Chapter 255 In the Woods

Mu Xi took a pen and drew two strokes on the drawing, "The enclosed corridor from the room to the bathroom and toilet."

Last winter, when I went to the toilet and took a shower, the roads were icy and there was wind and snow blowing overhead.

If there was a closed passage that could be passed directly this year, I wouldn’t have caught a cold.

The passage will extend from the newly built outer brick wall, and the outer layers of the bathroom and toilet will be reinforced in due course.

Zhao Yeqing exclaimed, "What a good guy!" She was trying to find ways to save time and effort. Mu Xi just waved his pen and planned the workload for the next few months.

Just looking at the drawing made her back ache.

But to be honest, this is indeed the case. If the weather gets even worse, this simple and crude reinforcement method and closed corridor will be much safer.

Zhao Yeqing threw his pen to the ground with a bang, and slid off the chair to lie prone on the straw mat on the floor.

"I don't want to move..."

Mu Xi was so amused that he said, "Then you just sit there and make bricks, and I'll take care of the rest."

Among all the work, making red bricks in the early stage should be the easiest job.

Zhao Yeqing said that he wanted to give up, but he wouldn't really do it. After all, if you talk about it in a big way, it's a matter of life and death.

But after all, the temperature can reach up to 51 degrees at noon!

Anyone who wants to work in this weather must be a pure iron man, right?

At this time, Pure Iron Man Mu Xi was already working on the details of the drawings.

Zhao Yeqing half-deadly climbed up slowly from the straw mat, moved to Mu Xi's side, weakly took the notebook and tore off a piece of paper, then took a pen and walked to the side to draw a blueprint of the brick kiln.

For such a large project, the number of red bricks would be huge, and their small brick kiln would definitely not be enough.

More lime needs to be dug back. In addition to lime, cement also contains a certain amount of clay. Lime and clay mixed together can become the most basic cement.

Clay had to be dug from the forest, and so did lime. The initial preparation of materials was a huge project.

Fortunately, it was not too hot in the forest, so the two men packed up their tools and did not bring any cows or horses. They dug out the materials first, and when they needed to transport them, they would bring the cows and horses over to pull the materials back.

I started working in the morning and worked until noon. I planned to find a slightly shady and gentle slope to rest at noon, and continue working when the sun is not so hot.

This area used to have more rainy seasons, and the climate was warm and humid. After years of sedimentation, clay was not difficult to find after digging up the soil.

While Mu Xi went to dig limestone, Zhao Yeqing found a place with clay nearby to dig.

Zhao Yeqing's situation was not so bad, as there were big trees nearby and the sunlight above his head was half blocked by the remaining leaves, so working there was not particularly uncomfortable.

Mu Xi didn't feel so comfortable.

I don’t know if it was because of the previous ground fissure and the earthquake that caused part of the limestone veins to be exposed on the surface, which allowed them to see it.

So there were almost no trees growing in that area, and Mu Xi could only dig under the scorching sun, from six in the morning until around nine, when he could no longer dig.

At this time, the sunlight has gradually become stronger, and digging further will easily lead to heat stroke.

I could only go back to Zhao Yeqing, rest for a while, and then dig clay with her.

By nearly eleven o'clock, they could no longer work even with the shelter of the trees, so they brought two large kettles to replenish their water, but they felt thirsty after drinking the water for a short while.

According to the original plan, we first found a slightly shady slope to rest.

Zhao Yeqing turned around and saw a medium-sized cave under a small bulging mound of earth.

It is probably an abandoned wolf den.

She got closer but didn't see any signs of animals, and there was no feces or foul smell nearby, so she dared to walk into the cave to take a look.

Mu Xi followed in closely. There was nothing inside, except for some vaguely recognizable bone remains of small animals.

"It seems that no animals have been here for a long time."

Zhao Yeqing could only bend over in the cave and kicked the leaf mold under his feet. "It's relatively clean. Let's stay here."

Mu Xi put down the water and food he was carrying and said, "I'll go get some leaves."

What Zhao Yeqing meant by clean was that there was no feces or rotten things, but people still couldn't sit directly on the ground.

Mu Xi walked out of the cave and picked up some clean dead leaves and two large stones that could be sat on.

They spread dead leaves on the ground and used stones as benches for each person.

After a simple lunch, I couldn’t bring a boxed lunch out in this weather, as it would probably go bad in less than two hours.

You can only bring some dry food, the kind without water.

Zhao Yeqing baked two pancakes with unleavened dough. He didn't dare add eggs or fillings. The most he could do was to make the pancakes sweet to replenish the sugar content.

"If this continues, I will have to study the method of making compressed biscuits."

She took a mouthful of the pancake and a sip of water, chewing and swallowing it. The solid texture was very filling and very filling.

After Mu Xi finished eating the bread, he said, "Tomorrow I'll make some pickles to go with it. It shouldn't go bad and it will have some flavor."

I dare not make a fire in the woods in this weather, for fear that a spark might accidentally fly and the whole forest would burn.

Even after I lit a fire, I didn’t know what to cook, and I really couldn’t eat the steaming hot food.

After lunch, the two rested for a while in the cave.

It was rare that it wasn't too hot here, so Zhao Yeqing leaned on Mu Xi's shoulder and dozed off for more than ten minutes. When he woke up, he found that he was still sweating profusely.

Mu Xi used water from the kettle to wet a handkerchief and wiped her face to cool her down.

I still can't go to work now. I have to wait until after two o'clock in the afternoon.

Now the daylight hours are very long every day. It is light before six in the morning and the sun does not completely set until after eight in the evening.

There was a long period of time when I couldn't work, so I had enough time to go home and rest, and it was still plenty of time to go out and work after the sun went down a little.

But Zhao Yeqing had other ideas.

It would definitely be impossible to dig up all the materials in one day, so she planned to take a walk in the woods when she was not working at noon today, so as to avoid being surrounded by any dangerous things in the woods.

This side was also where the evil hyenas once appeared.

After resting for a while, the two began to wander in the woods. The more Zhao Yeqing wandered, the more he felt that something was wrong.

Most of the trees in this area are fir trees. Now the weather is too hot, and many leaves of the fir trees have dried up and fallen to the ground.

When you step on it, your shoes make a crisp crackling sound.

The last time I passed by here was when I came from Meishan. Although most of the water sources were cut off at that time, it was not like this time. There was no smell of rotten leaves in the woods in my nose...