"What's the matter with Sister Bing?"
"She seems to have a lot on her mind!"
Jiang Yao looked at Shen Bing's bamboo cup: "She's barely touched her lemonade."
Ning Shu thought for a moment: "Maybe Sister Bing is thinking about her family and friends again!"
Tang Xiaoguo sighed sadly: "I miss my parents a little too."
Mentioning their families made the girls feel a little melancholy.
Lu Zhe also thought of his parents.
He knew that the ones who raised him were not his biological parents, but his adoptive ones!
But their bond was no less than that of blood relations!
His adoptive father was his biological father's war buddy. They say the two had saved each others' lives before.
When Lu Zhe was five, his father passed away in an accident.
The funeral was held very solemnly, with many high-ranking leaders attending.
A few days later, his mother handed him over to his adoptive parents, saying to him out of the blue: "Little Zhe, mommy's going to find daddy..."
And then she vanished without a trace, as if she had evaporated from the world.
Many people said she had died too.
From then on Lu Zhe was raised by his adoptive mother. When he turned ten his adoptive father got transferred and became a mid-level official at the National Development and Reform Commission.
They lived quite comfortably. His adoptive parents cared for him as their own and put great efforts into raising him.
He studied diligently, hoping that one day he could repay their kindness.
But who could have expected this accident to happen during a university event!?
Luckily though,
he had a younger adoptive brother, his adoptive parents' biological child.
It was also because of this younger brother that he hoped his "death" would not be too devastating psychologically for his adoptive parents.
Sometimes Lu Zhe would think, when he's gone, he hoped his brother would grow up properly and achieve great things early, so as to fulfill his filial duties on his behalf.
Thinking of their families disheartened everyone for a while, but they still had to keep looking ahead!
"Lu Zhe, what's your plan going forward?" Ning Shu asked as she wiped her tears.
Lu Zhe collected himself and pondered briefly before analyzing their current circumstances.
"Today we obtained two new freshwater sources, but both come with some limitations.
It takes some time to collect enough water dripping from the rock crevices to fill up a bottle, given the distance. We can only carry back one bottle per trip.
The underground water needs filtering and boiling before it's safe to drink. Not only does it require someone to repeatedly operate it, but the filtering is also quite slow."
Lin Qianqian asked: "Is there a way to solve this?"
"I've thought of an automated filtering method for the underground water!"
"How do we do it?"
"Like this!"
Lu Zhe stood up, took out a piece of worn clothing from his pack, and cut it into 1 cm wide strips with his steak knife!
He then braided three strips into a loose cord.
Jiang Yao picked up a hemp rope: "Can't we just use this?"
Lu Zhe shook his head: "For filtering purposes, fabric cords absorb water better than hemp ones!"
He then tied several tight knots along the braided cord.
Next he filled up a 2L bottle with contaminated water, and placed a smaller empty bottle slightly below it.
He put one end of the fabric cord in the dirty water and the other end in the empty bottle.
"The fabric soaks up water but doesn't easily absorb dirt. Each knot acts as a filtration point. Once the whole cord is soaked, clean water will drip into the bottle below."
Lin Qianqian exclaimed: "What a clever technique!"
Ning Shu snapped her fingers: "With this we can make ten or eight of these filtration contraptions! We'll have plenty of filtered water to boil and drink tomorrow morning!"
Lu Zhe nodded: "That's right!"
"Ladies, what are we waiting for, let's get to work!"
Lu Zhe also reminded: "It doesn't have to be a one-to-one ratio. One large bottle can feed three to five small ones. That improves efficiency."
"Got it!"
The setup was simple. In less than 15 minutes, the four girls had made over twenty filtering cords.
"This way, there's no need to watch them. We'll have water ready to boil tomorrow too!"
Lu Zhe thought for a moment: "Improvements can be made to the rock crevice water source too!"
"How do we improve that?"
"Get some larger containers."
"Larger containers? But we used the biggest bottles for the auto filtration system!"
Lu Zhe shook his head again: "Still not big enough."
Tang Xiaoguo said: "Then make more trips?"
"That's no good either. It's not exactly close by. The traveling back and forth would burn up too much energy. The cost-effectiveness is too low that way."
Lin Qianqian said: "Why not station two people there?"
"Still not ideal. Since it's a water source, it's very likely to attract other animals too. Having fewer people around would be troublesome if a bear or boar showed up!"
Ning Shu thought for a moment: "Oh I know, collect water with the helmet!"
"The helmet does have more capacity, but it's covered in too much resin. Plus it's still not big enough!"
Ning Shu asked: "Then what do we use?"
Lu Zhe squeezed the soil around him, dug up when the girls were getting to the underground water.
"We use this!"
"The mud?"
Lu Zhe nodded: "This soil is from the layer above the coral bed and below the surface. It's full of volcanic ash, kaolin, and silica, giving it excellent plasticity and adhesiveness."
Lin Qianqian said: "You don't mean pottery do you?"
"That's right!"
Lu Zhe smiled lightly: "We can use this soil to make ceramics! Like bigger jars and basins, which can hold more water at a time and improve our quality of life!"
"But wouldn't ceramics leak?"
"We can glaze them!"
Jiang Yao wondered: "But what do we use as the glaze?"
Lu Zhe knocked the steel helmet: "We'll use this."
Tang Xiaoguo blinked in surprise: "You're going to fire the helmet into glaze?"
"Of course not. This resin on it is from the Damar tree native to Southeast Asia. It softens around 120 degrees. We can scrape it off with fire and coat the ceramics to waterproof them. If it's not enough we can collect more from the woods. This place is full of Damar trees!"
"Is that stuff toxic?"
"Not at all! It's used as food additive and in chewing gum. Melted and coated onto ceramics, it seals the porous surface. Only problem is its low softening point means it can hold water but not for cooking."
Ning Shu nodded: "You sure know a lot. Is this also from your book of ten thousand whys?"
"You bet!"
"Shall we start now then?"
Lu Zhe checked his watch: "Ceramic making has quite a few steps. Too late to start today! But we can wake up early tomorrow. From then on, we'll be officially entering the ceramic era!"
After the discussion, they divided up the bear paws, which were rich in collagen proteins. Skinned, the flavor was not as strong either. Comparatively, it was the tastiest part of the bear.
After dinner, they bid each other good night and turned in.
But Shen Bing did not fall asleep.
Lying on her side, she gazed at the sleeping Lu Zhe in the adjacent hammock, her mind flooded with thoughts!
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
transmigrates into the role of a villainous rich second-generation kid in an urban fantasy novel, and gets bound to a god-tier choice system. Right at the start, he catches the female lead stealing exam papers! This triggers the villain's choice options! [Choice 1: Pretend you didn't see anything] [Choice 2: Loudly call her out, drawing everyone's attention] [Choice 3: ...] And thus, a twisted villain is born. To avoid getting killed by the protagonist, he has no choice but to take down all the protagonists first. Jiang Che: Nobody understands being twisted better than me!
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
