SWDnovel Chapter 128 Renting a Small Courtyard in the Forest Farm
Chapter 128 Renting a Small Courtyard in the Forest Farm
Lin Yuefeng twitched the corner of his mouth. He was quite handsome in his youth, and now he could be considered a handsome middle-aged man, only his skin was tanned dark from fishing.
The car got on the highway and headed towards Luzhou. Su Peixue leaned back in the passenger seat, holding the bag of oranges that Xu Wanru had given her on her lap. She peeled one, broke it in half, ate one half herself, and offered the other half to Lin Ran.
On his first day back in Luzhou, Lin Ran didn't go back to school; instead, he drove directly to a forest farm forty kilometers outside the city. He had chosen this place online before the Lunar New Year.
The forest farm is located on the edge of the mountainous area west of Luzhou, with a gentle slope, surrounded by mountains on three sides and facing south on the other, receiving plenty of sunshine. There is an old brick and tile house in the courtyard, with three main rooms and a kitchen. Water and electricity are available, but the walls are a bit mottled, and the weeds in the yard have grown up to calf height.
Outside the courtyard was a barren, uncultivated land that had been abandoned for several years. Beyond that were the old trees of the forest farm, with pine and oak trees mixed together. When the wind blew, the sound of the pines rolled down from the mountaintop.
The rent was eight thousand a year. Lin Ran signed the contract on the spot and got the keys. He stood in the yard, looking at the weeds and the crooked persimmon tree, already drawing up renovation plans in his mind.
"The construction of the farmhouse can also be filmed as a process video," Lin Ran said, pinching Su Peixue's cheek.
Su Peixue stepped on the weeds in the yard, squatted down and parted the grass, and found a small patch of chives underneath. It was probably planted by a previous resident and left unattended to grow for several years.
She picked a leek, put it in her mouth, chewed it, and said it was edible and sweet.
Lin Ran pulled her out of the bushes and said, "Don't eat random things. You're not a sheep."
The renovation began on the second day. Lin Ran bought a truckload of materials from a building materials store in town: cement, bricks, wood strips, tiles, and a bucket of lime mortar.
First, weeded the yard clean, then turned the soil over with a hoe and picked out the pebbles and broken tiles buried in the soil.
Su Peixue squatted down and pulled out the weeds one by one by the roots. After she finished, she used broken bricks to make a crooked little fence around the small patch of chives.
Lin Ran said you're just leaving it some space, but Su Peixue said the chives are the original inhabitants of the yard and can't be driven away.
After weeding, we started repairing the courtyard wall. The wall was an old brick wall with several gaps, and the mortar in the joints had crumbled; it crumbled easily when broken by hand.
Lin Ran mixed cement and sand in the correct proportions, added water to make mortar, and then re-laid the broken bricks one by one, smoothing out the mortar and compacting the brick joints.
Su Peixue handed him bricks, and he laid one down as she handed him the other, their rhythm perfectly synchronized, as if they had rehearsed it. After finishing the gap, he walked around the courtyard wall, kicked the base of the wall with his foot, and when it didn't budge, he put down the trowel.
Then there's the tiled roof. One of the roof tiles is broken, and the rainwater has soaked the rafters underneath, causing mold to appear.
Lin Ran brought a ladder, climbed up, removed the broken tiles, and replaced them with new ones. The tiles clicked firmly into the groove with a satisfying clang. Su Peixue stood below, holding the ladder, looking up at him. Lin Ran said, "Don't look, or you'll get covered in dust."
Before she could finish speaking, a small piece of broken tile slid down from the roof and landed right on her forehead. She wiped it off and continued holding onto the ladder.
After the roof was repaired, they started painting the walls. The whitewash was a light grayish-green when mixed, and it would turn into a matte warm white after it dried. Lin Ran used a large roller to spread the paint over the large areas, while Su Peixue used a small brush to touch up the corners and window frames.
She painted very meticulously, even cleaning the grout lines under the window tiles. Lin Ran climbed down the ladder and glanced at the corner of the wall she had painted, saying, "You must be a painter specializing in traditional Chinese fine brushwork." Su Peixue held up the brush, a little white paint on the tip of her nose, and said, "It looks good this way."
After painting the walls, they started paving the yard. Lin Ran brought back a truckload of broken bluestone slabs from town and laid them out in irregular shapes on the dirt road in the yard. He filled the gaps between the slabs with fine sand, making it stable to walk on without accumulating water.
Su Peixue scattered a handful of grass seeds in the cracks of the stone slabs, saying that grass would grow in the spring. Lin Ran asked, "Are you sure it's grass and not wild wheat?" Su Peixue replied, "I'm sure. I learned it from my grandmother in Dehang."
The crooked persimmon tree in the yard had its dead branches pruned, the soil around its roots loosened, and it was watered.
Su Peixue dug up a wild osmanthus sapling from the edge of the forest and planted it next to the persimmon tree, saying that one would bear fruit and the other would bloom. Lin Ran said that it would take several years for the osmanthus tree to grow.
Su Peixue said that's perfect, we'll graduate when it blooms.
The kitchen was the last place to be cleaned. The stove was an old-fashioned earthen stove, and the firebox was filled with a thick layer of ash.
Lin Ran cleaned the ashes, re-plastered the inside of the stove with fresh mud, put the iron pot on it to test the fire, and the pine firewood burned in the stove, the flames licked the bottom of the pot, and smoke rose from the chimney, and the temperature in the kitchen slowly rose.
Su Peixue stood in front of the stove, tested the temperature of the pot with her hand, and said that this stove was better than the one in Guishu Village. Lin Ran asked how she knew, and she replied that she just knew.
On the evening after everything was finished, the two sat under the persimmon tree in the yard. Su Peixue straightened the crooked little fence and said that the chives had grown.
Indeed, they had sprouted; a few tender green leaves had emerged from the turned-over soil in that small patch of chives. The new and old bricks on the courtyard wall were not yet the same color, the grass seeds in the cracks of the bluestone slabs had not yet germinated, the osmanthus saplings were only as thick as a finger, and the persimmon trees had not yet sprouted new buds.
When the sun shines down, the whole courtyard is quietly illuminated.
The wind blew, and the sound of the pine trees rolled down from the mountaintop. It was blocked by the courtyard wall outside the courtyard and weakened. When it blew to the persimmon tree, there was only a very light breeze, which blew the stray hairs on her forehead up and down.
She said it seemed like we could start filming here. Lin Ran leaned against the persimmon tree trunk and said, "Yes, we'll start filming when spring comes."
The making of many pieces of furniture can also be filmed as videos.
early morning.
The morning light filtered through the bamboo leaves in the bamboo grove beside the courtyard, scattering into patches of light on the ground. It wasn't the kind of harsh, direct light, but light that had been cut and sifted by countless bamboo leaves, falling on the muddy ground like a handful of scattered gold.
The bamboo leaves rustled in the wind, the sound not loud but dense, like countless pieces of fine sandpaper gently rubbing together. Several birds called out from deep within the bamboo forest, their calls muffled by the bamboo leaves, becoming indistinct by the time they reached our ears.
Su Peixue walked out of the courtyard, holding a machete in her hand. The machete was bought by Lin Ran from the blacksmith shop in town. It had a thick blade, a shiny edge, and the wooden handle still smelled of machine oil from the blacksmith's hands.
She walked to the front of the bamboo grove and stopped, not rushing to do anything. The bamboo in the grove was densely packed together.