Siheyuan: Big City, Small Love

Chapter 585 Public Toilet

After the toilet collapsed, the children in the yard suddenly became quiet.

Lian Wu'er was also afraid and began to remember what Wu Juan said.

However, it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. She moved back into He Lai's house and began to enjoy the same treatment as Yu Shui. Her food supply improved greatly.

Two days later, the toilet was built, which was much better than the previous dry toilet.

In the past, hundreds of people shared one toilet. It was okay to urinate using a chamber pot, which was faster and several people could pee together.

It is more troublesome to defecate, so you can only go to the public toilet. After all, there are only a few toilet stalls. And people who need to defecate often don’t like to be urged. Basically, the more you urge them, the slower they will go.

Therefore, you will often see long queues outside the toilet early in the morning. Many people jokingly say that going to the toilet is like "going to a meeting", and they often queue for half an hour.

Every morning, when we meet, we ask, "Where are you going?"

"Meeting——".

"Meeting" means going to the toilet. Because there were many people and few public toilets at that time, people had to queue up in front of the door and chat about everything under the sun while waiting. In addition, people in Beijing were politically sensitive and liked to talk about national affairs. They could talk about any random things, so it was called "meeting."

However, not as many people in that era had bowel movements as one might imagine. After all, people were not able to eat enough, so many people would hold it in and try their best not to have a bowel movement. Some people could even have a bowel movement only once every ten days or half a month. This is why people in that era had sallow complexions, which was a sign of sub-health.

There were no sewers in those days, and the feces in dry toilets usually had to be scooped out one scoop at a time by night soil collectors.

As the most difficult, dirty and tiring job, night soil collectors are worthy of respect from every city resident, and few people dare to disrespect night soil collectors.

Therefore, it is common for night soil collectors to be elected as model workers in this era, and they are often selected in almost every election.

The night soil collectors at that time were not like what we imagined. They had horse-drawn carriages or ox-drawn carts following them at all times.

Generally, night soil collectors work in groups of four or five people. A group shares one night soil collector truck. The truck is usually parked on the main road, at a similar distance from the night soil collectors, so that each night soil collector does similar work.

The night soil collector carries a long night soil bucket on his back and goes into each septic tank to dig out all the feces.

Each feces bucket can hold about 50 kilograms of feces. The feces workers have to carry the buckets on their backs and walk about a few hundred meters to put the feces in the buckets into the large barrel of the feces truck. Each person has to carry at least 40 buckets of feces every day before they can finish a day's work. You can imagine how hard it is.

Today's toilets are made entirely of red bricks, with a women's side and a men's side, and the toilet pits are all trench-type, so there is no need to worry about someone falling into the septic tank.

There are urinals and toilets in the men's restroom, and there are many more toilets than before.

The toilet is also connected to running water. When the time comes, we can connect a rubber water pipe and flush the feces in the ditch into the septic tank.

During the acceptance inspection, Director Wang also came. After all, this was the business of the Street Office. He Lai paid the remaining balance to Master Yu.

"Xiao Laizi, I have to thank Wuer! Haha..." Director Wang joked.

After all, He Lai can save the street office some money.

"Auntie Wang, stop joking. My sister's butt was beaten swollen by my mother, and now she is still behaving herself at home." He Lai said with a helpless smile.

"Haha...it's good for children to be a little naughty when they are young." Director Wang continued with a laugh.

He Lai could only smile and deal with it.

The toilet was built, and people in the courtyard began to gather around, wanting to see whether this brand new toilet was useful.

"Hey, Xiao Laizi, this toilet you built is really nice, it's almost the same as the one in your house."

Shazhu came out of the toilet and laughed.

"Brother Zhuzi, can't you see the faucet? Wash your hands, please!"

He Lai looked at Sha Zhu speechlessly.

"Oh, I forgot, I forgot, I'll go wash it now."

Sha Zhu said this and went in again.

As people came in and out, there was no longer any congestion. After all, the urination area could accommodate more than a dozen people at a time, and there were eight defecation pits. Even the women's restroom was not as crowded as imagined.

"Well, Xiao Laizi, your public toilet is well built. I am going to submit a report to see if we can build a few more toilets like this."

Director Wang nodded and was also very satisfied.

"Well, I think it's okay. At least in the future, public toilets won't be smelly and dirty."

He Lai replied.

"Okay, seeing what's going on now, I feel relieved. I'll leave first."

Director Wang said.

"Hey, Aunt Wang, wait a minute, I have something else to ask you." He Lai called Director Wang.

"Oh, what's the matter?" Director Wang asked curiously.

He Lai pulled Director Wang aside and asked, "Auntie Wang, that's the room of the deaf old lady. I want to ask for Sun Hu and Sun Xiaochun. You see, they have both graduated from technical secondary school and started working. Together with their grandmother, they only have one room. Do you think it is possible to..."

"Well, actually I told you before the New Year that there was no problem in allocating the deaf old lady's house to them. But, Xiao Laizi, you also know that the identity of the deaf old lady is not that simple. The organization wants to check the house again."

Director Wang said a few more words because it was He who asked the question.

"Then see if you can arrange it as soon as possible. It's not that the steel mill doesn't have a house to allocate to them, but I want them to live in this yard. After all, we grew up together."

He Lai explained.

"Okay, I'll keep this in mind and I'll try to arrange it as soon as possible." Director Wang also understood He Lai's meaning and agreed.

In fact, they have checked it several times over the past year, but haven't found anything significant, so they basically gave up.

"Thank you, Aunt Wang."

"You're welcome. Aunt Wang will leave first."

"goodbye!"

"goodbye!"

After a while, Wu Juan also came out with Wen'er. Although she basically went to the toilet in Helai's bathroom now, she still cared about this public toilet. After all, it was built by Helai.

Wu Juan looked at the toilet and looked at He Lai in disapproval. Why build such a good toilet? But she didn't say anything. After all, this was a good thing that benefited the people.

"Mom, let's go back. What's so interesting about the toilet?" He Lai said as he picked up Wen'er.

"You take Wen'er back, I'm going to go chat with you." Wu Juan said, and walked into the group of women.

"Brother, I want to play with Brother Xiaoyang and the others." Wen'er didn't want to go back with He Lai either. After all, Wu'er was at He Lai's house.

"Okay, then you be careful." He Lai had no choice but to put Wen'er down.

"I got it." Wen'er replied and ran towards Xiao Yangzi's group of children.