Chapter 269 - 120: October, November Part 2
Immediately after, he cut ironwood to make several trimming knives of different shapes for outlining the details of pottery—
Most of the hand-molded pottery before was left with fingerprints, and the surface was rough and uneven, which was hard for him, a perfectionist, to bear.
After making these tools, he didn't stop there. He specially set up a shed outside the cave, placed a few short tables, and built his own "pottery workshop."
Since he started pottery on October 26th, he spent his days "mixing clay" and "burning fire," becoming increasingly addicted to it.
After building the workshop, this addiction became even more uncontrollable, continuing day by day, and before he knew it, it was November 9th, the day of the twenty-seventh mysterious reward.
...
Before this, although Chen Zhou always looked forward to the mysterious rewards, he never had a particularly strong and clear desire for anything.
On November 9th, he finally had his first very clear wish—he wanted a textbook teaching him how to make pottery or a thermometer to measure the temperature inside the kiln.
Judging the flame temperature by experience was really too painful and unreliable.
If the demand for a textbook or thermometer was too harsh, Chen Zhou hoped the Space-Time Administration Bureau would be merciful enough to send him dozens of bags of minerals for glaze creation. He really wanted to glaze the pottery he made.
Apart from pottery and sculpture, there were few jobs that allowed him to utilize his design and painting talents simultaneously.
Moreover, glaze coloring and painting differ.
When glaze is applied to the surface of pottery and fired, it may present different colors and patterns. This unique "artwork" is even more fascinating.
Of course, there are countless rewards, and even if the Space-Time Administration Bureau could hear challengers' thoughts, they couldn't act as a "wishing machine"; all Chen Zhou could do was hope.
...
Arriving at the beach that day and seeing the paper box between the wooden stone walls, Chen Zhou's eyes lit up with some hope ignited.
Sitting in the center of the sandy ground was a flat, not too large paper box, and just from its appearance, it was likely to contain a book.
If it contained a high-temperature thermometer, it was also possible, but as far as Chen Zhou knew, high-temperature thermometers usually weren't this small or flat.
With excitement, he opened the paper box, and its contents left him greatly disappointed.
It was a set of knives, including a slicing knife, a bone cleaver, a chef's knife, and a fruit knife.
The surface of the blades all had Damascus patterns, but these patterns were not like those casually burned on the small dagger that came with the hand axe but were true complex patterns formed by folding and forging.
This characteristic was most prominent on the slicing knife and bone cleaver.
The stripes, varying in depth and shining with a metallic luster like ocean waves, ran across the blade, imbuing it with a unique dynamic feel.
Besides this set of knives, the paper box also included a solid wood knife stand, though the wood used for the stand was not particularly good.
Chen Zhou planned to take some time to make a separate knife stand for this valuable set of chef's knives.
There's a shortage of everything on the island, except wood.
Underneath the knife stand lay a pair of kitchen scissors and a sharpening stone. The sharpening stone felt very fine, much better for sharpening knives than the grinding wheel he had taken from the ship.
...
He usually used the kitchen knives he brought from the ship to cook.
Honestly, the metallurgy of the 17th century was indeed backward, and materials science was still in its infancy, with the metals used in various equipment being extremely corrodible. The knives on the ship, when cutting fish, were often soaked in seawater and severely corroded.
This resulted in the blade being rusty with some dents and scars left by falling iron chips, and sometimes even crumbling when wiped forcefully with a cloth.
In modern society, such broken knives wouldn't even be wanted for scrap iron, usually being thrown into a trash bin and directly sent to recycling stations.
Since the iron blade was too big and the axe couldn't cut vegetables, Chen Zhou could only patiently use this broken kitchen knife to slowly cut when dealing with larger food items.
For the finer and more detailed stages, he would pull out Robinson's dagger or the "Fake Damascus Saber" and carefully handle them.
Although this set of knives wasn't the "Pottery Skill Book" or high-temperature thermometer he most wanted, it was still a great help in improving his quality of life.
Seeing no book upon opening the package was somewhat disappointing for Chen Zhou.
But this kind of "getting something cheap and still complaining" disappointment quickly turned into secret delight.
This was evident from how he carefully placed each knife, individually wrapped in leather sleeves, into his backpack, ensuring they wouldn't be damaged by colliding with each other.
...
The new knives gave Chen Zhou room to showcase his cooking skills, but unfortunately, his knife skills were terrible.
Cutting chunks or slices was passable, but anything involving fine work like julienne cuts resulted in either thick strips or uneven fragments that, once in the pot, turned into little cubes. Served up, it looked as if an Indian chef had cooked the dish.
After trying to stir-fry shredded meat several times and producing a few piles of "diarrhea-inducing replicas" that greatly reduced his appetite, Chen Zhou decided to give up and continued tinkering with his pottery.
...
Chen Zhou always felt that he wasn't very smart; in many areas, he even appeared somewhat clumsy.
But he believed he was diligent enough to focus his attention and spend twice as much time, or more, than others to learn, practice, think, and summarize the lessons.