I traveled through time and space and found a mute boy: That’s enough, I feel sorry for him

As for his trip to the town this time, the most important thing was to find a few masters who could build kilns.

Although Xu Shu is not an expert in architecture, he can still tell whether a house is good or not. For example, the house he lives in now is made of at most a few pieces of wood carried down from the wild mountains.

The thatched roof provided psychological comfort as long as it could reach the sky. As long as it was windy and rainy, it didn't matter whether the house was there or not.

But the village chief's house is completely different. It is built bit by bit with blue bricks and white tiles. It is not only more beautiful than most stone houses in the village, but also more moisture-proof.

When it comes to building a house, Xu Shu's first choice is naturally a blue brick and tile house, but when he thought of blue bricks, his mind became active. He studied chemistry, and although his practical experience was not sufficient, his theoretical knowledge was absolutely rich.

If you can get to know a few masters who can build kilns and burn bricks and tiles, he has the skills and they have the craftsmanship, the possibility of burning pottery and porcelain will be greatly increased.

Although he had a plan in mind, Xu Shu was not in a hurry. He ordered a cup of hot tea in the teahouse, asked the waiter for help, and asked about where to buy bricks.

After drinking the hot tea, he went to the grocery store and bought some oil paper, several clean pottery cans, and ordered a large water tank. Then he slowly walked towards the brick kiln.

Most brick-selling places were at the edge of town. Xu Shu walked for a long time before he got there. When he entered, he found the place exceptionally deserted. He asked in a clear voice, "Is the owner here?"

Soon, a dark-skinned man with his upper body naked came over. When he saw Xu Shu, he was stunned for a moment before asking, "Sir, would you like to buy some bricks?"

Xu Shu nodded and said a little awkwardly: "It's a pity that I don't know what it takes to build a house, and I don't know how much to buy."

"That's easy." The big man nodded, "Leave us your address and we can send someone over."

"Thank you very much, store owner." Xu Shu smiled and thanked him.

The big man touched his nose a little embarrassedly: "Just call me Jiang Da."

Xu Shu also gave his name: "Xu Shu from Shiqiao Village."

Jiang Da nodded and said, "Mr. Xu, please wait a moment." After he said that, he walked to the back and soon brought back a tall and thin man.

"This is my younger brother, his name is Jiang Xiao."

After he finished the introduction, he looked at Jiang Xiao and said, "Take this young man to see our bricks."

After he finished speaking, he looked at Xu Shu and asked, "When would it be convenient for you for us to go check out the place?"

Xu Shu just smiled and said nothing, "Why don't we take a look at the bricks first."

Jiang Xiao nodded repeatedly, looked at Xu Shu, and smiled brightly: "Sir, please."

In this world, most skills are not passed on to outsiders, which is why there is a saying that "the son of a blacksmith is still a blacksmith." The same is true for brick making. Xu Shu followed Jiang Xiao through the front hall and walked a long distance before he saw the two kilns.

Perhaps because business is slow now, the two kilns are vacant, with only a few bricks and tiles placed on the sides, probably for customers to see the quality and inspect the goods.

As expected, Jiang Xiao took two quick steps, picked up a brick and handed it to Xu Shu: "Sir, take a look, these are all made by us a few days ago, they are very solid."

Xu Shu couldn't tell the quality of the bricks. He just pretended to look at them and asked casually, "Why are these two kilns empty?"

Jiang Xiao's smile froze, and he sighed helplessly: "With the war going on right now, not many people are still thinking about building houses, so business is naturally not good."

Xu Shu nodded in understanding and asked about the price of the blue bricks.

Jiang Xiao regained his smile and continued to introduce enthusiastically: "These are top-quality blue bricks, three cents a piece, the price is the same in the town, only the one on the west side is asking for four cents because of its booming business."

Xu Shu frowned subconsciously: "Business is booming?"

Jiang Xiao was stunned for a moment, but soon reacted and laughed awkwardly: "Well, although there are not many people building houses during the war, we are not completely without work. It's just that everyone doesn't know how to get to the house in the west, so we..."

"But don't worry, the quality of our two bricks is absolutely the same. If you think I'm talking nonsense, I can take you to see which brick is made."

Xu Shu interrupted Jiang Xiao with a smile: "No need, I came here naturally with some considerations."

Seeing that Jiang Xiao didn't react for a moment, he asked again: "Is it convenient for you to come to Shiqiao Village tomorrow?"

"That's convenient!" Jiang Xiao came back to his senses and responded quickly. As if afraid that Xu Shu would change his mind the next second, he immediately went into the house to get paper and pen, saying that he wanted to write down the specific location.

Seeing Jiang Xiao writing, Xu Shu was even more surprised. After giving his address, he said goodbye to the Jiang family.

The quality of the blue bricks was not something Xu Shu cared about at all. He had the recipe and could naturally burn strong and durable blue bricks.

Xu Shu was more concerned about the possibility of cooperation. Between a craftsman with nothing but four walls and barely able to afford food and a craftsman with a prosperous business who worked from dawn to dusk every day, the former was naturally more likely.

Xu Shu was very satisfied with the harvest of this trip and rode the town's ox cart back home.

When he arrived at the door of the house, he first tiptoed and pushed open the door of the main house to see what the boy was doing. Most likely he was sleeping. After all, before leaving, Xu Shu had told the boy to have a good rest and had fed him cold and fever medicine, most of which also contained some sleeping pills.

The people of this era are different from Xu Shu, who came from the end of the world. They have never taken sleeping pills or the like, and they have no drug resistance at all. The sleep-inducing effect is absolutely significant.

But Xu Shu was not 100% sure, so he decided to take a look first. He gently pushed the door open and glanced towards the bed. He saw the young man curled up in a thin quilt, sleeping soundly with his eyes closed.

Xu Shu finally felt relieved, closed the door of the main house, and turned to walk towards the kitchen.

He moved his bamboo basket to prop up the kitchen door, making sure he would react immediately if someone approached him. Then he opened the cabinet where the backpack was hidden and took out the backpack.

Xu Shu took out some food and unpacked them one by one. He wrapped the biscuits and bread in greaseproof paper, while the oily items such as pickles, canned sardines, and pickled eggs were stuffed into ceramic cans.

Then he burned the wrapping paper that could be processed and buried the unprocessed ones in the soil. After a busy period, he looked up and saw the sunset, casting a beam of light that fell right on the kitchen window.

At the same time, Mu Jinghua had woken up in a daze.

Mu Jinghua opened his eyes, but his mind was still groggy. He looked around. The shabby little house looked unfamiliar everywhere. He didn't know if it was because the sunset outside was too warm or what, but he actually felt a little happy.

But the room was only an inch big, and Mu Jinghua could see the end at a glance. He withdrew his gaze with some regret, lowered his eyes to look at the blanket that was still neatly placed beside him, and suddenly felt extremely confused.

Just because in these two short days, he received the most kindness in his life.

This blanket seemed to appear out of thin air in the wilderness. Someone carefully wrapped his broken and messy body, and even thoughtfully buried him under dead branches and bamboo leaves when he had already lost consciousness, to protect him from wild beasts in the forest.

When he woke up, he smelled the fragrance of bamboo leaves. In a trance, he thought he had died long ago and left this filthy world.

But after wandering down the mountain, he still felt pain.

After seeing the big man's ugly face, Mu Jinghua's first thought was relief - this was the world he lived in, filled with malice, lies and all kinds of tyranny towards him.

He thought he would be free soon.

But he opened his eyes again and smelled the scent of black bamboo again.

He ate a big bowl of noodle soup, two eggs in one go, and was even forced by the man to finish the small fish.

All of this was so beautiful that it didn't seem like a human world, so much so that Mu Jinghua thought that the malice from last time would reappear before him.

But at lunch time, the man put meat and vegetables into his bowl again. The aroma of the food almost made him dizzy. He thought, if this was really a dream, then he must have been very brave to come up with such a beautiful dream.

Thinking of this, Mu Jinghua shuddered subconsciously. He soon realized that he had started thinking again and was even too immersed in this dream. If this continued, when he returned to reality...

Mu Jinghua didn't dare to think about it anymore. He stood up, carefully folded the thin quilt, and spread out the sheets that were a little messy due to his sleeping. Only then did he calm down and slowly walked towards the kitchen.

He actually wanted to do something to help Xu Shu, but he was afraid that if he touched the master's things, Xu Shu would be unhappy.

Fortunately, Xu Shu agreed to let him help with cooking, which made Mu Jinghua feel a little relieved.

-

Practice makes perfect. Xu Shu quickly finished the dish in the self-heating pot. After cleaning up the evidence, he loaded the dish onto a plate, pushed the door open, and was about to go to the main house to wake the boy up for dinner when he ran into the boy walking towards the kitchen.

The clothes wrapped around the young boy were really ill-fitting. He was already a skinny little creature, and the loose clothes made him look even weaker, as if a gust of wind could blow him away.

The sun was setting at its best here, and the young man had his sleeves rolled up slightly, holding up his too-long trouser legs with both hands. The warm sun shone right on his thin arms, as if they were coated with a layer of golden light.

Mu Jinghua was startled when he ran into Xu Shu who was going out. He took several steps back and almost tripped over his trouser legs. After finally steadying himself, he looked up anxiously.

The setting sun then fell between his eyebrows, blurring his face, leaving only the mole between his eyebrows flashing.

Xu Shu couldn't quite see Mu Jinghua's expression, and felt helpless: "Didn't I tell you to rest? Why did you come out to get some fresh air?"

When Mu Jinghua heard Xu Shu's words, his heart moved and he thought, it must be a dream.

He wanted to look at Xu Shu, but because of the dazzling sunset, he couldn't see Xu Shu's expression clearly. However, he guessed that this person was probably looking at him tenderly, with a faint smile on the corner of his lips.

Mu Jinghua thought about how Xu Shu had smiled at him many times that day, and he felt that even though he couldn't speak, he should at least smile at his benefactor.

But he has never liked to laugh since he could remember. After people pointed at his nose and called him "bitter face", he became even less likely to laugh.

Now I wanted to smile, but I was a little at a loss. I thought for a long time and finally just forced a smile at the corners of my mouth, which was uglier than crying.

But Xu Shu no longer looked at him. Instead, he quickly walked forward and opened the door of the main house, urging him, "Come in and eat."

-

The two of them had dinner in silence.

After dinner, Mu Jinghua still insisted on washing the dishes. Xu Shu couldn't persuade him, so he agreed. Then he felt a little ashamed of his behavior of exploiting a minor, so he took the initiative to say, "I'll teach you sign language."

"This will make it easier for us to communicate."

Mu Jinghua was in a daze, and suddenly heard Xu Shu say this, his eyes lit up. Although he didn't know what sign language was, he was happy that Xu Shu was willing to teach him something.

He nodded repeatedly, and then felt that he was eating and using Xu Shu's things, and in the end he asked Xu Shu to take the trouble to teach him sign language, which was really shameless.

But he couldn't even say "thank you for bothering me", and his face was full of fear and trepidation. Xu Shu couldn't tell what he was thinking.

Mu Jinghua had no choice but to secretly make up his mind that he must do more to repay Xu Shu tomorrow.

The oil lamps in this place were really dim at night. Xu Shu didn't want to read, and there was nothing much to do in this world, so he just taught the kids sign language to kill time.

He did it right away, and immediately pulled the boy to sit down and began to demonstrate: "Look carefully, this gesture means eating."

Xu Shu made a gesture and Mu Jinghua followed suit clumsily.

Although he didn't get the point at first, he had a good memory and quickly mastered the key points after learning a few.

Xu Shu liked such smart people the most, and his liking for the young man increased a lot.

However, more haste makes waste. Even though Xu Shu could see that the boy was smart, he did not teach him too much at once. He only told the boy to practice well and then got up and went back to the kitchen.

It was already dark outside. The autumn moon was dim tonight and seemed even more gloomy. Xu Shu glanced at the deep night sky and felt a little sleepy.

He didn't sleep for long last night, so it's normal for him to feel sleepy early.

But today I definitely can't sleep in the kitchen like I did yesterday, and I definitely can't use the sleeping bag again, Xu Shu thought as he opened the cold capsules for the boy.

Worried that the boy would become suspicious, he poured himself a glass as well. When he returned with the two glasses of water, the boy was still practicing the gestures that Xu Shu had just taught him.

Seeing Xu Shu coming back, Mu Jinghua quickly stood up and looked at him eagerly.

Xu Shu couldn't help but smile, and handed the cup of cold medicine to Mu Jinghua: "Drink some water and get ready for bed."