Chapter 101: What Blackstone Needs - part 2

Qiao Ren nodded approvingly.

Nobody had asked him.

The guest rooms required more discussion.

Master Han stood at the foot of the stairs and looked upward.

"You have eight rooms now?"

"Yes."

"And they’re actually filling?"

Lin Yuan handed him the recent room ledger.

Master Han examined several entries.

"You raised the price."

"That is apparently the first thing everyone notices."

"Did occupancy drop?"

"Not much."

Master Han returned the ledger.

"Then I wouldn’t add rooms upstairs."

Lin Yuan blinked.

Qiao Ren looked equally surprised.

"Why not?" Lin Yuan asked.

"The tavern wasn’t designed for another full floor. Extending the upper level sideways might be possible, but it would make the building awkward and cost more than you’d expect for the space gained."

Lin Yuan disliked the word cost whenever it appeared beside the word more.

Master Han walked outside again and pointed toward the open ground beyond the current tavern.

"If you need more rooms, build another lodging building."

Qiao Ren’s expression brightened.

Lin Yuan’s did not.

"A second building?"

"Yes."

"That sounds more expensive than adding rooms."

"Initially, perhaps. But you’d be building something suited to its purpose instead of forcing more rooms into a structure that wasn’t designed for them."

Master Han walked a short distance and gestured toward the available ground.

"You could start with a small guesthouse. Six rooms, perhaps eight. If demand continues to grow, another building could come later."

Lin Yuan studied the space.

Until Master Han said it aloud, he had still thought of Wandering Cloud Tavern as the center of everything in Blackstone. Travelers ate downstairs, slept upstairs, and relied on the same building for most of their needs.

A separate guesthouse would change that.

It would also mark a genuine step toward turning Blackstone into a larger settlement rather than simply a tavern with a market beside it.

Qiao Ren seemed to reach the same conclusion.

"That would make Blackstone look more like an actual settlement."

Lin Yuan glanced at him.

"We already have a market."

"A market beside one tavern."

"And your shop."

Qiao Ren nodded solemnly.

"A very important shop."

Lin Yuan ignored him.

Master Han folded his arms.

"You don’t need to build the guesthouse now."

That caught Lin Yuan’s attention.

"You think I should wait?"

"I think eight rooms filling several nights is worth watching. If they’re full almost every night for another few weeks, you’ll have a much stronger reason to expand."

It was more cautious advice than Lin Yuan expected from someone who earned money by constructing buildings.

"You’re not going to tell me to build everything on the list?"

"I’d prefer you still have money when I leave."

Lin Yuan decided he definitely liked Master Han.

"Put the guesthouse on a separate estimate."

"Planning only?"

"For now."

Master Han nodded.

Lin Yuan looked once more at the open ground before following him back toward the tavern.

The space was there. Demand might eventually justify using it.

But eight rooms filling several nights did not mean he needed to spend a fortune building another eight tomorrow.

For once, waiting seemed like the sensible choice.

That left the item Lin Yuan had been avoiding.

Master Han unfolded the list again.

"Bathing building."

Qiao Ren smiled.

Lin Yuan disliked that smile.

"I wrote ask what one would require."

"I can read."

"That is different from asking you to build it."

"I know."

Xiao Lan appeared near the tavern entrance.

Lin Yuan had no idea where she had come from, although her timing was becoming suspiciously reliable whenever the bathhouse was mentioned.

Master Han noticed her interest.

"Was this her idea?"

"Unfortunately."

Xiao Lan stepped closer.

"I only said travelers would like somewhere proper to bathe."

"You said it several times," Lin Yuan reminded her.

"Because you kept pretending not to hear me."

Master Han laughed.

"Show me the well."

Lin Yuan paused.

"The well?"

"If you’re considering bathing facilities, I need to know where the water comes from."

That was exactly the part Lin Yuan had been concerned about.

They walked to the Spirit-Touched Well.

Master Han examined the surrounding ground before looking into the water.

"How much do you draw from this every day?"

Lin Yuan turned toward Su Mei, who gave a rough account of their daily use. Cooking, drinking, cleaning, and ordinary washing all required water, with noticeably more drawn on busy days.

Master Han listened carefully.

"And you’ve never had it run low?"

"No," Lin Yuan replied.

"Does the water level change?"

"Not that we’ve noticed."

The contractor looked into the well again.

"I can’t tell you how much a well like this can safely supply."

Lin Yuan appreciated that answer.

"So we don’t build until we know."

"Water supply isn’t the only concern," Master Han said.

He pointed toward the gentle slope behind the proposed building area.

"Drainage matters just as much."

He walked several paces and studied the ground.

"If you build bathing facilities here, the used water needs somewhere to go without turning the market road into mud or flowing back toward the well."

Xiao Lan looked toward the road.

"I hadn’t thought about that."

"Most people don’t. They think about hot water."

Qiao Ren nodded.

"Hot water is the important part."

Master Han looked at him.

"Until you’re standing in yesterday’s bathwater."

Qiao Ren stopped nodding.

Master Han continued examining the area.

"You’ll also need separated bathing areas or private rooms, depending on the service you want to provide. Somewhere to heat water, somewhere to store it, space for drying towels and clothing, and proper drainage. Someone will need to clean the place regularly."

Lin Yuan looked toward Xiao Lan.

She immediately pointed at Su Mei.

Su Mei looked at her.

Xiao Lan lowered her hand.

Master Han pretended not to notice.

"How large are you imagining?" he asked Lin Yuan.

"I wasn’t."

"That makes estimating difficult."

"I was hoping you’d tell me what makes sense."

"For travelers?"

"Yes."

Master Han considered the question.

"Then start small. A practical bathing building would be enough for now."

He described a simple structure with two separated bathing sections, several washing spaces, a heating area, a holding tank for clean water, and drainage leading away from the well and market road.

It wouldn’t be luxurious, but it could provide travelers with something better than a basin of hot water carried to their rooms.

Lin Yuan could picture it.

More importantly, he could picture travelers paying to use it.

"How many people could it handle?"

"That depends on how much water you can actually supply."

There was the problem again.

Master Han glanced toward the well.

"A bathhouse could use several times the water you’re drawing now, depending on how many customers come through. Before committing to anything, you need to know whether the well can support that demand."

Lin Yuan frowned.

"How do I find that out?"

"Ask someone who understands the well better than I do. I can tell you where a bathing building should stand and how its drainage should work. I can’t tell you what this well can sustain."

That was reasonable.

Master Han was a builder, not a formation specialist.

Lin Yuan looked into the water.

The answer to whom he should consult was obvious enough.

The Territory Core had enhanced the well in the first place.

Since then, he had relied on its steady supply without investigating the limits of that enhancement.

Perhaps the Core could tell him more. If not, he would need another way to assess the well before making any decisions.

"I’ll look into it."

Master Han nodded.

"Good. Once you know what the water supply can support, we’ll have a better idea of what size building makes sense."

Xiao Lan looked disappointed.

"So no bathhouse yet?"

"Not until your owner knows whether he can fill it," Master Han replied.

Lin Yuan pointed toward him.

"Exactly."

Xiao Lan sighed.

Qiao Ren leaned toward her.

"This is still progress."

"I heard that," Lin Yuan said.

They spent the rest of the afternoon measuring and recording the proposed work.

Master Han marked the tavern entrance repairs, noted which damaged market stalls could be salvaged, and selected possible locations for two additional stalls. His workers paced out the dimensions of the proposed storehouse and recorded the space that might eventually be used for a guesthouse.

The bathhouse remained a possibility rather than a construction project.

By sunset, Lin Yuan’s original list had become several pages of measurements, sketches, and notes. Nothing had been built, and he had committed to no new expenditure beyond the inspections already arranged.

Master Han sat at one of the outside tables while a worker organized the tools.

"I can give you the repair estimate tonight."

"And the new construction?"

"Tomorrow morning."

Lin Yuan sat opposite him.

"Why does that sound dangerous?"

"Because you asked about several buildings."

"I asked about them. I didn’t agree to build them."

"I know."

Master Han took a drink of water.

"For what it’s worth, I wouldn’t do everything at once."

Lin Yuan looked at him.

"What would you do?"

"Repair the tavern entrance first. Fix the damaged market stalls and add two more if the estimate makes sense. After that, decide whether the storehouse should come next."

"And the guesthouse?"

"Wait until the room records show that demand is staying high."

"The bathhouse?"

"Find out what the well can actually handle."

Lin Yuan considered the advice.

It matched what he had been thinking throughout the day, although hearing it from someone with construction experience made the priorities clearer.

The raid had left him focused on defenses and repairs. Now that the warning formation was working again and Blackstone had begun returning to normal, every direction he looked seemed to contain something else worth improving.

The difficult part was deciding which improvements Blackstone genuinely needed now and which could wait.

Master Han stood and gathered his notes.

"I’ll work out the estimates."

Lin Yuan nodded, then looked toward the Spirit-Touched Well.

The Territory Core had enhanced the well long ago, and Lin Yuan had since grown accustomed to its reliable supply. It provided water, so he used it. As long as the well never ran dry, he hadn’t thought much about its limits.

A bathhouse would change that.

Before spending spirit stones on an entirely new building, he needed to understand what the well could actually support.

For once, that was a question he could investigate without traveling all the way to Green River.