Chapter 345 - 222: Bamboo Strip Rope

Chapter 345: Chapter 222: Bamboo Strip Rope

"Nothing..."

"Nothing..."

"Still nothing..."

"Damn it!"

Frustrated, Lin Chen slammed the rock in his hand onto the water’s surface.

PLOP—

A few drops of icy water splashed onto his face, but they couldn’t extinguish the resentful fire burning within him.

"As the old saying goes, man can conquer nature. Just you wait."

"Once I get my Basic Diving Mastery, you’ll get what’s coming to you!"

He pointed his index finger at the reef-filled sea before him, then turned and walked away.

The seawater that had been boiling on the rocky shore for half an hour had now mostly evaporated.

He spent over ten minutes pouring off the pale-yellow wastewater from the surface, then scraped all the salt crystals that had formed on the bamboo tube’s inner walls onto a banana leaf.

For three whole hours, he repeated these steps over and over.

Finally.

As he scooped the last spoonful of crude salt from the bamboo tube, he looked at the small mountain of salt crystals on the banana leaf and smiled with satisfaction. He supported his slightly sore lower back and did a few stretches.

"This is just crude salt. It needs to be processed a second time before it’s edible. Come on, let’s head to the stream!"

The used bamboo tubes couldn’t be wasted either. He moved them all to a spot on the shore that wouldn’t be submerged by the high tide, stacking them to be used as firewood later.

He returned to the stream not far from his shelter—the same place he’d cooked the oyster sauce—poured the crude salt crystals into a ready-made bamboo tube, and added a suitable amount of fresh water to ensure the sea salt dissolved completely.

After putting the saltwater on to boil, he went back to his shelter and returned carrying a bamboo stalk.

Last time, he had learned about bamboo strips from the Complete Collection of Plants. This time, he directly searched for the section on bamboo crafts in the Complete Collection of Outdoor Tools.

Soon, a dazzling array of various crafts woven from bamboo appeared one by one in his mind.

There were detailed instructions on every aspect, from selecting the bamboo and processing the skin to the weaving techniques.

’So that’s how it’s done. I get it now!’

He opened his eyes again, a brilliant glint flashing in their depths, looking completely confident.

First, he chopped off all the excess branches from the bamboo stalk, along with the thin part at the very top.

Holding the cut end facing outward, he placed the blade of his combat knife vertically against the edge and gave it a light tap, creating a notch.

He then wedged the blade into the notch and pulled forcefully toward himself. After carving out a fissure, he twisted the blade, easily splitting the entire bamboo stalk in half.

After spending the last two days constantly splitting bamboo tubes, he had more or less mastered the technique.

The fibrous structure of bamboo itself meant it was very easy to split, as long as you went with the grain. If you tried to go against it, you’d need a saw; otherwise, you’d be smashing it with a rock for a long time before it would break.

With practiced ease, he knocked out all the inner nodes of the split bamboo, then proceeded to split the halves further—into four pieces, then eight, then sixteen.

At this point, the width of a single bamboo strip was about one finger wide, which was suitable for making rope.

If they were too wide, the bamboo skin wouldn’t be flexible enough. If they were too thin, their strength might be reduced.

One-sixteenth was just right.

He took one of the bamboo strips and wedged the blade of his combat knife between the green outer skin and the yellow inner core. With another light tap, the two separated easily.

"The inner core is harder and suitable for weaving things like bamboo baskets or winnowing pans. The outer skin is relatively soft and can be made into rope using a special technique. Before the advent of modern technology, bamboo-strip rope was a very common material in the daily lives of us Da Xia People."

’He hadn’t actually known this before, or he wouldn’t have been so stressed about not having any rope. But now that he’d learned this information from the Complete Collection of Outdoor Tools and the Complete Collection of Plants, he had to put on a show.’

’He himself could be uncultured, but he had to establish an omniscient persona for his fellow countrymen.’

’Out here, you make your own reputation.’

’Only by making the foreigners think the Da Xia People were incredibly capable would they not dare to bully him.’

’It was the same principle as how, after a few action movies became global hits, the whole world mistakenly thought all Da Xia People knew kung fu.’

The separated bamboo skin was already very thin, probably only about twice as thick as the bamboo strips on a mat.

But he wasn’t done yet.

"This seemingly thin bamboo strip can actually be split into more layers. You can split it into four, five, or even six layers, depending on your needs. The method for layering is also very simple: you just score the surface of the bamboo skin with a knife."

As he explained, he used his combat knife to make a shallow, white mark on the bamboo skin.

He pinched the top end of the white mark and bent it downward. The portion below the score mark immediately lifted up, a strip of bamboo skin as thin as a cicada’s wing.

"A strip of bamboo skin this thin can be used to make textiles after being split further. But I’m making rope, so this is too thin and won’t be strong enough. I only plan to split it in half again."

By the time he finished splitting it, the thin bamboo strip could no longer support its own length and weight. Except for the part he held in his hand, the rest of it fell limply to the ground.

If he were to flick it, it would even whip through the air in an arc, like a real whip.

"This is just the first step in making bamboo-strip rope: splitting the skin. Next comes the tedious, repetitive part. I need to split all the remaining bamboo skins to the same thickness before I can move on to the second step."

As he split more and more bamboo skins, his movements became more fluid, and his efficiency increased greatly.

At first, he still had to measure where to place the knife, but by the end, he was making cuts almost casually, yet the resulting widths were nearly identical.