Refining salt

Jianshi soon heard that Wang Yan and the others had brought back salt rock. He hurried over, scraped off a little powder with a stone knife, and tasted it. The strange mingling of saltiness, astringency, and bitterness made his brows knit tightly, but his gaze was full of trust as he looked at Wang Yan. "It's salty! It tastes strange, but Yan said he has a way to fix it! Let's trust him!" After all, the cost of this attempt was very low-nothing more than some labor and firewood. Compared with the enormous benefits success would bring, that investment was insignificant.

Wang Yan knew very well that this experiment had to succeed. Failure was not an option. They had not brought back much salt rock, so he had to produce a respectable result on the first try. If he failed, even with his father's support, voices of doubt would arise within the tribe. After all, the rocky slope to the north was no short distance away, and there were risks involved. If those rocks proved useless, who would still be willing to spend the time and effort mining and transporting them?

The next day, Wang Yan's "chemistry lab" opened for business again.

He chose the spot beside the pottery workshop again, where water was easy to fetch and a fire pit was already available. Only a few people took part: Wang Yan, Gubang, Daya, Shouchai, and Aunt Luye, the most tight-lipped of them all, whom Qingye had sent to help.

The first things Wang Yan needed to do were dissolving and filtering. He found the largest earthenware basin, its surface somewhat uneven, smashed the salt rock they had brought back into small pieces with a stone, put them in the basin, and added clean stream water.

"Let it soak, so all the saltiness inside can soak out into the water," Wang Yan explained. Cloudy brine slowly formed, while sand, mud, and rock fragments settled at the bottom of the basin.

Next came filtering, a crucial step in removing impurities. Wang Yan had prepared the materials well in advance: a relatively tightly woven piece of hemp cloth (crude though it was, it was far better than grass leaves), an earthenware jar with several small holes drilled in its bottom, and some charcoal left over from their charcoal burning, crushed into small granules.

He had Gubang and Daya prop up the jar with wooden poles, then first spread a thick layer of charcoal granules over the bottom and laid the hemp cloth over the charcoal.

"Aunt Luye, help me pour the water from the basin into this jar, slowly," Wang Yan instructed.

Aunt Luye carefully lifted the basin and slowly poured the cloudy brine into the jar lined with hemp cloth and charcoal. The cloudy water passed through the cloth and the charcoal layer, and by the time it dripped out through the small holes, it had actually become much clearer!

"Oh! The water's turned clear!" Shouchai exclaimed in delighted surprise.

Wang Yan caught the filtered brine in another earthenware bowl and examined it closely. The water was indeed clearer, but it still had a faint yellow tinge. He knew this was only preliminary filtration; certain minerals and bitter substances dissolved in the water were still there.

"This is just the first step," Wang Yan told the few people watching. "We need to leave the 'saltiness' in the water behind and drive the water away."

He needed evaporation and crystallization. He found a wide-mouthed earthenware pot-one of the best-quality pieces they had fired recently. He poured the filtered brine into it, set it on a specially built stove, and lit the firewood.

Flames licked the bottom of the pot. The brine inside slowly heated up, giving off wisps of steam. Everyone held their breath and stared intently at that pot of water, as though watching some sacred ritual.

Steam kept rising. The water level in the pot gradually fell, and its color deepened as it began to thicken. An even stronger salty, astringent smell spread through the air.

"It's almost ready!" Wang Yan watched the bottom of the pot intently. He saw some white crystals beginning to appear around its edges!

He had Gubang lower the fire and heat it slowly over a low flame. When almost all the water had evaporated and a thick layer of slightly yellowish-brown crystals coated the bottom and sides, Wang Yan quickly removed the earthenware pot from the heat.

"Did it work?" Daya asked eagerly.

The pot was still very hot. Wang Yan carefully pried at the crystals on the bottom with a wooden stick. They were no longer rock, but brittle, granular crystals! He carefully took off a small piece and handed it to Aunt Luye beside him. "Auntie, taste this. Careful, it's hot. Don't swallow it-just taste it."

Aunt Luye nervously took the little piece of crystal and, under everyone's expectant gazes, carefully touched it with the tip of her tongue.

Her eyes flew wide, and disbelief spread across her face. "Salty! It's salty! It's not as bitter as before! It's... it tastes like salt!"

Wang Yan took a small piece and tasted it himself. It was still salty on his tongue, but that unpleasant bitterness and astringency from before had indeed diminished greatly! Though it was still nowhere near modern refined salt, with impurities and a slight off taste, this was unquestionably edible coarse salt! Its quality might even have been slightly better than the coarse salt, mixed with even more impurities, that they had previously traded animal hides for!

"It worked! We really made salt!" Gubang jumped up in excitement. Daya and Shouchai excitedly pounded each other as well.

Wang Yan let out a long breath, and a smile of relief finally appeared on his taut face. He looked at the layer of yellowish-white coarse salt in the pot. There was not much of it, but its significance was enormous! This proved that his method worked! The entire process, from salt rock to edible coarse salt, had been successfully established!

He sent Aunt Luye to fetch his father, Jianshi, and his mother, Qingye.

When Jianshi and Qingye arrived, saw the layer of white crystals tinged with yellow in the pot, listened to Aunt Luye's excited account, and personally tasted that saltiness, which was indeed much purer, their excitement was beyond words.

Jianshi clapped Wang Yan hard on the shoulder, his voice somewhat choked. "Good! Good lad! You really did it! Our Fire Tribe has its own salt now!"

Qingye went straight to wiping away tears. As someone who had once belonged to the Fish Tribe, she knew all too well what controlling a source of salt meant. It meant not only self-sufficiency, but enormous wealth and a say in matters!

The news soon spread among the core members. Jianya, Dali, Dazhuang, and Dabang hurried over and saw the pot of coarse salt with their own eyes. Every one of them was shocked speechless.

Jianya, their strategist, had a deep look in his eyes. He looked at Wang Yan, then at the pot of salt, and said slowly, "Big brother, this salt is probably worth even more than pottery! Why has the Fish Tribe been able to become the leader of this region? Because they control the trading channels for salt and pottery! Now our Fire Tribe can make both of those things ourselves!"

His words made everyone realize the deeper significance. The Fire Tribe would no longer be a small tribe forced to live at the mercy of others. They now possessed the crucial capital to rise into a regional power!

Watching the excited adults, Wang Yan chose that moment to pour a little cold water on their enthusiasm. "Father, uncles, all we've done so far is succeed in an experiment. To supply the whole tribe, we need to go north and mine more salt rock, establish a more reliable place for filtering and boiling salt, and invest a great deal of labor and firewood."

Jianshi said with ironclad resolve, "Starting tomorrow, mining salt rock and establishing a salt-making workshop will be the tribe's most important tasks! Just as important as firing pottery and catching fish!"