The Mysterious Chairs

Coming into the courtyard, Di Tou found that the bag he had used to store leaves earlier in the day had tumbled over, and in the process the rip on the side of the bag had gotten larger and some leaves had spilled out.

Sighing, Di Tou walked over and righted the bag, while trying his best to re-bundle it. Placing the new bag next to the old one, Di Tou walked over to the shed to grab the broom again and start another round of sweeping.

Once again, he wanted to start under the table, as he felt like the leaves there were relatively easy to overlook. Leading the broom under the table he swept and then…

︵ ┻━┻

The table got overturned….

"What the..?"

Di Tou paused for a moment. Not too long ago he had felt like he wasn't anything superhuman, but here he was moments later accidentally flipping over a heavy stone table using a broom.

Putting the broom to the side for a moment, Di Tou went over to return the table to it's original position.

Lifting it he found that it was still a bit heavy for the current him, especially considering that it was a round table and was somewhat unwieldy to hold, it was difficult for Di Tou to actually pick up the table, but just to flip it right-side up was fairly easy as the table was well built and had a good center of gravity.

It seemed like while he had indeed gotten a lot stronger, part of why it had been so easy to flip earlier was because the broom had been acting as a sort of lever.

But, realizing he could lift the table, Di Tou realized that this could actually be a beneficial thing for him in terms of sweeping the yard.

Slightly lifting the table, Di Tou moved it over towards the entrance of the courtyard, so it was no longer near the center of the space. After that, he went to move the small stone chairs only to realize they were much, much, much heavier than the table, to the point that he couldn't lift them at all.

In fact, if it wasn't for the fact he was able to slightly tip them over, he would believe that they were nailed to the ground.

This was rather confusing, looking at the material the chair and tables looked like they were all the same, at least to Di Tou there wasn't any noticeable difference, they both seemed to be a rather creamy white stone. And while the chair seemed to be fully solid (you can imagine them as small stone pillars or boulders that have been polished) the table didn't seem hollow either and was much larger than either of the two chairs.

But either way, the two chairs wouldn't budge, and while Di Tou was tempted to fully tip them over and then roll them away, he was worried if he would be able to right them again, as if they were turned over it would be much harder to get a good grip on them.

Sighing that his plan couldn't come to fruition, Di Tou gave up on moving the chairs for the moment. It seemed like there would still be an obstacle in the middle of the courtyard. That being said, without the table it was already a lot easier, as the chairs were rather small, and perhaps due to their weight didn't end up catching any leaves beneath them.

Grabbing the broom again, Di Tou got back to sweeping the courtyard.

Starting from one corner of the yard, Di Tou methodically made his way through the area, only making small detours around the trees and the two stone chairs.

After he made one round, he hesitated for a moment before doing another round starting from another corner.

After he finished two rounds and was relatively satisfied with the now significantly cleaner yard, Di Tou went to move the table back to between the two chairs.

All in all, this had taken him a bit longer than it had in the morning, as he had made two rounds, as well as having had to move the table here and there, but he found himself much less tired than he had when he finished in the morning, and he could be considered significantly faster in terms of how fast he did the work, only taking longer due to additional steps he added along the way.

Tying off the new bag with a length of fishing string again, as he realized he had only bought a needle and thread and not any ropes or twines, another oversight on his part, Di Tou decided to also give the table and the chairs a scrub before eating.

Grabbing the washbasin and the two rags, Di Tou scrubbed down the table twice. Even lifting it slightly to scrub the bottom and undersides of the table that usually would be ignored. As for the chairs… He couldn't lift them so he simply rubbed down what he could on the top and sides of the two chairs.

When he finished wiping everything down, Di Tou took a step back and felt rather satisfied at his job.

While the courtyard still looked a little worse for wear, the age only gave it a somewhat charming and timeless look that added nicely to the simple ambiance of the yard.

If anything was ruining the ambiance in this otherwise picturesque place… It would be the dirty, sweaty, and greasy old man standing with a silly grin on his face.

Di Tou: I resent that!

As some readers might recall, Di Tou had spent most of the day cleaning things, and while his stronger physique made it so that he didn't sweat as much, he nonetheless had gone through enough to have built up quite a sweat over time. Further, in cleaning the yard he'd gotten somewhat dirty… And let's not even speak to the mess he made wiping his hands on the robes while eating.

All in all, Di Tou really needed to take a shower…

Except there wasn't a shower. Just a bath. As for how many trips back and forth from the well that would take to fill up, I'll leave it to you to guess. (No really, I haven't done the math yet.)

More importantly, even if he got all the water he needed… He could only take a cold water bath, as he didn't have a fireplace in his house, and the only way to get hot water was to boil it.

What was Di Tou going to do?