“Okay.” Xu Xinghe agreed and immediately looked at the village chief.

The village chief's wife led her into a house not far away, and the two of them boiled water together.

In such harsh and cold conditions, hot water is the best way to warm the body and is also the cheapest option.

Once inside, warmth finally enveloped me.

Xu Xinghe tried to untie her cloth bag, only to find that her hands had become frozen stiff without her noticing. Even with gloves on, her joints were stiff and she couldn't move them freely. She had even lost most of her sense of touch.

The village chief's wife immediately saw what she was thinking and pulled her hand closer to the stove. "Don't get too close. Rub your hands together while warming yourself by the fire, that way you won't get hurt. Remember, in Northeast China, if you get frostbite, you can't warm yourself by the fire right away, otherwise you'll be ruined. You have to rub your hands with snow first. It's not serious for you, you can just rub your hands together."

Xu Xinghe silently rubbed his hands together.

After a long while, enveloped in warmth, my hand finally regained feeling.

The village chief's wife put down the large pot and sighed, "A lot of people will definitely die this year. Just the day the frost came, we don't know how much grain we lost. Now there's a snow disaster. It's really not giving us ordinary people a way to survive. It's only because life is better now. In the past, even more people froze to death."

Xu Xinghe's voice was slightly hoarse, "Do people often freeze to death in your village?"

"That's right. Things have been better these past two years, but there were so many more before. Before, Old Zhao's youngest son didn't want to use the toilet inside the house and insisted on going out in the middle of the night. As a result, he slipped and fell outside, passed out, and when they found him the next day, he was already frozen solid."

A living, breathing life.

In the end, with just a few words, he was sentenced to death.

The firelight illuminated the village chief's wife's face, making her wrinkles even more pronounced.

Xu Xinghe sat on a small stool to the side, scooping clean snow into a large iron pot. Her movements were so nimble that she didn't seem like a pampered southern girl at all.

"Sister-in-law, could you make the fire a little bigger? The snow is melting quite a bit."

"Okay, I'll add it right away."

The village chief's wife immediately added firewood, and the crackling flames licked the bottom of the pot, quickly melting the snow into bubbling hot water.

Xu Xinghe picked up the large ladle next to him, poured some into the military water bottle, and then took it out the door.

Other villagers and aunties from outside came over to help.

After working hard for half a day, the soldiers finally got a sip of hot water.

After finishing their drinks, the soldiers began shoveling snow again, their breath forming a thin layer of frost on their hat brims. A layer of snow also settled on their shoulders and collars, making them look very cold.

Jiang Linchuan was bending over shoveling snow not far away, but the movement of his back was not significant.

Xu Xinghe rushed over and snatched the shovel from him. "I told you to give the order, why did you do it yourself again? You won't miss a few days."

Jiang Linchuan straightened up. "This little bit of work is no problem."

"No way!" Xu Xinghe gripped the shovel tightly, pretending to be angry. "If you get tired, who will coordinate things? Go over there and see who's tired. Let them take over. Don't make them keep working. The snow is still falling. At least shake your clothes off when you rest so they don't get wet."

Seeing her puffed-up face, Jiang Linchuan finally gave in, "I can quit, but you can't either. Go inside and help boil water; we'll need it to melt ice later."

"OK."

The snow finally stopped as darkness fell.

The snow has been mostly cleared away; there's only a thin layer left, so it won't cause any problems.

The group dragged their leaden legs toward the military headquarters.

No one spoke the entire way.

I'm so exhausted, I have no energy left.

By the moonlight, Xu Xinghe glanced at the soldiers' feet.

Some of their cotton shoes were soaked through, and their trouser legs were frozen solid, but they didn't utter a single complaint.

Jiang Linchuan wasn't much better off; she lowered her eyes and touched the hem of her trousers with her foot.

It's really hard; the wrinkles are frozen solid and won't change at all. You can even hear a crisp popping sound.

"What's wrong?" Jiang Linchuan asked in a low voice.

"It's alright, go back."

Several days passed like this.

Early in the morning, just as dawn was breaking, Xu Xinghe prepared hot water and got ready to go out.

Then I saw Wang Chunmei carrying a notebook, running hurriedly, looking flustered.

"Aunt Mei, what happened?"

Wang Chunmei stopped, panting heavily, "Don't even mention it, we don't have enough food!"

Xu Xinghe's expression changed. "It's only been a few days, how can it not be enough?"

"The snow is too heavy, the grain trucks can't get in at all. The roads we just cleared are covered up again by snow. The military's grain reserves have been used to support the people. Also, our brothers in the military are doing heavy work, so we need to prepare more food for them. The current grain reserves are only enough for two days at most!"

The military has a considerable amount of grain reserves.

However, due to the frost this year, the grain yield was already problematic.

So before the snow disaster, they provided assistance to other places and villages to ensure that people would not lack food.

Now that the heavy snow has blocked the roads, trucks transporting grain can't get in, and the military can only sit and wait until the reserves run out.

Everyone is still out and about, and they've eaten too much, so naturally they can't keep it up for long.

Wang Chunmei wiped her face, her voice urgent, "I can't say anymore, I have to go find the political commissar and see if we can ask our superiors to open the national grain depots to deal with the emergency. But the entire Heilongjiang province is severely affected by the disaster, and the situation in the other two northeastern provinces is not good either. They might even need to use our grain to provide aid, and I don't know how much we'll get..."

Before the words were even finished, the person had already run far away.

Xu Xinghe stood there, gazing at the falling snow in a daze.

When she first saw Xue, she was excited, feeling both curious and delighted.

The snow was beautiful in her eyes back then; it adorned the whole world, making the familiar scenery clean and pure.

She even found the crunching sound of her footsteps on the snow extremely amusing.

But now, looking at the endless snow, Xu Xinghe no longer feels the same way she did back then.

What she saw were houses collapsed under the weight of snow, the desperate cries of the people, and the soldiers' hands and feet turned purple from the cold, their cotton shoes soaked through.

Xu Xinghe let the cold snowflakes fall on her face.

She suddenly realized that she had been too naive before.

They only saw the beautiful appearance of snow, but did not know that whenever it snowed, people would die in the cold winter.

Just like many things in this world, you can't judge a book by its cover.

But perhaps it's not too late for her to know all this now.

Xu Xinghe tightened her cotton coat. She wasn't going to Hongxing Village today; she was going to town.

The soldiers lined up again and set off.

Xu Xinghe's gaze swept over the area, then suddenly stopped.

The young soldier at the end of the line had cotton shoes with charred heels that were bent slightly from the heat.

She hurried forward, "What happened to your shoes?"

The soldier blushed and awkwardly pulled his foot back. "I only have two pairs of cotton shoes. They got wet yesterday and I put them on the stove to dry, but I was so tired that I fell asleep... It's okay, I can still wear them."

He scratched his head, his sixteen or seventeen-year-old face flushed red, not from shyness, but from the cold.

Xu Xinghe felt as if he had been stabbed in the heart. He still had a childish look in his eyes, yet he had to suffer so much.

"Wait for me." She turned and ran back into the house, took out a pair of cotton shoes that Jiang Linchuan had never worn, and handed them to the soldier. Her tone left no room for argument. "These won't keep you warm at all. Your feet will definitely be frozen by the end of the day. How will you work then?"

She had already prepared a lot of warm clothes for Jiang Linchuan in Shanghai, so this pair of shoes wouldn't make a difference.

But this little soldier might be missing just one pair of shoes.

The young soldier held the cotton shoes, his eyes instantly reddening. "This...this must be Commander Jiang's, right? I can't accept it..."

"Just wear them." Xu Xinghe quickly untied the shoelaces. "He has other shoes. If they don't fit you, just wear a few more pairs of socks to keep warm."

The young soldier squatted down to change his shoes.

Xu Xinghe felt a little relieved as she watched him run quickly to catch up with the group.

She turned around and followed the group heading to town.