Chapter 18: It’s a Fire Starter; Before it was Not Enough Fabric, Now it’s Not Enough Thread

No one knew what the future would hold, but life in the present had to go on.

After eating breakfast, the three of them held hands and headed to the Grassland Plane once again.

Since they might encounter people in this plane, the three of them had specifically chosen a hidden corner when they left. Now that they reappeared, they were still in that same secluded spot.

They didn’t know if that little girl from yesterday would show up, but it was certain that the withered grass could be sold for a price.

Bai Yu took out the thin vines she had processed yesterday from her bag and stuffed a few into Bai Xi’s bag. Once they gathered enough withered grass later, they could use these to bind the bundles.

She then took Bai Miao with her to search for withered grass in the other direction.

After an unknown amount of time, a voice calling “Miao Miao” echoed from a distance, though the caller’s pronunciation sounded more like “Meow Meow.”

Bai Yu stood up while holding Bai Miao, and sure enough, she saw the little girl from yesterday walking quickly toward them with a bag on her back.

“Miao Miao.”

“Qiqi.”

Bai Miao struggled out of Bai Yu’s arms, crawled out from the tall grass, and ran quickly toward the other girl.

Bai Xi stood up not far from Bai Yu and asked curiously, “How did those two get so close?”

“Probably because they’re around the same age, and that little girl also comes here to gather grass by herself,” Bai Yu said with a smile, watching the two of them chatting away in a flurry of sounds. “Miao Miao didn’t have any friends on the boat before. Now she’s finally found someone her own age.”

After saying this, Bai Yu reached out toward Bai Xi. “Give me the grass you have over there. I’ll bind it up and give some to her later.”

Bai Xi immediately handed over the grass she was carrying.

Bai Yu took it and walked over to where the two children were.

They were huddled together with their heads down, whispering about something.

Although Bai Miao had said several times that she couldn’t understand, the two had still found a way to communicate that they both understood.

As Bai Yu approached, Bai Miao seemed to have received some amazing news from the other girl. She immediately turned her head to look for someone, and seeing Bai Yu coming over, she waved urgently. “Eldest Sister, Eldest Sister! She has a fire starter!”

“A fire starter?” Bai Yu drew closer.

“Yeah,” Bai Miao held up the object in her hand. “It’s this, a fire starter. It can start a fire. It lights up as soon as you touch it.”

As she spoke, she turned to talk to the little girl, then took a wooden stick from the girl’s hand. She placed it against the tip of the “fire starter” in her hand, gave it two twists, and the stick in her hand suddenly flared with fire.

“Look, Eldest Sister!”

Bai Yu was shocked. “It really lit up? You don’t have to blow on it? Are the sparks inside that strong?”

“There aren’t any sparks. This fire starter is made from that grass,” Bai Miao said. Hearing the voice beside her, she took a deep breath and blew out the flame on the stick. “She said, ‘&%$#@*&^’.”

Bai Yu was speechless.

She looked at the little girl, who was nodding repeatedly, and then back at Bai Miao. “What does that mean?”

Bai Miao shook her head. “I don’t know. Anyway, ‘&%$#@*&^’, that’s what she said.”

The implication was that she could repeat the exact sounds, but she didn’t understand the meaning of the sentence at all.

“Then you two keep chatting,” Bai Yu said, setting down the grass in her hand. “Give this grass to her. Your Second Sister and I will keep gathering grass. We won’t go far. If anything happens, just shout, and we’ll be here quickly.”

“Okay,” Bai Miao nodded.

Even though there was a language barrier, she was quickly becoming happy now that she finally had a little friend to play with.

Today, Qiqi was also well-prepared. After Bai Yu left, she took many things out of her bag.

“How do we play?” Bai Miao squatted down.

Qiqi pointed at the items and said a long string of words.

Bai Miao still didn’t understand, but she pretended she did, nodding and saying, “Oh, oh, oh.”

However, as they played, she actually began to understand.

She soon took the tools from Qiqi’s hands and crushed the dried withered grass bit by bit. Once it was reduced to a powder, she packed it into hollow wooden tubes. She understood this step; it was similar to the fire starter.

By the time Bai Yu and Bai Xi returned, the two girls had filled a whole row of wooden tubes.

“The stuff inside the fire starter here is made by crushing this grass after it’s dried?”

“Is it just crushed grass? If you just pack it into the wooden tubes like that, won’t it just burn up?”

“No,” Bai Miao shook her head. “Qiqi said you have to use that wooden stick too.”

“A wooden stick and crushed grass, and there really aren’t any sparks?” Bai Yu asked doubtfully, reaching out to help Bai Miao pack the powder.

Qiqi had been working with her head down, but when she looked up and saw Bai Yu’s movements, she immediately reached out to stop her. By then, Bai Yu had already finished packing one wooden tube.

“I’m just helping,” Bai Yu let her see the tube she had finished, speaking slowly. “This is the right way to do it, isn’t it?”

Qiqi couldn’t understand her, but a look of confusion appeared on her face.

She grabbed Bai Yu’s wrist to look at the wooden tube, then looked at her face, then back at the tube.

Then she picked up another wooden tube and handed it to her.

Bai Yu smiled. Holding a small wooden sliver, she scooped up some crushed grass and packed it into the tube. During the process, some of the powder fell onto the back of her hand several times. Thinking that this stuff was for sale and shouldn’t be wasted, she gently tapped it back into the pile of powder.

“Is this okay?” Bai Yu finished the tube and showed her.

In response, she received an even more puzzled look from the little girl.

But the girl also seemed to have confirmed something. She no longer stopped Bai Yu and even made space so she could get closer to pack the powder.

Although they couldn’t understand each other’s language, the work was the same.

Soon, all the wooden tubes Qiqi had brought were filled with crushed grass.

She put the remaining powder into a large jar. Looking at the row of filled wooden tubes in front of her, she lowered her head to rummage through her bag. She pulled out a few copper coins, pointed at the wooden tubes, and handed the coins to Bai Miao.

This gesture required no explanation.

Bai Yu whispered to Bai Miao, “She wants to spend money to buy these from you.”

“But these things belong to her anyway?” Bai Miao looked up.

“It’s probably because you helped,” Bai Yu said. Realizing that Qiqi’s time hadn’t been wasted just now, she decided not to give the grass away for free as she had originally planned. Instead, she handed the grass to Bai Miao. “Tell her you’re selling these to her, and then you take the copper coins.”

Bai Miao nodded, taking the grass and handing it to Qiqi before finally accepting the copper coins from her hand.

Qiqi thought she hadn’t understood, so she tried to give the grass back to Bai Miao while gesturing toward the wooden tubes and explaining again.

Bai Miao pushed it back: “For you, for you.”

She then gathered up the wooden tubes and gave those to her as well.

The two went back and forth for a while before they finally understood each other’s intentions. Once she was certain she didn’t have to spend extra money, a smile broke out on Qiqi’s face, and she hugged the grass tightly to her chest.

Standing to the side, Bai Xi leaned over and spoke: “Miao Miao, ask her if she sells that wooden stick that can start a fire.”

Bai Miao nodded and picked up a wooden stick to begin communicating with Qiqi.

In the end, for the price of three copper coins, they obtained a brand new wooden stick that could start fires and a Fire Starter.

Through their exchange, they determined the actual prices: a Fire Starter was worth one copper coin, the wooden stick was worth two copper coins, and for the empty wooden tubes used to hold the crushed grass, one copper coin could buy five.

“The withered grass doesn’t cost anything. If that’s the case, we can buy five wooden tubes for one copper coin and sell them for five copper coins.”

The three of them returned to the island with today’s harvest.

“That little girl seems quite easy to talk to. Since she comes here often, she must have a place to sell Fire Starters. We could also sell the Fire Starters we make to her and let her help us sell them.”

“It would certainly be best if she could help sell them. After all, we don’t even speak the language over there. Even if we went to a market, it might not be easy to sell anything.”

“Still, her family is surprisingly comfortable letting a little girl wander across such a vast grassland by herself.”

“Regardless, these Fire Starters can definitely be sold for money.”

“Not only can the Fire Starters make money, but the grass can too. Miao Miao, what do they call this over there? Is it also called a Fire Starter?”

Bai Miao looked up at the item in Bai Yu’s hand and pointed to the grass they had brought back: “This is called Flammable Grass. As for that thing, Qiqi calls it ‘fire-laite,’ but I didn’t quite understand.”

“Let’s just call it a Fire Starter for now,” Bai Yu said, picking up the stick that could start fires. “And this will be called a Fire Stick.”

“A fire stick is a poker, the big long kind for stoking fires,” Bai Xi gestured with her hands.

“In that case… how about we call it… a Match¹? What do you think?”

“Match works. It’s used to light wood for a fire, so calling it a Match is fine,” Bai Xi nodded repeatedly. “Then let’s first set the withered grass… the Flammable Grass out to dry. Once it’s dried, crushed, and packed, we can take it to sell.”

“We have a total of ten days for this new plane. If we go for four hours every day, that equals sixty days of access. By then, we should be able to save up quite a bit of that plane’s copper currency or Fire Starters. When the time comes, we’ll learn a few more words and ask that girl how to get to the market. We can see if we can buy some thread. Aren’t you running low on thread for sewing clothes?”

“Yes. I originally thought about buying some on the mainland, but weren’t we blocked that time? And then later…” Bai Xi shook her head, stopping herself. “Besides thread, we need to buy a few other things. We’ll have to see if we have enough money when the time comes.”

“Mhm.”

Living on the island, the best part was that no matter what they got from the Check-in, they wouldn’t be discovered. The biggest problem was the isolation. Now that they had a chance to interact with outsiders, they were all filled with anticipation.

Even if the outsiders they could communicate with didn’t speak their language, at least they were human.

Over the next few days, the Shell Check-in did not produce any more Plane Transit Passes or Upgrade Cards. The daily Check-in results were:

1 bottle of [Peanut Oil]; 10 [Steamed Buns]; 1 [Hoe]; 10 [Corn]; 10 [Milk Candies]; 10 pounds of [Soybeans]; 3 pieces of [Cotton Cloth].

Bai Xi put away the cotton cloth she had just received from the Check-in.

“Before, we didn’t have enough cloth, and now we don’t have enough thread,” Bai Xi pulled out a nearly finished garment. “Only one sleeve is left, but I’ve run out of thread. Otherwise, Eldest Sister, you could have worn it.”

“What I’m wearing now is fine,” Bai Yu said, not minding at all. “However, it is time for us to go see the market in that Grassland Plane.”

“Mhm. We’ve mostly learned those simple words, so buying and selling things shouldn’t be a big problem,” Bai Xi tucked the clothes away. “But the language in that plane is a bit difficult. We aren’t very fluent yet, so let’s let Miao Miao do the talking when we get there.”

Although Bai Xi and Bai Yu had been learning along with her, their speech always sounded a bit clumsy. Unlike them, Miao Miao could now speak with Qiqi very fluently, with no discernible difference in their accents.

The two of them led Bai Miao out of the cabin and headed upstairs.

After coming to a halt near the small kitchen, they took Bai Miao’s hand and traveled together to the Grassland Plane.

Translator’s Notes