Chapter 55 House Construction Planning

Mu Tong turned around and carefully examined the small hillside and the sheer cliff behind it. On that cliff, Mu Tong surprisingly found quite a number of cave entrances.

Some of these openings were right at the ground where the hillside met the cliff, while others were several meters above the ground, with the highest being more than ten meters up. Each cave entrance was spaced apart by a certain distance, and by visual estimate, there were at least dozens of them.

With so many caves, they couldn’t be natural. But why dig so many? What purpose could they serve?

Mu Tong posed this question to A Yu, who explained, “These caves are where people live during the coldest part of winter.”

It turned out that winters here were extremely harsh. Living in grass huts was no match for the biting cold. So when winter came, every household moved into the caves carved into the cliff, only returning to their grass huts when spring arrived and the weather warmed.

“Where is your family’s cave?” Mu Tong asked. These caves were not open to just anyone; each family could only use the cave they had dug. If a cave lost its owners, no one could move in without the tribe’s consent.

“It’s here.” A Yu led Mu Tong to his family’s cave entrance, which was about four to five meters above the ground.

Mu Tong glanced at several higher openings to the left and asked skeptically, “Whose caves are those? With entrances so high up, is it convenient to come and go?”

A Yu smiled, pointing to the highest cave entrance. “That’s A Jie’s family cave. They’re just two brothers, strong and young, so they dug their entrance quite high.” As for convenience, of course it’s easy.

Everyone in the Chishui tribe, young or old, male or female, were adept at climbing trees and rocks. Even A Fu from the Ju Cao family, who had lost a leg, could climb up to his cave entrance over four meters high, though he couldn’t carry things on his back. Nowadays, with baskets and such, carrying items into the caves became much easier.

Moreover, the seemingly vertical cliff was interwoven with sturdy, resilient vines, which remained firm even in winter after withering. Climbing up to the cave entrances was thus made even easier.

Since it was so cold in winter, the elderly, weak, and sick would stay inside the caves all the time, and only the able-bodied young men would occasionally venture outside, so convenience wasn’t much of an issue.

The caves in the Chishui tribe were not dug randomly. Between each family’s caves, regardless of the height of the entrances, there was always a horizontal distance of at least ten meters. Otherwise, if two adjacent caves were at the same height, digging into another family’s cave would be unpleasant.

Usually, when neighboring caves were dug, they wouldn’t be on the same level to avoid connecting the caves unintentionally.

Following A Yu, Mu Tong climbed into his family’s cave.

The entrance was not large, about one meter wide and two meters high, roughly rectangular. Nearby, a thick wooden board of similar height leaned against the wall, presumably used to block the wind in winter.

The deeper inside, the more spacious it became. After passing through a corridor over two meters long, a square hall appeared. On both sides of the hall, there were two rooms each, and one at the back, said to be for food storage.

The first room on the left was the kitchen, equipped with a simple stove, a large water jar, and some firewood left unused. Near the outer side of the kitchen were several small holes allowing light to filter in, so during the day, cooking and preparing food were done with ease.

The second room on the left was also for storage—food or firewood. After all, the kitchen was small and could not store enough firewood to last the entire winter.

On the right were two rooms: one for A Yu and his brother’s bedroom, and one for their parents’. Looking at the parents’ room, A Yu’s expression darkened slightly: his parents had passed away before last winter, so now the two bedrooms were divided between him and his brother.

Altogether, the cave’s rooms covered about one hundred square meters. Each room’s walls had small stone ledges with holes for inserting torches.

The torches used by the Chishui tribe were made by coating bundles of vine grass with animal oil. This type of grass, once oiled, burned for a long time and was the tribe’s sole source of lighting.

Mu Tong had long wanted to make candles but never found time. Candles would be much safer and more economical than torches for indoor lighting.

Once she finished her current tasks, she planned to figure out how to produce candles and also make convenient paper. Although the tribe currently used a soft, moisture-absorbent tree leaf for hygiene, it disappeared in winter. Even if stored beforehand, the leaves would dry out and lose their softness and absorbency, making them unsuitable and likely painful for use.

Regrettably, the cave had no toilet.

In the grass huts, there was a stone chamber pot. Tribe members, day or night, used their own chamber pots and would periodically take the waste to a deep forest outside the tribe to bury it. Thus, the Chishui tribe was a relatively clean primitive tribe that did not relieve themselves indiscriminately, though in the wild forest there was no way to avoid it.

Mu Tong, of course, would not use such a stone pot. She had several ritual chamber pots specially forged for her family. At the time of forging, she had made more than enough—one for each person and then some. She also had three extras stored in her earrings, plus one for herself, which was a specialized ritual chamber pot.

These ritual pots could autonomously convert waste into clean water and air, requiring only periodic drainage. They emitted no odor and had automatic purification. Compared with modern toilets, they were far cleaner and more convenient. The pots bore engraved magic arrays and embedded spirit stones, which could keep them functioning for a hundred years without failure.

Of course, the two brothers A Yu and his sibling still used the old stone pots. A Yu was very clean and always cleaned his pot early each morning, especially when Mu Tong was around. He never kept the pot in her room and used Duoji’s room whenever necessary.

Without a toilet, placing a pot inside the cave would make the whole cave smell unpleasant. Mu Tong frowned; if she were to use this cave, she needed to solve the waste disposal issue. Perhaps she might gift the two brothers each a specialized ritual chamber pot?

After all, everyone stayed inside the caves during winter, and it was unlikely anyone would come just to visit the brothers’ chamber pots.

It was clear the cave was not completed all at once. The marks on the cave walls showed it was dug gradually, year by year. A Yu confirmed this: it took nearly three years to reach the current size.

After exploring the cave, Mu Tong stood at the entrance observing the surroundings again. Gradually, a preliminary design for a house formed in her mind: to build a stilted wooden house in front of the cave, connected by an elevated wooden corridor linking the house and the cave. This way, whether in winter or the other seasons, it would be convenient to move between the house and the cave.

The cave was warm in winter and cool in summer. It could serve as a food storage room in summer and a winter shelter, making full use of the space.

As for the specific design of the wooden house, she would instruct Xiao Qiang to draw up detailed architectural plans that evening.