HUN Chapter 123: Platform Construction Complete

When he returned once again to that familiar construction site piled high with lumber and building materials, looking at the massive foundation platform that had already taken initial shape, his heart finally truly settled down.

For two consecutive days, Lin Yu'an worked like a tireless machine, completely immersed in his work.

He tended to the vibrant seedlings in the greenhouse, his heart filled with pastoral tranquility.

During the endless white days of the polar summer, he fired up his portable chain saw, processing one massive log after another into standardized building materials suitable for construction.

He deliberately avoided thinking about Emily, avoided thinking about everything that had happened in that cabin.

The twenty-day curing period flew by amid his busyness.

Time arrived at early July.

These twenty-plus days that Lin Yu'an had experienced felt longer than a year's worth of experiences.

When the helicopter carrying David and Mike once again landed on Wiseman's helipad, the one who came to meet them was still Lin Yu'an and his stylish Zongshen three-wheeler.

"Hey, Lin! Vacation's over!" David gave him a big hug.

"How did you spend these twenty days?"

"Made some interesting little things." Lin Yu'an smiled mysteriously.

When the Ford Raptor drove into the Timber Forest site again, David and Mike were completely stunned by the scene before their eyes.

Before they left, this place had been just a construction site with freshly poured concrete pile foundations.

But now, in the southeast corner of the site, a massive modern greenhouse made of plastic film material had risen from the ground! Through the bright greenhouse covering, they could even see vibrant green life inside!

But that wasn't the most shocking part.

On the other side of the camp, the originally chaotic "white wood mountain" had disappeared by more than half.

In its place were several piles of lumber made from standardized building materials with tops and bottoms planed flat!

Each pile was elevated on blocking wood, allowing air to circulate freely through them. The entire construction site looked like a professional lumber processing facility!

"My God... Lin!"

David pointed at the greenhouse, then at the mountain of building materials, his mouth gaping wide enough to fit an egg. He even rubbed his eyes, thinking the polar daylight was making him hallucinate!

"This... what is this? In the twenty days we were gone, you not only built a greenhouse but also processed half the wood?"

Lin Yu'an smiled and led them into the warm, humid greenhouse, looking at the cucumber and tomato seedlings that had already begun climbing their trellises, saying calmly.

"I just did some preparatory work."

Everyone quickly got into their rhythm and began filming.

At David's strong insistence, Lin Yu'an removed his shirt, revealing his bronze-colored, well-defined muscles, then grabbed that Stihl chainsaw and pulled the starter cord.

"Vroom, vroom, vroom!"

The deafening roar once again echoed throughout the entire valley.

After filming just a few shots, he put his shirt back on. There were simply too many mosquitoes.

Alaska's summer was finally beginning to show its generous and wild side.

The polar daylight sun blazed like a furnace, scorching the earth.

The dirt road from Timber Forest to the Dalton Highway, once muddy and impassable, had now become solid and hard after weeks of continuous baking and evaporation, capable of supporting heavy vehicle traffic.

On this day, the long-absent rumble of diesel engines came from the distance, breaking the tranquility of "Timber Forest."

A massive heavy-duty flatbed truck, like a steel dragon, carefully made its way along that narrow dirt road, slowly driving into Lin Yu'an's camp.

This was precisely the "Arctic Star Logistics" company he had contacted earlier. After confirming the road was passable, they immediately delivered all the modern building materials he had pre-ordered to this wilderness heartland.

Lin Yu'an called over Old George and Stan. The group had been waiting here early, and seeing the truck arrive safely, everyone immediately got busy with inspection work.

Old George excitedly rubbed his hands together, "Lin, the ammunition finally arrived!"

His weathered face was filled with excitement about the upcoming major undertaking.

David and Mike also shouldered their cameras, excitedly recording this important moment.

For reality shows, scenes like this where everything was ready always carried the ceremonial feeling of opening a new chapter.

Lin Yu'an started up the XCMG XC760K loader and began methodically unloading cargo.

David's camera faithfully recorded these key materials that would be used to build the homestead, using voice-over-style questions to guide Lin Yu'an's explanations.

"Lin, what are these saddle-looking things?"

David pointed to a pile of heavy-duty hardware gleaming with silver metallic luster.

Lin Yu'an carefully lifted a stack of brackets while explaining, "These are heavy-duty galvanized steel pile cap brackets, also called column head connectors. They're the bridge connecting concrete and timber, and they're key to ensuring the wood structure stays moisture and rot-resistant."

Next, he lifted stack after stack of neatly arranged heavy wooden boards.

"These are three-centimeter-thick tongue-and-groove plywood sheets. See the interlocking grooves and ridges on the edges? This allows the boards to perfectly mesh together, forming a unified whole with strength far superior to regular plywood. We'll use these to lay the first floor."

Besides these, there were bundles of galvanized square-head bolts in different specifications, plus several huge wooden crates filled with tens of thousands of screws.

Finally, there was an entire roll of black carpet-like waterproof moisture barrier material and several large buckets of viscous asphalt adhesive.

After all building materials were neatly unloaded beside the construction site and properly categorized and stacked,

Old George's gaze turned to those twenty-one quietly standing concrete pile columns, "It's time to put them to good use."

"Before we erect any piece of timber, we must ensure all pile tops are on the same absolute horizontal plane."

Old George dragged a neatly coiled transparent hose from his old Ford's toolbox. Both ends of the hose had clear graduated glass tubes attached.

David asked curiously, "George, is this just an ordinary water hose?"

Old George snorted dismissively, looking at him like an amateur, speaking in his Texas-accented drawl, "Ordinary water hose? Son, this thing is way more accurate than those fancy laser instruments of yours, and it never runs out of battery!"

He handed one end of the hose to Stan and held the other end himself, beginning to fill it with water from a large bucket.

As he filled it, he constantly raised and lowered the tube, muttering, "Get all the air bubbles out. Any bubble will affect the final accuracy."

When the hose was filled with water and confirmed to have no air bubbles, the measurement began.

Old George selected a concrete pile column located at the center of the foundation, in the most appropriate position, as the "elevation reference point."

He took out a tape measure and, from the top of this pile column downward, measured a distance of 10 centimeters on its side, using a red marker to draw a clear cross mark.

"Why not use the pile top directly as reference?" David asked again.

"Because the pile top itself has errors. Our purpose is to eliminate that error," Lin Yu'an explained on Old George's behalf.

Old George shouted loudly to Stan, who held the other end of the hose, "Stan! Your turn! Take your end to the reference point!"

Stan stepped forward and pressed the glass tube in his hand tightly against the side of the reference pile column.

He carefully moved it up and down while having Old George continue adding water to the glass tube, until the top of the water level was perfectly aligned with the center of that red cross mark.

"Okay George! This side is good! Hit the water line!"

"Good! Hold steady! Don't move!" Old George commanded loudly after confirming Stan's side was aligned.

Then Old George, holding the other end of the hose, walked toward the corner pile farthest from the reference point.

He similarly pressed the glass tube in his hand against the side of the corner pile.

Due to the principle of communicating vessels, the water level on his side would automatically maintain the same absolute horizontal height as the water level on Stan's side, regardless of the tube's height.

He waited for the water surface to completely stop fluctuating, then squinted his eyes and used that red marker to draw a cross mark at the position of the water level line in his glass tube.

"First point complete!"

Old George straightened up and told everyone, "Now, the mark on this corner pile and the mark on our center reference pile are at exactly the same height, with an error of no more than one millimeter!"

Next, everyone began standardized assembly line work.

Stan served as the reference point controller, always keeping his end of the hose in the same position.

Meanwhile, Old George and Lin Yu'an took the other end of the hose and went to each of the remaining nineteen pile columns in turn.

At each location, they repeated the same operation: press the glass tube against the pile column, wait for the water level to stabilize, make precise marks at the water level line.

After nearly an hour, when all twenty-one pile columns had red marks at absolute horizontal positions, the first step of work was finally complete.

"Alright, now we have an invisible horizontal line," Old George said, pointing to those marked points. "Next job is to grind off all the concrete bumps above this line!"

Old George walked to the bed of his old Ford and dragged out an extremely formidable-looking orange Stihl TS800 gas-powered cut-off saw.

"My God, George! You even have this thing?" David's eyes went straight when he saw this machine.

He recognized this beast, it was professional equipment that only road rescue and construction crews would have.

Old George proudly patted the machine's housing and laughed, "To make a living in this damned beautiful place called Alaska, you can't do without a few handy tools!"

"I used this machine to cut through frozen pipelines in the oil fields back in the day. Today, using it on these little concrete piles will be easy as pie."

Old George directed, "Kid, you're young and strong, this physical work is yours! I'll supervise, Stan will handle water cooling!"

Lin Yu'an put on the heaviest 3M dust mask, safety goggles, and noise-reducing ear protection, taking over this fierce weapon.

He pulled the starter cord, and that massive diamond blade nearly 400 millimeters in diameter began spinning at high speed.

Lin Yu'an gripped the machine tightly with both hands, precisely aiming the high-speed rotating blade at the red mark line on the first pile column.

"Zzzzz!!!"

The moment the blade contacted the hard concrete, it shot out brilliant sparks!

Stan immediately sprang into action, holding a hose connected to a bucket and small pump, aiming at the cutting area and spraying a fine stream of water.

With the water's assistance, what should have been billowing dust became streams of gray slurry flowing down the pile column.

Lin Yu'an concentrated intently. He first cut along the red line around the pile column's perimeter, creating a deep groove reaching more than ten centimeters deep.

After cutting the groove, Old George took out a high-powered electric demolition hammer from his toolbox.

"Thud thud thud thud thud!"

Accompanied by a series of dense, powerful impact sounds, large chunks of concrete were easily chiseled away, exposing the internal steel reinforcement cage.

Finally, Lin Yu'an took out his own compact angle grinder, fitted with a grinding disc, and performed final detailed polishing on the rough surface after cutting, until the entire pile top's cut surface became smooth and even.

When all twenty-one pile tops were finished, Old George took out a 1.2-meter-long German Stabila high-precision level and performed final verification between any two pile tops.

When he saw the bubble in the level staying perfectly centered between the center graduations no matter where he placed it, he burst out with a satisfied exclamation.

"Beautiful! Boys, very level!"

The leveling work was perfectly completed. Next came installing those twenty-one "steel thrones" on these solid concrete foundations.

Old George opened a heavy wooden crate from the delivered materials, revealing neatly arranged galvanized steel pile cap brackets inside.

"Lin, these little things sure look sturdy," David came over and picked one up to weigh it, finding it much heavier than it looked.

Old George explained on the side, "Of course, this is called hot-dip galvanizing. It guarantees they won't rust for a hundred years through Alaska's humid summers and frozen winters."

"It's the 'isolation barrier' between wood and concrete, preventing underground moisture from passing through the concrete to the wooden beams, causing the wood to mold and rot."

"Alright, Lin, time for your impact drill performance," Old George said.

Lin Yu'an switched to a high-powered Bosch impact drill and fitted it with a 20-millimeter diameter four-flute carbide bit designed specifically for drilling concrete.

"Thud thud thud thud!"

Accompanied by strong, powerful impact sounds, the hard concrete was rapidly pulverized under the carbide bit.

Lin Yu'an's body vibrated slightly with the impact drill's rhythm, but his stance remained extremely stable, always maintaining the bit's absolute vertical position.

Stan held a tape measure, constantly measuring the hole's depth.

"Good! Fifteen centimeters! That's enough!"

When Stan gave the command, Lin Yu'an immediately stopped.

Next came Old George's turn for anchor installation.

He first took out a high-pressure air gun, inserted the long nozzle into the bottom of the hole, and blew vigorously several times to completely clear the dust from the hole.

After confirming the hole was clean, he aimed his syringe-like anchor adhesive gun at the hole and filled it to two-thirds capacity.

Then he slowly inserted an M20 L-shaped anchor bolt into the adhesive-filled hole with a rotating motion until it reached the predetermined depth.

"After this structural adhesive fully cures, it will chemically bond this bolt rod and the entire concrete pile together permanently."

Over the next few days.

The three of them worked in division: Lin Yu'an handled drilling, Stan handled hole cleaning, and Old George handled adhesive injection and bolt placement. This assembly line work greatly improved efficiency.

When the anchor adhesive reached initial curing strength, they prepared to begin final installation.

For work requiring more manpower, Lin Yu'an actively invited Patton, Cody and others to help. Everyone fitted the saddle-shaped heavy steel brackets over the firmly "rooted" bolt rods, adding large washers.

Then they used torque wrenches capable of setting specific torque values to begin tightening the nuts.

"Alright, set to 300 newton-meters," Old George told Lin Yu'an.

When the wrench made a crisp "click" sound, it meant the nut had been tightened to the preset perfect torque value.

They used the same method to install all twenty-one steel thrones one by one.

When the last nut was tightened, twenty-one steel brackets gleaming with metallic luster stood neatly atop the twenty-one gray concrete foundation stones.

"Perfect!" Old George looked at his contractor's masterpiece and clapped his hands with satisfaction.

"Now, Lin, you have a foundation that can last a hundred years. Next, tomorrow it's time for those big guys to take the stage!"

Old George's gaze turned toward the mountain of log building materials in the distance.

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