CH 278

Lin Lan knew that she was too lazy to spend her time cooking. After all, she didn’t like to serve that many people. Besides, Old Lady Han always questioned why there was a need for her to make good food. 

“Making it taste good would only encourage you to eat more, wouldn’t it? What a waste of food!”

Before erecting the beams, one must make offerings, light some incense and burn papers. According to the custom, one would have to greet and pray to the ancestors, telling them about their plan of building a new house and requesting their blessings.

Lin Lan naturally followed the local customs.

Before leaving work, Lin Lan asked Han Qingsong to bring Sanwang to handle tht matter. Then, he could start setting up the beams once he got off work in the afternoon.

As a result, before it was time to finish work, the team leader arranged for six young to middle-aged men with great strength and skill to help. All of them had aided Han Qingsong in pulling the lump of bricks and tiles before. Naturally, when one’s character was commendable, not much needed to be said for help to be granted.

Carpenter Wang and the mason were the Chief Commanders and those who stood by their sides were men who were able to handle hard labour. Coupled with a supply of high-quality wood and strong bricks, they shared a sense of accomplishment as architects.

Carpenter Wang couldn’t help but praise again, “This is going to support the house. Having such a wide and tall house, without some good wood, there’s no way that the beam is able to support the building.”

Some of the credit had to be given to Lin Lan when it came to securing good quality wood.

She had instructed Han Qingsong with strict conditions as to how to buy good wood. Firstly, the wood shouldn’t be destroyed by insects. Besides, they must be long in length to ensure that the house could space out. Though, even the thinner ones could be used as rafters. The wooden rafters would be placed at a distance, so that the house would become more sturdy. Also, there wouldn’t be any concerns over the weight distribution of the tiles that might cause the pillars to collapse.

Naturally, more money was spent on that.

Carpenter Wang was very happy to see the wood and chose the most suitable logs to be used as beams. The rest were used as purlins, furniture, rafters, etc.

After the beams were installed, the purlins and the rafters were arranged. Soon, yellow soil was cultivated as well.

Finally, they laid out the tiles.

Han Qingsong’s intention was to let them return home earlier to rest; he would finish up the remaining work by himself later on.

Han Qingyun said, “Third Brother, are you trying to get us to leave? How can we not finish a task or merely end it in haste simply because we want to go home? Besides, we would have to ask for help from Third Brother in the future when we are going to build our own houses.”

Everyone agreed with that narrative.

Han Qingsong didn’t say anything else and merely asked Lin Lan to prepare some portions of the pig head for them to take home.

No matter what, it was still the autumn harvest and not many would have the time to have their meals here. Hence, it would be better for the men to bring their share of the meal home.

In this aspect, his thoughts were the same as Lin Lan’s.

Thinking that the eldest sister-in-law had come to help with the cooking, she gave the Han family a large portion out of respect for the old man and the old lady. Then, she divided portions for the labourers and had them take a section each. The carpenters and the masons who came to help then shared the remaining portions with Lin Lan and the children. With that, an entire pig’s head was almost entirely gone.