Matt's deep voice easily drowned out the sound of the excavator idling.
He strode over, and his calloused hands patted Su Wei's arm forcefully, as if he were hitting a wooden stake.
"I told you we'd be there on time. Look at these huge machines, my trailer chassis is practically protesting just trying to get them in."
Su Wei steadied himself, his gaze passing over Matt's shoulder to the well-trained construction team.
A dozen or so people were quickly unloading the total station, surveying poles, and generator from the engineering vehicle.
"Very efficient."
Su Wei commented.
"Of course. Working in this godforsaken place, you have to race against time."
Matt pulled a crumpled blueprint from his pocket and unfolded it on the hood of the pickup truck.
He took a pencil from behind his ear and drew a heavy circle on the drawing.
"The weather forecast has been updated; the severe weather is expected to arrive half a day earlier than anticipated. We only have forty-eight hours to dig the foundation pit, lay the gravel foundation, and then pour the concrete. Once that stuff has solidified, even if it's raining knives, we can still erect the steel frame."
Matt pointed to the patch of grass by the lake that was already covered in snow, his tone leaving no room for argument.
"I've already had the surveyors set the four corner stakes. The excavator will be on site soon, first stripping away the top 30 centimeters of frozen soil, then digging directly down. At this pace, I can show you the basic structure of the foundation tonight."
With his gesture, the operator of the Volvo excavator pulled the control lever.
The hydraulic arm emitted a teeth-grinding metallic scraping sound, and the huge bucket hovered in mid-air, adjusting its angle, ready to drop the first scoop.
"Etc."
Su Wei's voice wasn't loud, but he strode directly to the blueprint and grabbed Matt's arm as he was about to swing it.
Matt paused for a moment, his brows furrowing instantly, a hint of confusion and frustration showing in his blue eyes.
"What's wrong, Su Wei? Every minute costs dollars. If this excavator sits here idling for an hour, I'll burn dozens of gallons of diesel."
"The orientation is wrong."
Ignoring Matt's impatience, Su Wei took out a hand-drawn sketch from his pocket and overlaid it on Matt's standard engineering blueprint.
It was a structural diagram drawn in pencil, with simple lines but extremely accurate perspective.
" Matt, look at the current pile positions. If we excavate at this angle, the main facade of the exhibition hall will face due south. This is architecturally correct; it's for the sake of lighting."
Su Wei's finger traced an arc on the drawing.
"But I don't want due south. I want the entire foundation's central axis to be deflected 15 degrees to the west."
Matt took the cigar out of his mouth; the tobacco leaf had been chewed to a pulp.
He stared at Su Wei with the look of someone looking at an outsider, his tone carrying a hint of forceful professional arrogance.
"A 15-degree deflection? Su Wei, do you know what that means? All the pile positions need to be re-surveyed, and the excavator's access route needs to be leveled again. That will delay things by at least four hours."
He pointed to the increasingly thick clouds in the sky.
"Furthermore, to gain that extra 15 degrees, you'll sacrifice morning sunlight. That's a foolish decision in terms of heating costs."
"What I need isn't heating, it's light and shadow."
Su Wei's voice was calm, but he did not remove his hand from the drawings.
" Matt, this is Kodiak. The days are short in winter. If it faces due south, it gets quite dark inside after 3:30 pm."
Su Wei turned around and pointed to the U-shaped gap between Emerald Lake and the two snow-capped mountains in the distance.
"But on the winter solstice, which is the longest night of the year, the sun will set over that mountain pass at 4:05 p. m.."
He looked at Matt, slowing his speech.
"If you turn 15 degrees west, that last ray of the setting sun will precisely shine through the living room's floor-to-ceiling windows, landing right in the center of the main wall. That's the spot I've reserved for my top prey."
Matt opened his mouth, but the series of rebuttals he had prepared regarding cost and timeline got stuck in his throat.
He subconsciously followed Su Wei's finger and looked in that direction.
The mountain pass is now shrouded in mist and cannot be seen clearly.
But as a seasoned builder who had spent half his life building houses in the wilderness, the scene Su Wei had described instantly flashed into his mind.
The crimson sunset pierced through the wind and snow, illuminating a huge specimen of a ferocious beast, while everything around it sank into darkness, making it the sole focal point.
Several workers nearby stopped what they were doing and looked over.
Matt remained silent for a good ten seconds. He looked down at the sketch again, then at Su Wei.
This young Asian hunter, at this moment, showed no trace of casualness, but rather exuded an artist's obsession.
"For that ray of light?"
Matt asked, his agitation subsiding considerably, replaced by a complex scrutiny.
"For that ray of light."
Su Wei nodded.
"This is an exhibition hall, not a warehouse. Without that beam of light, it's just a pile of wood and cement."
Matt spat the chewed-up cigar onto the snow and wiped his rough, large hands on his reflective vest.
Damn it.
He cursed under his breath, then turned around abruptly and yelled at the surveyors who were watching the commotion.
"Are you all deaf? Didn't you hear the boss? Pull out those damn stakes, re-establish the total station, and shift the baseline 15 degrees west. Hurry up, don't act like a bunch of suckling women."
After shouting, he turned around, grinned at Su Wei, revealing a set of teeth stained yellow by tobacco.
"You're the boss, so you call the shots. But Su Wei, I'll put the extra four hours of surveying and machine operation fees on the bill."
"Fair enough."
Su Wei took out a pack of unopened Marlboro from his pocket, pulled one out, and handed it to Matt.
"As long as the foundation is laid accurately, money is not a problem."
Matt took the cigarette, tucked it behind his ear, and turned to climb onto the D8 bulldozer.
"Then let's cut to the chase. Since we're pursuing art, let's go for some violent art."
With a roar from the bulldozer engine, black smoke billowed into the air.
The massive shovel cut into the frozen soil, producing a teeth-grinding tearing sound.
The hard surface soil and rocks were forcibly turned over, revealing the dark brown soil underneath.
Su Wei stepped back a few paces and stood outside the safety line, watching the scene unfold before him.
Surveyors ran through the snow carrying surveying poles, red laser dots marking new boundaries on the ground.
The excavator's boom swung, and the first bucket of soil mixed with ice shards was hurled aside with a dull thud.
The outline of the foundation, along the line he had envisioned, was gradually appearing on the frozen ground.
Su Wei put his hands in his pockets, his fingers touching the notebook filled with birch syrup data, but his mood was unusually calm.
The 30 million manor began with this one shovel.
Moreover, he had other plans.
Looking at the mountain of building materials—steel bars, cement, and Douglas fir logs brought by Matt for the frame— Su Wei's gaze became somewhat deep.
Matt was entrusted with the hard decoration of the exhibition hall, which ensured the structural stability and timely completion of the project.
But soft furnishings and furniture...
The so-called high-end solid wood furniture on the market, such as a black walnut long table, can easily cost five or six thousand US dollars, and an antler chandelier can even be priced at tens of thousands.
For him now, that would be a completely wasteful and costly waste of his intelligence.
On his retina, the data stream of the Life Module was flowing slowly.
Although the Crafting Module are currently mainly used for specimen preparation, the bone processing and fur tanning techniques can be extended to the production of horn furniture.
His Level 1 Basic Woodworking skill, combined with his innate Mechanical Mastery, gives him a natural control over the texture and structure of wood.
As long as the tools and raw materials are available, he can do it himself.
He could use fallen birch trees from this forest to make a coffee table, use the giant fish bones he caught in the sea for decoration, and use the pelts of wild animals he hunted himself to make a carpet.
He wanted every piece of furniture to tell a story, and every detail to bear the name of Su Wei Weiyang.
"Buzz"
My thoughts were interrupted by an even more intense mechanical roar.
Matt's bulldozer appears to have crashed into a large boulder underground.
The tracks spun aimlessly, kicking up clouds of mud and snow.
Su Wei did not dodge.
He watched as the granite boulder, about half the size of a car front, was gradually moved by the bulldozer until it finally tumbled out of the pit and crashed to the ground with a deafening roar.
The earth trembled slightly beneath my feet.
The scent of earth mingled with the crispness of snow, filling my nostrils.