After dinner, Han Songlin went to find Han Songcai and asked him to go with him to the county town to find a shop. Han Songcai readily agreed.
He knew where to find things like cement and river sand.
It was also quite convenient to buy them.
As for timber, there was a timber store by the town, and the owner readily agreed to supply a few logs.
Then came the purchase of the necessary tools, such as a spade and bricklayer's trowel.
And bricks!
It was really quite troublesome in those days before the telephone.
Not far from the town was a brick factory, which was apparently moved in the future.
A lot of bricks were brought from the brick factory.
Just preparing the materials for the renovation took almost a week.
Then, it was time to get started!
First, the toilet was built, the floor was raised, and a squat toilet was installed.
Why not install a Western-style toilet?
Sorry, but such high-end items were hard to find in the county seat in 1992; besides, Han Songlin was not used to using that kind of thing and felt like he couldn't get it to work.
Above the toilet was the bed, so a prefabricated slab with an inner steel plate had to be made for the top.
The prefabricated board was made by myself, it was very simple, just pour the cement into the mould I made.
Leave it for two days and it will set.
As for the pillars on the second floor, I used bricks to build four columns directly, the same height as the toilet.
Then I added wood, which was cypress wood. This kind of wood has many advantages, one being that it is hard and will not deform easily after drying.
Another very important feature is that it does not attract insects.
In Han Songlin's hometown, basically all the beams in the houses are made of cypress, and they don't need any treatment. They last for decades without rotting.
After 20 or 30 years, they are still yellowish-white after being dusted.
To make it easier to go upstairs, a ladder made of bricks was built.
Then, a partition wall was built along the edge of the ladder!
Naturally, the wall was plastered, needless to say.
In fact, the entire wall was re-plastered.
The previous wall was not plastered very evenly.
It didn't look good.
After that, he started working on the outside.
For the pork stall, Han Songlin didn't plan to put it outside the door.
Instead, he put it inside the door.
First, he built a 7-shaped platform at a right angle.
He first prefabricated the entire slab.
Han Songlin knew exactly how to do it, and he even drew a strict construction sketch.
For the prefabricated slab, in order to ensure the quality, steel bars were added inside.
Han Songlin didn't want to think about the day when the stall collapsed.
The top of the stall had to be kept clean and attractive, so it definitely had to be tiled, and it had to be white tiles.
The biggest tiles available on the market were used.
Where the partition wall was, there would be the area for the preserved meat and the area for cleaning the meat. So, a large sink had to be built.
Naturally, the sink also had to be tiled.
As for how to drain the water, Han Songlin specially got a relatively large plastic pipe to drain directly into the sewer.
Because he was worried about the sewer smell coming back up, he also installed a U-shaped pipe under the sink.
Of course, this definitely cannot drain large particles, which can easily block the pipes, so at the opening, Han Songlin also installed a strainer.
After busy working on the decoration of the entire shop, it was already June.
Naturally, the weather was also beginning to get hotter.
With the installation of the dust-proof shelf above the stall, it was finally all set.
The shelf, made of wood, was specially ordered by Han Songlin.
It was also installed with transparent glass.
Of course, small windows were also installed, so that customers could not be prevented from buying things.
Overall, Han Songlin was quite satisfied with the look.
It had the feel of a modern lu rou guo (a type of Chinese restaurant).
The bright window panes give a feeling of hygiene.
Selling food, you have to give people the impression that what you sell is hygienic.
Otherwise, you will lose a lot of customers.
Now that the renovation is complete, it is time to officially open for business.
'Han, your shop looks great!'
Zhang Qifa looks at Han Songlin's shop and really doesn't know what to say.
Compared to his shop, the other shops on the street all look a bit low-key.
Han Songlin: 'Brother Zhang, you're joking!'
'When are you opening?'
Han Songlin: 'In a couple of days, once I've made the sign, I'll be ready to open!'
The sign is of course for Han's marinated food!
The letters are made of wood and painted red and yellow.
Han Songlin also found some LED lights and put them on top.
At night, the effect should be quite good.
After the shop is decorated, it is time to prepare for the opening, right?
Han Songlin is also actively preparing.
The first thing to do is to ask Liu Yuyan to go to the city with him.
As long as they go to the city, they can buy new quilts, sheets and everything else.
Liu Yuyan complains about Han Songlin's waste of money, but Han Songlin also has a good reason.
This is the beginning of a new life, so of course you have to say goodbye to the past.
From now on, they will be city people!
In fact, Han Songlin didn't care whether they were city or country people; don't look at the present, urban household registration is very popular. But in the future, rural household registration will be popular. In some places, it is not possible to transfer to a rural household registration.
If you want to transfer your household registration to the countryside, you must have the consent of all the members of the community.
Not just verbally, but also with the signature of each household.
The most important thing now is that Han Songlin wants to leave his previous environment, wants to say goodbye to the past once and for all, and start a new life.
Therefore, Han Songlin is the one who does not want Liu Yuyan to bring things from home to the city.
Don't want any.
Although Liu Yuyan doesn't understand why Han Songlin is like this, Han Songlin's reasons have convinced her.
Indeed, going to the city is starting a new life.
Moving to the city naturally does not mean that people can just move in. The purchase of various things takes up a lot of time.
And then there is the preparation for opening the shop.
Previously, Han Songlin went to the slaughterhouse in County H to make contact.
They would provide the meat.
Mainly pork head meat, pig ears, pig tails, pig feet, and fatty intestines and other things.
There is a lot of hair on these that has not been cleaned, so Han Songlin directly uses rosin to remove the hair.
In later generations, the use of rosin for dehairing was not allowed, so we often bought a lot of preserved meat with a lot of hair on it.
Nowadays, no one cares about this.
Han Songlin didn't want to do it this way either, but there was no other way. Using a hair remover to pluck the hair one by one would have been too time-consuming.
And if you don't get the hair off, you can't sell it.
The first day of business was very low-key.
There were two large briquette stoves, and only one was in use.
In addition to the two large coal briquettes stoves, there are also two small stoves.
To be honest, if this is the daily consumption of coal briquettes, it is estimated that in the future, there will have to be ten to twenty of them.
Hopefully, there will come a time when that happens.
Han Songlin was confident in the taste of his braised pork, even though it had been improved countless times.
Compared to the current braised pork, the taste was indeed much better.
If the taste had been bad, no one would have been able to say that he had made such a large fortune back then.