Go back to the past to plant trees

The next day, Feng Cheng and Zhao Jinquan spent half a day finishing the remaining work. Looking at the project in front of him, Feng Cheng smiled.

This new thatched roof will last at least three or four years, and after I set it up this way, unless there's a heavy rainstorm, it will be very difficult for water to seep into the room.

However, dampness is unavoidable in dugouts, since they are underground structures. The only solution is to burn firewood in the pit every now and then to remove the moisture from the house.

After finishing the work in the house, Feng Cheng and Zhao Jinquan went to the nursery and started a new round of watering. The saplings in the nursery have now grown to a height of ten centimeters and have developed a certain degree of resistance. Now, except when the sun is too hot at noon, they don't need to be watered much at other times.

Although the amount of watering has decreased, the work of cultivating, weeding, thinning seedlings, and applying fertilizer has increased. Feng Cheng has to carefully check the nursery every day to see if any seedlings are diseased or dead.

These are all meticulous tasks, requiring Feng Cheng to inspect each and every one of the seedlings. He spends every day squatting in the nursery, and when he gets up, his entire legs are numb, sometimes almost to the point of being numb.

However, all the hard work was worthwhile. Under Feng Cheng's meticulous care, although the survival rate of the seedlings was low, at least there was no large-scale disease outbreak, which made Feng Cheng sigh that he was lucky.

When it was the first time cultivating seedlings, Feng Cheng was most afraid of disease. If the seedlings got sick, the entire nursery might be ruined, and not a single seedling could survive.

"Brother Feng, what are we having for dinner? Oat noodles and steamed buns?"

In the evening, as they were preparing to wrap up work, Zhao Jinquan asked Feng Cheng a question.

"also."

In Bashang, it's impossible to get anything good to eat. Even a skilled cook can't cook without rice. There are only a few things available, so you can't make anything good at all.

"Jin Quan, do you have any wheat flour at home?"

"There are still two jin left, Brother Feng, do you want to eat noodles?"

Feng Cheng shook his head and said, "I don't want to eat noodles, I want to bake some bread?"

"Bread? Is it a type of steamed bun?" Zhao Jinquan asked curiously. He had never seen bread before, nor had he ever heard of it.

"Yeah, pretty much, but this thing is a bit troublesome. We'll need to make an oven or something."

Feng Cheng suddenly had this idea. Mainly, eating oat flour buns, oat flour cornbread, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn stalks and the like every day had made Feng Cheng lose his appetite, so he suddenly thought of making something else to eat.

Feng Cheng had never made bread before, but his mother had made it in his previous life. He learned by watching short videos and she made everything. Feng Cheng became her first customer. Moreover, because she was too busy to do some things, Feng Cheng had to help her. For example, when they first started making cakes, they didn't have an egg beater, so he asked Feng Cheng to use chopsticks to beat the egg whites for him, until Feng Cheng's hands were sore.

Perhaps because she had nothing to do after retiring, she became fascinated with cooking. She even made bread, and having heard that bread baked over charcoal tasted better, she specially built a homemade oven in her yard.

But the thought of making an oven made Feng Cheng hesitate.

He's the kind of person who hates trouble and avoids doing things unless absolutely necessary.

"Oven? Buns baked over a fire?" Zhao Jinquan's eyes lit up when he heard this. He felt that this must be delicious because the way it was made was different.

"Brother Feng, what should we do? Shall we do it now?"

Seeing Zhao Jinquan's excitement, Feng Cheng immediately swallowed his thoughts of backing down. "Well, since you want to do it, then go ahead and do it!"

"It can't be done yet; the oven requires clay to make."

“I know there’s clay there, on my way home. There’s a place with clay not far from here, but I don’t know how sticky it is.”

"Okay, then I'll find some clay tomorrow, and also some stones that are neither too big nor too small and are relatively flat."

The oven needs to be built with bricks, but there aren't many bricks at the campsite, so stones have to be used instead.

"No problem, I'll go look for it tomorrow."

Seeing Zhao Jinquan like this, Feng Cheng realized that this guy probably didn't want to eat bread, but just wanted to find something different to do, probably because it was too boring here!

But who cares? Having a subordinate to command is a good thing for me. That way, I won't have to cook for myself when I want to eat something.

If you can make bread successfully, then you can make other things like cakes, roast chicken, and roast duck.

With an oven, it's easy to grill food. You can even grill potatoes and sweet potatoes, which tastes much better than steaming. You can also put corn kernels in to grill and make some popcorn.

Thinking of this, Feng Cheng's eyes lit up instantly. Once this thing was made, it would greatly help improve his meals.

We won't have to eat these things every day anymore. Even though it's still the same ingredients, changing the cooking method will give us more flavors and make us happier, right?

With this in mind, Feng Cheng began to take the oven matter seriously.

Early the next morning, Zhao Jinquan rode out on horseback to look for stones and clay.

Feng Cheng cleared out a space in the kitchen to make a grill. The kitchen was small; with a clay stove, a grill, and other things, there was basically no spare space.

But the oven can't be placed outside; it's made of mud, and if it's left outside, a rain shower will ruin it.

More than three hours later, after Feng Cheng returned from inspecting the nursery, Zhao Jinquan returned with two large bags of clay and one large bag of stones.

Feng Cheng didn't check it either, mainly because he didn't know how to tell if the clay was suitable for making an oven.

If it's not suitable, just knock it down and redo it. We have plenty of time and materials, so it doesn't matter.

Feng Cheng directed Zhao Jinquan to mix mud and shape the oven.

Because of the shortage of materials, Feng Cheng only made a single-layer oven, which was a tall, round one with a smoke vent and a large opening at the bottom for burning firewood and a small opening for scraping ash.

Zhao Jinquan was quick and efficient, and he got the oven set up in just one hour.

"Brother Feng, this thing seems a bit too simple!"

Zhao Jinquan looked at his masterpiece, but he wasn't very satisfied. The main problem was that the thing looked terrible. At first glance, it gave people the feeling that it wouldn't taste good.

"There's no way around it, the materials are limited. If you can get me some bricks and steel bars, I can design a beautiful one for you."

"Let's just make do with it for now. If it really works, I'll find a way to get some materials and make a big, beautiful one."

Feng Cheng was also not satisfied with this thing, but there was nothing he could do but make do with it for now!

With the oven ready, Feng Cheng instructed Zhao Jinquan to start a fire, using a small flame to dry the clay around the oven.

He then started preparing the dough. There weren't many ingredients available, so forget about milk and such. Thus, Feng Cheng was simply making a loaf of bread with the limited materials he had.

Well, I'll give it a try, but I might not be able to get it working.

Feng Cheng wasn't sure either. He'd never done this himself before; he only knew the general method, not the specific details.

The two of them even went out to water the nursery before returning to bake bread.

After the bread had risen, Feng Cheng cracked three eggs, brushed a layer of egg yolk onto the bread, and then brushed a layer of oil on top.

Feng Cheng put it in the oven, but he didn't know how long to bake it. The oven temperature was also hard to control, so he could only set it for about 20 minutes. He would open it to check when it was done and put it back in to bake if it wasn't good enough.

Twenty minutes later, the bread was out of the oven, golden brown on the surface. I don't know if it tasted good, but at least it looked nice.

"Brother Feng, can we eat now?" Zhao Jinquan looked at the freshly baked bread and couldn't help but swallow.

"Eat it, it's edible once it's grilled."

"Then I won't stand on ceremony," Zhao Jinquan immediately grabbed a piece of bread.

"Ugh, it's so hot."

The bread was very hot, but that didn't stop the impatient Zhao Jinquan; he picked it up and took a bite right away.

"Brother Feng, it's delicious."

Feng Cheng wasn't in such a hurry as Zhao Jinquan. He picked up a piece with his chopsticks, blew on it, and waited until it wasn't so hot before putting it in his mouth.

It was soft and sweet. Feng Cheng took a bite and thought it was pretty good.

It was my first time making it, and it actually turned out well. Although it wasn't as delicious as the ones sold in stores, it was still acceptable, considering that Feng Cheng didn't add milk and didn't use flour specifically for making bread.

It was fine when it came out of the oven, but after it cooled down a bit, it wasn't as soft anymore, feeling only slightly softer than a steamed bun.

That's good enough, it's a success. Even steamed buns taste better baked than steamed ones.

Feng Cheng ate two pieces of bread, and Zhao Jinquan finished the rest.

"Brother Feng, let's make this bread again tomorrow!" Zhao Jinquan said, still somewhat unsatisfied after finishing the bread.

Feng Cheng said, "We don't have that much thin noodles left. We ate half a jin today, and we still have a jin and a half left. I was planning to save them to make noodles later."

"All right!"

Zhao Jinquan was somewhat disappointed upon hearing this, but looking at the oven in front of him, he suddenly had another idea: if he couldn't make bread, he could make other things!