Ha, back then William Carter spent a month hanging out at the pottery bar, hoping to hit on the pretty girl there. Unfortunately, although the girl greeted him warmly every time, thinking back now, what she really welcomed was William Carter's wallet. Once William Carter ran out of money, her smile disappeared as well.

　　Henry looked innocent and asked in confusion, “What is a ‘pottery bar’? Is it a place specifically for learning pottery skills?”

　　William Carter choked for a moment and replied, “Ahem, if there’s anything I say that you don’t understand, just ignore it—I’ll tell you, to make pottery you first need a potter’s wheel, and then you have to select the clay…”

　　Henry asked again, “What is a potter’s wheel? And what does ‘select’ mean?”

　　William Carter tilted his head, nervously covering his mouth—he had almost blurted out the name “Gongshu Ban.” According to legend, it was Gongshu Ban who invented the potter’s wheel, and he also invented the ink marker, saw, ladder, pulley, and other tools. But William Carter still didn’t know whether, at this point in time, Gongshu Ban had “traveled through time” successfully or not.

　　After thinking for a moment, William Carter remembered a theory he’d heard before: it was rumored that “Gongshu Ban” wasn’t actually the inventor of those woodworking machines, just as Cai Lun of the Han dynasty wasn’t the inventor of paper, and Zhang Xiaoqian of the Song dynasty wasn’t the inventor of scissors. Because similar devices already existed before them; these people were just good at summarizing and refining the technologies of their time, so the honor of invention was attributed to them.

　　Now, perhaps that honor could go to William Carter.

　　“It’s said that the craftsmen of Lu are all remarkable, and they often use various auxiliary tools. Maybe the people of Lu know how to make a potter’s wheel…” William Carter chose his words carefully, but halfway through he couldn’t help but get distracted, thinking of “Ethan”: “Hey, you’re a mountain hunter—why aren’t you practicing your hunting skills, but playing with clay here? Where did ‘Ethan’ go?”

　　Henry regretfully put down the clay pot in his hands and answered, “Ethan said the warriors around the courtyard are very unfriendly. He wants to find a bow and a sword—so that if we have weapons, in case something happens, we can defend ourselves.”

　　Ethan was originally a war servant from Qin. Jin and Qin had been at war for years, and in a battle more than ten years ago, Ethan, who was then a “leader of two” (five men to a squad, five squads to a two), was defeated and captured, then assigned as a slave to a Jin state meritorious official. Henry was a thoroughbred Jin native, but not a free man—he was a hereditary slave of a noble family.

　　The struggles among the Jin nobility were extremely brutal and frequent. Two years after Ethan became a slave, his master lost in a power struggle and the entire family was wiped out. During that upheaval, some of the household slaves were sent to the battlefield; both Ethan and the teenage Henry were among them. Afterwards, they were scattered by enemy troops and fled into the mountains to make a living on their own.

　　Ethan was skilled in archery, and his aim was quite impressive. Henry had grown up in the mountains and was good at running, so the two of them, having met by chance in the mountains, naturally formed a hunting team: Ethan was in charge of shooting, and Henry was in charge of chasing down wounded animals, pursuing them until they bled out and collapsed from exhaustion—since ancient bows and arrows weren’t very powerful, their hunting life was tough. Henry was short due to malnutrition, and because he was used to running in the mountains, now that he had some free time, he always felt itchy all over.

　　Seeing that William Carter didn’t seem to appreciate his craftsmanship, Henry fell silent. After a while, he saw William Carter gazing thoughtfully at the distant mountains, so he raised the clay pot in his hand and explained, “Master, the meat here really has no flavor. I remember the pot of meat you cooked when we first met… tsk, it was so fragrant and tender, so I wanted to make a pot of the same shape, hoping that the meat cooked in it would be just as delicious.”

　　William Carter’s grasp of the language was still not perfect, and Henry’s vocabulary didn’t seem very rich either, so William Carter could only clumsily interpret his words as above.

　　William Carter withdrew his gaze from the distance and, seeing Henry swallowing repeatedly, he swallowed his own saliva and replied, “Speaking of that meat soup, ah, I’m craving it too. Unfortunately, we were too greedy back then and almost used up all the good seasonings… Hmm, I should go through my backpack—maybe there’s something left, even a single seed would be good.”

　　William Carter acted as soon as he thought of it. He lifted his legs to leave, but after a few steps, he turned back to Henry and said, “Go get Ethan—I remember a simple way to make a bow. Didn’t he want a bow? I’ll make one for him… Oh, and get the head warrior in the courtyard too. I’ll tell him to find you a few good pottery masters.”

　　Back in his own bedroom, William Carter looked at the bundle placed in the room. He couldn’t help but marvel at the simplicity of the people of the Spring and Autumn period—he had left his bundle lying around in the house, and after all this time, no one had been curious enough to open it and take a look. The machete he brought, which should be the sharpest weapon of this era and which Cheng Ying had experienced firsthand, was casually left by his bedside, yet no one coveted it.

　　After rummaging through the bundle for a while, William Carter found some useful seeds and also took out a few knives and forks from the cutlery box—now that he no longer had to worry about his boss, he could use these items as he pleased.