Lu Fangfang carried the mud bricks onto a cart and pushed them back into the yard.
After the adobe bricks dried, they became very heavy and looked very sturdy.
Once in the courtyard, she placed the adobe bricks and the stone slabs she had brought together.
After she finished her work, it got dark. She ate something quickly and went back to her room.
A few days ago, Sister Shufen gave her some hawthorns. There were two left, and after she finished eating them, she put the hawthorn seeds on the windowsill.
The hawthorn seeds in the small vegetable garden haven't sprouted yet, but Lu Fangfang isn't in a hurry.
Fruit tree seeds usually take seven or eight days to germinate, so just wait patiently. She buried so many hawthorn seeds, surely some of them will germinate.
She had already decided that if many hawthorn seeds sprouted, she would transplant them to the wasteland on the riverbank.
The hawthorn tree will bear fruit in two or three years, and then she will make candied hawthorn skewers to eat.
Lu Fangfang sat behind her desk, lost in thought, while gazing at the stars through the window.
In this era, the sky was very clear, and she could see many stars, but after watching for a while, she got bored.
She yawned, went back to bed, and fell asleep.
...
The next day, after having breakfast, Lu Fangfang went to Commissar Xiao's house and called Wang Shufen over.
She planned to build a heated kang (a traditional Chinese bed-stove) in the inner room, so she had to move the wooden bed to the outer room.
"Hey girl, how are you going to install the flue for the heated kang (a traditional Chinese bed-stove)? You'll have to go up to the roof, right?"
Wang Shufen stood in the inner room and looked up.
This is a huge project. The roof tiles have to be removed, the roof has to be pierced, and the area around the chimney has to be cleaned up, otherwise it is very likely to leak when it rains.
"I'll leave the chimney for now. We're not heating the kang (a traditional heated bed) right now anyway. We'll talk about it when Mingcheng comes back."
Lu Fangfang shook her head.
We can't let her do all the housework; we need to let Zhuang Mingcheng have a sense of involvement too.
"Too."
Wang Shufen was delighted.
She and Lu Fangfang each carried one end of the bed and moved it to the west wall of the outer room.
"Alright, Sister Shufen, you can go ahead with your work."
"How about I stay and help you build the kang (heated brick bed)? There's no rush for the work in the fields."
"Sister Shufen, it's alright, you go ahead and do your work. I'll call you when I've finished building the foundation for the kang (heated brick bed)."
Lu Fangfang pushed Wang Shufen outside.
She can build the kang (heated brick bed) by herself; she can't delay Sister Shufen's land reclamation work.
"Okay, I'll come over this afternoon."
After Wang Shufen left, Lu Fangfang took a notebook and pencil and began to ponder in the inner room.
A kang (heated brick bed) is a large, empty bed that can be used to burn firewood.
She was thinking of making her own kang (heated brick bed) bigger, placing it directly against the east, west, and north walls, and then building a kang wall about one meter high on the north and south sides.
Inside the two kang walls, we also need to use adobe bricks to build many pillars. Then we'll put bluestone slabs on them and plaster them with yellow mud, and that will be the kang surface.
Of course, the interior of the kang (heated brick bed) also needs to be well-designed so that the smoke burning from the kang hole can be evenly dispersed and finally discharged through the chimney.
Inside the heated kang (a traditional Chinese bed-stove), the head of the kang should be low and the foot of the kang should be high.
Lu Fangfang wrote and drew, building the kang (heated brick bed) entirely according to scientific methods.
Finally, she looked at the renderings in the notebook and thought... well, she still lacked some talent in drawing.
Lu Fangfang smiled and put down the notebook.
She carried a tin bucket, fetched two buckets of water from outside, and then started working with the yellow mud in the yard.
After she finished her work, she went into the inner room and carried out the adobe bricks and the prepared yellow mud into the house.
To ensure the kang wall was straight, she tied a rope to the walls on the east and west sides. Then, following the position of the rope, she used a hoe to dig a trench about ten centimeters high.
The yellow mud was shoveled into the ditch, and then the adobe bricks were placed down.
Yellow mud was shoveled onto the adobe bricks, and then another adobe bricks were placed on top.
Layer upon layer, she quickly built a mud wall about one meter high.
On the outside side, she smoothed it with yellow mud, leaving no gaps.
In a few days, she plans to buy some lime and apply it again, so it will look better that way.
After finishing her work, she built another adobe wall along the base of the north wall. Then, she built adobe pillars inside the kang (a heated brick bed).
This thing is meant to bear the pressure of the stone slab, so it can't be handled carelessly.
Some of the bluestone slabs were different sizes, so Lu Fangfang had no choice but to take a piece of rope and go outside to measure the length and width of the bluestone slabs before determining the location of the adobe pillars.
Lu Fangfang pondered and worked on it at the same time.
Sometimes she would build it wrong, and she would have to take it down and rebuild it.
The adobe bricks were incredibly heavy, and carrying them was quite tiring.
However, Lu Fangfang found enjoyment in her work and became completely immersed in building the kang (a heated brick bed). She even ate a little something for lunch and then continued working.
By the afternoon, the kang (heated brick bed) in her inner room was mostly completed, and she was just waiting to have the bluestone slabs lifted onto the adobe pillars.
A short while later, Wang Shufen arrived.
Seeing the heated kang (a traditional Chinese bed-stove) in the inner room, Wang Shufen exclaimed in amazement, "Girl, you really built this all by yourself!"
"Sister Shufen, can you take a look and see if there's anything wrong with it?"
Wang Shufen stepped forward and examined it carefully.
Inside the kang (heated brick bed), there are many irregular adobe pillars, and on the outermost edge is a long wall.
At the end of the kang (heated brick bed), there is a low wall made of adobe bricks, which blocks the smoke, allowing it to enter the flue from both sides.
At first glance, Wang Shufen thought the way it was laid out made a lot of sense.
"Girl, you know what, you really put a lot of thought into this heated kang."
As she spoke, Wang Shufen rolled up her sleeves. "Come on, I'll help you carry the bluestone slab up. You can try burning it later. As long as the smoke can come out from the end of the kang, this kang is usable."
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