Chapter 88 - Building A House (1/2)

Ch88 - Building A House

There was still some residual warmth in the pottery fire pit, and there was no wind when they lay down at the bottom of the pit, so everyone felt quite good after sleeping there overnight.

Sleeping inside the fire pit was even more comfortable than sleeping on the ground of a cave.

The next day, Xiong Ye went out hunting with the hunting team while Zhou Ji roamed around the tribe’s territory.

He wasn’t very satisfied with the cave they lived in now and wanted to build a house of their own. Now was about the right time to start.

Of course, when one wanted to build a house, they had to first choose a place and decide on the design.

After thinking about it for a while, Zhou Ji decided to finally act.

The house couldn’t be built too far away from the tribe, but it also couldn’t be too close since he didn’t like being stared at by the tribesmen all day long.

At the same time, it was preferable if the house had two floors, at least three rooms, a large yard, and an enclosing wall.

They could plant flowers and other plants in the yard and grow climbing ivy and morning glory along the walls. If it was possible, they could also dig out a small pond…

The more Zhou Ji pictured it, the more he looked forward to it.

This was the home that he dreamed of.

During the apocalypse in his last life, when faced with a polluted world, he had especially wanted to live such an idyllic life.

At the time, it had definitely been a luxury completely beyond reach for him, but now… It was completely possible for him to build a manor larger than any estate on Earth!

That wasn’t necessary, of course…

Zhou Ji finally found a suitable place about four hundred meters away from the entrance to the valley, next to a hill. He marked out an area that was even larger than the valley that the tribe lived in now, then found the priest and said, “This place will be mine later on.”

“That’s fine. What are you going to use it for?” The priest asked him.

“I’m going to build a house there.” Zhou Ji replied.

“Why are you building a house there?” The priest didn’t understand.

“I’ll live in it.” Zhou Ji said.

The priest was stunned, “You plan to live outside the valley? Aren’t you afraid of encountering dinosaurs?”

“A fence can be built.” Zhou Ji said. Although he had originally wanted to make a wall out of mud, the area that he ended up drawing out was a bit too big, so he changed his mind.

He planned to keep a few trees, then pound some wooden stakes between them and make a wooden fence instead.

Of course, they could add an additional low wall near the cottage.

The priest listened to Zhou Ji’s words and gave Zhou Ji a rather complicated look as he tried to understand what Zhou Ji was trying to do.

Their valley was very safe. Why would Zhou Ji suddenly want to build a house outside of it? And he also wanted to put a fence around the house and block himself inside like the dinosaurs they were raising…

But, if this was what Zhou Ji wanted, then so be it.

Perhaps Zhou Ji would be able to do something new again in the end!

With this in mind, the priest said, “The barley has already been harvested, and the ground has been plowed. We can start helping you with this tomorrow.”

“Alright.” Zhou Ji nodded.

Zhou Ji marked out a bunch of trees and told people to help him cut them down the next day.

It didn’t take him much time, and after he was done, he slipped over to the place where the pottery was fired.

It had been a few days since they had harvested the barley, and the weather had been particularly sunny recently, so the barley was basically fully dried, so the individual grains of barley fell off the stalks on their own.

Zhou Ji told people to use a wooden stick to strike the barley so that the barley would drop to the ground, and they could then collect it and place it into some barrels.

Of course, the best way to eat barley was to cook it after it had been shelled, but to be honest, this method wasn’t suitable for the people of the tribe-it was too troublesome!

It had to be said that even during the Han Dynasty on Earth, people still didn’t know that they should remove the shells from the barley before cooking it. When they used it to make bread and such, they also skipped this step.

They always cooked it straight with the shells on.

During this period, some of the tribes that grew barley didn’t eat it, either.

With this in mind, Zhou Ji had some people fry up the barley with the shells still on.

The barley was fried in a stone pot until it was toasted yellow and became… Barley tea?

Zhou Ji picked some up and put it into his mouth. After chewing it for a while, he felt that it wasn’t unacceptable despite being a little burnt.

“Divide up the fried barley and let everyone have a try.” Zhou Ji made himself a cup of barley tea while he was at it-he hadn’t forgotten to make himself a cup when he made pottery last time!

The toasted barley was soon divided amongst the people of the tribe, and everyone obtained a portion.

“This barley smells good!”