The wicked female is extremely fierce, but she's pampered by her seven beast husbands.

Chapter 97 Sun Exposure in Salt Fields
Seeing that Hai Xing's attention had shifted from cooked food to salt production, Ling Chengen stopped playing along and broke off a branch from the side to start drawing on the spot.

"The most common way to make salt from seawater is through the solar evaporation method in salt fields. However, seawater contains many impurities, which are harmful to the body. Therefore, it is necessary to separate these impurities step by step before we can finally obtain edible salt."

"Salt fields? What's the difference between them and naturally formed salt flats?"

Ling Chengen nodded: "How do you think the salt flats were formed?"

"After the big tide and waves recede, some low-lying areas on the beach accumulate water, which eventually precipitates out as powder after being exposed to the sun."

Hai Xing was fairly familiar with this, as this type of salt could be found in the territories of several nearby tribes, and figuring out the principle behind it was quite simple.

These places are far from where the tide usually comes in, and they are only submerged when the wind and waves are particularly strong. Moreover, after the tide recedes, it must be sunny for a long time before the tide is high, otherwise a heavy rain will wash away all the salt on these beaches.

Ling Chengen couldn't help but ask in return, "Does anyone collect or eat this kind of salt from the riverbed?"

Hai Xing immediately shook his head: "The beach salt is very dirty. It's a pile of sand mixed with a little bit of white salt, which is inedible. Moreover, the salt sand itself is very fine, and it is not easy to separate the sand and soil from the salt sand. So the beach salt has always been there, but no one collects it."

"Some of our Shanna orcs living by the sea have a need for salt and have even purchased salt stones from the eastern trade market. The salt stones are much purer than the beach salt, with less mud and other impurities."

Hai Xing hesitated for a moment. Seeing his furrowed brows and hesitant expression, Ling Chengen couldn't help but smile and say, "If you have something to say, just say it."

Seeing her calm attitude, Hai Xing bluntly said, "Actually, from the very beginning when you said you wanted to use seawater to make salt, I thought it was ridiculous."

"That's simply impossible."

"Even if seawater could be salted, you wouldn't buy it at all; you can't possibly eat all the salt from the beach."

The coastal Shanna people don't have a high demand for salt rocks and salt powder. If they do as these two outsiders suggest and put a lot of effort into salt production, but end up not being able to sell their products, they will be the ones who suffer losses.

They were a small tribe, with a total population of less than three hundred.

They usually have to rush to the sea to hunt during the two low tide periods to solve their daily food problem. In addition, they also have to go into the mountains to collect herbs, pick fruits in the forest, cut bamboo and vines to weave fish baskets, and so on.

To produce salt, you have to sacrifice more time.

Moreover, the weather is unpredictable. Once salt production begins, if there's a sudden downpour before the salt is produced...

The entire salt-making process would likely be ruined.

Therefore, when the old clan chief spoke to him, he firmly opposed the decision to produce salt.

After listening to his clear and logical analysis, Ling Chengen nodded and said, "What you said makes perfect sense. Salt production is a very tedious job, and it is extremely susceptible to weather conditions. A rainstorm can ruin all your efforts."

"Putting those difficulties aside for now, let's talk about your concern about whether the salt from the riverbed is edible."

"This can definitely be solved, and I can provide a solution directly."

Ling Chengen made a very firm promise to him, while drawing connected squares on the ground.

"Let me first tell you the difference between salt fields and naturally formed salt flats."

"The salt we eat is a substance contained in seawater, but seawater also contains several other substances. Generally, depending on the amount of time it is exposed to the sun, the water will evaporate directly, turning into water vapor in the air."

"The reduction of water will cause these substances in the seawater to precipitate out step by step... turning into visible solid sediments. Most of these substances are white."

“I drew three squares. The first square is the primary salt pond, which is a shallow pond used to absorb moisture and evaporate the first substance. The second pond is a little deeper. This is an intermediate salt pond. The things that are precipitated by the sun are also impurities. The third salt pond, also called the crystallization pond, is where the things that are precipitated are actually salt.”

Ling Chengen looked up and stared at Hai Xing for a moment, then said quite frankly, "But this salt is only slightly better than beach salt."

"Because the salt deposits are essentially a mixture of the sediment from the first and second pools and the salt from the third pool."

"The salt produced by sun-drying in the third salt pond is called raw salt."

"This raw salt, like beach salt, is mixed with a lot of mud, sand and algae, so it cannot be eaten directly. It usually looks yellow or gray, so it needs to be further purified."

"But compared to impurities in seawater, mud, sand, and algae are easier to separate."

"All you need to do is dissolve, filter, and then evaporate and crystallize."

Ling Chengen didn't explain the final purification and separation step to them in detail yet, because it was indeed not difficult. It only required reintroducing it into the water and then using a strainer and activated carbon to adsorb the impurities.

Hai Xing listened intently, then frowned slightly and said, "What you're saying... is too incredible. Are you sure it can work?"

How long will the whole process take?

Ling Chengen glanced at the sky, felt the temperature and humidity on his body, and roughly estimated: "Generally speaking, in particularly good weather, it will take about ten days. But in cases of poor sunshine, it may take about a month."

"Is all we need to do—dig salt ponds and then dry the salt?" Hai Xing asked, voicing his doubts after hearing her explanation. "Don't we need to do anything else?"

"When crystals slowly form in the third salt pond, the salt layer needs to be turned over regularly to prevent clumping. Then, after all the salt has been dried, the salt grains are gathered into piles, forming salt lumps about the height of an arm, and left to stand for 1 to 3 days to allow the bitter brine in the salt lumps to seep out naturally with the mother liquor."

"Of course, if you want it to seep out, you have to design a drainage ditch under the salt mound."

Ling Chengen reviewed the salt-making method in his mind almost from beginning to end and felt that there were no omissions. As for the difficulties that these orcs might encounter during the actual operation, he would deal with them one by one later.

Hai Xing pondered for a long time before finally assessing the feasibility of the seawater salt production plan.

In fact, the human resource costs involved should not be too large.

The tribe has earth-type ability users, so creating a few salt fields is not difficult. They don't need to wait for the tide to rise to bring in the seawater, as the tribe has no shortage of water-type ability users, so bringing seawater into the salt fields is not difficult.

Turning over the third salt pond and piling up salt mounds is not difficult either; they can actually do it by taking some time each day.

This salt-making job is worth a try.

Their Hailing tribe is so poor. If they could really master this salt-making method and start supplying salt to the salt-deficient central and eastern regions... their lives would definitely get better and better, and they could even reverse the discrimination they face in the eastern regions.

“We can try, but we need your guidance.” Hai Xing quickly gave his answer, and his actions were also very efficient. “This afternoon I will arrange for people to dig salt ponds and introduce the tide into the salt ponds before sunrise tomorrow morning.”

Ling Chengen looked up and observed the clouds in the sky, as well as the direction and humidity of the sea breeze, and shook his head, saying, "It will rain tomorrow afternoon, and it will continue for the next three days." "Let's wait for the rain to end. We also need to go back to the tribe first, and come back after the rain stops."

Hai Xing and the orcs who had been eavesdropping all looked up at the cloudless sky. The sky by the sea was a deep blue, and the wind blew from a slightly southerly direction, carrying a hint of the dampness of the sea.

It doesn't look like it will rain tomorrow.

Bai Qingyu tilted his head and asked, "If it rains tomorrow, we have to leave today. We didn't tell the people in the tribe when we left, and if we go back late, they might worry and send people out to look for us."

Ling Chengen nodded: "That's what I was thinking too. We'll head back this afternoon and should be home by tomorrow night."

Hai Xing withdrew his gaze, looking bewildered, and asked, "You guys can read the weather?"

“I’m not very accurate at judging the weather, but she is very accurate,” Bai Qingyu replied proudly.

Hai Xing glanced at the smug expression on his face, a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth, a hint of annoyance creeping into his heart. He couldn't understand what this crane-tribe beastman was so proud of. His partner could read the weather, not the other way around—it was truly baffling!

"You're not going to go back and not come back, are you?" Hai Xing still wanted to confirm with them.

Ling Chengen turned his head to look at Hai Xing, who looked worried, and couldn't help but chuckle, "You won't lose anything if we don't come, right? After all, you haven't even started digging in your salt fields yet. You can just wait for us to come before you start."

"Besides, we are the ones who lack salt, so we should be the ones who are anxious."

"We're not just here to have nothing better to do than come and talk a bunch of useless stuff to you and play games with you, are we?"

Hai Xing's mind cleared instantly after she retorted a couple of times.

Yes, if these outsiders don't come, they don't really suffer any loss.

At most, they'll just continue living the same life as before.

But deep down he still hoped they would come back.

He had a strange feeling that the little female was probably telling the truth.

If it's true, their good days are really coming very soon.

When leaving in the afternoon, Hai Xing specially gathered some fresh coastal specialties and handed them to Ling Chengen: "Take these coastal prey back for your family to try. I see you seem to have a space... To be honest, I suggest you don't use this thing in front of others in the future, because there are quite a few knowledgeable people, and some scheming people might have designs on this thing."

Looking at the two excessively young faces in front of him, Hai Xing couldn't help but worry about them.

These two young people looked to be under twenty years old. Carrying such valuable treasures out like this made them easy targets for covetous people.

Ling Chengen nodded to him and smiled, "Thanks, I'll be more careful in the future."

"However, judging from what you're saying, it seems you've seen this kind of space before?"

Hai Xing nodded and answered honestly, "Our tribe also has such a space, but it was passed down from the old chieftain's family. He was unwilling to hand over the space back then, and was eventually ostracized by those around him, so he had no choice but to establish the Hai Ling tribe independently."

"Because of that space, he encountered a lot of trouble and assassination attempts..."

"Later, I heard that the space was stolen, and the chieftain was seriously injured. Since then, life in our Hailing tribe has gradually become more stable."

Ling Chengen never expected there to be such a past event. He was once again moved by Hai Xing's kindness and honesty, then jumped onto Bai Qingyu's broad back and disappeared into the towering mountains in the blink of an eye.

Only after leaving the territory of the Hailing tribe and flying thousands of meters into the sky did Bai Qingyu finally speak and ask, "Actually, there was something I wanted to remind you of when we were in the Hailing tribe."

Ling Chengen pulled out a wide-brimmed straw hat, tied it under his chin with a rope, and asked with a smile, looking down, "Don't you think it's silly of me to teach them the salt-making method for free?"

Bai Qingyu shook his head: "It's not because of that. Even if we give the salt-making method to the Hailing tribe, we can't guarantee that we won't run out of salt in the future."

“Once they see the huge profits from salt production, or if a tribe is willing to pay a higher price than us for the salt they produce, we will be in a very passive position. We will either have to raise prices like we do now, or we will have to find new salt supply channels.”

Ling Chengen chuckled and said, "That's why I didn't tell them how to purify the raw salt."

"And even if they breach the contract, we can share the salt-making method with other Shanna beastmen, just like we did today. With competitors, their salt will naturally not fetch a high price."

"The profits from a monopolistic business can indeed be very misleading, but the method of salt production is not difficult to figure out, and they need to build open-air salt fields to produce salt. As a result, it is difficult to ensure that the salt production method is not discovered by the surrounding tribes."

"We only wanted to solve part of the salt supply problem by asking them to produce salt. How many people are there in the Hailing tribe? How much salt can they produce? There are hundreds of tribes of all sizes in the central region, with a combined population of no less than 100,000. Can they supply salt for the daily needs of 100,000 people?"

"There are also the eastern and northern regions, so the method of salt production will eventually be known by other coastal tribes. As long as there is profit, even if the sea tribes and the inland beastmen have a long-standing grudge, there will definitely be some less extreme people who will start to participate in salt production."

Who wouldn't want the orcs in the tribe to have a better life?
We are not fools.

Hatred cannot fill an empty stomach.

Moreover, the Shanna people who live by the sea are not, strictly speaking, true sea people.

They were simply more trusted by the sea-dwelling orcs than the inland orcs.

"Since you've thought these things through, then I won't say anything more." After listening to her analysis, Bai Qingyu felt much clearer-headed, and the question that concerned him most immediately popped into his mind, "Hmm—"

Hearing his sudden change in tone, Ling Chengen had a bad feeling.

When should we hold our marriage ceremony?

"How about the day after tomorrow?"

Ling Chengen's lips twitched slightly: "How anxious are you? Is the old house on fire?"

Bai Qingyu didn't quite understand her sarcastic tone, but he could still roughly grasp that she was telling him he was impatient.

He wasn't angry, but just smiled and replied, "Of course I'm anxious! I can't wait for the orcs from both tribes to witness our most important moment tonight!"

Hearing his excited voice, Ling Chengen couldn't help but feel embarrassed: "..."

A male displaying its tarantula can be quite frightening sometimes!