Humans Shrunk 100 Times

Chapter 158: The Bathroom

After a whole day of heavy work, the favorite thing for everyone at Qi Ming is to soak in the newly completed bathtub and wash away the sweat and fatigue of the day.

Since the bathroom was built, it has become the most popular place.

After nearly two months of living like savages, they finally achieved the freedom to take a bath.

The rain in June has been abundant, so the water tank has been almost constantly full. At present, the entire water supply system is running very smoothly, and Chen Mu is even considering whether to add another water tank.

After clearing away the two cardboard boxes, the room looks more spacious, with plenty of space.

When he first started this project, his abilities weren't as strong. If it were now, a water tank of this size would probably only take a few minutes to complete.

However, it seems unnecessary to increase the water tank's capacity in the summer. Dong Junwei and the others feel that they should wait until September to decide.

Chen Mu immersed himself in the large bathtub, with the cool water covering most of his body, leaving only his head resting on the edge of the metal tub.

The stainless steel bathtub felt even cooler to the touch. Fortunately, it was summer, and Chen Mu wished the water were even colder.

Dong Junwei and the other girls were more particular about it. Before each bath, they would have the squad leader personally heat up the entire bathtub.

Because they gave up the option of a shower, they temporarily didn't install the previously considered metal coil and instead had Dong Junwei directly heat the bathtub.

The stainless steel bathtub was heated to a suitable temperature for the human body, and after adding water, they could enjoy the pleasure of a hot bath.

The bathroom was divided into two sections, one for men and one for women.

Each section had ten bathtubs.

This ensured that each person had their own dedicated bathtub, just like the stalls in the toilet.

The reason for this luxury was not only for hygiene but also because building bathtubs was not that difficult, and Chen Mu, in a bit of capriciousness, ended up making a few extras.

Of course, hygiene was also a significant factor.

Although they were called bathtubs, they were actually more like water tanks, and the biggest drawback was the lack of drainage.

According to the current size of the bathtub, even if a drainage outlet is designed, water cannot naturally flow out from such a small pipe.

The main issue is that with such a small amount of water, if one takes a longer bath, it quickly evaporates, and you have to keep replenishing the water.

Following Tang Jing's design, a main water pipe with a diameter of 10mm is introduced into the bathroom, laid overhead on the ceiling, and then 20 branch pipes are suspended down. These branch pipes have a conical shape, with a terminal diameter of 2mm, and are equipped with screw caps.

At first, Chen Mu tried to create valves, like the principle of a water tap, but eventually found that, apart from the requirement for precision being somewhat high, controlling a water tap was even more challenging than simply installing a screw cap.

This water supply system is still somewhat primitive, but compared to before, it already represents a distinction between savagery and civilization.

Of course, the bathing experience now is quite different from before as well.

When filling the bathtub with water, there is no flow; instead, water drips out from tiny openings, drop by drop, each drop larger than half of their bodies.

With just three or four drops, the entire bathtub can be filled, leaving some water to spare.

Bathing is also regulated, and people cannot go together.

According to Tang Jing's devised bathroom management rules, each time for bathing, only a maximum of one-third of the people can go, which means bathing is divided into three batches, with a maximum of three boys and three girls in each batch.

The purpose of doing this, of course, is to prevent everyone from bathing at the same time, resulting in an emergency outside.

However, the bathing time for girls is much longer than for boys.

By the time the third batch of boys has already put on their clothes, He Ying, Dong Junwei, and the first batch of girls haven't finished bathing yet.

...

After solving the bathing issue, another significant problem becomes apparent.

For two whole months, everyone has been wearing their original clothes.

Most of them wear short-sleeved tops, some wear long pants, and others wear shorts.

But regardless of what they wear, their clothes have already become incredibly dirty.

Thankfully, with the bathroom, the problem of washing clothes is somewhat resolved, barely.

While taking a bath, they would also rub and wring their clothes and pants. Due to the small volume of the bathroom, the water evaporated quickly. Even if their clothes were still a bit damp after bathing, walking around for a while would usually dry them.

Because everyone had experienced living away from home, except for a few like Zhu Hao, who could save up their clothes for a week and bring them back home for their moms to wash, the rest didn't have much of an issue in this regard.

However, there was no laundry detergent, so they couldn't clean the grease and other stains. They could only rinse the clothes with water, but at least the clothes smelled much better than before due to reduced sweat odor.

Even so, unexpected problems still occurred from time to time.

For example, when Wei Dalei was wringing his clothes, he accidentally applied too much force and tore his T-shirt.

In the end, it was Dong Junwei who had Chen Mu make an embroidery needle and draw cotton from cotton threads to repair it. However, it seemed that the squad leader had never done such a thing before, as the mending left a huge scar on the clothing, giving it a somewhat unconventional look.

Old Wei didn't mind it, though; in this kind of weather, he preferred going around bare-chested.

However, Chen Mu and the others saw the problem.

Although they had solved the washing problem, the lifespan of the clothes was still limited. Especially since they wore the same clothes every day, the wear and tear were obviously faster.

In a few more months, everyone's clothes would become ragged, almost resembling those of beggars.

Because Chen Mu's abilities couldn't do much with fabric, the idea of making new clothes was currently just wishful thinking.

Of course, it wasn't entirely hopeless.

Pulling cotton threads from towels and then knitting clothes in a similar way to knitting sweaters wouldn't be too difficult in theory.

But the problem was that out of the seventeen people present, including Tang Jing, none of them knew how to knit with needles. To be precise, Tang Jing, the top student, understood the steps and various knitting methods, but her hands-on ability was limited, and she had never actually knitted, so she couldn't even get started.

Even if they managed to knit something, the end result would be as rough as a sweater. While that might be acceptable for regular clothes, it would be too irritating for undergarments made of yarn.

Regarding this issue, Dong Junwei's suggestion was that Tang Jing should teach everyone how to knit sweaters. Given a few months, they could probably produce several pieces of clothing.

Though not pressing at the moment, it was evident that if they waited until the weather turned cold, it would be too late.

For now, it seemed like this was the only feasible solution.

Therefore, several boys, including Chang Junyan, raised their hands to show they were willing to learn.

However, when everyone's eyes turned to Tang Jing, the class monitor seemed to disagree with this plan.

Because she had her own idea.

It had to be said that Tang Jing's way of thinking was entirely different from that of a normal person; her thought process was extraordinarily wild. With just one sentence, she silenced everyone:

"I think it might be better to directly build a loom."

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