Chapter 50 When Spring Blossoms

Time flies, and the days pass by one by one. In the blink of an eye, two years have passed since the beginning of the extreme cold and apocalypse.

We've basically finished all the food with short shelf lives.

The frozen vegetables were all eaten.

The meat in the back room wasn't as plentiful as before; the two dogs and one person ate about a third of it.

On March 7, 2027, I suddenly realized that something seemed different outside.

When I first went down the snow passage to get firewood, the ground felt wet.

Later, my homemade natural refrigerator collapsed.

Later, you could see the sky above the window, and the snow had sunk a lot.

After more than a year of perseverance, the snow-covered passageway for gathering firewood suddenly collapsed.

I'm starting to realize that the weather might be getting warmer.

When I first realized this idea, I couldn't believe it.

Until various phenomena indicated that the weather was indeed getting warmer day by day.

Only then did I dare to fully believe that the weather was starting to warm up.

My heart was pounding with excitement, as if something was sprouting and growing from the depths of my soul, impossible to suppress.

If the extreme cold and apocalypse really end, I can lead my two dogs to roam freely all over the mountains and fields.

You can sit in a rocking chair and enjoy the warm sunshine.

You can plant seeds on real land, watch them sprout, and then grow into a lush green vegetable garden.

I could even become a real peasant woman, go to the home of the farmer who slaughtered the pig last time, chat with them about everyday life, and eat the pig-slaughtering feast together.

My life, which used to be so ordinary, and which I even looked down upon, is now something I look forward to.

Ever since I noticed the weather was getting warmer, I've been indulging in blissful daydreams every day.

As the snow outside the window melted more and more, I put the thermometer outside.

The outdoor temperature has reached 7 degrees Celsius.

This change delighted me, and I began to shovel snow manually.

Using a large snow shovel, they started pushing snow from the doorway outwards.

Once a path has been cleared, take out the small cart we bought earlier.

Secure four wooden planks around the wheelbarrow, fill it with snow, and then push it to the gate of the yard.

There was so much snow that it piled up into a small mountain at the entrance of the courtyard.

It took me four whole days to clear the snow that was up to my head.

After the snow is cleared, the two dogs can be let out to run around freely.

From the time the two dogs can remember until now, they have never explored any new areas other than their home and the underground passage.

When I released them after clearing the snow, their eyes were full of hesitation and disbelief.

It only dared to peek out cautiously, and after hesitating for a long time, it bravely took its first step and went out into the yard to observe the surroundings.

Then they jumped and played around in the yard, even howling like wolves in excitement.

I looked at the large pile of dog poop next to the stack of timber.

Although I was extremely unwilling, I still endured the disgust and piled them together with an old shovel.

We'll keep these as fertilizer later; they'll really come in handy when the weather warms up and we can plant vegetables.

The weather warmed up quickly, and after another half month, it had reached 10 degrees Celsius.

The sun gradually became clearer, peeking out from behind the clouds.

When the bright sunlight streamed into the yard, I brought out the solar panels that had been gathering dust for a long time.

There has been no electricity or signal at home for a long time, so I'm using electricity sparingly.

Now that the weather is warming up, we don't need to be so frugal anymore.

As long as the weather is good and the sun is strong, the solar panels can power the lights and other household appliances in the house.

I finally don't have to ride that torturous exercise bike anymore; my calves have gotten so thick from all that pedaling over the past year.

After installing the solar panels, I need to deal with the frozen goods stored in the back room.

The weather has been getting warmer lately, and meat that was frozen solid before has started to thaw.

Apart from the frozen hot pot meatballs, we've basically finished all the other frozen semi-finished products.

I visually estimated the amount of meat.

The beef, including what I bought at the butcher shop before and the beef I bought later at the supermarket specifically for grilling, totals about 400 jin (200 catties).

There are about 500 jin of pork left.

All 30 rural chickens were eaten, leaving only some chicken wings, drumsticks, and young chickens.

I have two large refrigerators that can hold a total of about 400 kilograms of food.

I plan to put some in the refrigerator and try to preserve the rest.

All the roasted beef was put in, along with regular beef, making a total of 250 jin (125 catties).

100 jin of pork was frozen and then stuffed into all the hot pot meatballs.

I plan to dry the remaining beef into beef jerky.

The remaining 400 jin of pork was made into smoked bacon, cured bacon, and pork cracklings for rendering lard.

This is a huge amount of meat. I need to finish it all within two or three days.

Otherwise, it will spoil quickly as the weather gets warmer.

The meat is now semi-melted, making it easy to cut.

I plan to process the beef first, since it's both delicious and expensive.

Cut each piece of beef into long strips, about the width of two fingers.

I didn't cut it very precisely; I just cut it roughly to save time.

After cutting everything, put it into a large bowl.

Pour in appropriate amounts of light soy sauce, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, five-spice powder, sugar, and salt, and stir well.

Then put these large basins in a corner and let the beef marinate for a while.

At this point, quickly cut the pork.

Since the pork was pre-cut by the farmers, there was no need to cut 300 jin (150 catties) of pork.

Both smoked and cured bacon come in whole pieces, with the farmers cutting the meat into just the right size.

Pick out a large amount of fatty meat and a small amount of lean meat, totaling 100 jin (50 catties), and cut them into small slices.

Then heat up the wood-fired stove over the large iron pot, and pour 50 jin of fatty and lean meat slices into the pot together.

I was worried that the iron pot wouldn't be able to hold 50 pounds of pork, but it easily did.

Stir constantly with a spatula to render the lard.

Once the lard has turned a clear color and the meat slices in the pan have become dry and hard, the lard is ready.

First, pour the lard into a large basin and wait for it to cool. Then, pour it into a jar little by little.

One hundred catties of pork were divided into two pots to render lard, yielding a total of three and a half buckets of lard and a large basin of pork cracklings.

The pork cracklings smelled so good that I couldn't resist picking one up and eating it.

It's still a little hot when you put it in your mouth, but it's very crispy when you bite into it, and your mouth is filled with the aroma of oil from the high temperature.

I'm really tired from working, so I took out the barbecue seasoning and garlic chili sauce and poured them into a plate.

You can eat it by directly pinching the pork cracklings with your hands and dipping them in the lard.

The lean meat is chewy, much like beef jerky, and the fat is rendered out so it's not greasy. It's crispy and fragrant when you bite into it.

They didn't stop until they had eaten a small hole in the large bowl.

I sprinkled salt evenly over the pork cracklings, then left them to air dry without doing anything else.

Hopefully this will help it last longer.

It was getting dark by then, and I was completely exhausted.

This feeling is like going back to when we first started stockpiling goods.

Feeling uneasy, I went to the back room to check on the remaining 300 jin of pork.

Although the outside of the 300-pound pork was a bit thawed, the inside was clumped together and frozen, so it felt like it could hold on a little longer.

So I quickly washed off the smell of lard from rendering pork fat, lay down on the kang (heated brick bed), and went to sleep.