In this current home, he clearly saw that Emily Scott also used rice straw to make a fire, so why did Grace Parker still have to go out and gather firewood?

Emily Scott, seeing her son’s confused expression, had no choice but to explain helplessly, “Of course we use straw for cooking, but there’s never enough. The rice straw we bring back from the fields only lasts for half a year at most. If we don’t go out to gather firewood, how could it be enough? Every household in this village is the same. Last year, Grace was even bitten by a snake while gathering firewood—don’t you remember?”

“Hmm, I think I do remember something like that.” Brian Cooper nodded. The old scholar Brian Cooper used to live entirely in his books, so even though he knew about his younger sister and fiancée being bitten by a snake, he hadn’t really reacted. It was actually a few neighbors who helped take Grace Parker to the nearby Shitan Town to get a doctor, and that’s how her life was saved.

“Why aren’t you studying?” Emily Scott was quite surprised to see her son looking around and asking so many questions. In the past, her son had never cared about household matters—unless he was looking for something to eat, he would never set foot in the kitchen. Why was he suddenly interested in these things today?

Brian Cooper smiled at his mother and didn’t explain, only saying, “Mom, let me help you with the fire.”

“You know how to make a fire?” Emily Scott stared wide-eyed. In her memory, her son had never once made a fire, no matter how busy she and Grace Parker were. Brian Cooper had never once offered to help.

Brian Cooper walked over to the stove, sat down on the small stool for tending the fire, grabbed a handful of dry rice straw, broke it up a bit with his hands to loosen it, and then stuffed it into the stove.

Standing to the side, Emily Scott asked in surprise, “Little Brian, when did you learn to make a fire?”

“Does making a fire… really need to be learned?” Brian Cooper replied with a question.

Actually, making a fire in a rural clay stove does require some skill. First, you can’t just shove a whole bundle of straw into the stove, because it won’t burn through that way. Second, when putting straw into the stove, you have to feed in a little at a time, waiting for the front to burn before pushing in more from the back. If you don’t know these tricks and just stuff the straw in stiffly, the fire inside will get scattered, or you might even put it out.

Brian Cooper had mastered these skills in his previous life after helping countless rural families make fires. How could he possibly explain that to Emily Scott?

“My son is so smart—he picks things up just by watching. When Grace first helped me with the fire, she wasn’t nearly as good as you.” Emily Scott said with satisfaction as she watched her son’s skillful movements.

“Mom, I get it now. The problem is with our stove—that’s why our rice straw isn’t enough.” Brian Cooper didn’t just sit down to help Emily Scott with the chores. While standing there earlier, he had already examined the family’s stove and found its design to be very unreasonable. After trying to burn a few handfuls of straw, he was even more certain of his judgment. He knew this was the main reason why their rice straw was never enough.

But Emily Scott didn’t agree at all. She said, “Little Brian, what are you talking about? This stove was specially built by a mud master from Shitan Town back when your grandfather was alive. In the whole village, except for the village head’s family, ours is the best.”

The word “doctor” here locally refers to a craftsman. But if other craftsmen are especially skilled, people will also call them “doctor,” just with a prefix indicating their trade. The “mud doctor” Emily Scott mentioned was a well-known bricklayer in town. There’s a lot of know-how in building stoves, and a professional bricklayer’s stove is indeed much better than one built haphazardly at home.

But this stove, which Emily Scott considered the second best in the village, was full of flaws in Brian Cooper’s eyes.

First, the stove wall was too thin and couldn’t retain heat. Of all the heat generated by the burning fuel in the stove, only a small portion was absorbed by the pot above, while most of it radiated out through the stove wall, resulting in tremendous energy waste.

Second, the stove chamber was too small, and the flue was poorly positioned, causing poor airflow inside. As a result, the straw and firewood didn’t burn completely, and the stove often belched black smoke—which was actually unburned carbon particles.

Also, the stove opening was too large, causing more heat loss; and the chimney on the roof was definitely too short, so it couldn’t create a proper draft, which was another reason for the poor airflow inside the stove.

Brian Cooper could spot these problems for a reason: in his previous life, he had come across a design called the “fuel-saving stove,” and all these points were key features of it.

Speaking of the fuel-saving stove, it was actually a major achievement of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Republic. In the 1980s, the Ministry launched a project to promote fuel-saving stoves, subsidizing 100 counties each year for a decade to promote them in rural areas. Over ten years, the project covered a total of 1,000 counties nationwide.