Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 370: Chapter 234: Hand-made Aqueduct (Part 2)

He quickly finished off all the lobster and crab, then had a couple of oranges for some vitamin C before staring worriedly at the pile of Flying Fish.

He had also grilled the Flying Fish meat he’d filleted earlier. Just like carp, it was full of bones, making it impossible to eat. Worse, the intermuscular bones were Y-shaped, so trying to pull them out wasn’t guaranteed to work.

’Forget it. I can’t be bothered with this. I’ll just dry them. They’ll be crispier if I grill them after they’re dried.’

He spread the Flying Fish flat on a banana leaf and set them out to dry by his door to keep wild animals from getting to them.

’Every time I need water, I have to go back and forth to the stream. It’s not far, but sometimes I forget what I was doing and have to make multiple trips. It’d be great if I could run a pipe to the house.’

He stood outside his shelter, his gaze following the stream up the mountain. The idea seemed very feasible.

The stream flowed down from the mountain. All he had to do was connect a bamboo pipe at a point higher than his bamboo house, then extend it section by section to his shelter, right?

’Let’s see... The bamboo for the pipe just needs to be split in half, which isn’t hard. For the supports, I can use Y-shaped branches or saw bamboo tubes into a similar shape. That’s not too difficult either.’

’I shouldn’t rush to run the water yet. First, I need to figure out where to store it. Can I just dig a pit? Or will all the water just seep into the ground?’

He wanted something like a well, but after thinking it over, he realized it would be a bit of a challenge.

A well holds water because it taps into the underground water table, providing a continuous supply that bubbles up.

If he just channeled the water into a pit, it would most likely seep into the ground through the soil layers.

It definitely wouldn’t collect water in the short term. But over time, once the surrounding subsoil became saturated, would the pit be able to hold water? He wasn’t sure.

’Whatever. It doesn’t matter if it holds water or not, as long as I have a continuous, flowing water source.’

’Wait. If I don’t need to store it, letting the stream water soak the soil doesn’t seem like a good idea. Could it turn the solid ground into mud and cause my bamboo house to collapse?’

The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. He broke out in a cold sweat, silently thanking his lucky stars. It was a good thing he was naturally cautious and hadn’t rushed to start construction.

’In that case, it seems just running the pipe to my shelter isn’t enough. I also have to run it back to the stream. That way, I’ll have water available at all times and also avoid the unnecessary trouble of the water soaking the soil.’

’Once I’ve solved the water problem, I can even clear some land nearby to plant vegetables. Heh, I refuse to believe these foreigners can survive longer than me.’

Although vegetables have a long harvest cycle, usually three to six months, and the show might not even last that long, it was at least a form of security.

With that security in hand, he’d have the confidence to negotiate with Robert. Getting some extra points out of it wouldn’t be impossible.

For the next while, he did nothing else, traveling frequently between Bartel’s cabin, the bamboo forest, and his own shelter.

He might not have been the only one who knew Bartel had dropped out, but he was definitely the closest.

「A day and a half later.」

Dragging a bundle of bamboo back to his shelter, Lin Chen let out a long sigh of relief. He looked at the mountain of bamboo and wood piled in the corner of his house, a swell of confidence rising within him.

[Collected a large amount of firewood and bamboo on the Panama coast. Happiness +1]

He didn’t even get happiness points from the giant lobster and crab, but just for looting a stash and chopping down a few batches of bamboo, he suddenly got points?

’This is great!’

’Looks like hoarding resources is important too. In that case, basic construction should also give me points. As for food, it just needs to fill my stomach since it can’t be stored for long anyway. It seems my focus for the next few days will have to be on infrastructure.’

He casually grilled some smoked venison and potato slices, washing it down with coconut water to fill his stomach. Then he checked on how the drying chili and taro leaves were doing.

The purslane was relatively small and was almost dry after a day or two in the sun. It didn’t need to be pickled; it was naturally quite salty, so drying it for storage was enough. Tossing some into a soup could serve as a salt substitute while also providing fiber and nutrients.

The chili leaves, which had been drying for over two days, were about eighty percent dry and completely wrinkled. The taro leaves, on the other hand, just looked a bit wilted and hadn’t lost too much moisture yet.

He was drying the leaves under the eaves, where they only got two or three hours of direct sunlight each day. The rest of the time, they were in the shade. This way, he didn’t have to worry about bringing them in to prevent them from over-drying.

After bringing both types of leaves inside, he started to work on preparing the bamboo.

The bamboo meant to serve as pipes needed to be wide enough for a large capacity. He sawed off the slender tops to use as firewood.

With a saw, his work efficiency skyrocketed. In just half an hour, he had processed over twenty bamboo stalks, sawing off all the excess branches and leaving only the main trunks of a suitable thickness.

For now, he only split five of them in half. He shouldered them and headed outside, walking upstream along the creek to find a suitable spot to divert the water.

Soon, he found a spot at a suitable elevation, about a ten-minute walk from his bamboo house.

From here, he could see his bamboo house partially obscured by the woods in the distance. The drop in elevation was roughly ten meters, about the height of a three or four-story building.

’With this height and distance, if I build a straight line, the supports will have to be quite high. That’s too much trouble to build. I’ll take a winding route.’

’If I build the aqueduct along a winding path, it will have to twist and turn with the terrain, and I’ll need a lot more bamboo.’

’Whatever. More is more. The main thing I have right now is time. Low construction difficulty is the priority.’

He studied the terrain of the slope near the stream and laid out the ten bamboo troughs in order, trying to choose spots that weren’t too high off the ground. That way, building the supports wouldn’t be too strenuous.

But the height couldn’t be too low, either. After all, transporting the water required creating a drop in elevation. If he started too low, it would affect the angle of transport later on, causing the water to get stuck halfway.

’All things considered, apart from the section that taps into the stream, the height of the next few sections should be about 1.5 to 1.6 meters. With the slope of the hill, I can maintain that height for a good distance.’

The principle of transporting water with bamboo troughs was simple. You just had to overlap them, with each section higher than the one after it. The water would flow from high to low, forming a channel.

’In ancient times, the Da Xia people who lived in the mountains used this method to channel water. I don’t know much about other countries, but I figure that in any nation where bamboo grows, the mountain folk probably use a similar method.’

He spent half the day laying out the bamboo sections one by one in what he thought were the right positions. The channel extended all the way to the side of his bamboo house, then made a turn and headed back toward the stream.

But soon, he discovered a much less strenuous method.

Digging the channel directly into the ground.

His only goal was to bring water near his bamboo house for easy access. The reason for channeling it back to the stream was just to prevent an overflow from causing his house to collapse.

But the return path to the stream didn’t actually need to be made of bamboo. After all, bamboo had to be cut down and hauled over one stalk at a time.

Compared to that amount of labor, it was actually much easier to just dig a trench in the ground and let the water flow down the slope to the stream.

Water has momentum. As long as there’s a drop in elevation, it will follow the channel all the way forward.

From afternoon until evening, for a full five hours, he did almost nothing but dig the drainage channel.

It might have only been a ten-minute walk, but actually digging it almost broke his back.

「Day 21.」

He went out early, carrying a few bamboo stalks to the starting point of the aqueduct, and officially began building the supports for the troughs.

’The first bamboo trough doesn’t need a steep angle. It just has to reach into the stream and be slightly tilted. It’s best to align it with the direction of the current to give the water more momentum.’