Chapter 77: Lookout Platform

Keeping a cat is out of the question—let alone a cat; if humans could keep pets in the future, it would probably only be ants, and ants are likely stronger than ordinary people, so by then it's truly unclear who would be walking whom.

After everyone got up.

Dong Junwei gathered everyone and began discussing how to seal the door gap.

Because of yesterday's cat, this task must be done even more urgently.

Building on the previous foundation, Tang Jing proposed an optimized plan: install a ventilated fence on half and completely block the other half, which can keep slightly sized animals and insects out while minimizing the workload as much as possible.

According to the result discussed with Tang Jing, the fence gap is to be set at 1 millimeter.

Nowadays, human shoulders are about 4 millimeters wide and the thickness when sideways is about 2 millimeters; setting the fence at this size means the primary defense is actually against humans themselves.

Considering sturdiness, the fence itself uses iron rods with a 3‑millimeter diameter, the upper end inserted into the lower edge of the door, the lower end straight into the ground, each embedded 5 millimeters deep.

This works out to about 125 stainless‑steel iron rods, each 2 centimeters long and 3 millimeters in diameter.

Just manufacturing these rods is already a sizable project.

Fortunately, these are just repetitive labor with little technical difficulty; Chen Mu has already made many of these rods during his training these past days, and they are now placed on a flatbed cart, ready to be transported to the door once the work is finished.

However, at this point a problem arose.

The little cat that came yesterday showed up again today.

It kept meowing and scratching at the door continuously.

It only stopped after more than twenty minutes.

Nobody dared to go out and check, so they had to temporarily halt the project; after all, doing this required Chen Mu to stay in the door gap, and who knows if the cat might pull a sneak attack from behind…

Yet after waiting three days straight, that little mangy cat never missed a day, appearing several times a day at irregular intervals, as if this place had become its private playground.

"What are we to do? If it keeps coming every day, we won't dare to go out."

"I suddenly don't like cats much." Du Jia Jia said, puffing with anger.

Everyone chattered, but in the end they still had no idea.

He Ying suddenly stood up: "How about I go outside to keep watch? As soon as it approaches, I'll call Chen Mu to come inside."

"Don't, it's too dangerous."

Dong Junwei immediately stopped her.

"I won't go far; with my speed I should be able to retreat in time." He Ying insisted.

"He Ying, don't go; the cat's speed is surely faster than yours, and its steps are light, so you won't know where it will dart out from." Zhao Xiao Yan obviously didn't want her friend to take the risk.

"But we can't keep doing this forever; sooner or later someone will have to take that risk."

"I actually have an idea."

After Tang Jing said that, everyone let out a sigh of relief.

"What?"

"We can set up a lookout point."

Tang Jing said while pointing her finger at the upper part of the door.

"What do you mean? Install a lookout platform on the door?"

"We don't dare go out simply because we fear attack, but what if we stood on a high place?"

"Drill a hole in the door?" Chen Mu interjected.

"Exactly, like when we ran the pipe before." Tang Jing laughed: "However, my idea is that if we're making a lookout, we need to consider letting everyone take turns on duty, but if we still used the previous method of climbing by the handle, that definitely wouldn't work; otherwise only Chen Mu and He Ying could get up, and we can't have just those two standing guard all the time."

"Height?"

"80 centimeters."

"Opening size?"

"A rectangle 3 centimeters high and 4 centimeters wide, piercing the door's thickness of 4.5 centimeters, but we need to install a transparent plastic plate on the outer side."

"How to get up?"

"Best to make a staircase; on this side of the door we gradually carve out a zig‑zag staircase, so that everyone can climb up."

Chen Mu and Tang Jing have become well‑practiced in working together; their communication is now more concise, and after a few sentences the plan was basically set.

"Wait."

He Ying shouted and asked, "You mean we open a hole in the door and then normally have someone keep watch there?"

Tang Jing laughed: "Exactly that. It's not just for this cat incident; I've actually wanted to do this for a while, since we now know there are many dangers outside, and if we wait until they reach the door to react, it'll probably be too late."

"So, we'll need long‑term watch duty?"

"Mm, even at night, so I told Chen Mu to enlarge the space a bit, considering we might want to put a bed there later."

"But at night you can't see outside; is that necessary?"

"Not being able to see clearly now doesn't mean we won't be able to later." Tang Jing didn't elaborate further.

"This method is good, but the workload will be huge, right?" Dong Junwei frowned slightly.

"Let's take it slow." Chen Mu sighed: "Anyway, we can't do anything else right now."

……

Because of that mischievous little cat, we reluctantly have to add an even larger project before the door‑gap sealing work.

Fortunately, this lookout will also be needed later, so it will have to be built sooner or later.

However, this task can only be done by Chen Mu alone; others can't help even if they want to.

Starting from this day, Chen Mu comes to the door early each morning and begins modifying the interior side of the door.

What he has to do is actually carve out a walkable staircase on the door, then lead it up to a height, and then bore through the door so that from inside one can see outside clearly.

That way, as soon as something approaches, we can give an early warning.

The height of eighty centimeters was also calculated by Tang Jing; if it's too low, the view worsens, and if it's too high, people with poor eyesight might not see anything clearly.

This project, like sealing the door gap, involves little technical difficulty but a large amount of work.

After another three days, the staircase had only completed about one‑quarter.

At this pace, it would take roughly another ten days to finish.

And the most embarrassing part is.

Whenever Chen Mu worked each day, a bunch of people could only stand there watching, unable to help at all; for the other classmates, this was extremely awkward, yet there was nothing they could do about it.

Wei Dalei at first organized people to shout encouragement from the side, sound‑proofing Chen Mu to death, and with their shouting and noise they drove them away.

Chang Junyan went even further, suggesting he sing from below to cheer Chen Mu up; but as soon as the first lyric left his mouth, he almost startled Chen Mu into falling from the height— it was terribly off‑key!

Only He Ying could actually lend a hand, though even that was just occasionally climbing up to pass him water and a towel to wipe his sweat.

The days passed quickly.

In the blink of an eye, another three days went by.

The staircase on the door had already taken shape, about half finished.

However, that day, after the noon break, Chen Mu was about to start work when he suddenly heard a loud thunderclap outside.

Then.

A heavy rain poured down.