And so, Wang An shouted three times in a row, his voice getting louder each time.
But by the time the third shout ended, Wang Li still looked completely clueless, and Wang An finally ran out of breath.
Mainly, his throat felt scratchy.
To teach Wang Li as quickly as possible, Wang An pulled the vehicle over to the side of the road and shut off the engine.
The reason Wang An wanted to teach Wang Li quickly was partly to give Wang Li another skill, but on the other hand, it was actually because Wang An's laziness had kicked in.
Because driving a crawler tractor, it could be said, offered not even a shred of driving pleasure.
Furthermore, the job of driving a crawler tractor was a double torment of both spirit and flesh for Wang An; as long as he didn't have to drive this thing, he absolutely would not touch it.
Therefore, Wang Li was a very worthy subject for cultivation!
Once Wang An had trained Wang Li, he could simply let go; after all, Wang Li was idle day in and day out anyway.
Besides, Wang Li was still young, and having an extra skill would be beneficial for him.
It must be said that the moment the engine was shut off, Wang An instantly felt that the whole damn world had become quiet.
His ears were still somewhat unadjusted, feeling as if there was a constant buzzing inside them.
Shaking his head, Wang An was about to speak when he heard Wang Li begin to point at the various control switches on the crawler vehicle and explain them to Wang An, just as he had been taught.
Once Wang Li finished, Wang An said with a face full of complaint
"So you already know how to drive it? Go on, start the vehicle, you drive."
Following Wang An's method of starting the vehicle, Wang Li pulled the rope three times in a row before he finally got the crawler vehicle started.
Immediately after, Wang An sat on the stool in the cockpit, taking out a cigarette and popping it in his mouth while watching Wang Li drive.
And so, Wang Li drove the crawler tractor, leisurely making his way home.
As they passed a bend in the road, Wang An had a sudden inspiration. He patted Wang Li on the shoulder and shouted
"Old Fifth, stop the car, I need to take care of something."
Wang Li stepped on the brake and instinctively shouted
"What's wrong, Fourth Brother? Is there something wrong with my driving?"
Wang An didn't answer and continued to shout
"Get out first."
To be honest, Wang An really couldn't shout anymore, so he didn't want to explain things to Wang Li.
Wang Li didn't ask further and stood up with a face full of confusion.
As soon as Wang An sat in the driver's seat, he lowered the large blade at the front of the crawler vehicle, slammed the accelerator all the way to the floor, and pushed straight into the roadside shrubbery.
The reason Wang An did this was because this particular bend was like a total nuisance, always causing trouble of various sizes.
Wang An remembered clearly that he had already had quite a few accidents here, and this place had claimed a fair number of lives.
Most importantly, Wang An had once secretly sworn that whenever he bought a bulldozer, he would forcibly straighten out this bend in the road.
So, even if only for the sake of his oath, Wang An had to do it.
Watching Wang An's "god-tier" operation, Wang Li quickly became dumbfounded.
Mainly, Wang Li truly hadn't expected that Wang An actually intended to modify the road.
Thus, while Wang Li watched in stunned silence and the crawler tractor belched urgent black smoke, Wang An forcibly pushed a path through the shrubbery.
It must be said that this crawler tractor was powerful; it didn't even pause once, simply plowing straight through.
Following this, Wang An drove the crawler vehicle back and forth a few more times, widening the pushed path significantly, to about five or six meters.
In the rural areas of this era, there were actually no roads five meters wide; normally they were around three meters. However, since this road was the essential route from Xing'an Township to DJ County, it could barely be considered a provincial road, so it could be slightly wider.
For some reason, after Wang An completely finished pushing this section of the road, he felt a sense of extreme clarity and openness.
Mainly, from one side of the road to the other, there was no longer any obstruction, and the road had become a flat plain.
Stop, engine off.
Wang An said to Wang Li with a face full of smiles
"How is it, Old Fifth? Is this road pushed straight enough?"
Looking at the straight road, Wang Li said very perplexedly
"It's certainly straight, but I just want to ask, Fourth Brother, why did you push this thing? Besides, we don't know what's underneath here, and you just pushed it into a road; is that even okay?"
The reason Wang Li said this was because legend had it that this bend had been a large cemetery in the early years.
Such a place was considered a taboo in folk belief.
If the legend were true, then Wang An's behavior was no different from digging up the houses of the dead.
After Wang Li finished speaking, Wang An glared at him irritably and said
"Look at you, acting like a coward. Why wouldn't it be okay? You're young and instead of learning something useful, you're obsessing over nonsense every day. Besides, building bridges and roads has always been a great act of merit; in your mouth, it turns into something else. Damn, you're useless."
It had to be admitted that Wang An's line of reasoning was actually quite logical.
As soon as Wang An put on a cold face, Wang Li immediately shut up, staring blankly at the straight road.
The clear, pleasant mood he had been in was completely ruined by a single sentence from Wang Li. Wang An also lost the mood to admire his masterpiece and told Wang Li
"Go, start the engine, let's go home."
Hearing this, Wang Li nimbly started the vehicle, and the two brothers drove home in silence.
When the two of them arrived home, Wang Dazhu and his wife, Wang Daliang and his wife, as well as Shen Wei and the second brother Wang Shun—six people in total—were unloading cement.
Although Liu Guilan, Yao Ping, and Shen Wei only carried one bag of cement at a time, to be fair, rural women were truly not lacking when it came to hard work.
Wang An and Wang Li stopped the car and joined in the unloading.
Wang Daliang's family had only bought enough bricks to build three tiled rooms, so leaving two tons of cement was enough.
The remaining six tons were all unloaded at Wang An's house.
Actually, when building a rural brick-and-tile house, if it was three rooms, normally one ton of cement would be roughly enough.
The reason for this was that rural brick houses used earth and mud to lay the bricks; concrete made of cement and sand was only used for the five or six layers of bricks in the foundation and for pouring the house beams.
Some people, in cases where they couldn't afford enough cement, would replace the house's crossbeams directly with a long piece of timber.
Of course, this was a last resort; after all, although prices were low in this era, the price of cement was genuinely not cheap.
A price of 10.5 yuan per bag was truly not something an average person could afford.
Fortunately, brick-and-tile houses were rare in this era, and every family lived in mud houses, so for the vast majority of people, the question of whether they could afford it didn't even arise.
(End of Chapter)