PNB Chapter 262 Busy Building a House
Chapter 262 Busy Building a House
In the few days since construction began, the dry land area of Changchonggou has been bustling with people. Li Ju'an's dry land is located far away, and the road is difficult to travel. These past few days, he has chosen cloudy weather, making the road relatively easier to walk on. Under the guidance of Foreman Zhang, the helpers first assembled the beams and purlins of the house on the ground in advance, and then several villagers helped to make the door and window frames.
Zhang brought four or five laborers. The day before construction began, the laborers dismantled the old warehouse that Zhang had selected and cleared out the usable materials. Then, the group started mixing the mortar for bricklaying and plastering. The adobe bricks that Li Ju'an needed were also picked up by Lao Chen, a truck driver Zhang had arranged.
Zhang, the engineer, had the construction blueprints and was the chief supervisor. The Lu brothers worked with the bricklayers, doing tasks like hanging plumb lines to build walls and standing in the masonry. The bricklayers had been doing this for over twenty years and were very experienced. Lu Zhiqiang, working alongside the bricklayers, laughed happily and said, "This job is quite lucrative, isn't it? I'll apprentice myself and learn the trade. This is much better than being a temporary worker at the forest farm."
After the land was distributed to individual households, many families in the nearby villages were busy building houses, but they lacked experienced bricklayers. When the old bricklayer heard what Lu Zhiqiang said and saw Lu Zhiqiang's appearance, he grinned and laughed, "You should learn to hunt from Old Master Lu. You'll be much better than us."
Others helped mix the mud, move the bricks, and do odd jobs. They laid the roof tiles and smoothed the mud. This work was also very tiring; it took a long time to mix the mud, which then sat for a whole morning before being pounded again when needed. Li Ju'an led the helpers to use shovels to throw the mud onto the roof and then smooth the mud roof.
In the past few days, many villagers have come to help. As the host, Song Lanhua, the mother, couldn't use wages to repay their kindness, but she also didn't want the villagers to work for nothing. The villagers helped with tasks like pulling beams and carrying bricks. Song Lanhua, along with Aunt Zhang, cooked a hot meal in a large pot every noon.
Li Ju'an had stored several hundred kilograms of wild boar meat in the snow in his yard, and now he was stewing it all in one pot. Pot after pot of fragrant pork stew with vermicelli, along with a pot of homemade deer blood wine, were served to thank the villagers who had come to help. There was also a large pot of steamed fish pieces that smelled delicious.
Li Ju'an asked Yang, the former production brigade leader, about buying a sheep. He then led people to slaughter the sheep and stew the meat in a large pot.
The meals for the helpers varied every day, but the feasts were always especially good. Mother Song Lanhua led the neighbor aunties in busy work, steaming large buns and cooking white rice. The newly built kitchen, with its chimney just connected, was billowing smoke.
When everyone was starving at noon, the best food and drinks—a big pot of rice, pork stew with vermicelli, braised mutton, and steamed fish—were brought out to treat everyone. The villagers who had come to help with the work were all sweating profusely, but they ate with great relish.
Several of Sun's uncles came over, raising their glasses and shouting, "Back when we were building our house, we were the ones who carried the beams. I have experience with this kind of thing."
“We have experience too. When lifting the beam, you have to pull and release the ropes one at a time. If you coordinate well, the beam will be placed steadily. You also have to distribute the force properly.”
The main branch of the Sun family went to the county town to look after Sun Weimin, while those who had separated from the family stayed in the village to help with the work. The main beam was not to be underestimated; if it fell, not only would the house collapse, but it could also injure people.
Everyone was well-fed and hydrated, feeling more energetic. They all knew perfectly well that the large lunch and two meals provided were a way of repaying the favors they had received. They worked diligently, afraid of making any mistakes.
Each family sent their young and strong men, who followed Zhang Gong to climb onto the wall and take their positions. The Sun family used thick hemp ropes to pull the main beam upwards. Li Ju'an directed from below. Everyone was a little nervous. Aunt Zhang and the others muttered auspicious phrases often used by the older generation, such as "The golden rooster crows, the phoenix arrives."
After the main beam was firmly placed on the roof, firecrackers were set off. The lively scene, filled with laughter and joy, was especially delightful for the children.
Li Xiao, leading Lu Wenqian, Sun Hao, and Zhang's niece, was overjoyed. The children laughed and shouted as they grabbed the candy and peanuts on the ground.
Mother Song Lanhua also smiled and carried a full basket filled with red dates, scattering them as she recited: "Red in the east, joy in the west, top scholar in the south, and rice stored in the north."
The custom of scattering sorghum stalks during the raising of the roof beam is very ritualistic and also a way of showing respect to the villagers who helped.
After the beam was raised, Li Ju'an and Zhang Gong used an ink line to check its position. Zhang Gong, stabilizing the beam, shouted, "If the left side is higher than the right, wealth will gather."
Li Ju'an nodded, explaining that there were also specific requirements for raising and scattering the ridge beams, which had to conform to the feng shui principle of "Green Dragon on the left and White Tiger on the right."
After a few days, the main structure of the house was completed, and it was no longer a problem to worry about rain. The mud bricks inside could be allowed to dry slowly in the shade. The helpers assisted in making the windows and doors, and followed Foreman Zhang to plaster the walls inside and outside the house.
There's a lot of work involved in tinkering with the interior of the house. Building a heated kang (a traditional Chinese bed-stove), fire walls, stoves, and chimneys are all skilled tasks. There's also painting and installing glass.
These past few days, Li Ju'an has been busy in the dry fields of Changchonggou. After finishing the outdoor work, he moved on to the indoors. He chose a cement floor, compacted it with broken bricks, then used cement mortar mixed with red dye to level it, and finally rolled it smooth. The floor was now very shiny. The Lu brothers took one look and found it very effective, asking Li Ju'an what to do with the windowsill.
Li Ju'an said, "Don't use red dye, just use gray to smooth it out."
Zhang and his workers were painting the walls whitewash. Song Lanhua, the mother, asked Aunt Zhang how the Zhang family's house was built, so she copied it and made a painted wainscoting. Aunt Zhang was quite skilled at spray painting; her nephew worked in the city doing it. She called her nephew back, and he brought paint to create three-dimensional patterns, adding beauty to the area below the kang (heated brick bed). It looked very nice.
Li Ju'an went to Song Desheng's place and asked how Song Desheng's earthen boiler was welded and how his radiators worked. Song Desheng gave him the phone number of the foreman at the factory, saying that he could take on private jobs, but he would have to pay extra.
The factory hired someone to do freelance welding of earthen boilers, and they even installed earthen heating systems inside the house. With all that, there was no need to worry about the dead of winter; the whole house was warm and cozy, making it a very comfortable place to live.
And so, the newly built house had heating and a fire pit. Upon entering, there was an inner porch with a brick stove and a clay boiler inside. Song Desheng, who had come all this way in an oxcart, laughed heartily and said, "This house is much more comfortable than the old tenement building. We'll come stay here in the winter, and we can go into the mountains more often and hunt some bears."
He's much bolder now than before when he talks about Xiongcang; he's not afraid at all.
Li Ju'an teased him, saying, "The first time you heard a bear roar, you didn't say a word about it."
Song Desheng wasn't embarrassed at all, and shamelessly said, "Of course! Nobody's afraid of a bear. It's because we have guns. As long as the bullets are steady, what's a black bear? Let's go!"
The interior and exterior work is basically finished; they just need to wait two months for the house to dry completely. Once it's dry, they can start removing the roof slab, which involves using ash as waterproofing. He asked Song Desheng for the foreman's phone number and contacted him to have the ash from the factory's boiler room delivered. Then, the ash will be sieved to separate the particles, mixed with lime slurry, and spread evenly on the roof slab.
Song Desheng looked at it and said, "This work can only be done when it stops raining. Otherwise, it will have to be redone before it's completely dry."
Li Ju'an said, "We'll start working on it when the weather is sunny, so we can finish it sooner and people can move in sooner."