Chapter 99: Rebuilding the Rooms

The calmed kitten looked especially cute, but because they were too close, Du Jia Jia and Chen Mu could only see a small part of its face from their viewpoint.

Pink nose.

Three-part mouth.

Occasionally licking its lips.

Du Jia Jia's heart was almost melting.

But they stared at each other for a long time, and Du Jia Jia began to feel uneasy.

She secretly turned her head and whispered in a very low voice: "Chen Mu, I still can't feel the presence of the Special Ability, and I don't know how to communicate with Little Yellow."

"I can't help you with that." Chen Mu chuckled: "This kind of thing can only be understood, not explained; you should figure it out slowly."

Du Jia Jia turned her head helplessly.

But after a moment, she asked again: "Can I go out and touch it?"

"Are you sure?" Chen Mu's voice rose by two degrees.

"Alright, I'm not sure." Du Jia Jia obviously just wanted to satisfy her craving, fully aware of the danger of doing that, she turned her head back with some disappointment and continued to stare at the cat.

The usually hyperactive kitten was unusually patient at this moment, lying there hardly moving, only occasionally licking its paws and changing posture to rest its head on its paw.

Soon.

Du Jia Jia was no longer as anxious as at the start; gazing into the cat's huge, deep eyes, her mood gradually calmed.

However, at that moment the kitten suddenly jumped up.

Startled, Chen Mu hurriedly pulled Du Jia Jia back.

Fortunately, the cat merely stood up, with no intention to attack.

But once it could no longer see Du Jia Jia, it quickly hopped away.

"It's gone." Du Jia Jia felt a bit regretful.

"Little Yellow stayed longer this time than ever before, and it's never been this quiet." Zhao Xiao Yan and the others walked over then; previously, to avoid disturbing the cat and Du Jia Jia's interaction, everyone had stayed far away.

"What if Little Yellow is just close to me because I once fed it, and I actually have no ability at all—what should I do then?" Du Jia Jia felt anxious and uncertain.

"Judging by how calm the cat was just now, it shouldn't be that bad; and even if it really were, wouldn't that be a good thing?" Chen Mu said.

"Why?" Du Jia Jia blinked in confusion.

"That way you'd still have a chance to awaken the Special Ability to shoot big fireballs with both hands." Chen Mu laughed.

"Hehe, I was just saying that for fun."

Du Jia Jia is a simple-minded girl; when discussing abilities before, she had bluntly said that Chen Mu and the class monitor's powers weren't cool enough, and she herself had to awaken a mage-like ability such as ice arrows, fireballs, raging flames, or blizzards.

Although it was just a joke, it also gave Chen Mu and the others a heads-up.

So far, no one has actually awakened such an ability.

Not to mention fireballs, they haven't even seen a spark or a small flame.

This is certainly because they've seen too few humans, but there's also a possibility that the form of Special Abilities has certain limits, differing from what people have seen in novels and movies; overly fantastical things might not exist, and hurling energy blasts to blow up a city may never happen.

Regarding Special Abilities, for now they can only rely on the few existing people to slowly explore and ponder, gradually filling in information and concepts.

……

After dinner.

Chen Mu summoned Tang Jing and Wei Dalei, preparing to remodel the existing rooms and add a few more.

Because the number of people has increased, the current space is no longer sufficient.

The current house is only slightly larger than a matchbox; a person inside can only stand upright, but it still feels cramped.

Fortunately, these two rooms are generally used only for sleeping at night; during the day, even if they rest, everyone lies on a large towel outside.

Although the floor of the storage room has been swept clean.

However, Dong Junwei still suggested leaving a whole towel on the floor, mainly so everyone would have a place to rest without the hassle of going in and out of the rooms.

On the other hand, it was also to preserve tradition.

The original nine members of Grade 3 Class 4 came here on foot from the classroom, "journeying far and wide," precisely because of that towel; to some extent, at that moment they began to feel a sense of home here.

He Ying and the others might not be able to relate to that feeling, but having a convenient place to rest, they certainly wouldn't object.

……

Building a room like the previous ones is no longer difficult for Chen Mu.

But as his abilities grow, his standard of living naturally needs to keep up.

Those two original rooms now also feel somewhat oppressive.

He plans to demolish them and rebuild together.

There are currently sixteen people.

Nine boys and seven girls.

The plan is to build five rooms.

Two rooms for the boys, two for the girls, and Wei Dalei gets his own room.

Originally, with Chen Mu's ability, he could easily give each person a single room—just take a bit more time—but Tang Jing rejected that idea, reasoning that if any danger arose, it would be unfavorable for waking the others.

Having three or four people per room, like now, is just right.

Ziwei High School encourages first- and second-year students to live in dormitories, so everyone has experience with multi-person rooms and thus isn't unaccustomed to it.

The newly built multi-person rooms measure 10 centimeters in length, 4 centimeters in width, and 3 centimeters in height.

The single rooms are each 4 centimeters long and wide, with a height of 3.5 centimeters.

With a ceiling height of 3 centimeters, ordinary people wouldn't feel oppressed unless they were as tall as Yao Ming; but considering Wei Dalei's height of nearly 2 centimeters, they still gave him extra height.

Of course, compared to others, Old Wei's single room is still considerably larger; this is partly to accommodate someone else who might be just as loud and thunderous in the future, so they can be gathered together.

On the other hand, just Wei Dalei's set of axe and shield would take up a lot of space.

Nowadays, the construction method is also very different from before.

Chen Mu no longer needs to build plastic boards individually and then piece them together.

Instead, he directly unfolds a cube and then continuously repairs it, opening doors, windows, and so on.

This construction speed is much faster than before.

The only problem is with size control, so Tang Jing must constantly direct modifications from the side.

For now, without a ruler, precise dimensions are still hard to achieve; for example, the 80‑centimeter height of the watchtower can only be felt by the naked eye, fortunately this size does not require too high precision.

Moreover, one naked eye is not the same as another.

Chen Mu can feel that Tang Jing's size estimation by naked eye is astonishingly precise, because although there is no ruler, some things can still serve as reference objects—for example, using Wei Dalei's height of 1.97 centimeters to compare with the 2‑centimeter plastic board Tang Jing estimates in midair, they are almost exactly the same.