Rebirth of an Old Farmer: Escape from Famine with Children and Grandchildren

An hour later, people from the three villages arrived at the bank of the underground river.

This underground river is very wide. Although the water is not deep, the banks appear exceptionally wide.

The people of Sujia Village gathered on the bank on this side, looking at the clear, slowly flowing river water, and couldn't help cheering excitedly.

The children could not contain their joy and jumped towards the river with innocent smiles on their faces.

The adults could not hide their excitement either. They leaned over and began to gulp down the water, as if they wanted to thoroughly moisten their long-thirsty throats.

However, what followed was a continuous series of "cough cough cough" coughing sounds and "pah pah pah" spitting sounds.

"What kind of water is this? Why is it so bitter and astringent?"

Someone covered his throat and asked with a look of confusion and puzzlement.

"Mom, Mom, my throat hurts. Why is the water so salty?"

A little child cried out, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Su Yousheng resisted the urge to drink water and carefully led the big blue mule and the black donkey to the river. He originally wanted to let them drink first, but he didn't expect that the big blue mule had just lowered its head to drink some river water, and immediately raised its head and sprayed water on Su Yousheng's face.

Then, the big blue mule raised its head and neighed a few times, its voice full of dissatisfaction and anger.

For a moment, everyone's cursing, continuous coughing, children's crying and livestock's cries rose and fell, echoing in the dark underground river, as if the whole world was surrounded by these sounds.

Sun Wan closed her eyes and sighed inwardly: It was just as she expected!

This underground river may contain a high concentration of saline and alkali components. No wonder this stone forest is desolate and has no vegetation at all.

Even in the river valley, the humid climate cannot breed any plants. Not even a single one of the most salt-tolerant Artemisia saltwort and Suaeda salsa can be found.

Everyone was originally full of expectations, but now they are in deep disappointment.

The originally hopeful look in his eyes has now been replaced by endless despair.

Everyone's emotions seemed to have been hit hard, and they instantly lost their spirits. They collapsed on the ground, some beat their chests with their hands and let out bursts of grief; some stamped their feet and cried, tears streaming down their faces. The whole atmosphere seemed particularly desolate.

Seeing them like this, Sun Wan felt very uncomfortable.

Her heart was full of contradictions and pain, and she understood how important everyone's spiritual support was in this situation.

But the first problem now is to find a way out. Is it really true that we can only follow this underground river?

At this time, the old village chief called her again, "Lanzhen, come here and take out the map. Let's see if we are following the river."

His voice was full of fatigue, but also a hint of determination.

Sun Wan took out the slightly old map from her arms and slowly handed it to Su Yousheng.

This time, she didn't follow over to check the map, nor did she want to worry about the specific location.

She now needs to think carefully about how to make use of this river water.

Looking at the relatively clear river water, she kept thinking in her mind: How can I turn this water into drinkable fresh water?

At the very least, the salt and alkali content must be reduced to a safe level.

The method she initially thought of was filtration, but she quickly gave up the idea because she knew that only turbid water was suitable for physical filtration, and the river water here was already very clean, but the salt and alkali content was too high.

In this case, the only method we can consider is distillation extraction.

However, without modern distillation equipment, traditional methods are not only extremely inefficient, but the amount of fresh water that can be obtained is also very limited.

In addition, I don’t know how long I will have to stay here, and it is still unknown whether I can get out along the underground river. Maybe I will have to return along the original route and pass through the daunting stone forest again.

Sun Wan was thinking about various countermeasures while walking, and occasionally she would stop and bend down to pick up stones on the roadside.

Especially those stones that look unique in shape or bright in color, she would quietly put them into the space she carries with her.

She remembered that there was a merchant who was in urgent need of a special stone. Although she forgot who it was, she knew that there would always be someone interested in it if it was put on the market.

The underground river is dotted with all kinds of rocks, no matter they are colorful or strangely shaped, all covered with a layer of salt-alkali substance like hoarfrost.

These seemingly ordinary stones have become one of Sun Wan's current most focused targets.

She picked up a stone the size of her palm and examined it carefully.

The surface of this stone is covered with a layer of light white crystals. This layer of crystals is not conspicuous, but when you touch it with your hand, you can feel its unique delicate texture.

Out of curiosity, she gently extended the tip of her tongue and licked the stone surface lightly. She was immediately shocked by the rich and strong salty taste, which almost completely overwhelmed the originally vaguely detectable alkaline taste.

Sun Wan's eyes suddenly lit up, as if she suddenly saw a ray of light. This underground river hidden at the foot of the mountain seemed to contain a lot of salt. If it could be used, maybe it could be purified through distillation to produce safe drinking water that can be directly drunk, and precious table salt could also be extracted!

Recalling the low-quality and inferior salt that the villagers usually used on their tables - those were large grains of salt that were yellowish in color, rough in texture, and tasted slightly bitter; due to extremely limited resources, even if hunters occasionally brought back a lot of game from the mountains, no family was willing to use them to pickle meat to preserve it for a longer time, and no one dared to try to process wild vegetables into easy-to-store side dishes and carry them with them to the wild to satisfy their hunger.

"If we could really succeed in extracting enough fresh salt from the river..."

This thought made Sun Wan extremely excited. "Not only will my family no longer have to worry about having no salt, but I can also help improve the food supply for all the families around me who are short of salt and food!"

Thinking of this, Sun Wan grabbed Wang Hui, who was deep in thought, and ran to the river. As she ran, she called out to her wife and sister-in-law, who were also following her: "Come on, come on, let's try it right away!"

So, under her command, Zhang Nizi, Tonghua and Li Sanya quickly began the preparations: they quickly set up a heavy iron pot, and then began to scoop river water from a nearby stream and pour it into the pot, preparing to start the first experiment.

Seeing this, Sun Wan quickly returned to the family's special large blue mule cart parked nearby and started searching. After a while, she found a bundle of firewood that had been specially stored as a backup.

"Nizi, help Mom light the fire first, then control the flames to boil the whole pot of river water."

Sun Wan explained the next steps to her daughter in detail.