountain celery or replacing the soil, but none of it worked.
It's estimated that in just a few days, these mountain celery plants would face collective demise.
Upon honest reflection, he felt his observation and care for these wild plants was sufficiently meticulous, but he lacked some plant knowledge.
Thinking about his next trip to the River Valley Plain, he decided he should thoroughly study what kind of soil conditions and rainfall the mountain celery habitat required to avoid similar situations in the future, thus he no longer attempted to save the remaining mountain celery plants—
The incompatibility with the environmental conditions was so severe that without identifying the cause, moving them again might lead to quicker death.
He had to visit the cabin every morning and evening, come rain or shine.
Most of Chen Zhou's other time was spent by the seaside.
With the salt supply running low, he focused part of his effort on digging salt ponds and channels.
Beneath the burning sun, he carved out a rectangular pit on the beach, 4 meters long and 3 meters wide, and right next to this pit, there was another crystal pool, one circle smaller.
Among the two pits, the larger one served as an evaporation pool, where, once filled with seawater, most of the water could be evaporated under the sun.
Afterward, the evaporated water would be poured into the crystal pool to continue sunning, resulting in a saturated saline solution and slowly precipitating salt crystals, leaving behind a liquid known as "bitter brine."
Initially, Chen Zhou naively thought that as long as he chose the right location to avoid tidal interference, digging two pits and introducing seawater would suffice.
After finishing the pits, he realized that airing seawater to produce salt was not as simple as he had imagined.
The first issue was that seawater would seep into the sand; he had to waterproof the channels' interiors and the surfaces of the evaporation and crystal pools.
To achieve this, he transported leftover cement, using a batch of stone bricks and wooden boards, taking nine days in total to create seepage-proof channels, evaporation pools, and crystal pools.
Subsequently, he discovered that without a valve system for the channels, the rising tide would flood over the simple stone brick barriers in the channels and into the evaporation pool.
The seawater that had been sunning for a while would thus be ruined.
To solve this, Chen Zhou's solution was to dig a foundation around the channels, erecting a semicircular anti-tide wall and setting up a manual water gate, thoroughly blocking seawater intrusion.
After tackling these two issues, the simple salt drying field could finally operate smoothly.
On completion day, standing in the seaside woods and gazing at the prominent salt drying field on the beach, Chen Zhou suddenly realized—would this conspicuous thing attract the attention of the Cannibal Tribes…
Looking at the equally significant cutting field on the other side, he shook his head, knowing he had no other choice.
Ignoring a problem won't solve it.
Moreover, with all the cement used up, even if he wished to build another salt drying field in a hidden place, there were no suitable materials left.
The natural material white clay did not possess the strong waterproof and anti-corrosion properties of cement; soaked in seawater for a few days, it would disintegrate, producing many impurities that would contaminate the saline solution.
...
The new crops and salt drying field were two noteworthy large projects, but they were not everything in Chen Zhou's life.
The storm had long passed, and the earthquake was smoothly endured.
There wasn't significant pressure for a long time afterward, so he lost the urgency in his tasks, and as conditions permitted, he tried to pursue perfection as much as possible.