Chapter 35 Preparing to Start Work: Chainsaw and Lawn Mower
Upon learning that a gate like the Lu family's could be installed in the large cave, the villagers were overjoyed. Only a few were somewhat reluctant to contribute grain, their eyes darting around.
Li Tie, however, anticipated some people's ulterior motives. He snorted coldly and warned with a stern face, "Let me make this clear: if anyone is unwilling to part with even this little bit of food, they can move out of the cave. Don't even think about taking advantage of others. And don't say I don't care about your lives. Didn't Lu Xuan say yesterday that there are a few caves further away from here? Those who are unwilling to contribute food can move there."
Those who wanted to play tricks immediately shut their mouths.
The whole village was too scared to sleep if they lived together, and if someone went out to live alone, they were afraid they would scare themselves to death before being bitten by wild animals.
Forget it, it's just twenty or thirty catties of grain, who can't afford that?
Since it concerns the safety of the entire village, it's better to do it sooner rather than later. Li Tie asked Lu Xuan to install the security doors for them now, if possible.
Lu Xuan said, "Let's repair the cave entrance first."
The cave is a natural formation, and the shape of the entrance is irregular. Without proper repairs, it is impossible to make it fit the size of the security door perfectly.
Li Tie thought it made sense, so he quickly pointed out a few men who often went out to work and repair houses. They knocked and hammered at the entrance of the cave according to Lu Xuan's instructions, while he went to collect grain from each household.
It took about half an hour to repair the entrance. After checking it over and making sure there were no problems, Lu Xuan took out the security door he had just bought.
"Huh? Why does this door look a little different from the one the Lu family uses?" someone suddenly remarked.
Li Tie also noticed this and looked at Lu Xuan questioningly.
Lu Xuan said, "The entrance to the large cave is too big, requiring twice the amount of materials. Can the village provide two thousand catties of grain to replace the door?"
The villagers, led by Li Tie, said, "This..."
Even Grandpa Zhang shook his head and said, "Two thousand catties is too much."
Lu Xuan said, "So I chose another one with a better cost performance. Don't worry, its sturdiness is no problem to deal with ordinary wild beasts. Even if it uses twice the amount of materials, the total price will still be 200 catties cheaper than the one I use at home."
After saying that, he looked at Li Tie and asked, "Village Chief, do you want mine or this one?"
Li Tie replied without hesitation, "I think this one is great!"
The villagers nodded repeatedly, "That's right, that's right. Since you said this door can keep out wild animals, it's enough."
Lu Xuan nodded, "Then I'll install the door right away."
The viewers in the live stream found it both funny and speechless to see Lu Xuan install a security door on the large cave.
[They live in a cave, yet they use fingerprint security doors... No matter how many times I see it, it still feels so incongruous.]
So what if it looks out of place? As long as it's safe, that's all that matters. Faced with wild animals roaming the mountains, who wouldn't love an alloy security door?
[Wow, the streamer made a profit of 800 jin (400 kg) without doing anything. He's really good at business.]
[This is outrageous! The security door the streamer showed me is the same model as mine. I remember it cost around 5,000 star coins. That amount of money could only buy about five kilograms of natural grains, or even twice that for a larger door. Yet the streamer sold 800 kilograms! Tsk tsk.]
Lu Xuan glanced at the comments section, looking completely unconvinced.
The grain he earned through his own abilities, how could it be black?
If it weren't for him, let alone 800 catties of grain, even if you offered ten times that amount, no one would be able to produce such a technologically advanced security door.
He asked for too little, and the villagers inevitably thought that divine things were cheap, lacking the proper reverence. In times of chaos, the saying "a little kindness is appreciated, but too much kindness breeds resentment" is all too common.
In order for everyone to continue to live in harmony in the future without resorting to force to suppress others, this amount of food is essential.
The security door was quickly installed, and the villagers looked at it from inside and outside the cave, carefully touching it with expressions of delight on their faces.
The security door is equipped with a glass window, which not only allows you to check the outside situation at any time, but is also bulletproof and explosion-proof, making it quite high-end.
"With this door, we can finally sleep peacefully, right?"
"I heard you need to leave your handprint to enter through this door, is that right?"
Lu Xuan glanced speechlessly at the person who spoke and said, "We can't record all the fingerprints of more than a hundred people. We can only use passwords to enter and exit."
He set the password to yesterday's date as a way of commemorating the start of their life deep in the mountains.
As for the key cards, there were three matching key cards. He kept one as a spare, and gave the other two to the village chief so that he could give them to suitable candidates.
The village chief glanced at the villagers who were looking at him expectantly, and silently put all the key cards into his pocket.
The villagers immediately looked away in disappointment.
Forget it, if I actually get the key, it would be terrible if I lost it. Anyway, I have the password, which makes things easier.
Soon, everyone took advantage of the excitement and started trying to lock the door, unlock it with a password, lock it again, and unlock it again, having a great time.
"Make way, let me test if this door is really sturdy." Xiong Mao pushed aside the people surrounding him, clenched his fist and breathed out, then punched the alloy door hard before anyone could stop him.
The villagers gasped in fright, and Li Tie roared, "Xiong Mao! What are you doing! What if you break the door!"
The others realized what was happening and panicked. That's right, this door cost them 800 jin of grain. If it got damaged, could Xiong Mao afford to pay for it?
Thinking this, everyone looked over worriedly, only to find that the security door was intact, but Xiong Mao's fist was obviously red and swollen.
The villagers: "...Pfft."
The viewers in the live stream were laughing uncontrollably.
[Is he joking? This is made of a special alloy. Even those with superpowers below level three can only slightly deform it. If an ordinary person could easily damage it with a single punch, the manufacturing company would go bankrupt.]
Sure enough, Xiong Mao is just a simple-minded, muscle-bound idiot.
Su Ying, who had failed to stop Xiong Mao, saw him make a fool of himself in the crowd. Her lips twitched, and she looked speechless.
The villagers breathed a sigh of relief and felt completely at ease.
While Xiongmao certainly can't be compared to a ferocious beast, its sturdiness does give one a sense of security.
Li Tie readily handed over the harvested grain to Lu Xuan.
The extra two hundred jin were all mixed together and couldn't be returned, so we simply kept them as food for the next period of time when everyone ate from the same pot, so we wouldn't have to hand them in every day.
No one had any objections to this.
With the door installed and breakfast ready, everyone quickly perked up and got to work.
Their main task today is to clear enough space for them to move around in front of the cave.
The large cave and the small cave are located at the foot of a huge stone mountain, stretching for hundreds of meters to the left and right. The Lu family's small cave is located to the left of the large cave, while the other caves mentioned earlier are located further to the right.
Besides the rocky mountain, the other three sides are covered with dense forests, and towering trees are located just a dozen meters directly in front of the cave.
The giant tree has very dense branches. Just how dense?
It's roughly enough to completely cover the area with a radius of about ten meters between the tree trunk and the cave, so that the entire area is completely shrouded in the shade of the tree.
It is precisely because of the shade provided by these trees that the temperature under them reaches 32 degrees Celsius. Once outside the shade, the temperature rises by at least four or five degrees, and it gets even higher as noon approaches.
Some people tried to step out of the shade and stand for a while, and after only a dozen or so breaths, their faces and backs were already soaked with sweat.
The others were immediately reluctant to leave, but to make the area under the giant tree their daily living area, they first had to cut down the trees growing under it.
These trees, mostly shaded by the branches of giant trees, are not growing very well, but being trees from deep in the mountains, they are at least several decades old, with rather thick trunks, making them difficult to cut down.
Yesterday, we only cleared a small area in front of the large hole where we used to cook, as the weeds on the ground reached up to a person's calves. We will continue to clear the weeds today.
In addition, the boulders that Lu Xuan smashed in front of the cave also need to be moved.
Although they are called fragments, apart from a few severely broken pieces, most young and strong men can only lift one piece at a time.
There's a lot of work to be done.
Li Tie assigned tasks to everyone: cutting down trees was done by the able-bodied men, weeding was done by the women, the elderly, and children over ten years old, and a few people who were unable to move around were left behind, such as Wei Xiang's lame father and Ye Jing, the pregnant daughter-in-law of carpenter Ye. Su Ying, who volunteered, was responsible for looking after the young children to prevent them from running around and getting lost.
Getting lost in the deep mountains is no joke.
"Village chief, what should we do if we don't have enough machetes? We can't use farm tools to cut down trees either," someone said, holding a hoe and looking troubled.
Li Tie asked, "How many machetes do you have now?"
"There are only eighteen saws, and three other households have saws."
Li Tie was in a dilemma.
Lu Xuan said, "I can provide some machetes; I just happened to have bought quite a few in the prefectural city."
As he spoke, he looked at the able-bodied men who had been assigned to cut down trees and immediately replenished the number of machetes according to the number of people.
The villagers were stunned when he suddenly pulled out dozens of machetes.
No, you bought so many!?
A machete costs at least half a tael of silver. Just buying it cost more than ten taels of silver.
How much grain could that much silver buy?!
The villagers, who were initially quite proud of having machetes, looked down at their old, toothless knives and then at the brand-new iron knife that Lu Xuan had taken out, and their smiles immediately vanished.
Li Tie inwardly marveled at Lu Xuan's generosity, and quickly became happy, "With so many machetes, the work will be much easier in a while."
Lu Xuan raised an eyebrow, casually ordered a few more items from the online store, and took them all out.
The villagers, who were delighted with the new machete, were immediately intrigued when they saw him take out several unfamiliar items.
"Did the gods send you something again?"
Lu Xuan corrected, "It wasn't a gift; I traded it with a deity."
The crowd gathered around, looking at these strange-looking things with curiosity, and asked, "What did you exchange with the deity?"
Lu Xuan pointed to the machine on the left and said, "This chainsaw is similar to a regular saw, but it's more efficient at cutting down trees."
He then pointed to something on the right that looked like a vacuum cleaner, "This is a lawnmower, which, as the name suggests, is a machine used for weeding."
Knowing they were curious about how to use it, Lu Xuan demonstrated it to them directly.
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Author's Note: Next Chapter Preview: Blind Box Opening
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