Chapter 42

After everyone finished eating, they still went to the construction site for work.

Wen Mi was no less capable than any man. Working alongside Xu Yin and the others, whatever heavy, rough labor they could do, she could do too.

Xia Qing and Miao Bing were busy with the scaffolding. Finding an extra pair of hands for that was easy; any random person would do. There was no need to waste a carpenter’s labor.

What they lacked now was furniture. Not the kind of tables where you just stick wood into the mud and tie them together with rope, but proper long tables and large, square tables.

They discussed it and decided to have Ning Yikui start by making furniture: tables and chairs first, then basins and buckets. If they had time, they could also try making cabinets, chests, and baskets.

As for Di Wanling, after speaking with Zhao Penglai, she learned they didn’t have any stored seeds from oil-yielding trees. Even if they did, they’d have to first build the tools to press the oil. Just selecting the wood for the press would take more than a day or two. After finding it, they’d still have to cut the blanks and carve the grooves.

With nothing to do for the moment, Di Wanling became Ning Yikui’s assistant, making furniture.

Li Cunxin still carried the plow to clear new land and plant potatoes. But this time, Yan Baiyu made her take the water buffalo instead of Mei Wenqin. Not only that, she also had Zhou Huan accompany her.

Li Cunxin didn’t resist. It was good to let Mei Wenqin rest a bit, and having an extra person to help clear the land was also good.

Li Cunxin drove the water buffalo, plowing and harrowing the soil into rows. The two went back for a hurried lunch, then took the sprouted potatoes and cut them into pieces.

Li Cunxin cut a piece, handed it to Zhou Huan, and Zhou Huan followed her instructions: dipping the cut side of the potato piece in plant ash before tossing it into a bamboo basket.

Li Cunxin shouldered the basket, carrying a ceramic water pitcher. The pitcher was round-bellied with a wide mouth, its spout shaped like a lotus seed pod. This was a watering can Yu Muyang had made, modeled after a regular water pitcher.

Zhou Huan picked up a hoe. With her other hand, she helped Li Cunxin carry the fertilizer in the basket to the field.

Li Cunxin placed one potato piece per hole, covered it with soil, watered it, applied fertilizer, and leveled the rows. Only then was the work done.

The sun had already moved to the west. The western sky was inlaid with dark red and gold edges. The two hoisted their hoes and went home. Xu Yin and his group also came back from the new house, dusting off their heads and patting the wood chips from their clothes.

Smoke curled from chimneys, carrying sounds of joy and laughter.

Days flowed gently downstream like a creek.

The new house progressed step by step. Setting aside the initial material preparation, from tamping the foundation onward, it had taken nearly a full month and was nearing completion. Zhao Penglai, Feng Huai, and Yu Muyang were on the roof, laying the gray-black tiles, like applying the finishing touches to a maiden’s makeup. The uniform gray roof instantly gave the entire house a three-dimensional sense, making it familiar and defined.

The new house’s land was originally a bit higher than its surroundings. When Zhao Penglai leveled the land, he further raised it by hauling and compacting earth. A small slope formed in front of the house. Before the slope stood a parasol tree, its trunk straight, its leaves spreading like a canopy.

The house’s gray-white foundation was solid and thick. Before the foundation was a step stone, cut perfectly flat on all six sides.

The house was about six meters deep, divided into three rooms. The main hall was in the center, with bedrooms on either side. Entering the main hall gave one immediate feeling: spaciousness. The ceiling was high, without any oppressive, head-knocking sensation. Open on all sides, everyone could stand in the main hall without needing to hunch their shoulders or tuck in their feet. It was neither damp nor stuffy. The draft blowing through felt wonderfully refreshing.

The wooden partition walls in the rooms were already up. The timber had been smoked for preservation and sterilization. Entering the bedroom, the inner walls were brushed with lime wash. The smell hadn’t dissipated yet, but the snowy white walls, combined with the natural light, made the room exceptionally bright.

The rooms were empty. Furniture hadn’t been moved in yet, and the front door and windows hadn’t been installed. The door was pre-planned to be a double door. The windows were also opened on the front side of the house. For good lighting, the windows were made quite large. Xia Qing and Ning Yikui had put no small amount of effort into the window lattice.

Everyone stood before the new house, gazing at this massive structure. Below the gray-tiled roof were white walls. The walls were smooth and even, the gray tiles arranged in neat order.

It was too elegant, too refined. It didn’t look like a product of this rugged era. The adobe houses paled in comparison.

The new house was clean, airy, tall, and beautiful. It wouldn’t have looked out of place even two or three decades back in the modern world. Back then, such houses were a common sight.

For the first time, everyone felt so close to home. So close that it felt as if the two dimensions briefly overlapped and intersected within this house.

Jiang Beibei quietly retreated, moving away. She crouched behind the parasol tree, covering her mouth, and began to sob very softly.

From somewhere near or far came the calls of cuckoos and Indian cuckoos.

Ning Yikui clutched her collar. Her throat, and the trachea in the center of her lungs, felt as if they were blocked. She said, “Sister Wen, this new house is built so well, so beautifully. I should be happy, but looking at it… I feel so sad.”

This house, so hauntingly familiar, stirred feelings of homesickness. At first sight, few felt ecstasy; most felt melancholy.

Emotions needed time to adjust.

That evening, the group moved to the new house to eat dinner. The long table Ning Yikui had made finally came in handy. Placing four long benches on either side and a chair at each end, all seventeen people could sit at the table without any crowding. There was also room to move about after leaving the table.

Even though dusk was approaching, it was still possible to see clearly inside. The front and back doors of the main hall were open, allowing air to circulate. Gone were the mixed smells of damp earth, stale sweat, and grease. The air was fresh. Even the food seemed to taste better.

It was then that everyone truly felt the comfort and ease of the new house. Their homesickness continued to ferment, turning into a deep, fervent passion, supplying their spirits with boundless energy.

From the start of their plans to now, it had been nearly a year. All for this one house. Searching for iron ore to smelt tools, felling trees and preparing timber, finding stone ore to fire and grind, firing bricks and tiles. More than half a year’s painstaking effort had been poured into this.

Li Cunxin suddenly understood why Zhao Penglai had been so stubborn, so insistent on overexerting their capabilities to build such a house.

This house, appearing in a primitive world of absolute scarcity, was like a time machine, a miracle.

Zhao Penglai wanted to make it a spiritual monument. It showed everyone the possibility of restoring their original living standards by half or even more. This house was more inspiring than any impassioned speech.

And for the village chief’s dwelling, this building also symbolized status and authority. It exerted an invisible deterrent power over everyone.

The spiritual function of this house was equal to its material function, perhaps even surpassed it.

After all, right now, this house could inject a shot of adrenaline into everyone’s hearts, but they still couldn’t move in yet.

After Zhao Penglai smoked the house with mugwort, Xia Qing and Ning Yikui began assembling the wooden bed in the bedroom. Miao Bing’s bamboo bed was already finished. It was about fifty centimeters high and about one and a half meters wide. Two people could sleep on it without much extra space, but they could turn over comfortably. The bamboo bed was sturdy, its surface smooth and free of splinters. Even the slight ridges at the bamboo joints didn’t feel uncomfortable. Four men worked together to carry this bamboo bed into the other bedroom.

Both rooms were equipped with a square table and a chair. Wardrobes and chests hadn’t been made yet, and even if they had, they weren’t needed right now.

Xia Qing and Ning Yikui assembled the wooden bed, which was the same size as the bamboo bed. They installed the front door, which opened inward and had a latch on the inside, providing a good barrier when closed from inside. But closing the door from outside required a lock. They had no locks.

Not only did they have no locks, but after installing the windows, there was no suitable covering for the gaps in the window lattice.

Xia Qing and Ning Yikui had worked with great enthusiasm while making everything. After installing and admiring it, they still felt immense inner satisfaction. But they very subtly sensed something was missing.

Li Cunxin asked, “With so many gaps in the window lattice, how will we keep out rats, insects, and snakes in the summer?”

Xia Qing and Ning Yikui felt as if struck by lightning, a sudden realization dawning on them.

The two grabbed Yu Muyang and railed at him. “Make glass!”

“Are you two joking?” Yu Muyang rolled his eyes so hard they nearly went to the back of his head, his eyelids twitching. “You want glass? Sure. Got any calcite? Dolomite? Mirabilite? Forget all that for now. Just get me fifty kilos of quartz sand first, and then we’ll talk.”

Yan Baiyu spoke, her voice unhurried and calm. “In ancient times, people often used paper to cover windows.”

Li Cunxin looked at the group. “Who knows papermaking?”

Silence.

Li Cunxin smiled wryly. “Forget it. Let’s just use straw mats for now.”

Xia Qing mumbled, “Then what was the point of making such big windows? No light comes through.”

Li Cunxin pondered. “In the future, everyone’s windows will have this lighting problem. Using artemisia or wooden boards to block them is indeed too dark. Let’s see how much cotton cloth we can produce later. If there’s a surplus, we can paste cloth over the windows. It’s breathable and lets in light.”

Xia Qing sighed. “That means waiting until winter.”

Wen Mi asked, “Why wait until winter?”

Li Cunxin said, “Because cotton is harvested in autumn. Spinning and weaving take time afterward, and priority has to be given to clothing first.”

Zhou Huan said, “Can’t we weave hemp cloth too?”

Li Cunxin patiently explained, “Nettle is too scarce. Besides, we hadn’t thought of this use for it before; we used it all for twisting hemp rope.” Before, she’d been entirely focused on food. She hadn’t put much thought into clothing, only thinking cotton was good and planting cotton. She found the cloth woven from nettle fibers too rough and hadn’t considered planting it. She’d just used whatever nettle they could find for rope. But thinking back now, even if nettle-woven cloth was too rough next to the skin, it could still be used for rugs or window screens.

Taishi Huan suddenly asked, “What about ramie?”

Li Cunxin was taken aback. Everyone looked at Taishi Huan in surprise. Jiang Beibei said, “Yes, of course! Ramie is even better than nettle.”

Taishi Huan said, “When we were searching along the way earlier, we came across some ramie.”

Yu Muyang argued, “How do you know it was ramie? Don’t tell me you just randomly identified it.”

Xia Qing scorned him. “His talent is Encyclopedia, you idiot!” Even if Taishi Huan could misidentify it, could his talent be wrong?

“…” Yu Muyang had forgotten that. Mainly, Taishi Huan’s talent had little everyday application here, so much so that Yu Muyang forgot the guy’s talent was identifying things.

Jiang Beibei glanced at Taishi Huan and said to Li Cunxin, “If it really is ramie, that would be fantastic. Village Chief, can you plant it?”

“Planting it is possible.” Li Cunxin said, “We still need to check the growth over there and see how many plants there are.”

Don’t even mention it. If this stuff could really be cultivated, it would be easy to manage. Several harvests a year were possible.

Jiang Beibei had already convinced herself there was plenty of ramie there, even assuming it must be growing vigorously. She began celebrating in advance. “We can make linen! We’ll have new clothes for summer.”