This is a great suggestion.
But soon, Gu Bei, the elementary school prodigy, offered his opinion based on the principles of gravity: "The tunnel is 4 meters deep, and there's a soil layer more than 2 meters high on top. We're only digging a tunnel about 1 meter wide. I'm worried it will collapse if we don't dig it properly. And now you actually want to build a house inside?"
Grandpa Gu Bei, however, felt that this was not a problem at all: "We can find clay at the foot of the mountain to coat the inside of the cave to prevent soil erosion, and at the same time cut down some trees to support the basement, so we don't have to worry about the collapse problem."
Qiao An'an thought this suggestion was good.
The next day, he took Gu Bei and Chi Xiaoyu to cut wood.
Grandpa Gu Bei wanted to go hunting. However, since three more people had suddenly joined the family in the past two months, and the solar power generation was insufficient due to the recent rainy weather, Qiao An'an decided to eat the steamed buns and meat in the refrigerator and turn off the refrigerator in order to ensure the normal operation of the power grid. As a result, the family ran out of meat three days ago.
Apart from eating a crucian carp two days ago, they have been eating vegetarian food.
Grandpa Gu Bei is old and has underlying health conditions. Not eating meat doesn't bother him, but the three growing children can't go without meat. Seeing that Qiao An'an was about to go up the mountain, Grandpa Gu Bei slung his sniper rifle over his shoulder and said, "I'll go with you. I'll go find some pig feed for you and hunt some wild game to give the children a little something extra."
Ever since Chi Xiaoyu shot and injured Ma Xiaotiao's grandmother, Gu Bei has admired Chi Xiaoyu greatly. In addition, she had recently shot and killed a zombie, saving him and Qiao An'an. He now admires Chi Xiaoyu to no end. He pointed to Chi Xiaoyu carrying a bow and arrow and said to Gu Bei's grandfather, "Why use a sledgehammer to crack a nut? We can leave hunting to Sister Xiaoyu. With her around, we're sure to have meat to eat tonight."
Grandpa Gu Bei glanced at his grandson: "You believe others but not your grandpa, right?"
Qiao An'an smoothed things over, saying, "Grandpa, you don't need to go up and down that ladder. You stay here and help me look after Ya Ya and the little yard. Draw us what the pig feed looks like, and we promise to complete the task."
Seeing this, Grandpa Gu Bei stopped insisting, drew a picture of pig feed for them, and told them to be careful before watching them go down into the tunnel.
Qiao An'an and her two companions emerged from the tunnel of the bungalow, fed the two miniature pigs with the leftover food they had packed, and then entered the mountain through the back door of the bungalow.
The temperature in the mountains is lower than outside.
After autumn arrives, it feels chilly on your arms when you wear short sleeves into the mountains.
The three of them chopped down trees for a while before they felt a bit warmer.
They plan to build a cellar of about 20 square meters in the tunnel, which can be used for both living and storing supplies. Grandpa Gu Bei said that digging a space that is 4 meters wide and 4 meters long would make the cellar more sturdy.
Grandpa Gu Bei said he plans to install a piece of wood at each of the four corners, and then add another piece of wood in the middle of each of the 4-meter-long walls, which will require 8 large pieces of wood, each 2 meters long.
At the same time, the pieces of wood need to be connected together to form supporting beams.
In total, it requires 16 pieces of wood, each 2 meters long.
The three of them chopped away for the entire morning.
After finally cutting down all sixteen logs, the opening was limited in both width and narrowness, so they still needed to trim the logs to the required length.
After having a simple meal with the rice balls they brought, they started trimming the side branches off the wood and cutting it to the length Grandpa had requested.
The small fish in the pond is faster.
After pruning the wood, she took a short walk in the woods. She didn't find the pig feed that Grandpa Gu Bei had mentioned, but she did catch a wild rabbit and pick a lot of wild kiwis.
When she returned, Qiao An'an and Gu Bei had also finished. The three of them worked together to push 16 logs, each about 2 meters long, into the opening inside the bungalow.
They also concealed the entrance to the bungalow. They placed a nearly rotten door panel at the entrance and put a lot of old furniture next to it to make it look like no one had lived there for a long time, in order to mislead outsiders.
Qiao An'an set aside some of the wild kiwis that Chi Xiaoyu had picked for the little pigs as food before going down into the hole and returning to the small courtyard in front.
After returning to her small courtyard from inside the cave, Chi Xiaoyu took out the rabbit and kiwi fruit and gave them to Grandpa Gu Bei.
Grandpa Gu gave Chi Xiaoyu a thumbs up and took the rabbit from her with a smile: "Let Grandpa show you what he's got. Back in the day, I was a master at skinning rabbits. I could skin a whole rabbit without a single tear. I'll keep this skin to make gloves for you in the winter!"
Chi Xiaoyu remained noncommittal, sitting down in her chair and engrossed in her single-player game. Ya Ya wanted to watch Chi Xiaoyu play, but Qiao An'an dragged her upstairs to the computer: "Have you learned the Chinese characters that Mom asked you to recognize?"
Ya Ya looked utterly dejected. Why was her mother still forcing her to study even in this apocalyptic world?!
downstairs.
The rabbit was quickly cleaned, coated with marinade, and placed on the fire.
For dinner, there were leftover steamed buns from the refrigerator, and Grandpa Gu Bei also made stir-fried vegetables.
With the roasted rabbit meat, everyone ate their fill that night, even Big Black ate so many bones that he was stuffed.
After the meal, Gu Bei peeled the wild kiwifruit that Chi Xiaoyu had brought back and served it to everyone as dessert.
After resting for a while, Qiao An'an wanted to go down and continue digging the cellar.
Grandpa Gu stopped her: "You've been cutting down trees all day and you're already tired. Don't dig anymore. Take a rest. Tomorrow we should harvest the potatoes. Also, the chestnuts and persimmons should be picked. If we don't pick them soon, the sparrows will eat them all."
It was only after her grandfather reminded her that the potatoes had been planted for over four months and were indeed ready to be harvested, and the chestnuts and persimmons were also ripe for the season.
So they stopped going down into the cellar and instead took Ya Ya and Chi Xiaoyu upstairs to wash up and rest.
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