Chapter 84: Chapter 82: Niu Niu is Missing
Sugarcane has a remarkably high sugar yield. Fifteen pounds of it can be boiled down to produce one pound of brown sugar, and the process is simple, requiring no complex equipment.
Lu Zhifeng cut down a large bundle in one go, a good hundred pounds. Based on the yield, that could be boiled down into ten pounds of brown sugar, or seven to eight pounds if it was filtered and refined into white sugar.
When Jiang Chengwu was young, he had also grown sugarcane and even made sugar for everyone as a treat. Seeing the large bundle, he chuckled and asked, "Wild sugarcane? Is this all of it?"
This was a variety of green sugarcane, long and thin. It didn’t look very sweet, but tearing a piece open and taking a bite revealed it was plenty sweet.
Lu Zhifeng beamed. "There’s more, there’s more! Probably enough for several more bundles."
If they were careful with it, this would be enough sugar to last everyone a whole year.
Jiang Chengwu immediately said, "We’ll go with you. Let’s get it all cut and brought back while the weather’s good."
Jiang Si wanted to go along, but Shen Baoying said, "Just let your dad and grandpa go."
The island wasn’t that big, anyway; they could just shout if there was danger. Jiang Si nodded and agreed to stay behind.
Qin Shen also stayed behind to lend a hand, taking care of the heavy lifting.
Making sugar required pressing the sugarcane into juice. In ancient times, people used millstones, but Jiang Si had a large juicer in her space, saved for exactly this kind of moment.
She pulled it out of her space, startling Shen Baoying in the kitchen. "You can’t just pull things out of thin air! What if Xiao Shen sees?"
Jiang Si coughed lightly. "It’s fine. We’ll just say we found it in the storeroom."
Realization dawned on Shen Baoying, and she began to use the juicer with a clear conscience.
Eating raw sugarcane and drinking its juice were two completely different experiences. Niu Niu quite liked drinking the juice, but Jiang Si preferred the satisfying feeling of tearing into the stalk with her teeth, bite after bite.
They ended up with two full, large buckets of sugarcane juice, which now needed to be boiled vigorously in a pot.
Shen Baoying had just picked up a wooden dipper when Qin Shen asked, "Should I pour this into the pot?"
Shen Baoying nodded, and Qin Shen effortlessly lifted the heavy wooden bucket and poured the juice into the pot.
His powerful form made Shen Baoying’s eyes light up, and she blurted out, "What a waist!"
Jiang Si let out a snort of laughter, which made Qin Shen glance at her several times.
Jiang Si covered her mouth and lowered her head, looking sheepish. ’It *is* a good waist, though...’
As the syrup boiled and was stirred continuously, foamy impurities gradually floated to the surface. Shen Baoying told Niu Niu, "This foam affects the final texture of the sugar, so we can use a wooden spoon to skim it off."
Niu Niu nodded obediently, committing it to memory. Lu Zhifeng had told her these were all essential survival skills for the apocalypse.
The water in the pot continued to evaporate until the syrup grew thick and viscous.
Shen Baoying then took a dab of the syrup and dipped it into cold water. "See?" she said. "When it solidifies into a lump the moment it hits cold water, that’s when you can take it off the heat and pour it into a basin."
Niu Niu looked at the dark brown sugar and asked, puzzled, "Aunt Shen, aren’t we making white sugar?"
Shen Baoying laughed. "If you want to learn how to make white sugar, Auntie will teach you after your dad gets back."
While the finished brown sugar was being scooped out to cool, Jiang Linhai and the others returned. To ensure they’d have sugarcane in the future, they had specifically chosen some of the best stalks to save for planting.
Everyone praised the sight of the cooling brown sugar. Shen Baoying then put them all back to work, and they didn’t stop until dusk, by which time all the sugarcane had been processed into brown sugar.
It would have gone faster, but the kitchen didn’t have a pot large enough.
The first batch of brown sugar had completely cooled.
Shen Baoying used the cooled brown sugar to teach Niu Niu how to make white sugar. The process was actually quite simple, only requiring some activated charcoal.
Niu Niu looked confused. "With charcoal?"
"Yes. This method starts with brown sugar that’s already been made. If you want to extract white sugar directly from the juice, it’s a little more complicated."
"But it’s getting late, so we’ll learn this way for now."
Niu Niu’s face was filled with admiration. "Aunt Shen, you know so much!"
Shen Baoying laughed heartily. "Just from messing around at home with nothing better to do."
She added water to the brown sugar and heated it until it melted. Then she added the right proportion of activated charcoal and, while the mixture was still hot, filtered the murky solution through cheesecloth, resulting in a colorless liquid.
This liquid was then transferred to a pot to be heated, boiling off about a quarter of the volume. After that, it was removed from the heat to cool naturally, which would produce fine, white sugar crystals.
The process was simple but time-consuming, requiring a great deal of patience.
By the next morning, they saw that the clear, crystalline white sugar had successfully formed.
Shen Baoying used the fresh white sugar to make a sweet and sour fish. Yesterday, Lu Zhifeng had set some traps, and today he retrieved them, having caught two rabbit-rats. Shen Baoying skinned them and cooked them in the style of sweet and sour pork with pineapple.
Winter was just around the corner. The island was still sunny, but the temperature had dropped considerably.
Wintering on the yacht would be freezing, and keeping the cabin heated would consume a massive amount of fuel.
Now that they had found a source of fresh water on the island, the group began to think about building a small house to get them through the winter.
They could build a *kang*, a heated brick bed like those used in northeastern China. It would be warm and resource-efficient.
Jiang Linhai was a construction foreman, and building houses was his specialty. He only needed a few glances at the blueprints Jiang Si drew to understand how to construct the building and even how to source or create the necessary materials on the island.
Jiang Linhai said to Jiang Si, "It would be too difficult for our small group to quarry stone on the island. But that little fishing village has lots of abandoned bricks and stones we can use. We can just scavenge them and bring them back."
’I have some building materials in my space,’ Jiang Si thought, ’but not a lot. I should save them in case we have to move on from this island and build another temporary shelter elsewhere.’
Jiang Si agreed with Jiang Linhai’s suggestion. She led the group back to the small fishing village, using wheelbarrows to collect loose bricks and stones.
After they had loaded several wheelbarrow-loads of bricks and stones onto the yacht, a dozen or so people suddenly appeared in the fishing village.
Qin Shen caught a familiar scent from five of the newcomers—they were the same people who had tried to hijack their yacht before.
Jiang Si immediately ordered everyone back to the yacht.
Just as she started the engine, the group of people chased them to the water’s edge. Five of them were holding guns and yelling, "Get off the boat! Get off the boat now!"
There was no way Jiang Si was getting off. Instead, she gunned the engine and sped away from the shore.
Furious, the people on the shore opened fire without hesitation.
Jiang Linhai frowned. "Can we return fire?" he asked Jiang Si.
Jiang Si shook her head. "No, let’s not. It’ll just cause more trouble."
The words had barely left her mouth when Lu Zhifeng rushed over to them, his voice fraught with panic. "Have you seen Niu Niu? She’s gone!"
"Niu Niu’s gone? Wasn’t she just on the yacht?" Shen Baoying said, her face a mask of shock.
Lu Zhifeng was frantic. "I’ve searched the entire yacht and can’t find her! Could she have gotten off and not made it back on?"
Shen Baoying had been in charge of watching Niu Niu, and with the girl missing, she felt a heavy weight of responsibility. She suddenly remembered something. "Niu Niu said she found a sugarcane patch... You don’t think she went off to cut some, do you?"
