Chapter 44: Building a House
"Sun Chaoshu, go to the village and borrow two more axes or saws. These two axes are too slow for cutting trees," Ye Hao said to Sun Chaoshu.
Early this morning, Captain Li led Ye Hao, Sun Chaoshu, Lu Bingsheng, and Niu Jianwu, a group of four, to the mountains to cut wood.
Sun Chaoshu went down the mountain to borrow axes. There were no bricks in these mountains, so houses could only be built with wood, stone, and adobe.
Ye Hao and the others were here today to cut trees in the mountains to make beams for the roof.
The three girls and the weak Wang Rong went to the fields to cut thatch. This was also in preparation for future adobe houses.
Soon, Sun Chaoshu returned with two axes, a saw, and two young men about their age.
According to Sun Chaoshu's introduction, these were Li Xiuzhu and Li Xiucheng, the sons of the village's bricklayer Third Uncle and the Minuteman Captain Fourth Uncle. They came to help.
With more people, there was more strength. Ye Hao, Li Xiuzhu, and Li Xiucheng cut trees, while the others trimmed all the branches off the felled trees to make them easier to drag back later.
After a day of hard work, looking at the results on the ground, everyone was quite satisfied; it was basically enough.
"Alright, that's it for today. Let's go back and eat. We have enough wood. Tomorrow, we'll drag the wood back to the village," Captain Li, too, had been with everyone cutting trees in the mountains all day.
"Thank you all. Come to our place for dinner tonight. I caught two pheasants yesterday, so we'll eat chicken tonight," Ye Hao said to the Li Xiuzhu brothers on the way back.
The two brothers were a bit reserved. Seeing this, Captain Li said, "Xiuzhu, you two should go to Xiao Ye's place for dinner. You are all young people and have common topics. You also helped all day today."
Perhaps due to unfamiliarity or being somewhat introverted, the two brothers smiled but said nothing. However, they still followed the group back to the warehouse.
"You're back! You've all worked hard today. Wait a moment, dinner will be ready soon," Huang Su Su said as she cooked outside, seeing Ye Hao and the others return.
Entering the house, they saw Wang Rong sitting on the bed rubbing his legs. "Wang Rong, you're no good. How come the girls are fine, but you're so tired?" Sun Chaoshu teased.
"I'm not, I just haven't done much work at home, that's why," Wang Rong said, a little embarrassed by Sun Chaoshu's words.
"Alright, don't talk about Wang Rong. Let's clean up and get ready for dinner."
"Let me introduce you. This is Li Xiuzhu, son of Third Uncle Li, and this is Li Xiucheng, son of Fourth Uncle. We owe a lot to them today; otherwise, we might not have been able to cut all the trees we needed even if we came back for another day tomorrow," Ye Hao introduced to everyone.
"Hello everyone, my name is Tang Zilan."
"Hello everyone, my name is Zuo Lei."
...
Everyone introduced themselves one by one, making initial acquaintances.
"Alright, the dishes are ready, everyone come eat," Huang Su Su had just finished preparing the meal.
Today's meal was very rich. Everyone was tired after a day's work, so Huang Su Su cooked both pheasants Ye Hao brought back yesterday: one dish of chicken chunks with potato noodles, and another of stewed chicken with mushrooms. Both were served in basins, with a basin of corn porridge and a basin of corn 窩頭 beside them.
They were all young and had done so much work today, so they were all ravenous, their stomachs rumbling. As soon as they sat down, they devoured everything.
After a whirlwind of eating, only a mess of chicken bones remained on the table; everything else edible had found its way into everyone's stomachs.
After dinner, the Li Xiuzhu brothers prepared to go back and rest. They still had to get up early tomorrow to get stones and mud.
Everyone simply tidied up and went to rest. They were really exhausted today, except for Ye Hao, who secretly drank the space spring water and wasn't very tired now.
Early the next morning, Ye Hao and the others, along with Captain Li and several villagers, pushed wheelbarrows to a nearby hillside to dig up soil. Li Bangshu, on the other hand, took his son and several strong young men to move stones.
After three days of effort from everyone, the materials for building the house were finally ready. During these three days, Ye Hao would take his crossbow into the mountains every evening on the latter two days, pretending to hunt, but actually taking out game from his space. If it weren't for the game produced from Ye Hao's space that they had been eating these past few days, these young people would probably have collapsed long ago.
He often encountered real game in the mountains, and Ye Hao naturally had no reason to let them go. He basically hunted everything he could and then distributed it to the villagers who helped, giving one family a pheasant one day and another family a rabbit the next. At first, the villagers were quite reserved and wanted to refuse, but after these two days of interaction, their impression of Ye Hao soared.
Ye Hao hadn't seen Ao Xue once in the mountains these two days, and he didn't know where the little fellow had run off to, but Ye Hao wasn't too worried.
With all the materials ready, they began making adobe bricks. Li Family Village didn't have its own brick kiln, so all houses were either adobe or wooden.
They chopped up the previously collected thatch and stalks, mixed them with mud and water, stirring them into a thick slurry. Then, they poured the prepared slurry into pre-made wooden adobe molds, smoothed the top, and waited for the adobe bricks to air dry naturally. Once the molds were removed, the simplest adobe bricks were complete. This step took everyone three days, mainly because the village had limited molds, so they couldn't make too many bricks at once.
During the time the adobe bricks were drying, everyone wasn't idle. First, they leveled the foundation, then dug out the outline of the foundation, and built the house's foundation with large stones.
The initial plan for two rooms, after everyone's unanimous discussion, became four rooms. Two large rooms served as living quarters for males and females, with a small kitchen added next to the male's side and a bathroom added next to the female's side. Originally, they planned for two bathrooms, but Captain Li later said it was too wasteful and one would be enough for them to take turns washing. Thus, they settled on a total of four rooms: two large and two small.
After ten days of effort, the educated youths, along with many villagers who came to help, finally completed the educated youth point. Looking at the brand new houses, everyone felt a surge of pride; they had accomplished this with their own hands.
"Dear uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, thank you for your help these past few days. Without you, we don't know when this house would have been built. Tonight, everyone come to our place for dinner, please don't refuse. This is our heartfelt appreciation, firstly to thank you all for your help during this time, and secondly, we are now officially settled in our Li Family Village, with our own house. We hope that all you fellow villagers will be understanding in the future. We just came from the City, and we are not very familiar with many rural tasks. Please forgive us for any shortcomings. It's not dinner time yet, so please go home and rest for a bit. We will prepare dinner here, and you must come. If you don't come, I will have to personally come to invite each of you."
As soon as Ye Hao finished speaking, Sun Chaoshu was the first to applaud, and others echoed, "Brother Hao said it well, we've troubled you villagers during this time, thank you."