Chapter Eleven: The Function of the Stone Mill

Page (1/3)

He hesitated for a moment before saying, “After washing, use salt ore to cure it, but wild vegetables aren’t like meat—they tend to get mushy very easily.”

Then some of the beastmen soaked the salt ore in water to pickle the wild vegetables, but they couldn’t quite gauge the soaking time. More often than not, they would pull the vegetables out only to find them rotten beyond recognition.

Even when some beastmen accidentally managed to produce pickled vegetables and dried them, the pickles were far too salty. The females and cubs endured the saltiness but ended up with diarrhea. Seeing this, the other beastmen dared not eat them again.

Thus, the shaman later outlawed pickled vegetables as a “poison” that brought harm to the tribe, and so pickled vegetables were mercilessly eliminated.

Yun Li listened quietly as they shared stories of how using salt ore to pickle wild vegetables was impractical. Gazing at the wild vegetable slices dried by the sun for days, she fell into silence.

She wondered if the salt ore the tribe used was inherently toxic, which made the pickled vegetables unpalatable and even poisonous.

But that didn’t make sense either. If the tribe’s salt ore were toxic, then all the food she had eaten before—seasoned with salt ore—would have gradually accumulated toxins in her body, causing discomfort.

Yet Yun Li felt no such effects. Could it be that beastmen have a special physiology where, as long as the salt granules consumed each time are not excessive, any toxins entering the body are naturally metabolized?

This would explain why eating thoroughly pickled vegetables was harmful: the toxin load at once was too great for the beastman’s body to handle, leading to health issues.

“Ah Li? Ah Li?”

“Hmm?”

Yun Li was snapped back to reality by He’s voice. She saw her once again wearing a kind expression, urging her to throw away the dried vegetables. “Mu Qing can afford to support you. Why bother fretting over such trifles like before? It’s better to focus on nurturing your health and then have a litter of little snakes with Mu Qing.”

Mu Qing had just finished roughing up Ah Hu and walked in. Hearing He’s words, his body stiffened instantly.

However, recalling how Yun Li had firmly stood by him several times before, he quickly relaxed and walked over to his female companion, saying to He, “Ah Li’s body isn’t healed yet. I’m in no rush.”

He had even considered not having cubs, but that thought was soon supplanted by a strong desire to have offspring sharing his bloodline with Yun Li.

Preferably not little snakes, but wolf cubs, as Ah Li had mentioned.

He looked at him with a hint of pity in her eyes but said nothing, only smiling, “No rush. Ah Li’s health is the most important.”

Page (2/3)

Yun Li said, “If it happens, we’ll have them. But when there’s nothing yet, what’s the point of talking?”

Then, as if recalling something, she tilted her head and asked, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen your beast form?”

She didn’t know what kind of snake Mu Qing was.

Mu Qing thought about how the males in the tribe instinctively feared his beast form and hesitated, unsure how to answer.

Luckily, Yun Li’s question was casual and sudden. Before He could find an excuse to change the topic for Mu Qing, Yun Li nudged him and said,

“How many pieces of salt ore do we have at home? Bring me one. I have a use for it.”

Seeing Mu Qing turn and head indoors immediately, He looked baffled. “We just talked so much. Are you really going to keep pickling wild vegetables?”

Yun Li thought naturally. Since the wild vegetables were dried, they wouldn’t last long without pickling.

Yet she shook her head and said, “Not pickling for now. I want to show you what this stone mill is for.”

Hearing this, He and the others exchanged glances, then followed Yun Li to a device connecting two round stone plates, one on top of the other.

“What use could this have?”

One female examined it but couldn’t figure it out.

“It’s for grinding things. If something is too tough to crush by hand, you grind it with this—it’s more convenient.”

Yun Li knew beastmen were strong, especially trained ones who could break hard stones barehanded, but brute strength didn’t always mean efficiency. A tool was still more practical.

He looked at the stone mill with confusion. “It’s just two stone plates. What could you grind with them together?”

“What’s the hole on the top for? And why is there a wooden stick inserted?”

The females were curious about this odd yet somewhat familiar stone device, wondering what Yun Li planned to do with it.

“I’ll show you soon.”

Page (3/3)

Saying this, Yun Li’s gaze fell on the piece of salt ore in Mu Qing’s hand. She said, “Ah Qing, crush the salt ore and put the crushed pieces on this stone mill plate.”

He pulled Yun Li aside. “That chunk of salt ore could last a long time. Are you really willing to waste it?”

He felt like Mu Qing’s female wasn’t very frugal, or perhaps she harbored some resentment about Mu Qing becoming her first beast husband and was deliberately making things difficult for him.

Yun Li frowned and retorted, “I’m not planning to throw the salt ore away, so how is this wasting it? I want to grind it finely so that when Mu Qing isn’t around, I can still use it.”

Otherwise, holding such a big chunk of stone to rub on meat would take ages before she could eat a proper meal.

Besides, it’s just inconvenient.

He’s face showed surprise. She looked at the crushed ore on the stone mill and then at Yun Li, still puzzled.

“But how do you use it after grinding? If it’s too much trouble, you can soak the salt ore in water and use the salt water to marinate or roast meat.”

“But once salt ore gets wet, you must dry it quickly, or it becomes useless. Using wet salt ore to rub meat makes it taste strange and can cause illness in beastmen.”

Yun Li picked up some of the crushed particles on the stone mill and said, “If it’s ground to this fineness, isn’t it easier to use? Just sprinkle it directly on the meat.”

He and the females exchanged looks behind her. “That’s fine.”

It just looked like too little once ground, and it wasn’t as convenient to store or as long-lasting as whole salt ore.

Their tribe was considered a mid-tier tribe in the Black Flame Mountains, yet the salt ore they seized each dry season totaled just over four to five hundred dan (one dan equals 50 kilograms). This meant each beastman received only one dan per year.

Beastmen had large appetites. Even an ordinary female could consume forty to fifty jin of meat daily. Cubs growing up consumed nearly as much, and trained beastmen required even more, easily eating hundreds of jin a day.

If Mu Qing were not a Green-rank beastman and a main force during salt ore raids, he could never afford to waste a fist-sized chunk of salt ore on Yun Li.

The original owner wasn’t as aware of the tribe’s annual salt ore distribution as He and the others. After all, she struggled just to feed herself, so receiving any free salt ore from the tribe each year was already a blessing. She never worried about such details.