Chapter 79: Shelves

Of course, for now, taking a bath cannot be done immediately.

Although the water problem has been solved, there is still no bathroom.

If there were only men, it wouldn't be a problem; it would just be seeing each other naked.

But now everyone is sharing the same room, so mixed bathing is naturally out of the question.

Fortunately, although building a bathroom will take some time, a simple partition is easy for Chen Mu.

"While it's raining, I'll make a simple partition at the water outlet so everyone can take turns washing up."

These past few days, aside from He Ying occasionally bringing in a bucket of water in the morning for everyone to wash their faces, even washing hands has been difficult.

Bathing.

That word seems already far away.

The last time was when we collectively went to fetch water; we rinsed a bit under the bottled water without even taking off our clothes.

Originally someone had suggested going outside to take a natural bath when it rained, but Dong Junwei and Tang Jing, among others, vetoed it.

Although the raindrops aren't lethal, they still greatly affect movement; moreover, if the water flow on the ground were a bit stronger, it could easily sweep a person away—risking one's life just to take a bath is obviously not worth it.

But now, with the whole water diversion project, when it rains we practically have unlimited water, and we don't even need to use the water in the reservoir.

Chen Mu built a simple small room at the water outlet so that everyone could take turns undressing and taking a shower.

The girls go first.

Five minutes each.

Since there's no body wash or anything like that, bathing is just rinsing off, so it doesn't take much time.

Besides, if anyone takes too long, the rain might stop before they're done.

Even so.

By the time the last person, Wei Dalei, finished his shower, almost an hour had passed.

The rain had also lessened considerably.

……

Everyone's face was beaming with smiles.

Taking a bath really is something that makes one feel physically and mentally pleasant.

And now the biggest problem is the lack of clean clothes to change into.

The clothes everyone is wearing now have been on for half a month; after all the rough handling, they're not only stained with various dirt but also repeatedly soaked in sweat, drying and wetting again—even Dong Junwei and the other girls actually smell foul.

But as the saying goes, 'one stink is nothing compared to a group stink'; everyone stinks together, so no one despises another,

Moreover, after a long time, we seem to have gotten used to it.

"It seems the issues of the bathroom and toilet also need to be put on the agenda," Chen Mu sighed.

"Never stopping."

"Won't you be too tired like this? After finishing the door gap work, you should rest a while," Dong Junwei said.

"It's fine; even if I rest, I still practice my Special Ability every day, and now it seems that using the Special Ability purposefully yields better training results."

"Alright." Dong Junwei said helplessly.

Tang Jing said: "Then I'll first work out the design."

……

After bathing, everyone felt full of energy.

Chen Mu continued chiseling stairs into the door, while the others, under the leadership of Dong Junwei and Wei Dalei, began to reorganize the large items in the room.

There are shelves on the two walls of the storage room.

The metal shelving has five levels total; the highest point has items stacked almost touching the ceiling, while even the lowest level is 10 centimeters above the ground.

Most of the things on the shelves are packed in cardboard or plastic boxes; even Tang Jing doesn't fully know what's inside.

But one can guess it's probably some kitchen utensils, so since arriving here, nobody has felt the need to go up and investigate.

However, as life gradually stabilized, curiosity began to slowly revive.

After all, everyone might be living here for a long time; not knowing what's in the house leaves one uneasy.

Therefore, Dong Junwei began organizing manpower two days ago to prepare a complete reorganization of the room.

Of course, before climbing the shelves, we must first thoroughly clean the floor.

Although during the time Chen Mu and Wei Dalei were out, Dong Junwei led everyone in a tidy-up, it was only a preliminary cleaning, and for some large items they were utterly unable to do anything.

But now, Chen Mu is busy with other matters, so only Wei Dalei has free time.

Wei Dalei's ability, though not progressing as rapidly as Chen Mu's, is still growing nicely; fundamentally, physical labor is also a way for him to train his Special Ability.

The so-called large items are actually just a few cardboard boxes containing disposable plastic utensils.

Because they were placed directly on the ground, the cardboard got a bit damp; although it's now dried again, it's become soft and soggy, falling apart, and paper scraps and dust keep dropping off.

If we don't deal with these, the house will never be able to be cleaned properly.

But what if we throw them away?

Leaving aside how to move such big cardboard boxes outdoors, even if we could move them out, nobody would want to throw them away.

Whether it's the cardboard boxes themselves or the plastic utensils inside, they are important materials.

A single water diversion project consumed about several dozen disposable spoons, so although there's a lot of stuff in the house, we can't just treat it as free to squander.

But what we need now is space.

Especially the spots against the walls.

According to Tang Jing's medium- to long-term plan, future living quarters should still be placed against the walls, and facilities like toilets that need drainage are naturally the same.

If the number of people increases in the future, this storage room of less than four square meters, which already has supplies occupying most of its space, might truly not be enough.

Therefore.

Dong Junwei's first step in the organization plan was to free up floor space, especially the two large cardboard boxes against the wall, which needed to be moved onto the shelves.

The first shelf still had space, but the problem was, given our current human size, how could we move these two huge boxes onto a shelf only ten centimeters high?

Wei Dalei stood before the boxes, looking left and right for a long time, and said, "If they're empty, I think I could lift them."

Tang Jing laughed, "The weight would be fine, but we're simply too small now; there's no way we could pick up these floppy big boxes."

"What should we do then?"

"There's only one way."

"What?"

"Like ants moving house, bit by bit." Tang Jing spread her hands, somewhat helpless.

"How exactly should we do it?"

"First take out the contents item by item, then break down the boxes piece by piece, and move them onto the shelf little by little."

"That sounds just like Yu Gong moving the mountains." Chang Junyan looked up at the huge boxes and sighed.

"There's nothing we can do about it."

"But even to get onto the lowest shelf, we can't reach it."

"Hmm."

Tang Jing nodded: "So we still need Chen Mu to build us a staircase."

Upon hearing that, everyone immediately turned their gaze to the distance, where Chen Mu was diligently chiseling another staircase at the doorway.

Everyone let out a sigh.

So without Chen Mu, we still can't get anything done.