Free Web NovelChapter 155: Chapter 155: Foot-Pedal Rice Thresher
Even though he had discovered the high-level cultivation space within the resonance space, for a moment, Kaelen didn’t know what to plant.
He didn’t have any spiritual plant seeds. And planting ordinary seeds in the space felt like too much of a waste.
At night when going to bed, Kaelen voiced his concerns to Sane. Sane pulled his mate into his embrace and said softly:
"Didn’t you just say earlier that the rice seeds the tribe harvested weren’t very good and the yield wasn’t high? What if we took those seeds and planted them in the children’s space?"
Kaelen’s eyes lit up, and he bolted upright to look into the crib. The three children were still groggy, not having truly fallen asleep yet. He hastily pulled them up:
"Don’t sleep yet, Papa has a task for you!"
Saying that, he dashed into the kitchen, opening all the different types of seeds he had stored. Currently, the house only had some soybeans, watermelon seeds, and a handful of red sorghum seeds. Kaelen took a little of each, brought them over, and stuffed them into the mouse cub’s paws:
"Ryder, take the seeds into the space. Finnick, later when you plant the seeds, observe their germination speed for Papa. If it’s too slow, use your Divine Energy to stimulate their growth. Harvest them tomorrow morning and bring them out to Papa, okay?"
The mouse cub took the seeds, tossed them into the space one by one, then gave a long yawn and lay down. Finnick also clambered inside. Knowing there was no task for him today, Oliver obediently returned to his own nest.
After the children went to sleep, Kaelen tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. Seeing Kaelen like that, Sane chuckled lightly, scooped Kaelen up, and carried him to another room to do what adults should do. For a while, Kaelen no longer had the energy to think about random things.
The next morning, Kaelen rarely woke up late. It wasn’t until the sun was high in the sky and sunlight was pouring everywhere that he sluggishly got up. Just as he moved, a bout of soreness transmitted from his waist.
Kaelen used his special ability to soothe the pain while muttering curses at Sane for being shameless. After stepping out to the front room, he found that the fathers and sons had left early. On the table was his breakfast, placed inside a bamboo food cover.
Kaelen hurriedly finished his personal hygiene, ate breakfast, and then quickly went to the center of the plaza.
Everyone had gathered in full force, taking turns admiring the rice thresher.
Thanks to the iron components, the foot-pedal rice thresher, which was originally just on Kaelen’s blueprints, had been completed by the carpentry workshop at a breakneck speed.
The crankshaft and connecting rod system were made of wrought iron hammered into cylinders, and the bearings were lined with iron rings soaked in animal fat. Hundreds of U-shaped iron nails were driven along the spiraling threshing drum.
When a warrior stepped up to pedal and test it, the machine ran smoothly. The axle rubbing against the slick layer of fat only emitted a whirring sound as it cut through the wind. Everyone was initially startled, then stared intently at the drum until their eyes started to blur. Of course, having learned a lesson from yesterday’s rice harvesting incident, no one was foolish enough to stick their hands into the spinning reel to touch it.
"The High Priest is here! High Priest, how is this thing used?"
Kaelen greeted everyone back, then stepped forward and said: "First, everyone needs to set up the screen net."
He pointed at the screen net, which was densely woven from stiff grass fibers like a mosquito net. One end was left hanging loose, while the other end was sewn up and had a long bamboo stick threaded through it.
"First, use the longest bamboo stick and insert it into this position on both sides of the machine’s body to create a supporting frame." Kaelen took the five-centimeter-thick bamboo stick, which was sharpened at both ends, and inserted one end into the round lug near the head of the thresher’s body. Then, he looped it around to the front and inserted the other end into the lug on the other side.
The bamboo stick was now bent, forming a semicircle with its base far away from the threshing drum. He shook out the bamboo net and continued instructing:
"Once the frame is inserted, we will drape the net over the frame. The open end goes down, and the end with this bamboo frame will be on top, also inserted into the lugs of the machine’s body. After draping it, remember to shake the net flat and use heavy objects to weigh it down so the wind doesn’t blow it into the drum."
After the net was set up, Kaelen began teaching everyone how to thresh the rice. First, the rice had to be piled up on both sides of the machine, as high as the machine’s body. After cutting all the binding strings, one would use both hands to grab a handful of rice, gripping the base of the stalks tightly, leaving about five to ten centimeters of the base exposed.
After Kaelen gripped the rice, he said: "If you take rice from the left, use your right foot to pedal the machine. If you take rice from the right, use your left foot."
He then started pedaling the footboard continuously with his right foot for half a minute to build momentum, before placing the rice stalks onto the machine’s edge. The moment the rice stalks rested on the edge, the heavy, drooping ears of rice immediately touched the rapidly spinning drum, emitting a loud rustling sound.
The rice grains were instantly knocked right off the ears, with some flying out, hitting the screen net, and then falling down. Seeing this, everyone understood why the screen net had to be set up. With this shooting force, without the net, who knew where the rice grains would be blasted off to.
After cleanly threshing the bottom side, Kaelen started rotating his wrists to thresh the two sides and the top. Once he confirmed that the grains on the rice ears were completely stripped off, Kaelen leaned slightly and tossed the bundle of straw behind him.
Unfortunately, there were people standing behind him as well, and the bundle of straw landed squarely on their heads. Kaelen glared and shouted:
"Are you standing there to stare at my butt! Come up here to the front!"
The people standing behind embarrassedly pulled the straw off their heads, then crowded to the front.
Kaelen finished demonstrating with one bundle of rice, then handed it over to a beastman, giving careful instructions:
"You can only pedal lightly, follow my instructions. This is the tribe’s property, if you stomp and break it, get out and go mine coal for me."
The beastman hunched his shoulders timidly, gingerly placed his foot on the pedal, and pedaled lightly. Kaelen spoke again: "Use a bit more force... Alright, alright, maintain this level of force, now feed the rice into the machine."
The beastman grabbed a handful of rice and placed it on the machine’s edge. Just as he was about to toss the straw away, Kaelen stopped him. He signaled for the beastman to take his foot off the pedal first. Once the drum stopped and there was no longer an ear-piercing humming noise, Kaelen pointed at the bundle of rice and said:
"You followed my instructions correctly, but because your hands are large, when gripping the rice you unconsciously bunched it inward, so these ears of rice in the middle still haven’t been threshed." He showed the beastman the intact ears of rice inside: "At times like this, you need to bring your two wrists close together, letting the tip of the handful of rice spread out slightly, that way the inner ears of rice can come into contact with the drum."
Kaelen handed the handful of rice back to the beastman, helped him adjust his gripping posture, and then let him try it on his own. With the first handful of rice as a model, the beastman was able to cleanly thresh the subsequent handfuls of rice by himself.
After the beastman finished threshing one bundle of rice, Kaelen chased him down to let someone else up. The beastman still hadn’t had enough, stepping down with a depressed mood.
There wasn’t much rice. After more than forty people had a turn to practice, it was completely gone. Those who hadn’t gotten to try the thresher grumbled and rubbed their hands together, wanting to go get sorghum stalks to test it out. Kaelen stopped them:
"There’s still another batch of rice being harvested over at the iron ore site, it will be back in a few days. Then you all can thresh to your hearts’ content. For now, take off the screen net and carry the machine into the storage room. After that, sift the paddy grains and lay them out to dry."
Kaelen picked up a sieve, but suddenly paused. He didn’t know how to sift paddy and rice in a circular motion, so how was he supposed to teach them. He had no choice but to teach them to shake it side to side the way he always did. Even though it tired the hands a bit, the result was still the same anyway, hehe.
After another bout of struggling, the paddy grains were completely cleared of straw and broken stalks, then spread evenly across the stone yard using wooden rakes. Kaelen further taught everyone when to use their feet to turn the grains, and when to rake them into ridges to avoid water vapor condensation beneath the yard’s surface.
In addition, he instructed the person in charge of watching the grains to make sure birds didn’t swoop down to eat them and to be mindful of gathering the grains when it rained.
After finishing these tasks, he didn’t return home to eat his meal, but hurriedly headed to the administrative area to meet Sane and the three children.
He was truly anxious to know the results of the little ones’ planting.
