Didn't you go to Teyvat to earn money to support me?

Rosalind watched as Shen Liang rolled up the sleeves of his straitjacket, secured it above his elbows, and then went directly to the open space behind the small building to start digging a hole.

The dormitory buildings are scattered and not close together, because they are located on the mountainside. Each dormitory is surrounded by many uneven mountain views, and streams flow down from the top of the mountain, passing through different dormitory areas along the way. This beautiful scenery is the original intention behind the construction of the dormitory.

This benefited Shen Liang, as the clean spring water was even drinkable directly, making it completely unnecessary to install four water purification and filtration systems.

“Generally speaking, diverting river water requires building four levels of water tanks. The first level is the highest, used for initial sedimentation. The second level is the next highest, with rubble, fine sand, charcoal, etc. laid at the bottom for filtration. The third level adds alum to purify the water. The fourth level is the actual tap water tank, and the water we use at home starts from the fourth level,” Shen Liang said. “However, spring water is much cleaner than river water, but the flow is not enough, so only one level of water tank is needed for storage and filtration.”

Shen Liang used a shovel to dig a square pond marking line on the mountain. Then the general closed his eyes, raised his hand, and in an instant, a violent burst of thunderous power blasted out, turning the land that Shen Liang had marked up upside down!

The loud noise caused the lights in the other dormitories to turn on, and many people curiously peeked out of their windows to watch.

Shen Liang didn't care and simply told the general to continue.

By this time, a large breach had been blasted open in the planned area. The general used electromagnetic force to control the soil and rocks within, and a large amount of excavated soil floated up and was thrown aside. Soon, the reservoir planned by Shen Liang, approximately five meters by four meters and two and a half meters deep, was excavated. It could hold about fifty cubic meters of water, enough for a month's use with just one opening of the sluice gate.

"The next problem is paving the water tank. Ideally, we should use cement and ceramics to pave it." Shen Liang pondered for a moment. "But we've made this decision on short notice, and we don't have any ceramics, so we can only use cement."

“Cement is…” Rosalyn was staring in disbelief at the noble young masters and princesses who were doing civil engineering work without any hesitation. Upon hearing this, she was stunned again, “I’ve never heard of this material.”

“Actually, cement appeared in Teyvat a long time ago, but it wasn’t called concrete. Generally, we call it ‘mortar.’” Shen Liang’s knowledge of these points mainly came from Mistelin’s teachings. He turned around and went into the house to get two bags of glutinous rice that Yae no Miko had brought back. “Generally, you can just mix lime, sand, and soil with water, but the strength isn’t enough. That’s how most poor people do it. A slightly more sophisticated and expensive method is to use lime, sand, and glutinous rice paste, and add some egg white, asphalt, or resin, which can form cement with very high strength.”

[In terms of strength alone, this glutinous rice paste cement is significantly more adhesive and harder than modern standard concrete, and was generally used for city defense and bonding massive stones. Modern concrete buildings are actually quite easy to collapse with a bulldozer, but ancient cement and stone buildings were incredibly sturdy, sometimes requiring explosives.] Mistelin commented, [Don't underestimate the wisdom of the ancients; it's just that glutinous rice paste was a bit expensive.]

Shen Liang was used to the many unfamiliar words Mistelin used to say. For example, he didn't understand words like "bulldozer," but it was probably a vehicle used for shoveling earth. If he had a bulldozer now, he wouldn't have to make the little general look so dirty, and his own delicate, obedient little sister would have turned into a little mud cat... But the general never complained about anything, which made Shen Liang feel even more sorry for him.

Shen Liang mixed and pounded the mortar himself, then jumped in and applied the mortar to the smooth pool walls that had been shaved flat by lightning, making sure it was waterproof.

This operation made it more difficult for the general to control the object, so everyone had to do it themselves. Rosalyn watched him jump down regardless of the dirt, her eyes widened, and then she simply jumped down as well, rolled up the sleeves of her graduation gown to reveal her fair arms, grabbed Shen Liang's small bucket, and started working on it herself.

"Girls shouldn't do these manual labor jobs, they're all dirty!" Shen Liang scolded. "Go upstairs and wait!"

Shen Liang's obsession with "aesthetics" resurfaced; he simply couldn't bear to see such a delicate and beautiful young woman doing such dirty and tiring work.

But to Rosalind, the words of the younger and prettier white-haired beauty were utterly unconvincing. She slapped Shen Liang's head and laughed, "I didn't expect Your Highness Liang'er to be so chauvinistic! What's wrong with being a girl? This isn't your old-fashioned Inazuma. Liyue and Mondstadt both uphold the policy of absolute gender equality! That's common sense. Besides, do you think I'm some noble princess like you? I'm a commoner. I'm much more skilled at these tasks than you are! See these calluses? Half of them are from playing the piano, and the other half are from doing manual labor!"

Shen Liang's mouth hung open. Rosalyn was so beautiful and alluring. He knew she was from a commoner background, but he always subconsciously treated her like a spoiled young girl. It was only now, with her nimble movements, that Shen Liang realized her true identity: she was just a dancer from Mondstadt... Who said that even a commoner dancer couldn't live a happy and confident life?

Shen Liang suddenly realized that he seemed to have been viewing people with prejudice all along. He seemed to subconsciously assume that the people around him were all rich and powerful, and he hadn't paid attention to ordinary people in the world for a very long time. This world was not a world for the "upper class".

Beautiful, charming, delicate, youthful, luxurious, singing and dancing, fair-skinned... these words are not exclusive to "high-ranking officials and nobles".

At this moment, Yae no Miko also jumped down, not caring that her red and white shrine maiden clothes were stained with mortar, and enthusiastically joined in the work.

Shen Liang wanted to scold him, but in the blink of an eye he saw the excited expression on the little fox's face.

Although Yae no Miko is just a cute pink-furred fox-eared loli, she has always presented herself as charming and profound, and her behavior is quite eccentric, unlike that of a little girl. Shen Liang rarely saw this kind of excited and curious "little girl" expression that was so befitting her age.

The small amount made Shen Liang a little happy.

Immediately afterwards, the young general jumped down, grabbed his collar, looked up, and stared at him with his lifeless eyes.

"You want to come too?" Shen Liang smiled helplessly.

The little doll nodded. "I am a doll, so I am not afraid of getting dirty."

“Your sisters are all quite sensible,” Rosalyn said, wiping the sweat from her face and laughing. “They’re not quite the Inatsuma Princess I imagined.”

Shen Liang had no choice but to hand the mortar bucket to the general and then lie down to focus on another wall. Thus, the four little beauties with different styles were covered in mortar, their clothes and skirts were dirty, and even the noble little general was covered in mud, but they still worked diligently and attentively to apply cement to the reservoir.

Even if the four of them were a bit dim-witted, their efficiency was surprisingly fast. However, the girls tended to start bickering during the work. Sometimes, Yae no Miko would slip mortar onto the general's legs when he wasn't looking, staining her white stockings. Other times, Rosalin would hug the Miko with her dirty hands and stroke her tail. Sometimes, the general would expressionlessly tug at Shen Liang's sleeve and tattle on the little fox for being lazy and scraping off the cement she had just applied. As a result, Yae no Miko ended up doing the most boring task of mixing cement, which made her mutter to herself for a long time in frustration…

Half an hour was spent painting the wall; everything was ordinary and boring. But laughter continued amidst this ordinary labor. Sometimes you wish this simple, mundane life could last longer, and ideally, never end.

After the reservoir was cleaned, Shen Liang instructed Rosalin to quickly bake the cement over a low flame until it became solid. Unlike modern concrete, ancient glutinous rice paste cement could be strengthened by firing and was less prone to cracking.

Then, we need to consider the water tower.

In ancient society, the only way to get running water was by water flowing from high to low. Even in modern society—although Shen Liang never quite understood what modern society was, and Mistelin didn't explain—many rural areas in modern society still rely on water towers for running water.

The water tower doesn't need to be very tall, since Shen Liang's dormitory is only two stories high. It's easy to find a large iron kettle to hold water, because there are boiler rooms for boiling water in Liyue, Inazuma, or anywhere else, and there are large iron kettles that can hold three or four cubic meters of water.

"What do you need a boiler for?" The teacher in charge of hot water supply in the boiler room frowned. "You're freshmen, right? Jigong does provide students with a lot of materials for free, but not everything. A boiler is quite valuable. What kind of experiment do you need such a large iron kettle for?"

After Shen Liang explained, the teacher still didn't approve. For the Teyvats, a "running water system" was simply a fantasy.

"I thought such whimsical ideas only came from the bookworms of the Physics Academy. What are you Element Academy students doing with all these experiments... Never mind, you just need a sturdy water tank, right? You don't necessarily need a boiler. Boilers are very precious, and there's no substitute." The teacher fanned himself with a palm leaf fan, smiling at the few dusty little beauties. "Come with me."

Passing through the boiler room, we arrived at the back kitchen of the children's palace. The teacher pushed open the door and walked a few steps into the depths of the room, where there was a warehouse storing old objects.

Rows of ancient bronze tripods are placed here. Each tripod is very large; you could easily throw a sheep or half a cow into one and boil it. Judging from their age, they are antiques, and are estimated to have been here for at least one or two hundred years.

Looking at the bronze cauldron, the teacher's eyes revealed a nostalgic look. "These old objects aren't worth much. Two hundred years old isn't considered an antique in Liyue, and there are too many of them, they're too big. These things were originally used by me when I was in charge of the previous generation's kitchen to stew meat and make soup. But now everyone knows that stir-frying has become popular, and the days of 'eating in a grand cauldron' are over. This old thing, the cauldron, doesn't have much room for development, so we might as well make use of it."

"A life of luxury and extravagance?" Shen Liang looked at his teacher's retreating figure. "And you are?"

Cooking with cauldrons declined in Liyue two hundred years ago. If this teacher was still using cauldrons when he was in charge of the kitchen, then he must be quite old...

"I'm just a wandering immortal, invited back to the Ji Palace for a few years of leisure. Princess, please don't worry about me." The teacher, who clearly looked like an immortal, laughed. "How about this cauldron? Why don't you take it and give it a try?"

Shen Liang stepped forward, touched the bronze cauldron, and nodded slightly.

The ding (a type of ancient Chinese cooking vessel) is a full three centimeters thick, making it even more sturdy than a boiler. However, it was probably because it was too sturdy and heavy that it was abandoned by the times.

"Shave off the legs, then the handles, leaving only the square vessel. Then glue the two vessels together and melt them down," Shen Liang ordered. "Rosalyn, is your heat high enough?"

Remelting the bronze cauldron into a water tower was a physically demanding task. Rosalin gritted her teeth and watched as Shen Liang and the general flattened and pieced the cauldron together. She took a deep breath and released the flames.

"Interesting." Seeing what they were doing, Minghai Qixia Zhenjun couldn't help but ask curiously, "Tap water... tap water... if the rivers flow against me, I will command the water to flow on its own. What a domineering meaning, what a domineering style. I'd like to see how you make the water flow on its own."

Chapter 48 So even a little girl can bully Liang'er

Two bronze cauldrons, each with a volume of about three cubic meters, were fused together. Rosalyn gritted her teeth, but the flame temperature was still not high enough.

Just as Shen Liang was about to make a small move, using "Eternity" to compress and concentrate the temperature of Rosalin's flames, True Monarch Minghai Qixia calmly reached out and remotely infused Rosalin with immortal power. The originally bright red flames instantly turned yellowish-white, and the high temperature made Shen Liang instinctively retreat.

The temperature of a smelting flame can be seen from its color. Normally, when smelting metal, the flame is golden white, which means that the temperature has exceeded 1400 degrees Celsius. This temperature is easy to use for melting copper. Incidentally, the copper tripod, which had not been used for many years and had grown moss, was also sterilized and cleaned.

The two cauldrons were melted into a square iron kettle. After leaving a pipe opening, Shen Liang had the general carry the two cauldron kettles and leap to the construction site. Teacher Minghai seemed very curious and followed them to the construction site.

It was already dark. They had started work at 6 PM, but it was now 8 PM. Shen Liang's claim of finishing in "an hour or so" seemed a bit overconfident.

That's normal. Back in the castle tower, he had several powerful demons, even his mother and master, helping him with his ingenious ideas, but here he can only rely on his sisters.

In some ways, the younger sisters are quite useless.

The general and the divine child glanced at him simultaneously, and Shen Liang quickly suppressed the fleeting thought that crossed his mind.

"Water flows downhill. With a water tower, we can use tap water anytime." Shen Liang watched as the general placed the double iron kettles on the water tower and then built a bamboo tube all the way to Shen Liang and Rosalin's balcony kitchen.

The general had experience with lowbrow films, and she had worked on these kinds of films before, so she picked it up quickly.

The joints of the bamboo tubes were sealed with resin and then fixed with cement. A fire would easily seal them and prevent leaks. As for the adapters... they could be easily shaped by hand. After shaping, the leaks were repaired with resin and cement. Every two and a half meters, a support was installed on the bamboo tubes carrying water. In this way, the first "kitchen water pipe" was easily built.

Subsequently, under Shen Liang's instructions, the general took to the air again to install the "toilet water pipes".

It's worth noting that although there was no running water system in this era, household wastewater disposal systems, also known as "sewers," had existed for quite some time. Of course, according to Rosalind, this is a difference between Eastern and Western civilizations.

Eastern civilizations knew the importance of building sewers, especially in cities, from a very early age. Without sewers, the entire city would inevitably reek, and the accumulation of sewage would not only be disgusting but also lead to epidemics. In contrast, Western civilizations such as Mondstadt and Fontaine only began to pay attention to urban sewers a few hundred years ago, and their people had long been accustomed to simply dumping domestic wastewater and even excrement onto the streets.

For example, in Fontaine, a country known for its refined manners, men wear trench coats and peaked caps. This is a very gentlemanly attire, but the traditions behind this gentlemanly style are hard to look at directly. The reason Fontaineese gentlemen dress this way is because they might encounter feces falling on their heads at any time while walking on the street. The peaked caps are to protect them from sewage, and the trench coats are to cover the ladies from any unsightly filth.

Oh, by the way, this is also why the gentlemen of Fontainebleau like to carry black umbrellas when they go out, and the ladies like to carry pretty parasols. These things were originally invented not to block the rain, nor to provide shade from the sun.

In short, as long as a tap water system is established, there is no need to worry about building a sewer system yourself.

"But where will your water tower get its water from?" Narumi Qixia Zhenjun watched with great interest as the four little ones busied themselves and finally set up the water pipes, and then asked curiously.

"Of course, we use an electric pump!" Mistelin answered quickly.

But of course, there was no possibility of producing electric pumps here, and Mistelin herself knew that. She had initially hoped that Shen Liang's growth trajectory would resemble that of a farming novel, but Shen Liang didn't seem to have much interest in the idea that science and technology were the primary productive forces... His research into tap water, stockings, and hot pot broth seemed to be nothing more than making his life more comfortable.

Shen Liang wasn't particularly interested in any of the developments beyond that. While Mistelin was willing to teach him about technologies involving many aspects, such as electric water pumps, the little wolfhound might not be interested in listening.

There aren't many people in this world who can make him sit still with his hands on the table and listen to a lecture. In Teyvat, there's Raiden, and in that post-apocalyptic world of the past, there was Lady Aponia.

But in the world he truly loved, there was only...

Mistelin looked at herself in the mirror. The white-haired Shaniat was a stunning beauty, somewhere between a mature woman and a young girl. Even with Shen Liang's deep affection for his mother and his own personal biases, he had to admit that even Raiden paled in comparison… a peerless beauty.

“I envy you so much. You and your children have taken away everything I wanted…” Mistelin whispered to herself.

At this moment, Shen Liang answered with his body temperature.

"A manual water pump will suffice. Just pump it twice a month, seven tons of water each time, and that'll be enough," Shen Liang casually remarked. "The impeller piston can be made of plastic, the pulley system a three-wheel assembly, and the pump a double-acting reciprocating type. When the piston moves to the right, it draws in liquid from the lower left and discharges it from the upper right. Conversely, when the piston moves to the left, it draws in liquid from the lower right and discharges it from the upper left. Each piston movement results in two suction and discharge cycles, ensuring a uniform flow rate and preventing blockages due to water surface tension and air pressure. Of course…"

"Enough, enough, enough! No need to explain anymore. Let's talk about these things with the bookworms at the Gewu Academy. Liang'er, just tell me if this thing is successful or not!" Rosalin covered her ears, looking like she was saying, "I don't want to hear it." Anyway, she installed the water pump indoors according to Shen Liang's needs and set up the pulley system as instructed by him.

Water pumps aren't exactly high-tech; the people of Liyue use them for drilling wells all the time. However, Rosalind couldn't quite understand the blueprints for Shen Liang's double-acting reciprocating water pump, though she didn't need to. It only took the general a few minutes to manually modify a water pump into parts that met Shen Liang's requirements, after which all they had to do was install the pump under the water tower.

With the pulley system saving four times the effort, the double-acting water pump can pull more than one ton of water at a time. The water tank that was previously used for sedimentation is now full of the clear stream. At this time, it only takes seven strokes to fill the water tower.

The water tower has a capacity of seven to eight tons. When everyone returned to the dormitory, they could already hear the "plop plop" sound of water flowing into the bamboo tubes.

Shen Liang installed valves in both the bathroom and the kitchen. Since there was no place to design modern valves yet, Shen Liang simply put a wooden stopper at the faucet and secured it with wire, making it very sturdy.

By this time, three hours had passed, and Shen Liang's stomach was growling with hunger.

Under everyone's expectant gaze, Shen Liang had no interest in any ceremony. He simply pulled out the wooden stopcock, and after a pause of about two seconds, a sudden burst of water gushed out. The excessive water pressure caused by the compressed air from the newly turned-on water was practically spraying wildly. However, after only a few seconds of spraying, the water pressure stabilized and a trickle of water began to flow from the faucet.

At first, some splinters and iron filings that hadn't been cleaned out of the bamboo tubes were washed out, but soon the water flowed out as pure, cool spring water!

Clear water gurgled and washed over the kitchen's stone countertop, eliminating the need to fetch water from the well in the yard or the stream outside. One could simply sit at home and turn on a stopcock. The True Lord of the Sea and Clouds, having traveled to many countries, had never seen such a convenient and wondrous creation… He hadn't even noticed the divine power or magic it employed; the entire process was a technique that any ordinary person could replicate.

Yet, this seemingly ordinary skill has created a life that only demons, gods, and immortals can enjoy. What kind of courage and spirit does this require? If it were based on the power of a god, His Highness Inazuma wouldn't be so surprised, but to rely solely on the power of "humans"... the human world is in my hands, not in the heavens.

"Very good, now you can start cooking." Shen Liang finally looked at her masterpiece with satisfaction. "Is there anything else, teacher? Shall we have dinner together?"