dmims Chapter 60 Uncle, you're utterly heartless!
Chapter 60 Uncle, you're utterly heartless!
Su Jin was startled at first, then glanced around and found that Shen Ruying was there and hadn't been in any trouble.
Judging from the little girl's expression, nothing serious should have happened; it was most likely related to the manufacture of crossbows.
If he hears both pieces of bad news, does it make a difference which one he hears first?
He was silent for a moment, then asked:
"I want to hear good news, is there?"
His words earned him a glare from Shen Qiaoqiao.
"No!"
The girl's tone gradually became irritable, and seeing that Su Jin didn't ask, she started talking to herself.
"Firstly, I've figured out the blueprints for the ballista, but I've tried many methods, and none of them can be made entirely of wood. None!"
"The second thing is... you, a 14-year-old girl, are actually researching ballistae the size of harpoons, and they're made entirely of wood! Uncle, you're utterly heartless!"
"You know what? I'm 14 years old, and I have two more gray hairs today! Two!"
"I didn't even do this badly on a single set of practice problems!"
As if she were crying, Shen Qiaoqiao lifted her bangs and showed Su Jin and Li Yuanyuan two strands of white hair.
This sight made Su Jin burst out laughing. Then, with lightning speed, he pinched two strands of white hair and quickly performed a separation operation.
"Alright, you don't have any white hair anymore. Congratulations, you've become a young girl with all-black hair again."
Su Jin joked, casually tossing away the two white hairs, completely ignoring Shen Qiaoqiao's murderous glare.
At this moment, Shen Ruying walked over with a somewhat helpless expression.
She had already tried to comfort Shen Qiaoqiao, but her daughter wouldn't listen to her and insisted on venting her frustrations on Su Jin.
She held her daughter's shoulders and gently scolded her:
"How can you talk to your uncle like that? If you can't do it, just explain it properly. Why are you throwing a tantrum? Apologize to your uncle right now..."
Su Jin waved his hand to interrupt the young woman, and said with a smile:
"It's okay, what's the big deal about complaining a little? After all, it really puts Qiaoqiao through a lot of trouble."
As he spoke, he looked at Shen Qiaoqiao, smiled slightly, and continued:
"Let me guess, it must be that the materials weren't tough enough. You probably used flax fiber, and even searched for a lot of other things on the island, but nothing worked, right?"
Shen Qiaoqiao glanced sideways and snorted coldly:
"Hmph, so you do know something, uncle. Making it entirely of wood is quite a challenge. If you had some iron, even just a little bit, I could make it for you!"
Su Jin raised an eyebrow and chuckled:
"You want iron, right? Well, I actually managed to get my hands on a piece of iron today, and it's pure iron!"
As he spoke, under the curious gazes of the crowd, he returned to the ship and soon returned to them carrying the basketball-sized lump of iron.
"How about it? Big enough, right? Definitely enough for you!"
He casually tossed the iron on the ground, making a heavy thud, letting everyone know that this thing was definitely genuine!
When Shen Qiaoqiao saw such a large lump of iron, she was dumbfounded, her face full of shock.
She crouched down and touched the lump of pure iron with her finger. Her intuition told her that this was a whole piece of pig iron containing only a small amount of carbon. Unexpectedly, she was stunned.
After a long while, she finally raised her head and asked Su Jin in a daze:
"Uncle, this is a whole piece of pig iron, not iron ore. Did you rob a blacksmith to get it?"
This was the only possibility she could think of, after all, iron wasn't so easy to obtain.
Actually, she secretly tried it out by herself in the afternoon. It took her an hour, and she only managed to get a few grains of iron sand, all of which contained impurities.
With her current methods, without building blast furnaces and having sufficient resources, she simply has no way to obtain iron.
The fact that Su Jin suddenly produced such a large piece of refined pig iron made it hard not to have the wrong idea.
Shen Ruying and Li Yuanyuan also looked at Su Jin with curiosity, wanting to know how he managed to get such a large and valuable item.
Su Jin smiled slightly and gave a general account of his experience at sea.
Of course, he didn't go into detail about the attack in front of the little girl, only saying that there were bad people on the islands as well.
Most importantly, he answered the little girl's question.
Upon hearing that it was the excrement of a powerful sea monster, the three girls immediately showed expressions of disgust.
Shen Qiaoqiao, in particular, had just poked it with her finger and even brought it to her nose to smell it; now she felt like dying.
"Ugh! Uncle, why didn't you tell me sooner? You made me touch this thing!"
The little girl suddenly stepped back and washed her hands several times at the beach before she was satisfied, but this time she kept a good distance from the lump of iron on the ground.
Su Jin shrugged and said with a smile:
"You didn't ask, it's fine. I rinsed it with water, it's not dirty, it's quite clean."
To help the little girl accept this, he gave another example.
"Think about it carefully, we can treat this sea monster as a giant purification machine."
"It swallows the iron ore, digests and purifies it, and then spits out pure pig iron, just like a water filter. Doesn't that make things much better?"
Shen Qiaoqiao nodded thoughtfully:
"That makes sense. Actually, this lump of iron isn't much different from ordinary iron..."
After accepting this setting, it doesn't seem like a big deal, but something still seems off.
Never mind, she's short of iron anyway. With these things, she can finally craft the crossbow!
She took a deep breath, then squatted down again, trying to pick it up.
"Heave-ho!"
Very well, it failed.
With her small, thin arms, even with extra strength, it wouldn't be easy for her to lift something weighing twenty or thirty kilograms.
But the immortal had a clever plan. She placed one hand on the iron, and then a flash of white light appeared on her other hand.
Dengdengdeng.
Several rectangular iron ingots fell to the ground; each ingot should weigh one kilogram.
In less than a gust of wind, she broke down the lump of pig iron into 28 iron ingots, plus some scraps.
Without thinking, she turned these scraps into the parts she wanted.
Seemingly in the zone, Shen Qiaoqiao ignored her surroundings, grabbed a few iron ingots, and quickly ran to an open space next door.
There were various wooden parts scattered on the ground over there, making it easy to trip over them.
Seeing this, Su Jin felt a little ashamed, as if he had put too much pressure on the young girl.
Come to think of it, he hasn't asked Shen Ruying how the mission went yet.
Seeing him look over, Shen Ruying immediately said:
"Brother Su, I've completed my task. I had Qiaoqiao make me a small cart and a few sickles when she had some free time, which has greatly improved my efficiency."
"Not bad!" Su Jin praised generously, never expecting this silly beauty to have a smart side.
He went to check the harvested flax and found that it had all been slightly processed, just waiting for Shen Qiaoqiao to process it into semi-finished products.
This made him look at Shen Ruying with new respect. This silly beauty was actually the one who made him the least troublesome, which surprised him a bit.
Just then, good news came from Shen Qiaoqiao's side.
"Uncle, the ballista you requested is ready! Come and see!"