Chapter 46: Exterminate

  Lan stood outside the gate watching the construction site. There were twenty or thirty workers, busy and sweating profusely, with smoke and dust rising everywhere, a chaotic scene.

  Middle-aged people want to go in, "I let them stop work, don't let female teachers absorb evil spirits."

  Lan Sheng persuaded him to wait outside instead, "I'm not afraid of them, but you should be careful. Wait until I've taken a look."

  The father and son both believed Lan Sheng's words at this time, nodded hastily, and waited outside the construction site.

  Lan Sheng walked into the construction site, most people curiously looked at her, but only one person came forward.

  That man had a stout build and a red face, not handsome but with an imposing air. He saw the host family early on, and the host's son and three others peeked out from beside the door to talk to Lan Sheng in an unfriendly manner. "I've already made it very clear that my brothers and I are not sick or disabled, and the people in this house getting sick has nothing to do with us. We may be poor but we have dignity, if you want to drive us away, you need to have evidence, just listening to a few swindlers' words and saying we're in the wrong, I don't accept that."

  That man finished speaking, but saw that Lan Sheng hadn't listened at all. A pair of bright and beautiful phoenix eyes shone brightly as he looked at the main house in front of him. He suddenly felt belittled, and the fire in his heart burned fiercely.

  "You're a woman and you dare to lecture me? I won't be able to work in this line anymore. Get out!"

  "Are you a master craftsman?" Lan Sheng didn't notice the other's bad attitude at all, and his excitement was overflowing.

  The fellow isn't a bad man, he has his questions and answers. "Not enough? Building a few more rooms will still require the services of a craftsman, won't it? I'm a carpenter, also the leader of this group, whatever you have to say just tell me."

  "How do you usually receive orders? How's the business? How long will it take to complete a courtyard like this one? Is the material included or does the homeowner buy it separately?" The words were coming out rapid-fire.

  "Regular customers introduce, or go to the east city to wait for customers to come and find us, or big bosses package these people. The largest business is all official workshops, medium-sized businesses are large merchants, we don't even count as business, just small jobs. The master says what to build, it's just cheap and fast. A few rooms, two or three months can't be delivered on time, no money can be earned. Materials..." The voice stopped abruptly, realizing he had said too much, immediately put on a fierce face, "What do you ask these for? Want to cut off my financial road?"

  It wasn't a wasted trip after all. Lan Sheng was frustrated with her half-baked identity as a young lady, unable to learn about the industry that interested her the most. She had to run on-site inspections, and just a few sentences would get her familiar with the framework. Although she knew asking more questions wouldn't reveal anything new about this line of work, she still didn't care about Hanzi's fierce face and went to take a look around the construction site.

  The man wants to intercept.

  Lan Sheng said, "If you're not guilty in your heart, what's wrong with letting me take a look? The disease was born after the start of work, and it's not just one case. It may not be related to you, but it can't be separated from this project. Find the cause as soon as possible, and resolve the knot with the employer as soon as possible. Facing people who want to drive you away every day, you can't even do your job carefully. If you hand over a low-quality house, that's cutting off your own financial resources." She didn't think she was related to these workers either.

  The man looked at Lan Sheng for a while and had to admit that she was right. He muttered, "Whatever."

  After about three quarters of an hour, Lan Sheng was staring at the broken wall in a daze when a ball rolled out from under his eyelids, and he covered his face with his sleeve, lowering his head as if he were stealing something.

  "Are you still following me?" She thought Nan Yue Ling was with the host family, but the words were spoken in a tone that was hard to discern, hmm...

  "I've been following you, but I really can't take it anymore." Nan Yue Ling looked around nervously, afraid of being overheard. "If you want to be a swindler, don't drag me down with you. And when pretending to be mysterious, there's a limit too. Just take a casual glance and hurry up and leave, don't make such a big deal out of it like some kind of immortal goddess. What's so special about these broken bricks that you're staring at them? Do you want me to dig them up with a hoe and see if any evil spirits fly out?"

  Lan's eyebrows furrowed, "Alright, both of us from the Nan Yue family can see that this spot has bad energy. If we don't dig it up, when will we? You go borrow a hoe."

  "Shh——shh——" didn't I tell her to keep a low profile? She might as well shout it out loud for the whole world to know. If Nan Yue Ling had a third hand, she would definitely pull her own hair out.

  "What's wrong with you?" She was very serious and had to dig it out.

  Nan Yue turned away and left, determined not to say another word to her.

  Lan Sheng still brought a hoe and asked the worker, "Hasn't construction started here yet? What was originally built here?"

  The man was about to go crazy, huffing and puffing, "Just piled up a few broken bricks, nothing else. Lady, are you done yet?" If it weren't for his brothers waiting for money to support their families, he wouldn't be serving her.

  "If I dig three or two feet, I won't bother you." Lan Sheng always had a good attitude and would smile when asking for help.

  The fellow had no method, and invited a worker to come. After digging two or three zhang of a deep pit, there was nothing, just as he was about to get angry and interrogate again, but heard a gurgling sound, from the mud came out a pool of smelly black water, and it couldn't stop surging up, scaring him and the worker to hastily climb up.

  The smell quickly spread throughout the courtyard, summoning the master and his son, who covered their noses and asked what was going on.

  "This was originally a thatched hut. When the house was first demolished, the person who did it was lazy and just covered up the toilet pit without properly disposing of it, leaving behind a pool of filth. Over time, harmful gases accumulated. Now with the construction going on, probably the ground beneath is unstable too, so it's all coming out now. The smell isn't strong, and nobody on the construction site seems to care." As she had expected, no matter how you looked at the remaining ruins, they were only as big as a thatched hut.

  Now, the foreman also looked at Lan Sheng with new eyes. After all, it's hard to meet a master, and when you do, you gain insight. "Then why don't I and my brothers get sick?"

  "This air is not good, you are strong and healthy, working on the construction site for many years, can already withstand all kinds of strange smells, but the young lady of the house is delicate, it seems that her sense of smell is still sensitive." If it weren't for the gust of wind just now, she wouldn't have been able to find it.

  "That's right, my wife's exceptional culinary skills all rely on her keen sense of smell." The young master of the house was overjoyed, having found the cause of the problem.

  "So, as long as we keep the sick person away from here and have someone clean up the filth, that's all." Covering his nose, the master of the house also felt relieved.

  Lan nodded and said, "After cleaning up, we can't build a house on it immediately. At least we have to leave it empty for three to five months until the smell is gone."

  "Building a thatched hut is it." The foreman thought it was a good suggestion.

  Lan Sheng said it was impossible.

  The master of the house is now obedient to his words and has complete faith in Lan Sheng, asking him why.

  "I just walked in with you and found that the central corridor of this house is prone to wind, and the wind can quickly spread throughout the house." Nanyue Fu said, "This house, its layout leaves me speechless. For now, I don't want to discuss it in detail, but just briefly mention that if this outhouse is still in its original position, although construction may be convenient, it's located at the beginning of the central axis, before the wind position. Originally there was a wall blocking it, but now it's been opened up, and the wind carries harmful air everywhere, do you think it's good or not?"

  "It's naturally unbearable." Who would want to smell the stench of a toilet all day? The master immediately ordered the foreman to find someone to clean up the manure pit.

  The workman asked, "Excuse me, Miss, where should we build the latrine?"