Making Furniture

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Making Furniture

The walls of the Safe Zone continued to silently guard everything. The vegetables in the garden grew increasingly lush under the nourishment of the Primordial World's spiritual energy, and the pottery kiln had successfully produced its first batch of vessels—rough, but sturdy and usable.

After resolving his most basic needs of food, drink, and safety, Chen An's life began to show signs of slowly and steadily returning to "living" itself. He was no longer a survivor scrambling merely to stay alive. Little by little, he was actively building the outline of a "home" that belonged to him.

However, one basic issue directly related to daily comfort and dignity remained unresolved—sleep. Ever since crossing over, he had spent most of his time sleeping on the cold stone floor, covered with a layer of reasonably soft reeds cut from the garden, and then topped with several thick pelts scavenged from outside the Safe Zone, whose original owners he could not identify.

It was far better than sleeping in the wilderness, but over time, it was still a form of torment. The chill of the stone, the prickling reeds, and the lack of support for his lower back often left him tossing and turning before dawn, unable to get enough rest. He knew it was time for a change.

Once the thought became clear, it quickly took root in his heart. He would build a real bed for himself—and for any needs the future might bring.

Not only that, a table and several chairs—or stools, rather—would greatly improve his life in the Small Courtyard.

He needed a level surface where he could safely place pottery for cleaning and drying. He also needed somewhere to sit and eat, or even read. Saying goodbye to sleeping on the floor was a crucial step toward a more comfortable life that felt more like a "home."

Chen An had no blueprints and did not understand complicated mortise-and-tenon joints. All his designs came from the simplest pragmatism and consideration of the materials available to him. He first settled on his targets: one bed, one table, and two stools.

Bed: The core requirement was to provide a platform raised above the ground that was relatively soft and offered some support. He planned to use several sturdy pieces of wood as bed legs to support a rectangular frame, then lay wider planks across the frame as the bedboard, and finally cover it with thick reeds and pelts as a mattress.

Table: It needed a stable surface. He planned to use several pieces of wood as legs, with one or more thick planks joined together on top as the tabletop.

Stools: These were relatively simple. A few pieces of wood would serve as legs, with a flat board nailed—or tied down with vines—on top as the seat.

The choice of materials was crucial.

He reviewed the lumber left over from his earlier felling and clearing of the foundation.

Most of it consisted of trunks from small trees, along with some thicker roots and stumps. He leaned toward materials with relatively even grain that were not prone to splitting.

He had used some of the straighter pine and birch when building the house. What remained was probably more mixed wood, but there were still some hard, solid stumps among it. Those might serve as table and bed legs, providing better support.

Chen An selected several suitable logs and stumps.

The greatest challenge lay in processing them into usable components. He had no saw. His only tools were the heavy stone axe and a wooden-handled knife sharpened with flint flakes, which could barely be called an axe or adze.

Cutting and rough processing: He needed to cut the longer logs into suitable lengths. It was exhausting work. He swung the stone axe repeatedly at the trunks.

The stone axe's edge was not sharp enough. Every blow left his webbed hand numb from the shock, and progress was slow. He had no choice but to use the "grooving" method. At the point where he needed to cut, he repeatedly hacked a deep groove with the stone axe, then used force to break the wood apart.

The process was time-consuming and exhausting. The stumps were somewhat easier to handle. He could use the stone axe to chop them into roughly cylindrical shapes.

Splitting and smoothing: He needed some wider boards for the bedboard and tabletop. This required splitting trunks or thicker branches. Using the edge of the stone axe, he struggled to split the wood along its grain.

Sometimes the wood split along the grain, while other times the cut veered off, forcing him to repeatedly adjust the angle. After splitting the wood, he used the stone axe and knife to smooth both sides of the boards, removing splinters and bark. The process was extremely tedious. Behind every barely usable board lay countless beads of sweat and an immense amount of patience.

Sanding (primitive version): To keep the wooden surfaces from being too rough and painful to touch, he repeatedly scraped the boards with flint flakes or sharp stones, removing obvious splinters and uneven spots.

The results were limited, but better than nothing.

This process continued for several days. New blisters formed on Chen An's hands, while his shoulders ached terribly from repeatedly swinging the axe. Several times, improper handling sent wood chips flying into his eyes, or the rebounding stone axe left his arms numb.

But he did not give up. Every time he completed the rough processing of a component, he felt a faint sense of progress and satisfaction.

With the roughly processed components ready, it was time for assembly. Without iron nails, a plane, or a chisel, Chen An could only rely on the most primitive methods.

Bed assembly: He stood the four carved bed legs upright and roughly determined their spacing. Then he placed the prepared bedboards—narrower planks—horizontally between the legs as the bed's crossbeams.

He tried twisting vine fibers into thick ropes and used them to tightly bind the crossbeams and bed legs together. As for the bedboards themselves, he also used vines or sharpened wooden wedges to hold them loosely in place on the crossbeams.

The process was filled with uncertainty. The tightness of the bindings and whether the wooden wedges were secure all affected the bed's stability. He repeatedly inspected it and pulled hard on the joints, making sure the structure was sturdy enough.

Table assembly: The method was similar. He secured the four table legs, then placed the assembled tabletop—possibly made by crudely joining several wider boards—on top. He likewise used vines and wooden wedges to bind and fasten everything in place. He reinforced the joints between the legs and tabletop in particular, ensuring they would not fall apart under a load.

Stool assembly: This was relatively simple. He tied the stool legs securely together, then laid a smoothed wooden board across the top as the seat and bound it tightly with vines.

At every joint, he tried to smooth the surfaces as much as possible to avoid leaving sharp splinters. Although the furniture still looked primitive, clumsy, and even somewhat rickety, Chen An knew that he had created it with his own hands. It was safe, and it belonged to him.

When the final vine had been tied and the last board had been secured to a stool seat, Chen An stepped back several paces and looked at the three "works" before him, each one containing countless hours of his effort: a slightly crooked but sturdy wooden bed, an equally rough but stable wooden table, and two solid, heavy wooden stools.

They were not beautiful in the slightest. In fact, they could only be called crude. But they were no longer cold raw materials taken from nature. They had been given form and function, becoming objects that served human beings.

Chen An's heart filled with an indescribable sense of accomplishment. He had not merely completed a task. He had taken another major step toward the concept of "home."

He imagined lying at night on a bed raised above the ground, covered with thick reeds and soft pelts, instead of on the cold stone floor. During the day, he could arrange his pottery on the table or sit on a stool and drink a bowl of hot soup from a pottery bowl.

He carried the bed and table into the main house and placed them in a corner near the fireplace—if he could have a hearth.

Then he placed the stools beside the table. The little house immediately looked different with these pieces of furniture inside. It was still crude, but it now possessed a little more of the order and warmth that belonged to people.

He sat on the stool he had made with his own hands and stroked the rough tabletop, feeling its solidity. Outside the window, the afterglow of the setting sun filled the Small Courtyard, while the vegetables in the garden swayed gently in the evening breeze.

Beyond the walls of the Safe Zone, the Primordial World remained filled with the unknown and danger. But inside this little stone house, Chen An had relied on his own hands to create a small measure of genuine human comfort and peace for himself.

He knew this was only the beginning. In the future, he might make more things, and perhaps even improve this crude furniture. But at this moment, he only wanted to sleep well—to sleep on a real bed that he had made himself.

(End of Chapter Twenty-Eight)