Chapter 546, Heating

Translator: Silavin

 

Twenty minutes later, everyone’s faces were covered with a thin layer of crushed petal mush and they all sat on stools, looking up at the ceiling with their heads tilted back.

 

“Shaman, how long before we can wash our faces?” Yan Hua mumbled, her voice quite muffled, probably due to her face being covered with petal mush.

 

“Just ten or so minutes will do. When it’s time to wash, I’ll call you,” Su Bai said.

 

“Alright.” The girls replied again with muffled voices.

 

Su Bai then walked to the side and sat down, taking out paper and pen to continue arranging the tasks that needed to be done next.

 

A different idea had suddenly occurred to him, so he wanted to quickly present this idea.

 

*Swish swish swish…* The quill pen continuously made rustling sounds as it touched the paper, which seemed particularly loud in the quiet snowy day.

 

Yan Hua glanced over sideways and asked curiously, “Shaman, what are you doing? Do you need our help?”

 

Yan Hua had nothing else to do, so her hearing, being quite sharp, naturally picked up on Su Bai’s writing sounds.

 

“You should focus on your face masks first. When I need your help later, I’ll call you,” Su Bai said.

 

He really did not know what to do with her. She was simply too restless, seemingly unable to stop moving at any time.

 

“Alright.” Yan Hua twisted her stiff neck back to its original position, not daring to make large movements for fear that the face mask would fall off.

 

Su Bai looked up at the girls, then lowered his head to continue writing his ideas.

 

He looked at the paper and muttered to himself, “First, we need to change the temperature here, otherwise it’s too cold.”

 

Although the Yong’an Building was a cement house that could block the cold wind from outside, the temperature inside was roughly the same as outside.

 

At most, the burning fire pit would give people a slightly warm feeling, but it was merely scratching the surface.

 

The drawing on the paper was the exterior of Yong’an Building, along with the internal structural diagram, followed by some rather faint lines. These lines were all distributed on the walls inside the Yong’an Building.

 

Actually, these faint lines represented pipes, but they were not drawn very prominently.

 

These pipes were not very thick, roughly the size of a wrist, but they were distributed quite evenly. All the rooms, large and small, had them, from the first floor to the fourth floor.

 

Moreover, these pipes were not only in the rooms. The living room outside and the kitchen also had them, as did Co Co’s laboratory.

 

These faint lines all entered from one corner of the room, then ran along the base of the wall.

 

They then passed through to the next room and only connected with vertical pipes at the end. The edges of the pipes would also have a row of wooden guardrails to separate them, precisely to prevent people from touching these pipes.

 

All these pipes ultimately converged in the open space behind the Yong’an Building. A separate housing was drawn in that location, right next to the water heater’s storage tank. All the pipes would end up in that ‘house’.

 

Then, inside this house was an enormous box. Its lower half was completely empty, with nothing at all, while the top had a massive smoke outlet, very similar to chimneys on houses back on Earth.

 

Furthermore, this box was connected to many pipes, and these pipes were connected to the storage tank, as if to allow water to continuously flow into this large box.

 

After Yan Hua finished washing her face, she walked over and saw the drawing, asking. “Shaman, why have you drawn the Yong’an Building?”

 

She could not wait any longer. Without waiting the full fifteen to twenty minutes, she ran off to wash her face, then quietly walked over.

 

“You can try to guess. Yu Ying guessed correctly once before, so this time it’s your turn.” Su Bai said.

 

He had prepared for several days to draw this out, and had already arranged for people to make the required materials in advance. As long as he completed the blueprint and figured out some principles, this plan could begin implementation.

 

Yan Hua had completely brought her eyes close, looking very seriously, even holding the paper high up towards the ceiling.

 

She frowned and shook her head, saying, “Shaman, I don’t have a clue. What is this for?”

 

Yu Ying had also just finished washing her face and walked over. After taking the blueprint, she began to examine it as well.

 

She also looked carefully for a long time, then guessed, “Shaman, how is this so similar to bathing?”

 

“This design uses principles very similar to bathing, but this isn’t about bathing.” Su Bai said softly.

 

He had been thinking about this design for quite a long time, ever since the snow season arrived and the weather became very cold.

 

However, because there were very few usable materials available, and he needed to prepare to collect materials and research, quite a lot of time was wasted.

 

“Shaman, I can’t guess either.” Yu Ying shook her head disappointedly.

 

She had racked her brains but could not figure out what these things were, because it could not be bathing equipment again, and the overall design was quite different too.

 

“This will be very useful during the snow season, and can make the entire room warm up,” Su Bai explained simply.

 

Yan Hua opened her red eyes wide in disbelief, asking in shock, “Shaman, this can make the entire room warm?”

 

“Is it for hot water to flow through?” Yu Ying asked innocently.

 

“Ha ha ha ha… Not that.” Su Bai said cheerfully, then explained, “This is to boil hot water in the boiler inside this small house, and then that very hot steam will flow into the rooms through the pipes.”

 

Su Bai picked up a cup of hot water, took a sip, and continued explaining, “Finally, through these small radiators, it will raise the temperature inside the rooms. As long as we close all the doors and windows properly, the entire Yong’an Building will become warm.”

 

As he explained, he pointed to the patterns on the blueprint, explaining to the girls the purpose of each pattern.

 

“I see. But we can also use fire pits to make the room temperature higher,” Yan Hua said, puzzled.

 

She felt that the currently burning fire pit in the middle could also raise the temperature, so why go through such trouble?

 

“If we use fire pits, we’d need to use wood, and after wood burns it produces charcoal. Then burning charcoal produces carbon monoxide, which is poisonous and could threaten our lives.” Su Bai explained seriously.

 

“Carbon monoxide? Poisoning?” Although Yan Hua had not heard of carbon monoxide, she knew that poisoning was no small matter, and said in surprise, “Then that is certainly very unsafe.”