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Translator: Silavin
“All of you hurry up. Just do it the way I taught you.” Uncle Shan Qiu said with vigour.
He looked very happy. It was for no other reason than that he had been given an important task to do.
He had thought there would be few chances that he would be useful to the Tribe. In fact, he expected to spend the rest of his days just making stone tools.
Now, it was different. He was assigned by the Shaman to supervise and teach the slaves how to polish stones. This energised him greatly. After all, these stones would be used to build houses! Furthermore, these stones had a peculiar texture and were very hard.
What they needed was someone to polish the stones to a degree suitable for building houses. Without exception, Shan Qiu was the man for the job.
Naturally, he was just one man. He could not possibly supply the whole Tribe with enough materials, even if he took no breaks. Thus, he was responsible for teaching the slaves how to do these things, how to make oddly shaped stones smooth.
“Yes.” The slaves responded in unison.
*Ting ting ting…* The sound of stones colliding and striking constantly rang out. There were people all around the stone pile.
No one was idle over at the kiln either. Many people were burning dried grass and making wood ash cement.
There were also people busy at the large pit, taking the wood ash cement and the stones polished by the slaves to start building houses.
Su Bai had demonstrated it once for them beforehand – how to apply cement between stones, and then how to place the second row of stones. He even had ropes stretched from one side of the pit to the other, preventing the house from being built crooked since the ropes served as a level guide.
Moreover, the blueprints Su Bai gave them were very detailed, with every step clearly showing what to do and how to do it.
There was also Yan Jiao and Shan Qiu, who were mainly responsible for supervising the work.
The foundation had been laid in advance, and the excavated soil had been filled back in. Several pillars for the first floor had also been cast according to Su Bai plan, and methods.
They used four long wooden boards formed into the shape of a pillar, then poured in the wood ash cement. After it dried, they removed the boards. That was how the pillars were made.
Stones were laid around these pillars, with the first task being to build walls on all four sides.
“Looking at it this way, it really does look like a house…” Yan Jiao said, resting his chin on one hand.
Looking at those pillars, and people starting to lay walls around them, it appeared really neat and proper.
“Yes, when the Shaman first said to build houses with stone, I really thought he was joking…” Shan Qiu sighed.
When he received his order this morning, he was truly startled, but after seeing the two bonded stones, he was filled with wonder and amazement.
After the wood ash cement was made yesterday, Su Bai began teaching them how to build houses. It was from the structure of the house down to selecting suitable stones for walls, as well as various wall-building techniques.
He taught them how to cast pillars, fill foundations, and even demonstrated building one wall for others to see and emulate.
Once he demonstrated yesterday, this morning, he just came to check if the slaves had mastered it. After confirming everything was fine, he left and had the Chieftain and others supervise.
“Yes, the Shaman is really amazing, I didn’t expect him to know so much.” Yan Jiao said, his tone still carrying shock.
He had thought making linen was already the Shaman’s most amazing skill, but then came papermaking, ceramics, and more.
Before they could get over these surprises, the Shaman came up with a way to build houses and make wood ash cement. The Shaman was truly a cause of endless amazement.
To be honest, Yan Jiao could not guess what other amazing things the Shaman might bring to them next.
If this was on Earth, someone like Su Bai would probably be called a treasure trove of a man.
“Do children in Large Tribes learn so many things? Linen, papermaking, ceramics – these are all things we’ve never heard of.”
Shan Qiu touched his hair and continued to ask in bewilderment, “They even need to learn about cement houses?”
He found it unbelievable – no, it should be impossible. In all his years, he had never heard of the Large Tribe having all these things.
When he was a child, he had the fortune to visit a Large Tribe with his Father and stayed there for several days. Even so, he had never seen any of these amazing things.
This was something he could not understand. He even had a bold guess, that the Shaman might not be from a Large Tribe.
If so, where was he from? Could he be from across the river? Otherwise, none of this made sense. The Shaman was truly too miraculous!
Yan Jiao watched him constantly shaking his head then nodding with certainty, as if seeing himself, because he was equally confused about these things.
He took a deep breath and said with determined eyes. “Whether or not the Shaman is from a Large Tribe, does it matter? Isn’t he leading us now?”
“Hahaha…” Shan Qiu laughed like a ringing bell. “You’re right, the Shaman is now our Tribe’s Shaman.”
“The Shaman said these cement houses are in preparation for the rainy season.” Yan Jiao said in a solemn tone.
“There are only twenty odd days until the rainy season. How many of these cement houses can be built by then?” Shan Qiu worried.
Although he kept urging the slaves to speed up, they also had to maintain the quality of the cement houses, so they could not be too hasty.
But at their current space, only one cement house could be built approximately every ten days.
With the six houses currently being built simultaneously, by the time the rainy season came, including the house in the central area, they could build at most seven houses.
“The Shaman mentioned this issue too, but this is all we can do for now. It’ll be better after the rainy season passes.” Yan Jiao helplessly said.
He had also felt helpless when he heard Su Bai say they could only build six or seven houses.
There would be a central area, with a single house as the largest and main one. In front of this house, there would be a large open space around it. This space would later be used as the public square.
Around this public square, there would be six houses that would eventually lead into six districts.
This was how Su Bai had planned the Tribe for now, with each district having ten houses built in it, equivalent to a neighbourhood.
Su Bai had planned for the Tribe to have six neighbourhoods, each neighbourhood being about the same size, with reserved open spaces between neighbourhoods that would later become main roads.
“I wonder which cement house the Chieftain will live in?” Shan Qiu asked curiously.
Yan Jiao pointed to the area directly in front of the central area house’s main door and excitedly said, “I will be staying in that house, over there.”
“Close to the Shaman’s house. That way, you’d be able to protect the Shaman up close – that’s good.” Shan Qiu nodded with satisfaction.
“Uncle Shan Qiu will also be assigned a house. The Shaman said it would also act as your stonemason workshop.” Yan Jiao grinned.
“I don’t mind,” Shan Qiu said as though it was unnecessary, though he was actually very happy inside.
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