My dad's marriage into my family made me rich, and my fierce yet adorable older sister spoils m

As soon as Lin Chuan said this, the people around him burst into laughter!

"That's right, Miao Meili! That couple is doing just fine, why are you, a widow, meddling in their business!"

"You say you're feeding others with refined grains? You don't even have enough food for yourself!"

"However, I must say, people who have truly received an education speak with such finesse, much more insightful than Miao Meili."

"Yeah, she usually looks down on other people, but now it seems she's just like everyone else."

Miao Meili was publicly rejected by Lin Hai and then ridiculed by Lin Chuan and the villagers. She felt as if she had been slapped a dozen times, and her face was burning with pain!

She clenched her fists, bit her lip hard, glared fiercely at Guan Hongying, then covered her face and burst into tears, pushing through the crowd and fleeing in panic.

"Brother Tiezhu, what are you standing there for? Hurry up and unload the bricks into the yard! Stay for lunch, and your sister-in-law will cut you two pounds of fatty pork to go with your drinks!" Guan Hongying waved heartily at the tractor driver.

"Alright then~ Sister-in-law Guan is the most generous~"

Upon hearing that there was meat to eat, the driver no longer cared whether his cousin had been wronged and stepped on the gas, driving the tractor directly into the yard.

The crowd dispersed, and then all that could be seen was a red brick mountain slowly rising in the courtyard.

Guan Hongying turned her head and looked at Lin Hai beside her, her eyes almost overflowing with emotion and affection.

The moment Lin Hai stood in front of her and protected her in front of the whole village, Guan Hongying felt that her thirty-odd years of life had not been in vain!

She hadn't spoiled this man for nothing; she had truly loved him to the core.

"Brother Lin..." Guan Hongying looked around, then, taking advantage of the children's curiosity surrounding the red bricks, she secretly leaned close to Lin Hai's ear and whispered with a blush, "The way you protected me just now was so handsome~ Tonight, I'll wash your feet again."

Upon hearing this, Lin Hai blushed, but the corners of his mouth couldn't help but curve upwards uncontrollably.

He replied in a low voice, "Cough... the water could be a little warmer..."

The girls over there looked at the red brick mountain in front of them with curiosity, and after they finished looking at it, they also turned their attention to Lin Chuan.

"Little Chuan, if I learn to read and go to school in the future, will I be able to speak as fluently as you?"

Guan Daya looked at Lin Chuan with anticipation, her eyes filled with admiration.

Upon hearing this, the other maids also looked over.

After all, they had just witnessed how eloquent Lin Hai and Lin Chuan were.

Lin Chuan nodded. "Of course. Think about it. If you were to retaliate now, you'd just be using the same few phrases over and over. But once you've read books, it's different. Even swearing becomes something new."

Upon hearing this, Guan Siya's eyes lit up.

"How long will it take me to reach that stage?"

"Oh dear, Fourth Sister, if you're this smart, I feel like once you learn to read, you'll be able to read a little bit of books too."

Hearing Lin Chuan's praise, Guan Siya stood with her hands on her hips, her head practically pointing to the sky.

"That's... who am I? I'm Guan Siya!"

Guan Liuya blinked, looked at Lin Chuan with some confusion, and then turned to look at Guan Siya.

"Why do you call her Fourth Sister? She's clearly younger than you."

Upon hearing this, Guan Siya's face immediately lit up with smugness again.

"What do you know, you little brat?"

Guan Liuya narrowed her eyes in dissatisfaction. "No way! Lin Chuan, you have to call me 'sister' too!"

"Oh ho~" Guan Siya raised an eyebrow and looked over. "Oh oh oh, now you know how to copy me. Didn't you call me 'Brother Lin Chuan' so sweetly yesterday?"

"I don't care, I don't care!"

Guan Liuya was furious, so she went up to Lin Chuan, grabbed his arm, and shook it violently.

Lin Chuan chuckled, then reached out and tapped Guan Liuya's head.

"You, you~"

The day after the red bricks were brought into the courtyard, the Guan family compound became completely lively.

Guan Hongying is a decisive person; she gets things done as soon as she says she wants to.

Just as dawn was breaking, she invited the best bricklayer from the surrounding villages to Ali.

Master Pang tapped his pipe, circled the red brick mountain twice, then glanced at Lin Hai, who was standing to the side in a long gown and looked very refined. A shrewd glint flashed in his cloudy eyes.

"Sister Guan, it's true that the bricks in your house are good bricks, but building a big tiled house is a skilled job. I bet your husband is a scholar, so he probably doesn't know anything about these rough and tidy jobs."

As he spoke, he looked the two of them over with his cloudy eyes.

"How about this, I'll take care of the labor and materials, and I'll bring a few apprentices to do the work for you. You just need to pay me fifty yuan, plus a full bowl of white flour steamed buns for lunch every day. How does that sound?"

Fifty yuan!

In an era when a worker's monthly salary was only twenty or thirty yuan, this was absolutely outrageous!

Not to mention, they also had to provide white flour steamed buns every day.

Guan Hongying wasn't stupid; she frowned, about to explode, but Lin Chuan smiled and slowly walked out of the house.

"Master Pang, your price is not low."

Lin Chuan held a tree branch he had snatched from Guan Siya in his hand and walked to the flat open space in the center of the yard.

"Money is not a problem, but there is one thing: our house cannot be built in the old-fashioned style of the village."

Master Pang exhaled a smoke ring, squinted, and looked at the half-grown boy in front of him with some disdain.

"Hey, little brother, you're a city kid, and you know how to build houses? Tell me, how do you want to build one?"

"I want to build a heated kang (a traditional heated platform bed) with a fire wall attached."

As soon as he said this, the five girls standing nearby surrounded him.

Little Qiya walked up to Lin Chuan, blinked, and asked in confusion, "What does 'connected floor to the kang' mean?"

Lin Chuan smiled and rubbed Xiao Qi's head, then drew a structural diagram on the ground as he spoke.

"Winter in the north is cold, and a single heated kang (a traditional heated brick bed) is not enough. I want to build a hollow fire wall between the two bedrooms, connecting it to the kitchen stove. The smoke from cooking will travel along the fire wall and then exit through the chimney. This way, the house will be warm and there will be no waste of firewood."

Master Pang was stunned when he heard this.

He had seen this firewall technique before when he worked in the city, but it required an extremely high level of skill from the bricklayer.

If the chimney is not designed properly, smoke will backflow into the room, which can choke a person to death.

"This... the dimensions and angle of the flue in this firewall are hard to get right... what if it's crooked..."

As Master Pang spoke, he suddenly became somewhat timid.

"There's no need to worry about that."

Lin Hai, who hadn't spoken until now, pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses and slowly walked forward.

He took out a pen and a small notebook from his pocket, glanced at Lin Chuan's sketch, pondered for a moment, and then scribbled down a string of data on the paper.

"Based on the rising hot air... and the thermal conductivity of the red brick... and its area..."