Chapter 250: A Month of Frantic Activity

By the time they returned to the village, it was already noon. Lin Heng inserted the peach blossom branch he had casually picked along the way into a slender-necked green vase. Xiulan had already prepared the meal and was waiting.

Father Lin and the skilled workers hired for the job were also waiting.

“Lin Heng is back, so let’s serve the dishes,” Mother Lin said, and together with Xiulan, she brought out the food.

“You could have started eating first, no need to wait for me,” Lin Heng said with a smile.

“We just got back ourselves,” Father Lin replied, also smiling.

Liu Haigui, standing nearby, chimed in with a smile, “Boss Lin, have you found a carpenter yet?”

After getting to know Lin Heng better over the past few days, his respect for the young man had grown even deeper, and his manner of speaking had become more deferential than before. To think that at just twenty-one years old, Lin Heng had managed to become a Ten-Thousand-Yuan Household entirely on his own—it was truly remarkable.

“Found one long ago, he’ll be coming tomorrow,” Lin Heng nodded and said, “Let’s eat.”

“Alright.”

Everyone was already quite hungry, and their mouths watered even more at the sight of the Lin family’s spread. Not only was there white rice with every meal, but there was also meat every single time, giving them a profound understanding of what it meant to be a Ten-Thousand-Yuan Household.

Lin Heng glanced at the fatty pork on the table but felt no interest in it whatsoever. He only picked up some shredded pickled radish and a cold salad of shepherd’s purse.

He knew Xiulan had done this on purpose, stir-frying the fatty cuts for the workers to eat. Their own family usually ate pork belly, which wasn’t nearly as fatty.

For the vast majority of people in this era, having meat was enough; they didn’t care whether it was fatty or lean.

After finishing the meal and resting for half an hour, they resumed work at one o’clock sharp.

Lin Heng was no slave driver. Even though there was no such thing as an eight-hour workday at the time, he generally only had people work for eight hours, occasionally extending it by half an hour at most.

“Li Shiwei, Lin Hai, you two come with me this afternoon to do the surveying,” Lin Heng said, looking at them after everyone had gathered.

“Alright, we’ll go get the measuring tapes and lime powder.”

The two nodded and turned to fetch the tapes and lime.

Once they returned, they joined Lin Heng in taking measurements and then marking the lines with lime.

It took them the better part of the afternoon, but the three of them finally managed to mark out all the water pipe routes. Then they found some people to dig the trenches. Once the pipes arrived later, they could be laid directly into the ground.

Early the next morning, Carpenter Liang arrived bright and early. Seeing how much construction had already taken place at Red Maple Mountain, he couldn’t help but feel surprised.

“Lin Heng, my job is to work on the roof beams and rafters?” Liang Gui asked, looking at Lin Heng.

Lin Heng nodded. “That’s right. Quite a bit of timber for the rafters has already been delivered. I’ll be buying the large logs for the main beams in the next couple of days.”

“Sounds good.” Carpenter Liang set down his things, walked over to inspect the walls that were already half a meter high, then checked the timber and began his work.

Lin Heng watched their progress for a while, said a few words, then drove off in his three-wheeler, heading to the factory in the suburbs to buy plastic pipes.

There was a small workshop in the suburbs specializing in producing plastic pipes of various specifications. When Lin Heng arrived and entered the factory, he saw without exception that all the machines were old, purchased second-hand.

However, the quality of the plastic pipes they produced was quite good. Lin Heng wanted to buy pipes with a ten-centimeter diameter. The price here was fifty cents per pipe, each four meters long with a wall thickness of five millimeters.

Lin Heng first bought two hundred pipes with a ten-centimeter diameter, costing one hundred yuan. He also bought fifty pipes with a five-centimeter diameter, which were thirty cents each, totaling thirty yuan. Adding in a large assortment of fittings like elbows and tees, the total came to two hundred and two yuan.

Once everything was confirmed, the factory arranged for a truck to load and transport the goods. They offered direct delivery to the doorstep within the city limits.

That very afternoon, the pipes were delivered. However, the trenches for burying them hadn’t been dug yet.

In the blink of an eye, it was already the fifth day of the third month in the solar calendar, which corresponded to the third day of the second month in the lunar calendar. Today happened to be the solar term of Jingzhe (the Awakening of Insects). It had been eleven days since the construction site started work.

As the saying goes, with the first rumble of spring thunder, all things come back to life. The weather was overcast that day, with heavy dew in the morning, but there was no sign of the so-called spring thunder. However, upon closer inspection of the tree branches, one could see that the buds had all become quite plump.

Early in the morning, Lin Heng and Xiulan got up to exercise. Xiulan practiced Tai Chi and the Eight-Section Brocade exercises every morning. Although she was just mimicking the movements, after so many days, her limbs had become much more coordinated, and her body’s lines appeared more fluid and supple.

Lin Heng’s workout was more intense. Not only did he practice the Brocade exercises, but he also did push-ups, frog jumps, pull-ups, and other exercises.

In his previous life, he had started exercising when he got older, and these routines had long since become habits for him.

“Husband, the grapevine buds you planted have grown quite a bit. They’re turning green now. It looks like they’ve taken root,” Xiulan’s voice came from under the grapevine.

After finishing his workout, Lin Heng walked over to take a look. The buds on the Kyoho grapes were already clearly visible, absolutely alive. The wild grapevine beside them was even more so, seemingly already impatient to release its own vitality.

“Wait for me to get a Red Globe to graft.”

Lin Heng said this and went out. His father’s yard had Red Globe grape seedlings planted, and upon checking, they had indeed already taken root.

He cut a five-centimeter-long section of vine with a bud point, then turned and went back inside.

He cut the wild grapevine off at the base, split it open from the middle, then used a knife to whittle the scion into a flat shape and inserted it into the split main stem of the wild grapevine. Then, wrapping it with plastic film and leaving the bud point exposed, the task was considered complete.

Grapevines themselves are very easy to propagate, and now being the Waking of Insects solar term, a simple cleft grafting method sufficed. One only needed to pay attention to aligning the cambium layers.

“By the end of the month, we can probably start picking the toon buds,” Xiulan said after watching Lin Heng finish the grafting.

“In town, they’ll be ready to pick by mid-month. I’ll take you there then,” Lin Heng said with a smile, already starting to salivate. Stir-fried toon with pork, stir-fried toon with eggs, both were delicious.

“Okay,” Xiulan nodded in agreement, picked up a bucket, and went to milk the cow.

Lin Heng followed her out, went to check on the seedlings planted on the back hill, and saw that only two showed no bud points, while all the others had green bud points.

The reason he had rushed so frantically to plant the saplings back then was precisely because this timing was crucial. Sure enough, most of them had now sprouted bud points.

After drinking the milk, playing at home for a while, and eating some pickled vegetable mixed soup, Lin Heng didn’t head to the Red Maple Mountain construction site until half past eight.

After eleven days of construction, Lin Heng had connected all the inlet and outlet pipes for the ponds and had already buried them underground.

The inlet pipes for the ponds extended out one meter, then connected to an upward-facing elbow, which effectively prevented water flow from impacting the pond walls.

The water would first shoot upward and then scatter down in all directions, which could also increase the dissolved oxygen in the water body.

Now, only the uppermost aeration pond, a four-hundred-square-meter one, remained unexcavated. These past few days, there hadn’t been enough workers, so work hadn’t started on it.

Two walls of the warehouse were already completed. The warehouse was three meters high, topped with an additional two-meter-high triangular roof. Today, Carpenter Liang was installing the roof beams and rafters, after which they could start laying the tiles.

The wood for the roof beams was bought by him in town. He spent one hundred yuan on fifty pine logs treated with asphalt for preservation, transported up by tractor.

Now that all the foundations were finished, with five skilled workers and twelve laborers, they could build one house in a day. At most, in another ten days, these houses would be completely finished.

After finishing here, Lin Heng went up the mountain to take a look. The fencing in the woods had already been erected, and the land reclamation was also nearing its end. At most, five more days were needed to complete the remaining work.

However, the ginseng seeds still showed no signs of sprouting; sowing would have to wait a while longer.

Lin Heng ran up and down the mountain once before finally seeing his father leisurely walking towards the construction site.

Seeing Lin Heng, Father Lin immediately spoke up excitedly, “Son, I went to check the fields. Most of the fruit trees we planted have sprouted.”

He had been constantly worrying about the saplings, afraid that the seedlings bought for so much money might have problems. Now, seeing them sprout, his heart was finally at ease.

“That was to be expected,” Lin Heng nodded with a smile. So that’s why he hadn’t seen his father all morning.

“Is the mountain land reclamation finished?” Father Lin asked again.

“It’ll be done in another four or five days,” Lin Heng nodded.

“That’s good then,” Father Lin nodded and went over to start working.

Lin Heng didn’t go home either, staying behind to help with the work. He didn’t feel like laying bricks, so he helped by moving materials.

In the blink of an eye, another five days passed. The cherry blossoms and apricot blossoms in the village, along with the wild peach blossoms on the mountain, were all in full bloom. White ones, pink ones, clustered together, emitting a faint, delicate fragrance when you got close.

Spring had arrived, and all things were beginning to awaken.

At ten in the morning, Lin Hai ran down from the mountain and said to Lin Heng, “Brother Lin Heng, the work on the mountain is finished. Do you want to come up and take a look?”

“Okay.”

Lin Heng nodded and followed him up the mountain to inspect.

The fencing on the mountain was tied to living trees, using vines sourced locally, not very sturdy. However, outside the fence, a two-to-three-meter-wide barrier of thorns was piled up, making it difficult for either livestock or people to break through.

Inside the fence, last year’s leaves that hadn’t decomposed were piled up at the base of the big trees, waiting to rot naturally. Scattered stones had all been picked up and piled together. The soil had been completely turned over, and the black humus soil looked pleasing to the eye. Small tree roots and such had all been dug out and tossed over by the small wooden cabin to be used as firewood.

The entire grove looked neat and orderly, no longer as messy and chaotic as before. Walking through it felt completely different.

After inspecting the area, Lin Heng nodded with a smile and said, “Everyone did a good job. You’ve worked hard.”

“Lin Heng, is there any other work? Do they still need us at the construction site down below?” Yang Zhaotao asked with a smile from within the crowd.

“Yeah, is there more work, Boss Lin?”

This was what the others wanted to ask too. They weren’t afraid of hardship or exhaustion, only afraid of having no work to do and not being able to earn money.

Lin Heng nodded with a smile and said, “Of course there is. There’s still an aeration pond to dig down below, and fences need to be built around the pond. There’s plenty of work.”

“It’s good that there’s work.”

“Let’s grab the tools and head down to work.”

Hearing that there was still work, everyone immediately perked up and headed towards the pond at the foot of the mountain.

“Today, let’s start by building the fence. I’ve already marked out the fence post holes around the pond. You just need to help dig them,” Lin Heng said, looking at everyone.

Building a fence around the pond was absolutely necessary to separate people and animals. On a smaller scale, it was to prevent cattle, sheep, and especially children from accidentally falling in. On a larger scale, it was to prevent jealous individuals from secretly poisoning the water or causing sabotage.

Therefore, he had already designed it beforehand. He spent fifty yuan to buy square railing casting molds and some thin steel rebar and wire.

He instructed them to dig a hole every five meters along the perimeter of the twenty-acre pond. Then, they would install the casting molds, pour concrete into them, and finally use steel wire to connect the railings.

Outside the railings, they would pile up a large amount of thorny bushes and branches. That would complete the isolation, preventing livestock and people from entering.

After giving some guidance, everyone quickly got to work.

In the blink of an eye, another five days passed. It had been ten days since the Jingzhe solar term. One by one, the concrete pillars were all erected. The steel wire had also been strung up, and a two-meter-wide barrier of thorny bushes and branches blocked all four sides. Now, if you wanted to enter, you had to go through the main gate inside.

The workers who had finished these tasks had already started digging the aeration pond. At the construction site, whether it was the warehouses, the incubation rooms, or the house he would live in himself, everything had been built and was already completed.

The clay roof tiles had all been installed, so there was no need to fear rain anymore. Right now, the main workers were plastering the walls.

During this period, bricks, tiles, cement, and other materials had run out. A few days ago, Lin Heng spent another fifteen hundred yuan to bring in bricks, tiles, cement, and sand and gravel.

Since the start of construction this year, he had already spent two thousand yuan on materials alone. Actually, building four warehouses, three incubation rooms, plus one house for people to live in, all single-story structures, would have been enough with the previous materials.

The extra money spent was for hardening the roads and the areas around the pond. This could have been saved, but Lin Heng truly hated the feeling of trudging through mud and not being able to lift his feet on rainy days.

Moreover, after hardening, everything would be more convenient. After thinking it over, he decided to go ahead with the hardening.

Two days later, the cement plastering on the house walls was also finished. Over here, the four-hundred-square-meter, two-meter-deep aeration pond had also been dug out and needed hardening treatment as well.

First, they laid cement at the bottom of the pond. Then, they built brick walls around the sides and plastered them with cement. It took three days to complete the hardening inside the pond.

“Now, all that’s left is hardening the internal roads, right?”

It was almost quitting time after finishing the hardening of the aeration pond. Liu Haigui looked at Lin Heng and spoke.

Lin Heng nodded, “Right. These two days, I’ll take some people to level the roads and the pond’s embankments again. After that, we just need to set up the wooden formwork, pour the concrete, and that’s it.”

Today was already March 20th on the solar calendar. The construction site had been operating for 28 days. In another two days, it would be completely finished. After that, only the shrimp farming work would remain.

“Lin Heng, then does that mean I won’t have any work?” Yang Zhaotao asked again.

During these days, besides digging the aeration pond and leveling the land around the houses, they had also cleared over three mu of land on the mountainside of Red Maple Mountain.

And for this last bit of road hardening work, it was clear they didn’t need so many people, especially since after getting electricity, Lin Heng rented a concrete mixer, so they didn’t need as many people to mix cement either.

The villagers from the village felt both happy and disappointed. Happy because they would soon get their wages. Disappointed because there would be no more work.

“There is. Tomorrow, five people will stay here. The others will be divided into three groups to plant forsythia, astragalus, and turmeric for me.”

Lin Heng looked at everyone and said with a smile, “The weather has warmed up these past two days. I’ve already sprouted the forsythia and astragalus seedlings, and this morning when I checked, white roots had already emerged. They can be planted in the field now.”

“The ginseng seeds have also started to sprout roots. After planting the forsythia, astragalus, and turmeric, it’ll be about time to plant the ginseng.”

“Planting all those trees last time really wore everyone out. Now it’s perfect that we have workers who can help with the planting. As long as the medicinal herbs take root and survive, this bit of labor cost is nothing at all.”

“That’s great! Having work is wonderful!”

Hearing there was still more work, everyone immediately became happy.

(End of Chapter)