Live Streaming: Great Adventure in the Wilderness

Chapter 492: Chapter 489: Practice is the Key to the Gate of Truth (Seeking Monthly Pass)

Survival in the Banna Rainforest, night of the ninth day.

Inside the shelter, faint snores arose.

On a nearby earthen mound, a huge dark shadow slowly protruded from the bushes, gazing at the shelter for several minutes before a soft rustling sound of digging reached the air.

The snoring stopped.

Bi Fang opened his eyes, stared blankly at the canopy above, sat up, scratched his hair, picked up a dry stick that had been whittled into a fish-scale shape and dipped in oil, and lit it before stepping outside the fence.

Under the glow of the fire, the sound of digging abruptly ceased.

After gazing dumbfounded for a few minutes, Bi Fang sleepily reinstated the bamboo gate and threw the torch into the campfire.

He went back to sleep.

…

Morning of the tenth day.

Sunlight shone in from outside the door.

Bi Fang yawned, chewed on lemongrass mixed with charcoal, brushed his teeth with a tree stick for a while, and washed his face with clean water before concluding his morning hygiene routine.

After dealing with personal hygiene and filling the holes with charcoal ash and soil, Bi Fang started his live stream.

“Good morning, guys.”

[Boss Fang, good morning!]

[Why aren’t there any sisters, wuwuwu]

[Shivering cold, when will we women finally stand up]

[Did the Water Monitors attack at night?]

[Old Fang seems to have slept quite well? Did the Water Monitor leave?]

“It didn’t leave,” said Bi Fang, signaling the drone to follow behind him as he moved to the spot opposite the doorway.

There used to be a small hillock covered in bushes, with a stream and a big river in front and a slope with bushes behind—the shelter could be considered perched by the mountain and water.

But now, the small hillock had undergone a complete transformation, a pitch-black cave appeared at the bottom of the mound, and the dug-out earth was piled in a circle at the entrance of the cave, resembling a trench.

“It’s inside there right now.”

This was…

Zhou Weisheng stood up straight, looking at the scene with some surprise.

Zhou Weisheng had woken up early just to watch the live broadcast because he wanted to get a deeper understanding of the state of the Water Monitors within his own protected area.

Normally, his team would research with large packs of equipment, at least seven or eight people in a big team, set up camp, use various devices which would scare away the animals; they rarely had such a secretive approach with such a rare opportunity.

So they had settled here?

Monitors liked to lay their eggs in tree hollows and cave interiors—it was indeed their familiar style.

Bi Fang said very speechlessly, “Last night I was woken up once; I came out with a torch and saw it digging a hole here. This morning, the hole was already dug, and its whole family was inside, and who knows when they ate the fish from my pond.”

Bi Fang walked a few steps and came in front of the fence.

The bushes in front of the shelter’s door had been cleared by him long ago, leaving a clear area with three large pits, each half a person deep, each serving a different purpose.

One was a water pit for fish, one for iron bacteria, and the last for storing clay.

If there was a catch in the fishing pond, it needed to be removed promptly; otherwise, the large number of fish crowding together could affect future harvests.

There were originally six fish in the fish pond—Bi Fang had eaten two yesterday, so there should have been four left.

However, when he checked this morning, only two remained. As for the other two entering someone’s stomach, Bi Fang had no doubt the culprit was the Water Monitor not far away.

As if sensing some kind of resentment.

The Water Monitor emerged from the cave, stared motionlessly at Bi Fang, and flicked its long tongue.

“Damn it.”

Bi Fang, rarely swearing, kicked a small clump of earth that hit the hillock and raised a small cloud of dust.

[Such deep resentment]

[Wori, are our male and female leads already living together?]

[Water Monitor: Awesome, the cafeteria is even closer to home, and fresh fish pops up every day!]

[Yes, I did it, what are you going to do about it? Come hit me (paws pounding on the National First-Class Protected Species certificate)]

[Living in Bengbu]

[Do National First-Class animals have such swagger? When can I get one too? I’m also a top-class good-for-nothing waiting to die, wuwuwu]

Bi Fang shook his head—let it be. Today, he had a big project to work on.

Perhaps because today’s sun was so good, even fog appeared this clear morning in the Banna Rainforest.

Looking at the mist in the woods, Bi Fang suddenly remembered the miasma he had mentioned before, and a lightning bolt streaked through his mind.

“I finally understand why many people would regard miasma as a kind of poisonous fog, and why the ancients would attribute the cause of illness to a word like ‘miasma’ which clearly implies a gaseous substance!”

[Why?]

Many people scratched their heads, voicing their confusions in kind.

“Flowing water doesn’t go stale. On one hand, moving water carries oxygen into the water and, on the other hand, flips the water with a low oxygen content from below to the top to absorb oxygen, so organic matter decomposes quickly, and microbial aggregation is less likely to occur.”

“Moreover, flowing water washes away insect eggs, making it difficult for mosquitoes and bugs to breed. Therefore, large rivers may bring moist air, but they don’t necessarily cause disease directly.”

“The ancients spoke of ‘miasma,’ generally not in the open valleys with agricultural areas, but in the surrounding mountainous regions prone to miasma, which shows that miasma can’t simply be equated to hot and humid air.”

Bi Fang added some water to the clay pit and continued to mix.

A night’s evaporation had caused the clay in the pit to stiffen somewhat.

“Stagnant water that doesn’t flow is most likely to breed germs, necessitating the existence of many low-lying areas to collect rainwater, and such depressions are common in most places.”

“Even if the ground surface is sloped, fallen trees and collapsing rocks often create small depressions, last year when I went to the Greater Khingan Range, I saw many similar water pits or mini swamps in the forest, all frozen of course.”

Bi Fang referred to his trip to Mohe, where the ground was frozen with ‘ice pits.’ Combining what he saw and heard on that trip with this one, he finally understood why ‘miasma’ is called ‘miasma’ and not ‘miasmic water’ or ‘miasmic soil.’

“However, the North has less rainfall, so depressions there dry up in sunny weather and freeze in winter, whereas in the South, frequent rain and high temperatures turn those depressions into ‘bacterial soups’ rich in organic matter and ‘nurseries’ for mosquitoes and insects.”

“These become a serious threat to humans, a mammal that no longer has body hair. For Northerners not adapted to Southern microbial communities, it’s particularly terrifying, causing harm far beyond simply ‘acclimatization issues.’

“Ordinarily, these depressions emit water vapor, which recondenses into fine droplets atop the forest, forming mists. These mists then become symbols of mosquito and germ breeding grounds and are thus deemed ‘miasma.’ Add to that the fact that large swarms of mosquitoes can look like mist from a distance, ancient people concluded there was something wrong with the air in the South.”

In the old times of wild smoke and miasmatic rain, people’s faces paled at the mention of tigers and miasma.

From a geographical perspective, Bi Fang for the first time understood what exactly ‘miasma’ was.

Mist often appeared between the mountains and forests,

Before, he knew only that it was an ancient misnomer for bacterial and parasitic diseases, yet did not understand why such a misunderstanding occurred, simply attributing it to ignorance and superstition.

Now, seeing the mist among the trees and recalling his experiences in Mohe, he had a sudden insight.

“Indeed, one must read thousands of books and travel thousands of miles.”

Bi Fang wiped the condensation and sweat off his forehead, scooped up the well-mixed clay, and shoveled it into a winnowing basket framed with rattan.

“Three pits aren’t enough, we need to dig another one to build the furnace.”

“Temperature is key to iron smelting. An underground furnace can accumulate heat more effectively, and the deeper we dig, the relatively taller the furnace becomes.”

Length is integral; the deeper underground, the greater the effective height of the furnace.

The fire in the furnace would thus be more vigorous.

“Utilizing the chimney effect, the taller the furnace, the faster the airflow. A faster flow means lower pressure, and with the pressure difference from below, the fire flourishes, thereby improving our combustion rate.”

[666, finally some real content after ten days!]

[Only eleven days left, can Old Fang make it?]

[Big brother, go home and apologize to your wife already]

[Waiting for the reactor, when are you going to rub together a nuclear furnace?]

[Nuclear reactor? Coming soon, don’t rush me]

[All this talk, and I didn’t understand a single sentence, weeping in the wind.]

“Ha, can’t comprehend it?” Bi Fang scratched his eyebrows, his hands covered with black mud smudged across his face, but he didn’t care in the least.

“To put it simply, the flow of hot and cold air is common knowledge, right? This is middle school level stuff—heat expands and cold contracts. So under normal conditions, the same volume of cold air will be heavier and it will descend, while hot air will be lighter and thus will rise, creating air convection.”

The audience nodded; this was easy to understand.

“The air under our furnace is burning; it heats up and expands, then rises, while the colder air above sinks. The relative speed of this flow depends on the temperature difference. As long as the chimney is tall enough, the air at the top will be closer to the natural temperature, thus colder, and the greater the temperature difference, the faster the flow. Do you get this?”

The audience kept nodding.

“Once the air starts moving and the speed is fast enough, we have ample oxygen to aid combustion, which increases both the efficiency and the temperature of the burn, essentially acting like a natural bellows.”

By harnessing the principle of hot air rising, the furnace expels hot flue gases from an outlet at the top while fresh, cool air is drawn in from the inlet, increasing the oxygen needed for the fuel to combust fully, and thus intensifying the flames.

This is the principle of the high furnace.

Iron smelting in a high furnace sounds complex, but it’s literally iron smelted in a high furnace.

Throughout history, a major constraint on materials has been the combustion temperature and furnaces capable of withstanding high temperatures.

The audience had an epiphany.

[Holy crap, I get it now!]

[Damn, is it really that scientific? I always thought Boss Fang hailed from a mystical world, dog’s head.]

[You think I’m science, but I’m really mysticism, ha!]

[There’s always someone dressed in the trappings of science, showing us magic.]

“High-rise buildings are the same. A fire in the lower floors creates hot air that moves upward through passages, continuously accumulating hot gases at the top, and as a result, the fire spreads to the top floors through air convection.”

“So in case of a fire, never run upwards; you must always head downwards.”

Bi Fang dug a pit large enough to accommodate half his body and started to build a stove out of clay.

[Is iron smelting with iron bacteria really reliable? It feels like Magneto pulling iron out of someone’s body.]

[It does sound a bit esoteric, but to say it won’t work, I’d bet fifty cents Fang will slap me in the face. Clown.]

“There are no issues, whether from a theoretical or practical standpoint, it is entirely possible to succeed.”

Bi Fang piled a large clump of clay on the ground, spreading it out in the pit and plastering a layer around the edges as well.

“Iron bacteria can oxidize ferrous iron to ferric iron and extract energy in the process, oxidizing ferrous compounds in water and causing them to form ferric hydroxide precipitates.”

“The sediment accumulates around the bacteria, generating vast amounts of brown sludge, leading to pitting and tubercles in equipment and piping. Often, the brown rust we see inside pipes is this stuff.”

“It’s also because of this that they can oxidize dissolved ferrous hydroxide and ferrous carbonate in the water to form ferric hydroxide deposits, concentrating and accumulating iron in the environment. Many scientists also believe they might play a role in the natural formation of limonite.”

“The ultimate ferric hydroxide can indeed be used for iron smelting!”