Chapter 849

Watching the water in the spring eye flowing away in vain, Wang An thought about digging another large pit and building an even bigger pool.

As for this pool, Wang An's idea was also very simple: it would be used to raise fish.

That's right, just raising fish—and raising those precious, delicious fish at that.

Of course, Wang An had already had this idea, but he hadn't decided where to place the fish pond before.

The main thing was that if he didn't dig a fish pond, the empty space in the yard would just be sitting idle.

The key was that Wang An's yard, which was a full 30-plus mu—that is, over 20,000 square meters—was truly a bit too large and had to be fully utilized.

Of course, the place being too big was only one aspect; the other was that when Wang Shuai and Wu Dong had originally planned to send cement and sand to Wang An, they had miscalculated the accounts.

At the time, Wang Shuai had calculated that each house would still need a certain amount of cement, rounding it up to a certain amount; after all, building materials had to be in abundant supply.

But when converting units, Wang Shuai mistakenly said the amount was 12 tons, when in fact, that amount was equal to 6 tons.

It was just that at the time, Wang An's mind was entirely occupied with the fact that he had been cheated out of 240 yuan when buying cement, so after Wang Shuai finished speaking, Wang An didn't calculate it carefully.

Furthermore, the situation at the time was that not only did Wang An not calculate it carefully, but even Wu Dong hadn't thought about it at all.

So this led to the fact that after Wang An's main house, side rooms, and livestock pens were built, not only was there nearly 14 tons of cement left over, but there was also twenty-five or twenty-six cubic meters of sand left over.

The reason the ratio of the excess sand and cement didn't match up was that the ratio of cement to sand used in the concrete for Wang An's brickwork was about 1 to 3 or 1 to 3.5, which could be considered the optimal ratio.

With so much extra sand and cement, aside from Mu Xueli's family buying 4 tons of cement and Wang Li's family buying 2 tons, the remaining cement and sand could be said to be just right for building the fish pond.

With the materials on hand, he decided to act immediately; thus, having just finished his meal, Wang An started the crawler tractor and began pushing out the large pit for the fish pond at the far northwest corner of the new yard.

To prevent the water in the pool from freezing solid during the winter when the temperature was too low, Wang An pushed the depth of the fish pond to a full 4 meters deep.

Only, this way, the fish pond invisibly increased the danger level significantly.

Therefore, a perimeter wall had to be built on the side of the fish pond closest to the inside of the yard.

Fortunately, whether it was building the fish pond or the perimeter wall, neither was a job that required much technical skill, and it wouldn't take too much time either.

Just like that, amidst the busyness, a week slipped away without anyone noticing.

Just yesterday, when the two new houses in Wang An's yard had finished being whitewashed, the entire project was basically completed.

The reason for using the word "basically" was that the glass hadn't been set into the windows yet.

Actually, normally speaking, the completion time should have been 3 days earlier than this.

Because once lime is soaked in water, as long as you see the color change from grayish-white to white, that lime is actually ready to be used.

And this time only takes about one to two hours.

It's just that such lime still has a high possibility of not being fully slaked.

So, just in case, he let the lime soak in the water for 3 more days, which meant the completion time was delayed by 3 days. Within these 7 days, Wang Li's new house and Mu Xueli's new house also started construction one after another.

The main thing was that the time had already reached late July, and the vegetables in the garden had all come in; only at this time could there be vegetables for the hired help to eat.

But after seeing the spacious and bright new house at Wang An's, Mu Xueli's family and Wang Li's family also changed their previous plan of only building 3 large tiled rooms, intending instead to follow the house structure designed by Wang An and build 5 large tiled rooms directly.

One has to admit that the house designed by Wang An, for a place like Heilongjiang where the winter is quite long, can be considered the most reasonable and practical.

Whether it's the design of the underground fire dragon, the fire wall, or the northern kang, in this era, they can already be called perfect.

Moreover, the structure of Wang An's house has already become completely famous in Xing'an Township, and people from neighboring settlements often come to visit out of admiration.

Of course, this kind of thing is also very normal, because no matter what you do, as long as there is a start, those who follow the trend will definitely appear slowly.

And what people didn't expect was that this house designed by Wang An would later become a template, and almost all newly built or renovated houses would be constructed according to this template.

Of course, that is a story for later.

Because of the temporary change in the house-building plan, Wang Li and Mu Xueli had both been put through a real ordeal these past few days.

And the reason for this was that all the various building materials prepared previously were no longer enough.

Fortunately, both families had horse carts and walking tractors, so buying things was very convenient.

Furthermore, Wang An's two circular saws had also been taken by these two families, one each; it was just that the walking tractor used to power the circular saw had to be swapped back and forth between the two families, or they had to use their own walking tractors.

Also needing to be used in shifts were the crawler vehicle Wang An used to push the foundation, as well as the chainsaw Wang An had borrowed.

One has to say, with a big tree like Wang An to lean on—or rather, such a big backer—who knows how many major difficulties that these two families would have had to face were solved by Wang An alone.

The saying "It's good to enjoy the shade under a big tree" is absolutely very fitting when applied to Wang Li and Mu Xueli.

To tell the truth, even Wang An envied these two, envied that they had such an awesome, lightning-fast Fourth Brother—or rather, brother-in-law—like himself.

Alas, Wang An could only envy them; after all, in the entire circle of relatives, for the time being, only Wang An could shoulder this heavy burden.

Early this day, after Wang An finished breakfast, he drove the four-wheeled vehicle toward the county town; as for Wang Li and Mu Xueli, they were both so busy now that their feet barely touched the ground, so Wang An didn't call them.

However, what was loaded on the bed of Wang An's four-wheeled vehicle was a pile of straw mats and a triangular wooden frame.

And the reason these things were loaded on Wang An's vehicle bed was that Wang An was going to the county town to buy glass.

Transporting glass is quite a strenuous task; even with so many things loaded as buffers, Wang An still had no confidence in his heart.

The main thing was that driving a four-wheeled vehicle loaded with glass while traveling on a gravel road—who wouldn't be confused hearing about this job?

Fortunately, Wang An had a relatively good mindset: if it breaks, it breaks; if it's broken, so be it.

Thanks to "Emperor of the Great Empire" for the tip, thank you, thank you, thank you very much!

(End of chapter)