"My lord, I saw that stone stream in front of me!" Liu Po opened the way in front of him with a bow and arrows in hand, and the remaining three Orions were also on full alert, firmly surrounding Chen Xu in the middle.

Sure enough, after walking forward for more than 200 meters, I saw a narrow stone crack under a steep cliff full of ancient vines, and there was a small hole under the stone crack, the hole was very irregular, the widest part was less than two meters, and the hole entrance was almost blocked by ancient vines and thorns.

A hunter drew a firewood knife and cut off the thorny vines that were hidden from the entrance of the cave, and the hole was completely exposed.

Standing at the entrance, Chen Xu felt a cool air rushing to his face, so cold that he couldn't help but swing a few times.

I'll go, there's an iceberg hidden in it!

Chen Xu was very puzzled, in this scorching summer, the cold air coming out of it actually gave him goosebumps all over his body.

"My lord, it's cool enough here!" Liu Po couldn't help but feel a little proud.

"Let's go, go in and have a look!" Chen Xu is very satisfied with this temperature, if the wine is placed here, it is estimated that it will not deteriorate in ten or eight years, and the wine will taste good after it is chilled.

After bending down and drilling into the stone cave, Chen Xu found that the space inside is not small, the mouth and abdomen are as big as a bottle, it is completely a natural stone cave, the more you go inside, the higher the cave, and it is very dark, the area is dozens of square meters, the ground is rugged, the surrounding rocks are craggy, like a karst cave, but there is no such thing as a stone stalactite, in the innermost position, I really saw a thin spring water dripping out of a narrow rock crevice, and then overflowing the stone into a small pool with a radius of almost ten zhang.

The temperature in the cave was even lower, and Chen Xu felt that the maximum would not exceed fifteen degrees, and when he suddenly entered here from the scorching summer outside, the heat instantly subsided without a trace, and he even felt a little too cold.

Looking at the clear spring water, Chen Xu squatted down and tried it with his hands, and sure enough, it was so cold that he couldn't help but shiver, and then washed his hands and prepared to hold it up and drink a few sips to cool off.

"Don't, my lord, this spring water is so bitter that you can't drink it!" Liu Po hurriedly stopped.

"Bitter?" Chen Xu looked at the transparent spring water in his hand and asked blankly.

"You Yu is right, this spring water is bitter, it can't be swallowed at all, and many people in the town know it!" The other Orion also nodded.

Chen Xu was stunned for a long time, looking at the gurgling spring water, his mind began to churn, according to the experience of later generations, there is only one possibility that water is bitter, and there are mineral salts and other things dissolved in it, but since it is bitter, it will definitely not be table salt.

Chen Xu let go of his fingers, and the water fell into the pool with a thud, and then he touched it with his hand on the rocks at the water's edge, and through the dim light, he saw that there was indeed a layer of white powder on his fingers, like hoarfrost, but this temperature obviously did not frost.

After hesitating for a long time, Chen Xu still didn't put his fingers in his mouth and tasted it.

He didn't have the courage of Shennong to taste a hundred herbs.

What if it's arsenic, although the possibility of this is zero, but what if, it's too stupid to die in that case.

"Have you ever heard of this water poisoning people other than bitterness?" Chen Xu washed his hands and stood up.

"I've never heard of it!" Liu Po and the three hunters all shook their heads together.

Chen Xu was a little relieved in his heart, but he also had a toothache, if he guessed correctly, the water was bitter because of this white substance dissolved in the water, but at the moment he couldn't confirm what it was, but he could deduce that at least it was not lime and salt, as for whether it was poisonous or not, it was difficult to guess, in case the wine was hidden here, someone got some and put it in the barrel and it would be over, some chronic poisons would last for many years before they hung up, and then they died miserably, and their intestines were rotten.

Chen Xu couldn't help but swing and said: "Let's go, find a place again, this water is probably poisonous, if someone secretly mixes it into the wine, the consequences will be serious!" ”

"Lidian, Qinghe Town is relatively cool here within a radius of dozens of miles, and I'm afraid I can't hide wine anywhere else!" One of the Orions said after him.

"Yes, Lord Lidian, other places are either not easy to find, or not cool, I think this is the best, you just need to put a fence at the mouth of the cave, write a sign that idlers are not allowed to enter like a paper mill, and then hang a ban at the mouth of the valley, and no one in Qinghe Town will dare to come and destroy!" Liu Po also said.

After walking out of the cave, Chen Xu pinched his chin and struggled for a long time, according to the temperature, this place is the most suitable for cellaring wine, as for the sign that prohibits traffic, it's okay not to hang it, if it is hung, it means that there are no silver three hundred taels here, and almost no people in the town know how to read, and it is useful to write.

"Okay, let's stay here for the time being, and don't spread the word when you guys go back! There is no need to repair the entrance to the cave, just cut some branches to cover it when the time comes. Chen Xu finally decided, put it here for the time being, and then think of other ways after the summer is over.

Back in town, Chen Xu went to the pottery workshop again.

When the wine is ready, you have to prepare a batch of wine jugs, and the wine jugs are not too big, and you have to have a big belly and a fine mouth, but the pottery workshop in the town makes pottery very primitively, first dry the clay containing fine sand and grind it finely, then sift it, and mud, and rub it into long mud strips, and then according to the size of the pottery to be made, it is coiled into a general shape, and then slowly kneaded into the pottery mud with your hands, and finally dip your hands in water, wipe the surface roughly smooth, and after drying, you find that there is no too much deformation or no cracks and holes. After the amount of mud is enough, it is sent to the earthen kiln for firing.

This pottery method can only make utensils with large openings, such as pottery bowls, pottery pots, pottery pots and pottery jars, etc., and the size of the difference is very large, each one is different, as for the fine small utensils can not be made at all, mainly limited by technology and design.

In fact, it is best to use glass or porcelain to hold wine, glass is definitely impossible for the time being, the production process is not known, only know that the main ingredient is quartz sand, that is, silica, but porcelain now don't think about it, the craftsmen of the pottery workshop have not heard of kaolin, and they don't know what glazed clay is, so they can only use pottery, but pottery actually has one of the biggest drawbacks, that is, there is a certain permeability, and water will seep out for too long, and it is not suitable for long-term storage of wine.

But everything can only be settled.

This is Chen Xu's current situation, everything he encounters in production and life can only be compromised, and he can't be good or refined.

The pottery workshop is opened at the foot of the mountain a mile away from Qinghe Town, there is no yard here, only a row of straw huts and a small earthen kiln, surrounded by discarded broken mud and pottery, one pergola has a small mud pit, a few helpers are sifting the soil to carry water and mud, another pergola has a few apprentices are kneading all kinds of pottery with mud strips under the guidance of craftsmen, and the other pergolas have both fired pottery wrapped in wheat straw and piled together, and there are many made mud blanks lying on the ground waiting to dry.

"I've seen Chen Lidian!" Seeing Chen Xu coming on horseback, the craftsmen and apprentices hurriedly stopped and saluted.

"Excuse me!" Chen Xu jumped off the horse, tied the reins under the pergola and walked in and asked, "Gao He, did you make the wine jug you designed a few days ago?" ”

The old potter suddenly shook his head with a wry smile, and pointed to the various thin-mouthed bottles and cans all over the place with mud-stained fingers and said: "Lord Lidian, the mouth of the wine jug you designed is too small, and we have made many of them that cannot reach an inch of specification, and our fingers cannot reach into them, so that the clay cannot be kneaded tightly, and once it is fired, it will definitely leak, and the wine will naturally not be filled!" ”

Chen Xu picked up a semi-dry pottery that had been yin, the size was about the same as the requirements of his design, but the bottleneck was short and thick, the diameter of the bottle mouth was two inches, and his fingers reached in and touched it, and the feeling of stumbling inside was still a circle of mud strips, which was not pinched and smoothed at all, and the situation was similar to that of the old potter.

In later generations, Chen Xu was just a rural baby, and then studied in a second university, and then lived like a salted fish for twenty-five years, never getting rid of the life of the poor, and he did not study any basic majors of physics and chemistry, so he almost didn't know anything about what iron and steel metallurgy and chemical industry was, and as for the tall and unpopular profession of making pottery, he had never been in contact, so he crossed over to the Great Qin Empire, and could only stare dryly in the face of such a primitive pottery production.

But no matter how salty he was, he had much more knowledge than the group of ragged and dark-skinned craftsmen of the Qin State in front of him.

It is certainly impossible to make exquisite pottery by kneading the clay by hand, and it seems that I watched a classic movie called "The Love of Ghosts" a long time ago, and there is a shot in it that is also made of handmade clay, but it is placed on a turntable that can be rotated quickly......

After standing in the pergola and thinking for a long time, a shot popped out of his mind, and Chen Xu suddenly brightened up.

The kind of turntable in the movie should be electric, but there is experience in making threshers, and there should be no big problem in making it manual, and it can even be made into a foot pedal type, because pottery is not a thresher, and it does not need much kinetic energy, just keep it rotating at a constant speed.

With the thought of it, Chen Xu immediately couldn't stay still, and rode directly out of the pottery workshop to find the carpenter.

"Master, what's wrong with Ridian? Isn't it stupid to suddenly stay for a while and laugh? An apprentice looked at Chen Xu's back and couldn't help but say.

"Smack!" The old potter slapped the apprentice's face into a half-pinched mud basin, "Lord Lidian is the best person I have ever met in my life, all of you can talk about it, but you can't talk about him, and then let me know that I am talking nonsense behind my back, and my legs are discounted!" ”

"Yes, master, we don't dare anymore!" Several apprentices and helpers were silent.