Found a flat piece of land, inverted the hourglass, and sat on the hillside, quietly waiting for the explosion.
As a tag-along, Lai Fu still followed him closely all the way here.
Seeing its owner suddenly stop, it stood on the spot in confusion, blinking, as if asking Chen Zhou if he couldn't move anymore.
However, it didn't get a response from its owner because Chen Zhou's gaze wasn't on it at all.
There is a strong wind at the height, blowing Chen Zhou's hair.
The hair on his forehead lightly brushed the skin, tickling, making him rub it with the back of his hand.
"It's ti for a haircut, I'm really not used to having such long hair."
Clutching his hair, estimating it has grown five or six centiters long, Chen Zhou murmured to himself.
Since he could rember, he never kept long hair.
Even when the Korean style bangs were trendy in middle and high schools, he had a buzz cut, and one short enough to see the scalp.
He mostly kept a buzz cut because it was economical.
A styled haircut costs 15 yuan, but a buzz cut only costs five, and the intervals between cuts are longer, usually more than two months, without causing trouble.
A buzz cut is convenient for washing; when washing one's face, a little soap foam on the hand is enough to swipe over the head and wash it along the way.
The only downside is that cutting it too short freezes the top of the head in winter.
Humans are creatures ruled by habit.
The buzz cut accompanied Chen Zhou for over a decade, even into college he maintained this hairstyle.
Even when the school later allowed long hair, and he didn't need to save that ten or so yuan for a haircut anymore, he still had a buzz cut.
To such an extent, slightly longer hair actually made him feel uneasy.
"There are scissors and a razor, once the Shelter is built, attach those two large mirrors, and I can cut my own hair."
The fine sand in the hourglass flowed like silk, with Chen Zhou squinting into the wind.
The waiting process was long and torturous.
The fine sand gradually accumulated into a small hill at the bottom of the hourglass, but the explosion sound had yet to be heard.
Bored, Lai Fu lay next to a wind-sheltered rock.
Several tis it attempted to sneak away to play, but was sternly called back by its owner, and could only stay obediently here.
Chen Zhou stood up, gazing toward the shady direction, calculating that the fuse should have reached the end now, but why hasn't it exploded yet?
"Was the fla blown out by the wind?
Or did it burn halfway and break?"
Various speculations began to swirl in his mind.
Just when he thought the detonation had failed, the last strand of fine sand slipped from the top of the hourglass.
A muffled boom echoed, and Chen Zhou felt the ground under his feet tremble slightly.
Lai Fu, unafraid of the sound of gunfire, showed obvious discomfort, tucking its tail tightly as it curled up.
Dark flocks of startled birds in the forest below rose, and even the rodents residing in earth burrows scurried in fright.
"Success!"
Overjoyed, Chen Zhou picked up the hourglass and rushed westward.
Stopping from afar, he closely observed the rock wall above the sand and stone layer.
The rock wall appeared unchanged, even the stones above hadn't moved; if not for the muffled sound earlier, Chen Zhou might've thought he'd imagined it.
"It seems the explosion's impact on the upper rock wall is minimal, reducing the risk of collapse."
Feeling slightly reassured, Chen Zhou continued onward.
Arriving beside the platform at the slope under the Shelter, the dust within the recently blasted cave obscured the view of its interior.
Swirling dust filled the air, making Chen Zhou cover his mouth and nose, reminiscent of his days working at the cent plant.
Waiting for the dust to settle, the Shelter's top first ca into view.
Just like Chen Zhou's explosion experint results.
The sand on the top suffered little damage, expanding downward in a hemispherical shape.
The internal explosion force spread in all directions, not only collapsing the outer 1.5 ters but also causing the 1 ter deep inner sand to disintegrate.
Preparing to sprint a hundred ters away from the cave at any mont, Chen Zhou picked up a shovel and dug into the pile of soil and stones ford on the outer layer.
Stepping over this "ring-shaped low wall," amidst the thick scent of gunpowder, he approached the blasting center.
On the ground, the dust hadn't fully settled; beneath the dense yellow particles, an eye-catching pit was visible.
Surrounding the pit, a circle of black marks radiated, the nearby temperature higher, indicating where the explosives had been placed, the origin of everything.
Beyond was the collapsed wall of the cave.
The sand and stone here no longer maintained a solid structure, simply shoveling away the lower soil and stones would naturally cause the upper ones to fall, filling the gap, no need to pick away with a hoe, just shovel and toss out.
The explosion's effect was even better than imagined.
This blast removed nearly 23 cubic ters of sand and stone, causing irreparable damage to the cave wall behind, making excavation much easier afterward.
In a little over half an hour, more than ten days of workload was accomplished.
Now Chen Zhou finally understood why those black market mining bosses risked getting shot to use explosives.
The efficiency of this thing is indeed high!
Previously from books, understanding only various magnitudes and data, these details laid out on paper were far less impactful than hands-on experience.
Keep in mind, this isn't modern industrial explosive, let alone the powerful kings like TNT or HMX.
If black gunpowder was replaced with an equal weight of industrial explosive, the cave's size might multiply several tis.
Easy to get used to luxury, hard to return to frugality.
Experiencing the joy of the explosion, Chen Zhou felt he could never go back to the slow one-swing-per-ti digging days.
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