Natural disaster at the beginning: I will lead the system to build a safe zone

"Miss Shi, how did you and Young Master Xiao find such a hidden passage?" Yan Fei followed behind Shi Anan and couldn't help but exclaimed.

The corridors in the cave were intricate, dark and narrow. If he came to such a place alone, he probably wouldn't even take a look at it, let alone come in.

"It was just a coincidence. We explored the area for a long time but didn't find any traces of salt mines. Then we found a deer disappeared from here. We thought it was a bit strange, so we came in to check it out." Shi Anan said as she focused on leading the way. Fortunately, Xiao Yi made very detailed markings before leaving. Otherwise, Shi Anan might not recognize the road this time. After all, she had just followed Xiao Yi before.

After walking for a quarter of an hour, Shi Anan and others finally came out of the cave. When they saw the situation outside the cave, Yan Fei and others widened their eyes. The scene here was completely different from the other side.

Maybe because it is deep in the canyon, the temperature here is slightly lower than outside. Shi Anan looked at the current real-time temperature displayed by the system, which is only 40 degrees. No wonder it feels much cooler.

She smiled bitterly. After staying in the 48-degree high temperature for a long time, she suddenly came to a place with a temperature of 40 degrees and could actually use the word "cool".

Yan Fei and the other six had the same feeling as Shi Anan: "Miss, the temperature here feels much more comfortable!"

Although it is not as comfortable as in the summer house, it is not as unbearable as before.

"Well, the temperature here is lower. Let's go. The salt well is over there." Shi Anan responded, and then led a few people to the salt well.

Shi Anan didn't breathe a sigh of relief until she saw the salt well still standing there intact. Although she was sure that the system did not take back the salt well as a reward to her, she and Xiao Yi did not do any protective measures around it at the time. If it was destroyed by some large animals, she would be heartbroken.

She was worried all the way, wondering if the salt well was still in good condition after not being there for so long. She only felt relieved when she saw it with her own eyes.

"Miss, is this the salt well? What should we do?" Yan Fei and his companions looked at the wellhead with a narrow diameter curiously. Although they had heard of such a thing as a salt well, they had never seen one.

Materials such as salt and iron were often controlled by the imperial court and were not allowed to be sold privately, so ordinary people like them would have no chance to see these unless they worked in the mines.

"First go find some dry firewood to make a fire, put the pot on the stove, and then use the brine pump to draw up the brine for boiling." Shi Anan instructed, while taking out the iron pot and some buckets of brine from his backpack.

This iron pot is the same one that was rewarded by the system before. Its function is to improve the deliciousness of cooked ingredients. Although cooking salt does not require deliciousness, I don’t know if using this can increase the purity of the salt a little bit.

Yan Fei and his companions moved very quickly. The trees around the salt mines and salt wells were not very lush, so they had to go to a farther place to find dry firewood. Fortunately, the temperature was high and dry recently, so dry firewood was easy to find.

When making a fire, Shi Anan asked Yan Fei and others to clear the weeds around. The temperature is so high now that it is easy for a fire to start if one is not careful. They have just experienced a forest fire and cannot go through it again.

After making a fire and setting up the temporary tent, Shi Anan rented a solar air conditioner and put it aside. It was because making such a big fire in this weather was like roasting a person on the fire, and putting ice cubes would probably not work.

Feeling the cool air brought by the air conditioner, several people sat in the tent to relax and finally came back to life.

After recovering, Yan Fei took people to draw brine. Shi Anan stood by and guided them in the operation. Fortunately, the system was considerate. While rewarding the salt well, it also equipped tools for drawing brine. With the help of the pulley, it was not so difficult for several people to draw up the brine.

Some people continued to draw brine, while the rest followed Shi Anan to boil salt. There was no special skill in boiling salt. It was just a matter of putting the brine in a pot and heating it until the water evaporated, leaving a fixed amount of salt.

At this time, the benefits of deep well salt can be seen. Because the brine is stored deep underground and is not polluted by the outside world, such brine is free of toxins. Simply boiling the salt to precipitate crystals will produce edible coarse salt.

In order to allow the water to evaporate faster, Shi Anan and his colleagues did not pour too much brine at one time when boiling salt, but boiled it in small amounts multiple times.

Their coordinated movements gradually became more proficient, and the speed of boiling salt became faster and faster. Shi Anan spread out the precipitated salt grains, turned them over to dry in the sun, and when they were completely dry, she put them into a container and put them into her backpack.

Although the salt at this time was not the fine refined salt produced by modern technology, even if it was coarse salt, it was already of extremely high purity. Such salt was sufficient for Guangming Village now.

As for how to purify coarse salt into fine salt, although the system gave a purification method, Shi Anan felt that there was no need to rush. After all, their current crude salt production had not yet increased, and purifying it again would waste manpower and material resources. They still had to solve the problem of survival first, and then consider the quality of life in the future.

As time passed, Shi Anan and the others had almost made enough coarse salt. She thought for a moment and called Yan Fei, "Let's stop drawing the brine today. Let's cook all the brine. We'll have enough salt. We haven't been home for so long, why don't we go back and take a look first?"

Yan Fei and the others naturally agreed. They had been out for more than half a month and were missing their brothers and relatives in the village.

Shi Anan was in such a hurry to return to Guangming Village, not because she was really worried about something happening in the village. After all, she reported her safety to them every day through the team channel. Even though she was so far away, she was well informed of everything that happened in Guangming Village.

The reason she was in such a hurry to go back was because her cooking skill had reached level 20!

Why did it rise so fast? We have to start from the beginning of salt boiling. After completing the main task, the protective shield has covered the salt well, so this place is also considered to be in the construction area.

The process of boiling salt was also calculated by the system into the cooking experience. After all, she also used a pot!

After continuously boiling salt for such a long time, her cooking experience was constantly increasing. Until this morning, the system prompted her that her cooking skill had reached level 20.

If it was just a skill upgrade, she wouldn't be in such a hurry to go back. The reason lies in the upgrade reward.

The gift package the system gave her for upgrading her cooking level 20 turned out to be a vending machine!

Moreover, this vending machine is a scalable version. It may be just a cabinet-type vending machine at the beginning, but it may be upgraded to a vending hypermarket later, and the variety of goods can become more and more abundant.

It’s just that today’s vending machines can only sell some basic snacks.

What makes Shi Anan happiest is that the money earned by villagers from purchasing goods through vending machines is counted into Shi Anan's system currency.

This means that she has a new way to make money!

想想如果一个人在售货机消费1两银，那1000个人就是1000两，这1000两是对应系统中的1000银币的。

This is just one person, or 1 people. What if there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of people behind them? How much money can be made? It can be said that with this, Shi Anan will not have to worry about the system currency in the future!

So she really wanted to go back and put the vending machine in the village, but although she was urgent, she still had to do what she had to do. She only started her return journey after Yan Fei and the others had boiled the remaining brine into salt.