Gu Xichen originally planned to build a house just like the one in Jiang Jinxiu's space, but due to limited materials, the best they could build at the moment was a bungalow.

However, Jiang Jinxiu was not surprised by this, because she had thought about it from the day she decided to build the house.

In addition, in her opinion, they wouldn't live in the house built here for many years, and she and Gu Xichen wouldn't live in the countryside for the rest of their lives.

This time, since everyone is helping to build the house, Jiang Jinxiu doesn't plan to provide meals. It would be too troublesome to have to spare people to cook for so many people.

So she discussed with Gu Xichen whether they could send some rice or other things to each family, or even just give them money directly.

That way they won't have to go through so much trouble.

They can also free up their hands to do what they want to do, instead of just focusing on building houses.

If they have time, they can also cook some mung bean soup for the workers to cool off in the summer heat.

Gu Xichen had no objection to this.

They then shared their idea with Yang Dongmei.

Yang Dongmei also thought this was feasible.

However, upon inspection, they found that their family's food reserves were running low.

Jiang Jinxiu suggested, "Mother, why don't we just give them money? Fifty cents a day would be a good wage for them."

Before she could finish speaking, Yang Dongmei immediately retorted, "Oh dear, Third Brother's wife, do you know how much it will cost to build a house if each person only pays five cents a day? Even if you have money, you can't spend it like that. These days, building a house costs money everywhere."

Yang Dongmei did the math for her. If she paid her that much, each person would only get fifteen yuan a month. After building the house, they had already spent several hundred yuan just on labor costs.

An adult who goes to work, if he can only cut ten centimeters a day, will only earn six yuan a month.

This is such a bad deal.

After discussing it back and forth, the group finally decided to give rice, one pound of rice per person per day. If anyone didn't want rice, they would be paid two cents a day. They would also give some sugar cakes after the houses were built.

If we run out of rice at home, we go to town to buy some.

That way, they won't have to go through the hassle of buying things and cooking for them every day.

However, today is the first day back at work, so we still need to prepare a welcome-back banquet for everyone.

Gu Xichen then spoke to the workers about these matters.

Fortunately, no one held it against them and they all agreed to it. Some even did the math.

They discovered that giving Gu Xichen and the others rice was more cost-effective than eating there by themselves.

The people here are used to cooking porridge every day. One pound of rice is enough for a family of five or six to eat for a day.

If they eat at the Gu family's place, the rest of the family still has to cook for themselves.

Since they're all from the same village and live nearby, they can easily go home for a meal.

It's more cost-effective than them eating here all day by themselves.

When the third son of the Gu family built his house, his entire family, including Gu Dahai's family, came to help.

Even Gu Wendong and Gu Wenxi were summoned by the village chief.

With everyone's help, Gu Xichen and his team saved a lot of trouble and were much faster.

Even the work assignments were handled by Gu Dahai. With him keeping an eye on things, Gu Xichen's workload was greatly reduced.

However, when they learned that Gu Xichen and his group were going to build a two-story building, they were all stunned.

You should know that the best houses in their village are only one-story brick and tile houses.

Most of them were mud-brick houses.

Some even lived in thatched houses.

Some people build their houses higher up and then put an attic inside.

There isn't a single building that's actually two stories high yet.

Especially nowadays, buying red bricks requires approvals and connections, which involves many more procedures than buying roof tiles.

Moreover, there are no brick makers in their village, and no one knows how to make them. If you want to buy them, you have to go to the town.

In addition, the area they want to build is large, and the number required is also quite large.

It will cost a lot of money to build this house.

Boss Gu suggested that they could use the bricks they had previously removed, which would save them a lot of money.

However, Jiang Jinxiu decided to use new red bricks to build the main house first.

As for the parts that were still usable after being dismantled, she planned to use them to build the outer perimeter wall, or to build a kitchen or woodshed.

They are definitely going to build a wall.

A large courtyard surrounded by walls.

It will be convenient for everything I do from now on.

After learning about Jiang Jinxiu's idea, Yang Dongmei and the others also thought that Jiang Jinxiu's idea was good.

However, Yang Dongmei started to worry again that she didn't have enough money.

She regretted not advising them to save money recently, as the food they'd been eating had been too good and must have cost them a lot.

Jiang Jinxiu didn't seem to care much about this, since she wasn't short of money.

Because it's going to be built as a two-story building, we don't know if we'll add more floors later.

When digging the foundation, Jiang Jinxiu still insisted on digging it deeper.

However, as they dug, they unearthed quite a few living creatures, including toads, rats, and snakes.

Everyone tacitly refrained from killing them, but simply left them aside and chased them away.

Jiang Jinhua, on the other hand, was startled when she saw the snake and picked up a stone to throw at it.

Gu Xiliang stopped him in time: "Brother, don't move, let them go."

Jiang Jinhua looked at Gu Xiliang with a blank expression, not understanding why they couldn't hit them.

Gu Xiliang seemed to see his confusion and continued to explain, "You can't hurt them, just drive them away. We have an unwritten rule when building houses here: no matter what you dig up, as long as it's alive, you have to release it. You can't kill it. If you hurt them, something bad will happen."

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