462, Winter Has Arrived 26

Yu Heng slept for the whole day and woke up the next night. His bones were sore and his temples were throbbing. After eating the millet porridge Zheng Han cooked for him, he sweated and felt better.

Illness comes like a mountain and goes like a thread. Yu Heng was seriously ill. After recovering from his illness, he checked the results of Zhou Qingrong and others' contact in the past few days and found that Zhou Qingrong, the shy Zhou Qingshan and another man named Zhou Xiangbei were the best shooters.

"Usually, we put away the guns and don't let children touch them. Normally, we don't need guns, but we want to enhance our self-protection ability in case of possible dangers in the future." Yu Heng gave everyone a batch of bullets and sent them home.

In the next few days, those people sent a lot of things to the Zhou family, including rice, flour, oil, and some people sent freshly chopped firewood. Yu Heng accepted all of them to express his acceptance of their gratitude. They also abided by the rules and did not tell others where the guns came from. Therefore, the villagers only knew that they had been practicing shooting in the back mountain, but they only thought that the things were taken from the school armory.

The villagers who regretted not getting any guns and bullets went to these people's homes to make connections in the hope of getting some. The Zhou family also came to visit, but all of them were sent away by Zhou Qingrong. He said: "I don't have much, just one!" Whether you believe it or not, Zhou Qingrong just bit it to death.

After another half a month, the temperature outside stabilized at 40 degrees Celsius, and the survivors were already accustomed to such a temperature. Han Dongshu from Laokang Village planned to go hunting in the mountains. His family was originally a hunter. Although there were fields in the village, they were not many and were sold more than 20 years ago. He was good at hunting. If he shot small prey such as pheasants and rabbits, if they were not dead, he could put them in a cage and sell them at a high price in the big market in Qing Province. Even if they were dead, the price was not low. People in the city loved to eat wild ones. Therefore, his family was one of the few families in the village that had no food reserves, and it was very difficult to survive until now. He was too embarrassed to always use the old friendship to buy food from the villagers, so he decided to go hunting in the mountains.

His son disagreed: "It's so cold now, the prey must be dead. Where can there be prey in the bare mountains?"

Han Dongshu has become much thinner. He has always been a strong old man, and now his thinness has a bit of twilight flavor. He exhaled a puff of smoke: "People are not dead, so the prey must be alive. Sensen, we need to find a way out before we are at the end of the road. Before the food in other people's homes is eaten up, we have to occupy a piece of land in the mountains." After the cold wave, the ecological environment and biological activity paths in the mountains must have changed, and his previous experience is no longer useful. He needs to find a new prey activity area.

The movement of Han Dongshu's house quickly attracted the attention of other people in the village. It was cold outside and not many people were active outside. Laokang Village was silent except for the three meals a day. Uncle Han Dong and his son were carrying their prey down the mountain. There happened to be a live pheasant with its wings tied and still flapping and calling. Uncle Han Dong's neighbors heard it and went out to see it. They started to make a fuss. People who were idle at home crowded over to watch the fun.

"Wow! A live chicken! The comb is so bright. There are live chickens at this time of year!"

"The feathers are so thick... Han Dong, are you going to sell this chicken?"

Han Dong waved his hand: "I can't sell it! There's no use giving money when there's no food at home!"

"I'll give you rice in exchange! How many pounds do you want to exchange for a chicken leg?"

Uncle Han Dong took a puff of his cigarette and reluctantly agreed.

After learning the news, Yu Heng scooped out five pounds of rice for Zhou Qingrong to exchange: "Any part will do, and it doesn't need to be a lot. Just taste it." In the end, Zhou Qingrong got back half a chicken neck and spent a pound of rice.

"Fresh meat is hard to come by." Yu Heng didn't think it was expensive. He carefully prepared the half chicken neck and cooked the soup first. Each person drank a small bowl of the clear soup, then picked up the chicken neck and stir-fried it, and each person took a piece to taste it.

The chicken neck was fried crispy, and Yu Heng chewed and chewed until he ate even the bones. Wild chicken tastes good, and there is a meaty aroma when chewed. He chewed and counted the supplies at home in his mind. There is still a year's supply of rice, flour, grain, oil, and salt. These are staple necessities, so they are stored the most, followed by salt and other dry goods, ready-to-eat foods such as instant noodles and ham. The latter things are stored less, and it can be said that they will be consumed in less than half a year, and there will be no side dishes for rice.

It is indeed time to find a new source of food. The land in the back mountain is very good. If it recovers well after the cold wave, wild vegetables and other edible plants can also be found. Before cultivating new cold-resistant rice varieties, we can only get resources from this mountain.

"Go ask your uncle Han Dong tomorrow to see when they will go up the mountain again, and we will go with them. It will be better to take care of them with more people, and we won't compete with him for what they hunted first." After going up the mountain, everyone tried their luck and skills.

"I asked, and Brother Sen said he will go again tomorrow morning, around nine o'clock. Others also said they would go, I think there will be a big team tomorrow."

"Then go ask your third uncle if anyone is going."

Zhou Qingrong wiped his mouth: "I'll go now."

After a while, Zhou Qingrong came back: "Qingshui is going."

The next morning, Yu Heng packed up and went to the next door to call Zhou Qingshui, and the three of them went to Uncle Han Dong's house together. As expected, there were already quite a few people at Uncle Han Dong's house. At about 9:30, everyone arrived. Uncle Han Dong said something ugly in advance: "Although we have walked the route up twice today, Sen Sen and I cannot guarantee everyone's safety. Everyone should be careful not to run around." This is what should be done, and everyone agreed.

"Then let's go!" It was not the first time that Han Dong and his son led the villagers up the mountain, but this time was more dangerous. Along the way, they kept talking about things to pay attention to, such as using a long stick to poke the ground to explore the way when walking, otherwise there might be snow pits caused by melting ice and water. There is no predictable depth of the snow pit, and you might not be able to get out after stepping in, or you might get cut somewhere on your body.

Yu Heng, Zhou Qingrong and Zhou Qingshui walked slowly side by side. The three of them had clothes drying poles in their hands and poked carefully along the way. The mountain was very quiet, so quiet that only the sounds of the villagers' activities could be heard, and even Zhou Qingshui's hiccups could be clearly heard. Yu Heng observed the situation of the forest. The trees in his eyes were all bare. It seemed that as the ice layer fell off, all the frozen green was taken away. Looking carefully, he could see some fresh green on some bare branches. The green was small, and it withstood the severe cold and could meet the future of prosperity.

Han Dong took them to a flat area and said that this was the farthest distance he and his son had explored so far. He and his son planned to explore further today and meet here at three o'clock in the afternoon to go down the mountain together. "If you want to go down the mountain early, you can, only you remember the way. Okay, Sen Sen and I will continue to walk, you can do whatever you want." Although they said it was casual, more than half of the people who continued to follow Han Dong and his son stayed to observe the bare forest and planned to look for it here.

Yu Heng also followed Han Dong to continue walking up the mountain. Halfway through, the three of them separated from the main group and went into the jungle next to them. He carefully looked at this area that no one had ever stepped on, half bent over to check all the clues, then whispered to Zhou Qingrong and Zhou Qingshui, pointing to a small slope: "Dig, dig slowly."

The two immediately started digging, digging three feet into the ground and digging to the bottom. Zhou Qingrong took a breath, looked at the circle of snake patterns, swallowed hard and took two steps back. There was a slope where he was standing, and Zhou Qingrong almost fell down when he stepped back. Yu Heng grabbed him: "I know you are afraid of snakes, okay, I'll do it, you go and bring the cage over."

Zhou Qingrong, who felt like he had been pardoned, hurried to get the cage, avoided his sight and pushed the cage back: "Mom, cage, cage." Then he felt his hand was heavy and his knees bent down.

What a heavy snake!

Zhou Qingrong's hands were shaking, and he had to work hard to suppress the urge to run away.

"Okay, I'll get it." Zhou Qingshui's tone was obviously smiling and happy. He took the cage and said happily as if he was holding some treasure: "How fat! So much meat! Second aunt, how did you find it? It's amazing!"

Yu Heng smiled and told them some details, and the three continued to move forward. After that, three more hibernating snake holes were dug, and a total of thirteen snakes were harvested! Although they were a little thin, the meat was firm, and Yu Heng drooled a little. There are medicinal materials for stewing snake soup at home, and I will turn them out and stew them to nourish the body.

There are still large areas of snow piled on the ground in places where no one has been active in the forest. Yu Heng pushed away the ice and sometimes saw some ferns. There was a small depression under the ice, and the ferns were growing very well. If you see green vegetables, of course you dig them. In addition to ferns, you can also pick up a dozen ground fungus, which are skinny, but better than nothing.

The road was not easy to walk on, so they slowly looked around the area and did not dare to go deeper. When it was past two o'clock, they started to return the same way. Each of them carried a backpack. Zhou Qingrong was embarrassed to let her mother, who was so old, carry such a heavy load, so she prepared herself mentally and exchanged backpacks with Yu Heng, taking over the heavy burden of the snake.

When they arrived at the agreed place, many villagers were already waiting. Almost everyone had a harvest, but the difference was whether the amount was large or small. The three of them found a place to rest. At three o'clock, Han Dong and his son had not come down yet, so Yu Heng said that they would go down the mountain first. Some villagers saw that their backpacks were heavy and asked, "What did you hunt?"

Yu Heng smiled and said, "A little fern." But he did not let Zhou Qingshui and his brother's backpacks show others. The backpacks were padded with cloth, and it was impossible to see what was inside from the outside. This weight was a piece of cake for the two young people, so the two of them looked relaxed carrying things, which made it even more difficult to estimate.

Seeing Zhou Qingrong avoiding his hand that was about to shake the backpack, the villagers laughed awkwardly: "What good stuff is that? We are all family, why don't you give me some?"

"Nothing good." Zhou Qingrong evaded the question and gave Zhou Qingshui a look. The two walked faster, leaving everyone behind. Yu Heng followed slowly behind. He was carrying fern on his back, and he was not afraid of others looking at it. Meat was so precious these days that even if someone wanted to exchange it for food, their family was not short of food.

After returning home, Yu Heng gave Zhou Qingshui five snakes. Zhou Qingrong was really afraid of snakes, and Zhou Qingshui almost did the work when digging the snake holes. Zhou Qingshui refused but took the backpack and took a small bunch of fern back. That night, he made a plate of stir-fried snake segments and sent it to Yu Heng's family.

The snakes were all alive. Yu Heng planned to keep them and eat one every ten days or half a month, which would last for two or three months!

With more food in their stomachs, the Zhou family looked much better. What's even more interesting is that Zhou Haojun is not afraid of snakes at all, unlike his father! He feeds all the snakes at home, and even little Zhou Yueting sits cross-legged to watch the snakes. The two siblings have a great aesthetic sense. Originally, it was OK to feed snakes with frogs, mice, and eggs, but now even frogs are a rare meal for humans, so how could they bear to feed them to snakes? Zheng Han chopped up some wild grass (even wild grass is hard to find) and mixed it with porridge to feed the children. It didn't matter whether the snakes liked to eat it or not, anyway, they wouldn't die for the time being without food.

After three months, Yu Heng organized the villagers to go to the city and transport the bodies in the deserted city to the crematorium. Other villagers who had been informed also came together. It took half a month to cremate the bodies and buried them directly in Yangmingshan, where the crematorium was located. There was no experienced master left, so the inexperienced apprentice carved a stele crookedly after collecting five kilograms of grain, writing:

Alley Cemetery.