Wasteland Farming, Manual for Raising Human Cubs

Chapter 270 Building a Tree House

It was pitch black inside the tree hole. It took Zhao Xiaoxiu a while to adjust herself before she could see the layout inside clearly.

It turned out that this was the root of the charred tree outside, and for some unknown reason, the entire root was completely hollowed out, forming a semicircular tree hole.

The highest point of the tree hole is three meters, and the lowest point is less than one meter, barely enough for one person to squat.

Zhao Xiaoxiu was only a four-year-old child. To her, this cave did not feel oppressive at all. Instead, it gave her a strange sense of security.

There was nothing in the cave, it was empty and no animal feces was found.

However, because the room was too closed and the air was thin, Zhao Xiaoxiu began to sweat and had difficulty breathing after only a few minutes.

She checked the edges of the tree hole and confirmed that it was a naturally formed tree hole. Then she crawled out of the narrow gap with regret.

You have to climb down to get in, and there is a slight slope when getting out, so Zhao Xiaoxiu can half-squat.

After passing through a one-meter-long narrow passage formed by charred wood roots, Zhao Xiaoxiu finally breathed fresh air.

The little girl stood at the entrance of the tree hole, supporting herself with a small wooden stick, put one hand on her waist and took a few deep breaths of the damp and cold air. The heat completely went away, she sniffed, and immediately ran excitedly towards the bottom of the tree.

"Dad! I found a big tree hole. There is nothing inside. It is well sealed. We can use it as a storage room!" Zhao Xiaoxiu said while running.

Zhao Gang's men, who were busy chiseling wood, kept moving. He turned his head to look at the cub, whose face was red and covered with sawdust and dirt. He found it funny but also felt helpless because the protective suit he had just put on was dirty.

Fortunately, the protective suit was waterproof. The tentacles on Zhao Gang's body came out, absorbed water from the stream flowing nearby, and turned into a shower head, washing away the dirt and wood chips on Zhao Xiaoxiu's body.

The dirty baby was cleaned up by two tentacles and became clean again.

Zhao Xiaoxiu smiled shyly, wiped the flying hair on her forehead, and said expectantly:
"Dad, let's seal up the gap and open a door near the tree house. Then the tree hole will become our storage room."

As he spoke, La's father came to Jiao Mu, gestured to the location of the tree hole he had just seen, and drew the location of the new door.

The new door is located at the lower left side of the platform. If you dig half a meter inside, it will connect to the tree hole inside.

Zhao Xiaoxiu put her hands on her hips and said proudly, "Dad, this new home you found is simply amazing. We got a storage room for free. We can store food in it during the winter. When we need food or things, we can just walk a few steps and get them."

Zhao Gang was so flattered by the cub's praise that he immediately picked up tools to chisel a new door and put down the other two walls of the wooden house.

The charred wood itself is relatively soft and tough, so it is not difficult to chisel it. Zhao Gang first outlined the range of the door opening at a height of 1.5 meters, and then started to dig from the edge to the center.

With tools in hand and plenty of strength, he managed to carve out a passage in an hour through which he could peek into the tree hole inside.

Zhao Xiaoxiu took over the rest. There were still two walls of the tree house that were not completed, and she also wanted to do her best.

The little girl took the initiative to pick up the axe and took over the job of chiseling a new door for the storage room, allowing her father to continue building the tree house.

The cub took the initiative to work and Zhao Gang never stopped her. Even if she did not do a good job, he thought it was a good opportunity for exercise.

Only the cubs that can work can eat more and grow strong.

So, for the whole afternoon, the sound of chiseling wood echoed in the valley, "knock, knock, knock", one after another, making Peter Pan at the bottom of the lake drowsy.

By the evening, Zhao Xiaoxiu's door had been chipped in a lot, and the walls were all bumpy and didn't look smooth at all.

With this level of skill, Zhao Gang praised it several times in a row, which made Sister Monkey roll her eyes so much that they almost flew to the sky.

Zhao Xiaoxiu doesn't care. Her father's praise means she did a good job!

I am the best! The little girl clenched her fist and affirmed in her heart. She swung the axe and chopped vigorously. The four walls of the tree house were surrounded. On the wall facing the outside, Zhao Gang deliberately left a small window, and when he found glass or other light-transmitting materials later, he would install the window.

While it was still light, Zhao Gang helped Sister Monkey, who didn't want to work and just wanted to run away, to spread the rainproof cloth on the roof beams as the bottom layer.

Later, Zhao Gang planned to add another layer of hay and wood to deal with this winter first.

This side of the tree house is not in the upwind direction, so strong winds in winter cannot reach here. The rainproof cloth is covered with hay and then pressed down with wooden planks, so it should not be blown away.

When it started to drizzle at night, Zhao Xiaoxiu had already moved into the brand new tree house with her father.

Although there is nothing in the house, she believes that with her own hands and her father's, they can soon fill the new home.

I slept peacefully in the tree house all night. When I woke up in the morning, the sun was still hiding in the clouds.

A drizzle was falling, and damp and cold air drifted in from the open window. Zhao Xiaoxiu crawled out of the tent, and the heat that she had just brought out of the sleeping bag was instantly blown away.

Raising her little hand to feel the damp cold, Zhao Xiaoxiu murmured, "Winter is really coming."

There wasn't much time left for her and her father to prepare.

After simply drinking a bottle of nutrient solution for breakfast, Zhao Xiaoxiu and his daughter started another busy day.

Zhao Xiaoxiu continued to chisel at the door. When she was tired, she stopped to rest for a while and helped collect the scattered waste wood and stacked it neatly under the roots of the tree as firewood.

It rained for two days in a row, and the already wet ground became even more muddy.

Afraid that the cubs would feel cold while working, Zhao Gang built two piles of firewood. The flames leaped high, warming the air in the activity space under the tree house.

After making sure the cubs wouldn't get cold, Zhao Gang continued to concentrate on picking up the charred branches.

He plans to build another room under the tree house to serve as a kitchen and activity room.

You can't make a fire on a tree, so you build a stove on the ground, and the fire will just reach the tree house upstairs. Even if it snows heavily, you won't feel cold sleeping upstairs because there's a fire burning in the stove below.

This will be a very warm winter, Zhao Gang thought secretly in his heart.

Sister Monkey was sent out to find stones.

Humans still prefer to walk on dry ground, so the ground under the tree must be repaved with stones.

This makes it safer to make fire and boil water.

Sister Monkey actually enjoys finding stones more than cutting wood. She likes this kind of work that doesn't require any brainpower.

Pulling the hoverboard, wandering all the way in the valley, when you see a suitable stone, pick it up and throw it onto the hoverboard, that's it.

In a blink of an eye, three days passed, the rain finally stopped, and the sun rose.

A lot has changed in the open space within the green wall.

Two small wooden houses, one above and one below, were added to the originally lonely charred wood. The upper one is the bedroom, and the lower one is the activity room, dining room and kitchen.

The muddy ground beneath the charred wood was all paved with stones, and in the gaps between the stones were broken stone slabs that had been hammered together to fit tightly together, forming a whole stone surface of nearly fifty square meters.

The lower wooden house is built on the stone surface, and the four wooden walls lead directly to the second-floor platform on the top, saving the need for a roof.