Chapter 50: Planning the New Home

After everyone had dispersed, Zhang Zhiqiang came over to talk to Zhang Yuandong and his wife: “There are still some sun-dried bricks left in the brigade. You’re going to build a wing, so you can take them from the brigade first. When you have time later, you can make your own and return them.”

Zhang Yuandong was very grateful for Zhang Zhiqiang’s kindness and thanked him sincerely. They had been helped by Zhang Zhiqiang’s family a lot during this time.

Zhang Zhiqiang laughed: “What’s there to thank for? Everyone in our village does this when they build a house! I checked the calendar, tomorrow is the ninth day of the lunar month, which is a good day to start construction. These next few days, this is the only good day. If you want to move in sooner, you have to start construction tomorrow. Take advantage of the time before the festival to get it done. It’s best to move on the fourteenth, so you can have a good festival in your new home.”

Although it was not allowed to talk about feudal superstition these days, people in the village still consulted the almanac for ground-breaking and moving.

Zhang Yuandong and Lin Yue nodded in agreement, thanked him, and saw everyone off. Then, they went to Zhang Daming’s house to pick up their two children.

It was already late, so they didn’t linger and said goodbye before heading home.

Zhang Daming sent them all the way to the door, and she held onto Zhang Yuandong and nagged: “Yuandong, don’t believe that troublemaker’s nonsense. I’ve been watching Xiaoyue all these years, and she’s a good wife. There’s no one more well-behaved than her. Don’t let someone else’s words chill your wife’s heart!”

Zhang Yuandong had been calling her “my wife” quite smoothly, but now, hearing Zhang Daming say this, he felt embarrassed. His face turned red, even in the fading light. He tried to remain calm and said, “Auntie, don’t worry. I know what kind of person Lin Yue is. I won’t believe what others say, and I won’t let others say it. If anyone dares to talk nonsense again, I’ll beat him until his teeth fall out! You can rest assured!”

Hearing this, Zhang Daming nodded repeatedly, and praised him: “That’s right. You should cherish your own wife! If you keep putting up with it, others will think you’re easy to bully. Alright, go back now. I feel at ease now!”

After bidding farewell to Zhang Daming, Lin Yue smiled: “Police comrade, are you really going to beat someone until his teeth fall out? That’s not good. You’re breaking the law!”

Zhang Yuandong felt uncomfortable and scratched his crew cut: “Of course I won’t break the law. It’s just that Auntie likes to hear this, so I said it to her.”

“How did you know I was there? You even knew what Liu Aihua said. You’re quite well-informed!”

Zhang Yuandong was no longer as embarrassed and even had the energy to joke with her. He looked at her with a meaningful smile: “I met Zhang Xiaohui at the front door. She just came back from there. I thought you were bullied, so I rushed over. If I had known you were so capable, I should have gone later so you could have shown off more.”

As he said this, he suddenly stopped and remembered their first meeting, when she had hit him with a stone.

He felt that Lin Yue wasn’t stupid, but she was reluctant to use her brain. When faced with problems, she preferred to take action. This personality was a bit reckless, but perhaps because he was protective of her, he felt that it was quite good and not at all annoying.

Lin Yue didn’t pay attention to his gaze, only noticing what he had just said: “Zhang Xiaohui? Isn’t it Wednesday today? Did she not go to work? And she’s so kind, she specially came to tell you?”

Zhang Yuandong nodded without saying anything more.

In fact, Zhang Xiaohui wasn’t very kind. Every sentence she said implied that Lin Yue was being bullied, but each sentence sounded very suggestive. If someone who didn’t know the situation heard it, they would really think that Lin Yue had done something inappropriate and was being scolded.

He didn’t want to make Lin Yue feel bad, so he didn’t say anything more.

Zhang Yuandong thought Zhang Xiaohui was quite interesting. This person was clearly so afraid of him before, always avoiding him, but now she was taking the initiative to approach him one after another, and she even wanted to play smart in front of him. It was suspicious no matter how you looked at it.

When they got home, Lin Yue saw that Zhang Yuandong was about to start a fire in the stove, and she quickly stopped him.

If they used the big stove to cook at this time, they wouldn’t be able to sleep on the kang tonight.

Because it was already late, she simply entered the space and picked some yard long beans. She used the small earthen stove next to the big stove to make a braised soup. She also added some dried clams that Zhang Yuandong had sent back, and then cracked two eggs. It tasted very fresh.

By the time she had cooked the noodles, Zhang Yuandong was already playing with the two children in the yard.

Although Lin Yue had only gone into the space to pick some vegetables, he was still afraid that the two children would see Lin Yue suddenly disappear and then reappear, and they would go out and spread the word, so he wouldn’t let them enter the house.

In fact, Lin Yue had also deliberately avoided the children before, but since the incident of sending grain last time, they had developed a tacit understanding these days. Whenever she wanted to do something, Zhang Yuandong would always cover for her.

During dinner, Lin Yue asked, “I saw a bag of things at the door. Is that cement?”

Zhang Yuandong nodded: “I asked someone to buy some. We’ll need it a lot these days.”

Lin Yue’s eyes lit up. Cement was hard to come by at this time.

“Buy it, even if you have to queue up,” she said. “Can you get some more? We can use it to pave the floor and for the toilet.” She was about to get up to grab paper and a pen to draw him a diagram. She had been planning how to renovate the house for a while now, and had already come up with several plans.

Zhang Yuandong quickly stopped her. “Let’s eat first. We can look at it after dinner.” The two little ones stared at them with wide eyes as they talked. Even though they didn’t understand, they listened intently.

Little Lingling, as if understanding what her father said, pointed at her mother and said loudly, “Mama, eat properly! You can’t play while eating!” The two of them burst out laughing. Lin Yue patted Little Lingling’s head. “Okay, Mama knows she was wrong. Mama admits her mistake. Let’s eat properly.”

After dinner, Zhang Yuandong took the initiative to wash the dishes. “You’ve been working so hard all the time. I can’t help much with cooking, but I can do things like washing clothes and dishes. Let me take care of these.”

Lin Yue looked at him approvingly. “Not bad. Your ideological awareness is quite high!” In the past few years, she had seen many men in the village who were very patriarchal. They could do the dirty and tiring work at home, but they would never do things like cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes, or cleaning the house. If they did, they would be laughed at.

Zhang Yuandong was different. Since he came back a few days ago, he had never shied away from these tasks. He never thought they were something he shouldn’t do.

Today, Zhang Yuandong brought back a flashlight. The two children were very curious. The village didn’t have electricity, and they only used kerosene lamps at night. There were only a few families in the village who had flashlights. The two children had been curious about them for a long time.

Now that they finally had a flashlight in their hands, they couldn’t put it down. They shone the light around the yard and ran around crazily. Lin Yue watched for a while before she realized they were chasing the light on the ground.

She shook her head, feeling helpless. She turned around and went into the house with Zhang Yuandong, drew a sketch, and showed it to him.

She wanted to build the toilet as a dry toilet. She planned to dig a slanted passage in the pit, leading all the way to the outside wall. Then, she would dig a septic tank outside the wall, smooth it with cement, making it both beautiful and leak-proof.

This way, they wouldn’t have to worry about falling into the pit, and since the septic tank was outside, the toilet wouldn’t be so smelly.

This type of toilet had already existed, but because cement wasn’t widely available, if the slant wasn’t smooth, the feces wouldn’t slide down easily, making it very dirty. In severe cases, it could even clog the toilet. Therefore, this type of toilet was never seen in rural areas.

Zhang Yuandong, however, had never seen this kind of design before. In the army, they used public toilets, which weren’t much cleaner than the rural ones. The open-air toilets in the countryside actually didn’t smell as bad.

Public toilets were different. They were enclosed spaces, and if it rained, they were easily flooded. The feces in the pit would often overflow.

He raised this question: “The septic tank is outside the wall. What happens when it rains? Will it get flooded?”

Lin Yue thought carefully. “The best way is to use cement to make a lid. We can keep it closed normally, and only open it when we need to take out the feces. Also, the cement lid is very heavy, so it will be difficult for children to move it, making it less likely for them to fall in.”

Zhang Yuandong calculated that they would need a lot of cement for building the toilet and paving the floor. “I’ll ask around tomorrow. Cement is in short supply, so it’s not easy to buy.”

Lin Yue nodded in understanding.

At this time, the industrial development in China was still lagging behind, and many materials were in short supply.

It would be great if they could buy it, but she wouldn’t be disappointed if they couldn’t.

She was most concerned about the toilet. Rural kitchens at this time used large stoves, so there wasn’t much to plan.

She asked Zhang Yuandong’s opinion. He had no complaints. Having a home of his own was something he had never dreamed of before.

In a while, people would be assigned to protect Lin Yue and the children. This house was too small and wouldn’t have enough space for them to live in. Besides, he thought it was too remote and unsafe for the three of them to live here. That’s why he bought Zhang Da’s house.

Before this, even though they already had two children, he hadn’t thought about setting up a home of their own.

Ultimately, it was because his life had been so hard before that he had no expectations for the word “home.”

Now, as he listened to Lin Yue slowly planning the layout of their new home, a feeling of warmth and longing welled up in his heart. It felt like something was filling the void in his heart, and he suddenly had a beautiful vision for their future home.

He steadied himself and asked, “From what Zhiqiang said, we should be carrying stones up the mountain tomorrow. It’s hard work. We need to make the food more substantial. See if we’re missing any vegetables or meat. I’ll go to the supply and marketing cooperative early tomorrow.”

Lin Yue said, “You don’t need to go to the supply and marketing cooperative. You won’t find anything decent there.”

She thought for a moment and took a rabbit out of her space. “We don’t lack meat, but I’ll need your help to process it.”

The rabbit was very fat, about ten pounds. As soon as it came out of the space, Lin Yue couldn’t control it and it slipped out of her hand, running around the house.