After returning home and opening the door, he saw the old, tiled house. Long unoccupied, it was now in a state of complete disrepair; the kitchen's main beams had collapsed.
Without inhabitants, this kind of tiled house deteriorates rapidly. A past typhoon had lifted the tiles, allowing rain to leak inside. The water caused the wooden beams to rot, accelerating the house's decline. The kitchen was especially bad, as it had been built with adobe bricks. Once water seeped in, the bricks became soaked and easily crumbled.
A reinforced concrete house is far more solid and durable, Yi Anguo thought. Once you seal the doors and windows, not much dust gets in. Even if you come back after a few years, a little tidying up makes it perfectly habitable again. But a tiled house just doesn't hold up. Without someone to care for it, it becomes uninhabitable within a few years.
To make the place livable again would take a tremendous amount of effort and a complete overhaul.
