Traveling back to 1977

Chapter 334 Completed
In the spacious living room, a sofa and coffee table were placed at one-third of the space. Unlike sofas of this era, which are usually placed against the side, this style resembled the layout of villas in later times, with a passageway behind the main sofa.

Against the west wall is a tea table, with four bonsai stools separating the sofa from the tea table. This slightly obstructs the view and divides the living room into two spaces, one large and one small.

In the sofa area, Chen Fan sat on a long sofa, chatting happily with Master Wang.

The others also took their seats. Those who didn't have enough space moved chairs from the cabinets against the wall and gathered around the coffee table to drink tea and chat.

Master Wang said to Chen Fan, "After the rainy season, summer will arrive, which is a good time to build a house. You can start plastering the exterior walls now. Wait a couple more days, and they will come to start construction."

Chen Fan immediately nodded, "Okay, I'll prepare."

What should we prepare? Food, of course!

Everything else is there, except for food.

Master Wang suddenly stood up, walked to the front window, pointed to the kitchen area, and said, "Are you planning to build a kitchen and dining room here, and then extend the covered walkway over there?"

Chen Fan followed and nodded, saying, "Yes."

Master Wang gestured a couple of times, "This place is quite large, about 6 or 70 square meters. It would be a waste to build only a kitchen and a dining room."

Chen Fan's expression shifted slightly as he looked at him and asked, "So what do you mean?"

Master Wang said, "You can do it this way: keep the kitchen and dining room, just reduce the size of the space a bit, and add more than ten square meters to build another bathroom. Or you can keep this space and add a small hut next to it, which can be next to the panda enclosure wall."

Chen Fan rolled his eyes twice, then grinned from ear to ear. "Hey, that's a good idea."

He then gave Master Wang a thumbs up and laughed, "You truly are a master craftsman; you've added the finishing touch!"

If we reduce the size of the dining room and kitchen and build an extra bathroom, it will be much more convenient to take a shower in winter.

Master Wang waved his hand with a smile and said, "I only thought of building a bathroom like those in the north because I saw you wanted to install a kang (heated brick bed). When we build the stove later, we can add an extra stove in the bathroom area to heat water, and also build a large bathtub that can be connected to the stove. That would make bathing in winter much more comfortable."

"And we'll be getting running water installed soon. Once it's installed, we'll just install a drain under the bathtub, and we won't have to carry water anymore—it'll be so convenient."

Chen Fan nodded repeatedly, "Yes, yes, this is fine."

……

Two more days passed, and instead of rain, the sun shone brightly, officially marking the end of this year's plum rain season.

The construction team came again, and together with the makeshift toilet construction team from Team 6, they finished up the remaining work on the house.

Only then was Chen Fan's new house completely completed.

Jiang Lili, carrying a pile of fabric, pushed open the back door of the educated youth compound and walked towards the new house on the hilltop.

On this small earthen slope, a 1.5-meter-wide cobblestone path appeared. The path was made by using leftover fermented soil as a binder, mixing it with cobblestones to form a foundation, and then applying a layer of cement concrete on the surface, but not completely covering the cobblestones, leaving a few millimeters of height protruding to increase friction.

This road should last for many years as long as it is not subjected to heavy loads from large equipment.

There are also two rows of one-meter-high railings along the path.

Jiang Lili still remembers that when Captain Yang asked Chen Fan why he still needed to install a handrail, was he afraid that he couldn't climb this slope?
Chen Fan asked him directly, "If it snows heavily and freezes into ice, how will you climb?"

Everyone was stunned. They looked up at the slope and imagined what it would be like to snow.

Without the handrail, even climbing wouldn't guarantee you could make it up!

So they cut down more than a dozen bamboo poles and made two handrails.

A dozen or so fruit trees were scattered in the open space on both sides of the railing.

These fruit trees were hard-won. At this time of year, the agricultural supply company's store had no saplings available for purchase. Chen Fan had to ride his horse all over the commune, asking people if they were selling fruit trees. It was only through "Teacher Chen's" influence that he was able to find them.

There are peach trees, plum trees, green plum trees, jujube trees, apricot trees... Although the number is not large, there are quite a few varieties.

In addition, in the woods to the east, there are some fruit trees such as oranges, pomelos, apples, and pears that were grafted earlier. It is unknown how many of them will survive.

Beneath these fruit trees, the reddish-brown soil is covered by a layer of turf.

Needless to say, it was Chen Fan's idea.

After the turf was laid, the house didn't look like a newly built house at all; it had a much more lived-in feel, and Jiang Lili liked it a lot.

Following the path to the top of the hill, on the left is the panda enclosure, which covers an area of ​​more than 120 square meters, including a 20-square-meter building and a 100-square-meter yard. Three sides are brick walls, and only the side facing the small building has a row of wooden railings installed so that the pandas can see the world.

Originally, using bamboo to make the railing would have been the simplest option, but Chen Fan was afraid that the pandas would gnaw on the bamboo, so he cut down several miscellaneous trees to make enough railing posts.

Jiang Lili reached through the gap between the railings, patted the head of the little dog that had come closer, and patted it twice, making the little dog squint its eyes. She then waved to the two puppies that insisted on squeezing in with the little dog. After playing with them for a while, she continued walking forward.

The reason the dogs liked this place was simple: there were "toys" in the panda enclosure. Chen Fan had made several wooden frames out of miscellaneous wood for the pandas to exercise and play with, but he didn't expect the dogs to take a liking to them and squeeze over to join in the fun.

Next to the panda enclosure is the "annex," whose exterior walls are coated with fermented soil. After the black fermented soil dries, it returns to the yellowish-brown color of the soil itself, making it look like an earthen house.

From the outside in, the room consists of a bathroom, a kitchen, and a dining room. Seeing the bathroom, Jiang Lili couldn't help but feel a sense of anticipation. Inside was a small bathtub, half a meter deep, one meter wide, and two meters long, its surface covered with various colored ceramic shards. A bath in it in winter would surely be very comfortable.

The roof of the annex is connected to the covered walkway, which extends all the way to the main building.

The ground in front of the main building is also paved with fermented soil mixed with lime, sand, gravel and cement, so no matter how heavy the rain, you won't step on mud.

Stepping onto the hard concrete floor and onto the steps of the covered walkway, you enter through the main door and turn left into the living room.

Jiang Lili placed the cloth she was holding on the coffee table, looked around, but did not see Chen Fan.

There's no tea table behind the bonsai stand either.

She hesitated for two seconds, then turned and left the living room, going up the stairs to the second floor.

Upon reaching the second floor and turning right, we found Chen Fan reading a book in the study on the west side.

这间书房里摆了18个高1米2、宽一米的书架，一排6个，一共3排。

Below the bookshelves are individual cabinets, and above them are shelves for holding books, on both the left and right sides.

Most of the shelves were filled with books, but even with over a thousand books, the shelves were not yet full.

At this moment, Chen Fan was standing in front of a bookshelf, leaning on top of it, flipping through an English book.

This book is one of the books in those four camphor wood chests.

Among those boxes, two contained ancient books, and the other two contained various large modern books, both domestic and foreign. Chen Fan took them out and put them on the bookshelf, planning to take them out to air them in the sun when he had some free time in a few days.

Anyway, the second floor is not open to the public. Apart from Jiang Lili and the other three who come up to clean, there is no one else, so there is no need to worry about anyone damaging the books.

Hearing the noise, Chen Fan didn't look up, his gaze still fixed on the book, and said softly, "Have they all gone to work?"

Jiang Lili nodded, walked closer and said, "Today the team is harvesting hay together. After the double harvest starts in a few days, there won't be much time to prepare feed for the poultry and livestock."

He paused for a moment, then said, "I've brought all the fabric you wanted; it's in the living room downstairs."

The educated youth settlement didn't raise many chickens, ducks, or geese; there were only about 20 chickens in the front yard and rabbits in the rabbit hutch in the backyard. Since all the feed was provided by Team 6 and deducted from the cost of the rabbits, Chen Fan didn't need to worry about these things.

Jiang Lili happened to be on "duty" to cook today, so Chen Fan conscripted her to help him bring over the fabric.

Chen Fan closed the book, put it back on the shelf, turned to Jiang Lili and smiled, "How's your math, physics and chemistry going?"

At the same time, he stepped outside.

Jiang Lili followed a step behind him and said with a smile, "It's alright. I've learned everything you've covered, and I've even learned a little more."

Chen Fan nodded and glanced back at her. "After the expansion of Lujiawan Village Primary School, although we will continue to teach the content in the textbooks, our purpose in running the school is not for college entrance examinations, but to enable more people to learn the professional teaching materials I brought back."

To understand those textbooks, math, physics, and chemistry are the most basic foundations. Of course, if you are studying humanities, history, geography, and politics are also very important.

If you can master this knowledge as early as possible, I can recommend you to be a middle school teacher when junior high school starts in two years. That way, you won't have to work in the fields every day.

Recommending her to be a teacher at Lujiawan School was certainly not Chen Fan's real purpose, but he couldn't just tell her to prepare for the college entrance examination!

This village school, which is currently undergoing expansion, can serve as the best excuse.

Jiang Lili smiled and nodded vigorously, saying, "I will definitely work hard."

She didn't say thank you because she felt she owed too much, and a simple thank you wouldn't do enough. So she decided to remain silent and repay her with her actions later.

Chen Fan turned back to look at her and smiled, then quickly walked down the stairs and turned to enter the living room.

Instead of immediately grabbing the cloth, he walked to a low cabinet in the corner, took out a disc from the bottom cabinet, put it in the phonograph on the counter, gently cranked the handle, and placed the magnetic head on the vinyl record. A melodious song immediately came from the loudspeaker.

"Clouds drift across the sea and sky, fish hide in the water, fishing nets dry in the morning sun, and the sea breeze blows in your face..."

Hearing the song, Jiang Lili couldn't take her eyes off it, her eyes filled with reminiscence. "When I was very young, we had a gramophone just like this one at home. Back then, when my parents came home from get off work, they would always play some music. My dad would rest in the living room, my mom would be busy cooking in the kitchen, and my sister and I would lie next to the gramophone and listen to the songs. I remember that this was the song I listened to the most."

Later, when I was about four or five years old, my father suddenly put away the gramophone and CDs, and I never heard the gramophone again. Then my older sister would often sing to me and teach me to sing. Until my father had his accident, a group of people came to our house to kick us out, and the gramophone was smashed.

Chen Fan sat on the armrest of the sofa, and after a brief silence, smiled at her and said, "This disc is from your home."

Jiang Lili suddenly looked up, her eyes filled with surprise, "Huh?"

Chen Fan shrugged and smiled at her, "I picked up this phonograph from a junkyard and asked around to see if there were any records for this kind of phonograph. I also asked your sister. After she listened to it, she went home and brought me more than twenty discs, saying that she didn't have a phonograph at home and couldn't listen to it, so she brought them over for you to listen to."

However, there wasn't a suitable place to put it before, and the occasion wasn't right either. Now that the house is finished, and there's no one else around,..."

At this point, he spread his hands, looked at Jiang Lili, and smiled, "So, did you like this surprise?"

Jiang Lili covered her mouth with both hands, her eyes instantly reddening. Then she took a deep breath and nodded vigorously, "I like it."

(End of this chapter)