When the past was mentioned, there was another feeling of emotion.
Jiang Yao blinked her big eyes: "Hey, can our dad also be alive and drift to a deserted island. Then one day, drift here."
Lu Zhe shook his head: "I've thought about it too, but the possibility is too low, with the Philippines in between!"
Shen Bing sighed: "I was only in 5th grade elementary school that year when I heard about this incident. It was said that all the islands were searched but nothing was found."
"Let's not talk about it!"
Lu Zhe let out a long breath: "Taking good care of ourselves is the best repayment to our parents. Look, Xiaoguo has fallen asleep already."
Everyone looked over together, and Tang Xiaoguo was drooping her head, seemingly having fallen asleep already.
"What's the situation?"
"Don't catch a cold!"
"Hey, Xiaoguo!" Lu Zhe patted her face.
Tang Xiaoguo raised her head in a daze, a big nose bubble protruding from her red little nose.
Ning Shu was surprised: "What's wrong?"
"Hehe...nothing!"
Tang Xiaoguo got up staggering and walked towards the beach, but after a few steps she sprawled on the ground.
She pounded the ground with her fists: "The ground is uneven..."
Shen Bing said worriedly: "She's not drunk, is she!"
"With so little alcohol, impossible!"
"And we've been drinking for so long, nothing happened to us!"
"Some people react afterwards?"
"Xiaoguo, Xiaoguo!"
"With such low alcohol content, even kids can't get drunk!"
Lu Zhe hurried to help Tang Xiaoguo up and wiped the sand off her face: "What's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with me? Nothing's wrong with me! Come on, brother Zhe, let's dance. Let me tell you, I have a level 10 special talent certificate in dance, not worse than Yao at all!"
Saying so, she pulled Lu Zhe to run to the beach: "You are drunk, Xiaoguo!"
"How is that possible? I'm absolutely fine with that little...alcohol...I'll show you I can even write!"
Saying so, she took off her skirt.
"What are you doing!"
"Turn around, I...I'll give you a surprise, hehe!" she said, about to take off her top too.
"What on earth?" Lu Zhe hurriedly turned around, and after a "splish-splash" sound, he heard Tang Xiaoguo angrily shout: "Damn it, not enough!"
Looking back, he saw Tang Xiaoguo had drawn a big heart on the ground, inside which she had messily written a few letters in capital letters: "LZTX"!
Everyone present was rendered speechless.
Lin Qianqian said: "Xiaoguo is really too uninhibited!"
Jiang Yao sighed: "Suddenly I feel that all the embarrassing moments I've experienced before seem not that embarrassing anymore at this moment..."
Ning Shu slowly put down her phone: "Last bit of battery, let's leave Xiaoguo with a memento!"
Shen Bing said helplessly: "Alright, hurry and coax her to sleep. She'll stir up more trouble later!"
"I don't want to sleep, I just want brother Zhe..."
"Too willful!"
Left with no choice, Lu Zhe could only help carry her back to the camp and threw her on the bamboo bed, by which time she was already snoring away!
The other girls were also tired. After bidding each other goodnight, they all climbed onto the bamboo beds and fell asleep.
"Phew, this bizarre day is finally over."
July 25th, the 46th day stranded on the deserted island. Lu Zhe carried the bamboo basket and brought the 5 girls to the hot spring cave.
The four girls went to bathe in the hot spring and have fun at the volcano, while Lu Zhe went to the creek to look for minerals. Shen Bing decided to help him search.
"Lu Zhe, we are looking for iron ore. Shouldn't we know what kind of minerals are iron ore?!"
"Congratulations, you've hit upon the crux of the issue!"
"So do you know?"
"The ancient method was to scrape rocks with rough porcelain pieces and then distinguish them by the scrape marks, but we don't have any such stuff!"
"So what do we do?"
Lu Zhe took out an object: "There is a ring-shaped magnet in Qianqian's phone. Let's use it!"
Saying so, Lu Zhe brought the ring-shaped magnet close to rocks one by one.
"There are three types of metal elements that can be attracted by magnets, namely iron, cobalt and nickel. And iron is by far the most abundant of the three in nature. They mostly exist in ores and soil in the form of triiron tetraoxide and iron(III) oxide, some of which have magnetic properties that can be easily identified with a lodestone!"
As he spoke, Lu Zhe's magnet went "click" onto an orange rock. Satisfied, he weighed it in his hand and put it into the basket.
"Having found the ore means we now possess the raw materials required for iron smelting. Next we need lots of pottery clay!"
"We don't need to make too much pottery, do we?"
"Enough pottery would suffice, but we also need to make large quantities of clay bricks to build the iron smelting furnace!"
"As expected, iron smelting is no easy task!"
But now that they had a direction and method, they wouldn't be groping around blindly like headless flies.
After a busy morning, Lu Zhe collected over 40 catties of iron ore, and only gave up when the basket was about to break under the weight.
The two then dug up large quantities of pottery clay to take back to camp.
Throughout the entire transport process, Lu Zhe carried on his shoulder or lifted by hand. Shen Bing suggested making a wheelbarrow with the bike wheels, but he gave up on the idea.
There were only two wheels, and once broken they couldn't be used anymore.
The ox couldn't be used either, since it was still recovering!
He still had plenty of potential points to add to strength, physical fitness and constitution!
By now Lu Zhe's strength had exceeded 100 points, ten times what it was initially. His physique and physical fitness had also reached 80 points each!
He would serve as the ox himself!
Ning Shu picked some more jackfruits again. Lin Qianqian gathered lots of wild grapes. Jiang Yao collected half a bag of papayas. Tang Xiaoguo caught half a bottle of tropical fish to take back and breed.
Having done more or less everything, the gang sang folk songs as they headed back to camp!
And then they were all dumbfounded!
An estimate of over three tons of clay was piled next to the campsite, like a giant ant mound that had popped up out of thin air.
"This was all done by Lu Zhe?"
Shen Bing said with a wry smile: "I wanted to say this is mystical, but in actuality, this was done almost entirely by Lu Zhe alone. I didn't even move a tenth of what he transported!"
Jiang Yao said in astonishment: "One Lu Zhe is equal to 10 Shen Bings. I feel this poses a huge challenge to us."
Ning Shu nodded: "So Qianqian, we girls unanimously stand united externally okay, no more internal friction!"
Lin Qianqian was startled: "Huh?"
"Alright, stop blabbing. Whose techniques are the best, come massage me!"
The four girls ran over, with Ning Shu massaging the head, Qianqian pounding the back, and Jiang Yao kneading the shoulders.
Tang Xiaoguo said: "Want me to walk on your back?"
"Forget it, I'm afraid you may step on a vital point and kill me..."
After the leisure time ended, everyone had a meal. Lu Zhe then moved on to the next step of the plan: building the kiln!
It was very simple. Use clay as cement, bamboo strips as steel bars, and build five half-meter diameter cylindrical furnaces. Fill them with charcoal and fire them for drying!
Then use wide bamboo slices to carve out four wide bamboo strips as molds for the bricks!
Next, use the grinder and fine lines to shape the clay into brick shapes!
Place them under the big tree to dry. Once most of the moisture has evaporated, put the dried clay bricks into the furnace to bake. 24 hours later, these can be used as bricks!
Although the quality can't compare to those used for building in cities, they are more than enough to build iron smelting furnaces and enclosure walls and so on!