Chapter 34

With the issue of meat resolved, the heavy burden in my heart was finally lifted. Early the next morning, I prepared to have a stone mill made. I spent half an hour drawing the design on the ground with charcoal, then instructed Old Jian to have his men build it. To ensure durability, I even wrapped it in a layer of copper, but to my surprise, it proved impractical once finished. Damn it. I immediately ordered them to rip off all the copper. We went back to grinding with just the stone, and the results were much better. It seems some things simply must be learned through practice; I’d foolishly thought the copper would improve it. Once the stone mill was ready, I had the older girls take turns using it. They had never milled grain before; they were used to eating wheat directly or, if they were lucky, some corn. Then, I had them make sieves. That was the trickiest part. I tried using coarse cloth, but it didn’t work. I tried finding some fine linen, but that was no good either.