Two hundred and thirty-four. Completion and strangeness
The sea breeze blows up the cliff.
Dead trees blocked the area around the cave from the sea breeze. As the time approached afternoon, the sound of digging in the cave gradually stopped.
The four Jones brothers piled the last pile of rubble outside the cave. With their bodies feeling warm, they watched Lu Li walk into the cave to inspect it.
Deep in the cave, a relatively flat space was dug out according to Lu Li's requirements. The cave wall revealed the cross-section of the rock layer and the soil layer. Combined with the furniture and sundries piled outside the cave, the place finally had some atmosphere of life.
The cellar in the corner is filled with darkness, and the cellar is less than two cubic meters in size.
Lu Li's original plan was for ten cubic meters, but this requirement obviously couldn't be met in a few days - but two cubic meters in the cellar is basically enough, and it can be expanded slowly in the future.
Lu Li's gaze swept between the cave walls. The current space was enough to cover ten centimeters of deep sea stone, but if it were to be one meter thick, both the height and length would need to be increased.
However, there are two pieces of news that are neither good nor bad: Lu Li cannot afford to use one meter thick deep sea stone as a wall, and ten centimeters thick deep sea stone is actually very difficult.
After the inspection was completed, the four Jones brothers breathed a sigh of relief and returned to the carriage with their tools.
Before leaving, Lu Li picked up the empty tin can on the edge of the cave - this was the can that Lame Barton discarded last time.
He asked Anna to pick up a can of seawater under the cliff. Lu Li walked towards the carriage, walked to the carriage and waited for Anna to come back. Lu Li took the tin can filled with seawater, put it away, and got on the carriage.
"I need a mason,"
Putting away the half-read books that Anna had read, Lu Li drove the carriage away from the cliff and rushed out of the woods.
The four Jones brothers looked at each other, and the eldest brother said: "We usually do masonry and carpentry work... If it's not too complicated, you can hire us."
A person who doesn't know how to bargain, point fingers, and pays readily is someone all workers are willing to cooperate with.
A few seconds later, Lu Li's voice floated into the car from outside the car curtain: "I want to lay the stones in the box on the wall of the dug cave."
The four brothers were deeply impressed by those flat square stones. After thinking about it, the boss nodded and said, "Put it on the wall? It's not difficult."
Lu Li repeated: "It's spread on the cave wall."
"The walls of the cave...you mean all of them?" The boss was stunned.
"Um."
"Okay... you can hire two people and we will do it in one day. Or it will be quicker to hire four people in half a day, and you only need to pay 40 shillings."
"Can."
The boss turned around and glanced behind him, but he only saw the three brothers sitting side by side and the rear compartment of the carriage. He thought for a moment and said to Lu Li, "Why don't we go back to the cave and take a look? There seems to be not enough stone."
Lu Li was still concise and to the point: "No need, we'll talk about it tomorrow."
It was getting late, and if we stayed for a while longer it would be difficult to leave the elm forest before dark.
Although Elm Forest's attitude towards him has softened somewhat, no one dares to say whether it will still be the same after dark.
…
On Elm Street, when the sky is dark, a carriage slowly drives out of the shadowy and gloomy forest.
The dim light of oil lamps lit up in some houses on the street. The carriage drove all the way back to the residence of the four Jones brothers to send them home. Then it returned to the vicinity of Sailor Street, returned the carriage, and walked back to Sailor Street.
Lu Li passed by the market. Most of the sellers' shops had closed and dispersed. The prices of blankets sold in the few remaining shops were so high that one wondered whether the shilling had suddenly depreciated in value.
However, Lu Li still added some ingredients. Although they were expensive, their price/performance ratio was much higher than that of canned food.
Back at the detective agency, Anna wound up the radio and alarm clock. When the radio rang, she got into the kitchen and started the stove to heat up a meal.
The sound of cooking and talking came from the corridor outside the door, and as time passed, the smell of wood smoke drifted out of the kitchen.
Half an hour later, Anna brought the heated pork potatoes and bread that had absorbed the moisture of the broth and fluffed up again to the table.
When Anna was about to turn off the stove, Lu Li stopped her and walked into the kitchen with the jar of sea water and the still.
Anna knew what he was going to do, so she slipped to the desk and picked up the phone. As usual, she called her good friend Daisy every once in a while.
After a while, Anna's clear voice sounded from the living room.
Whenever this happened, her mood would be much brighter and more lively, just like the time Lu Li had never seen before when he was alive.
Although the phone bill was very expensive, Lu Li never stopped him.
He knew that this would help delay Anna's fall into the abyss and become a cold existence that no longer had consciousness.
Putting the half-full tin can on the hot stove, Lu Li lifted the still, placed it on top of the tin can according to its usage, and connected the wooden bowl under the outlet pipe.
As time went by, the turbid seawater in the tin tank began to boil, and water vapor with a fishy smell came out, and most of it went into the still above.
The distillation process is very slow. It took a few minutes for the seawater to boil before the first drop of distilled water dripped into the wooden bowl. But soon, the second and third drops fell into the wooden bowl...
Ten minutes later, the boiling water in the tin can was almost bottomed out. A small bowl of distilled water was accumulated in the wooden bowl on the other side. He took the tin can away and emptied out the remaining distilled water in the still. Lu Li paid attention to the wooden bowl.
The distilled water in the wooden bowl was relatively clear under the light of an oil lamp. When I smelled it, there was no rusty smell or suspicious color.
The old craftsmen made some anti-rust measures on the still.
Bring it to your lips and take a sip. The warm distilled water has a hint of astringency and a faint sea smell that is so light that it can be ignored.
In the apocalypse, what else can we ask for when we still have clean and safe water to drink?
The water source problem has been solved.
"Well... I'll ask Lu Lili and he knows everything."
Anna's voice sounded from the living room at this time.
Lu Li put away the still and walked out of the kitchen, when he met Anna walking towards him.
"Daisy seems to have encountered something strange." She frowned and briefly told Lu Li about Daisy's situation.
Daisy is studying at the Messel University of Music. A few days ago, one of her professors showed the students an ancient book he had obtained in class. He said it was a precious book and was written by a poet hundreds of years ago.
The bard's diary contains information about his life - but because it is in another language, he is still deciphering the text.
The professor invited several interested students in class to decipher the contents of the diary.
Because she has a ghost friend, Daisy, who knows a lot of things, always feels that something is not right, so she told Anna her doubts when Anna called just now.
After listening to Anna's story, Lu Li walked to the desk, picked up the phone, and said to Daisy on the other side: "Recently, stay away from that professor and the people he often comes in contact with. If you find that he becomes different, call the police.
"
"Hello Lu Li, call the police...?" Daisy, who had just had time to say hello, was stunned.
"Yes, they know who to contact."
After he finished speaking, Lu Li's eyes suddenly fell on the suddenly noisy radio.
