Chapter 86 Winter Life Ends Uncertainly: Food, Snow...
After finding out the information he wanted, Ray stayed at Hagrid's house for a while longer.
Around noon, he was planning to go home to cook when Brian and Reese returned, dragging fishing nets and two large buckets of fish.
In the day or so since the nets were cast, quite a few fish have been caught. A rough estimate suggests that freezing these fish will definitely provide enough to eat until next spring.
Luna jumped for joy when she saw her father and Uncle Brian bring back so many fish.
"Fish! Dad caught lots of fish!"
Hagrid stood up and looked out the window. Rye followed Linda out to meet Brian and Reese.
After returning to the house, the group busied themselves preparing the fish, arranging them into four basins according to size and type.
Having been out of the water and exposed to cold winds all the way, these fish definitely won't survive. They'll all have to be taken outside to freeze. Those we can't eat later can be sold at the market.
Drilling holes in the ice to lower nets, and then hauling them in a few days later, yields a large catch of fresh fish. This job sounds simple, but it's actually quite risky.
The first issue is the ice surface.
There is a risk of accidentally breaking the entire river surface during the drilling process. The ice surface is very slippery, and it becomes even more so after the hole is drilled and water overflows. If you are not careful, you may fall into the water.
In winter, people wear thick clothes, and once they fall under the ice, it's very difficult to find a hole on the ice to breathe or climb out within a short timeframe when they can hold their breath.
Secondly, the process of setting up the net was also extremely dangerous.
Either those with livestock used them to pull the net up, or they had to rely on manpower to slowly haul it up.
With fish weighing over a hundred pounds, plus a soaked fishing net, and the ice surface making it easy to slip, the difficulties are unimaginable.
So even though they know that fishing in winter can be quite lucrative, few people are willing to take the risk. At most, they'll make a few holes in the ice at the edge and catch whatever they can with their fishing rods.
Brian and Reese returned from collecting the nets with their hands red from the cold, and their trouser legs and clothes were soaked with water. Linda urged them to go back to their rooms and change their clothes.
After changing his clothes, Rhys wanted to warm himself by the fireplace, but Linda slapped him away.
"One is hot, the other is cold; you'll be in for a rude awakening if your hands get itchy!"
Reese didn't dare to say much. He rubbed his hands, which were so cold they were almost numb, and sat down next to Ray.
Luna climbed into Rhys's arms and gave him a super loud kiss.
"Dad, you caught fish for Mom, Luna, and the whole family to eat. This is your reward!"
Luna's innocent remarks amused Hagrid, who was sitting at the table.
"Luna, Uncle Brian is fishing too, what are you going to do?"
Hagrid was deliberately teasing the children.
Luna thought for a moment, then gave Brian another kiss.
"That's it!"
"Hahaha! You little rascal."
A burst of laughter and chatter filled the table.
Linda has already gone to the kitchen to get busy. With so much fish, the family will definitely have a fresh meal first at lunchtime today.
Not wanting to linger, and also concerned about Neil and the livestock at home, Ray declined Hagrid's invitation and went home with the clothes Linda had mended. When he left, Rhys gave him a generous amount of fish.
From then on, except for going to the market to sell vegetables, Lai rarely went out.
Having witnessed the power of magic, Lai, who originally only intended to learn some basic skills, began to immerse himself in studying those notebooks.
He wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he felt that the elements he could transform were becoming purer and purer, and the power of the skills he could unleash was also increasing.
Time passed day by day, and Tata had worn the splint on her hind leg for a month, finally able to remove it. She could remove the splint herself at home; there was no need to go all the way to Blake's place. He was quite confident in his chiropractic skills.
Lai carefully removed the splint, revealing Tata's legs, which had been confined for a month.
Tata's hind legs, which were originally all soft flesh, are now so thin that it looks like muscle atrophy, and the shape of the bones is almost visible, which is somewhat creepy.
The shaved area has grown a layer of short hair, and the hair exposed between the splints is very dirty, forming a stark contrast with the part completely covered by the splints.
His hind legs need a good wash, no, the whole beast needs a wash.
Tata has a very keen sense of smell. Lately, he has been able to smell a faint odor. He initially thought it was something in the house that had gone bad, but now that the plywood has been removed, he finally understands what the smell is.
For a vain little animal, this is absolutely unacceptable.
Take a shower! I absolutely must take a shower!
Lai boiled water and gave Tata a fragrant hot bath right away. His excited little emotions finally calmed down.
He will need to rest for the next two months and undergo some rehabilitation training, mainly to practice bending, squatting, and running in his hind leg, which has not been used much for a month, as well as to help the muscles in his hind leg recover.
Moderate exercise is sufficient; there's no need to pursue excessive training. Overexertion doesn't significantly aid recovery and may even lead to secondary injuries.
Other things also happened during this time.
Ray learned from Lamb that the elder had not given up on capturing the mutated plant. He had organized three more capture teams to search for its whereabouts, but all of them had returned empty-handed.
For some unknown reason, the mutated plant vanished completely, as if it had never existed at all.
If it weren't for the real wounds on Ray and Lamb, some people would have actually started to suspect that the two of them were spreading rumors to make Hagrid's family monopolize that woodland.
Another heavy snowfall buried all the footprints in the woods overnight. Although markers had been left beforehand, the increasingly deep snow made movement very difficult.
Finally, Barnett reluctantly called a halt to the search, and had Kari string a rope across the woods, warning all the villagers that they could only move outside the rope, at the edge of the woods.
As winter deepened, Lai stopped going to town to sell bean sprouts and spent his days at home working, reading, and learning how to draw magic circles.
We're counting down the days, and almost two-thirds of winter has already passed.
The Lai family still had plenty of grain. There were only two people in the family, and they couldn't eat much at most in one meal. They ate their fill three times a day, and they had only eaten about half of the wheat harvested in the fall.
The poorer families in the village did not fare so well.
Since the beginning of winter, they have been eating only two meals a day, meticulously calculating how much food each person eats each day.
Although they ate simple meals every day, consisting only of potatoes, sweet potatoes, cabbage, and radishes throughout the entire winter, without a single trace of meat, they were already quite content with this life. Radishes and cabbage wouldn't kill them; hunger was the most terrifying thing.
Compared to the villagers who are good at managing their finances, the goblins have a much harder time.
The villagers still have enough food to barely last until spring, but most of the goblins have no food left at all.
Iru's wife is a very thrifty goblin who meticulously plans how the family's food will be consumed.
Before the temperature gets this cold, Yilu would lead the children to make traps to catch as much prey as possible; they would also search all over the mountains and fields for all kinds of edible fruits and grasses.
During that period, the whole family mostly survived on these foods, at most giving Yilu and the children an extra taro when they went out to hunt.
The weather is getting colder and colder, making hunting difficult. The goblins have quietly explored several nearby hills that are rarely visited, and they can hardly find any winter plants that taste good and can stave off hunger.
The Yilu family also fell into a delicate predicament, and could only rely on the food in the cellar to live a frugal life.
They wouldn't even let sprouted potatoes go to waste; they'd pluck out the sprouts, boil them in water until they became a paste, add a little salt, and continue eating.
Even so, the life of the Iru family was considered quite good among the goblins.
Those goblins who hadn't stockpiled food beforehand, the more honest ones who didn't like to cause trouble, could only eat boiled grass roots every day; while the more dishonest goblins had already started thinking about how to steal food from their own kind.
The Yilu family was visited twice.
But Yilu hid the food very well; there was not a single food scrap visible in his house, only boiled water, grass roots, and tree bark.
For more precious items like salt, Iru and Nana each carried half with them, never leaving a trace.
Iru led his cubs in two battles against other goblins, and only then did their situation temporarily calm down, with no one daring to cause trouble there anymore.
Life has been tough and difficult, but we've weathered the snow and wind of the past few months, and this year is almost over, albeit with some close calls. The new year is approaching, and spring is drawing near.
Having weathered this final, most difficult month, temperatures will gradually rise. Everything is reviving; where there is new life, there is hope. Everyone must grit their teeth and persevere.
The outside temperature is at least minus twenty or thirty degrees Celsius, but the fireplace inside is burning constantly, and the warm little house makes you not want to leave for even a moment.
The small mountain village lacked everything, but it never lacked wood for fuel. People had heard of people starving to death, but rarely of freezing to death. To freeze to death surrounded by tens of thousands of trees was truly laughable.
Rye rarely went out, and only Hagrid's family would come to visit. With nothing else to do, Rye began to teach Neil arithmetic, how to add, subtract, multiply, and divide, and how to use the multiplication table.
This was an incredibly exciting and novel experience for Neil, a village boy who had never seen the world. He studied it with exceptional seriousness.
Then came another heavy snowfall, followed by several light snowfalls.
Guge's leg has improved a lot, and he can move around on his own without the coffin cane.
One day, Linda and Ray brought him food, but he declined their offer to continue and returned to his previous life of cooking alone.
But Lai was still worried about Gug's safety, so she would still go to see him every few days and bring him some of the delicious food she made.
Gug treated Lai and Lamb better and better, as if they were his own grandsons. He always thought of them when he had something good, and the relationship between the two families became closer and closer.
Neil has a good personality and has never asked for anything, and Ray isn't a troublemaker either. It's inevitable that family members living together for a long time will have some conflicts, but the two of them haven't had a single argument in the six months they've lived together. You could say they get along quite well.
Another heavy snow fell, with snowflakes fluttering down from the afternoon until midnight.
After finishing dinner and feeding the livestock, Lai washed up and went to bed early. Tata curled up in a small ball at the foot of Lai's bed.
Before the splints were removed, he had difficulty moving around. After the fire went out, the room temperature dropped, and he often woke up freezing in the early morning. But he had no other way to keep warm, so he could only rely on his fur coat and the small blanket in his basket to tough it out.
This time, with his legs nimble and no other obstacles, he slipped into Ray's room that very day. After several days of unsuccessful attempts to stop him, Ray simply let him go. This made Neil envious for a long time.
Strangely enough, even though Neil was the one who picked up Tata, Tata seemed to be closer to Ray.
Aside from the heavy snow falling outside, tonight was just another ordinary winter night.
But this snowy winter night seemed anything but peaceful; something unexpected appeared to have happened in the village.
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Author's Note: Tata's Forest Life Log ①
As is well known, the Great Forest of Eaton is one of the most mysterious places on the entire continent, home to countless rare and exotic animals and a variety of precious resources.
The Tata family lives here.
He was the first baby monster born after his father and mother came together. He was a tiny, soft ball of fur, naturally blessed with pure white fur. Even the Beast God seemed to have a special favor for him. His talent was far superior to that of other baby monsters of his kind.
His young parents named him Amanta, which means health and courage.
They showered all their love on this lucky little monster, protecting him as he successfully navigated the early stages of infancy when he needed to be nursed by his mother.
The little monster's growth period is always exceptionally long, and its boundless energy makes it curious about everything around it.
They always hide under low bushes or occupy other animals' burrows and play hide-and-seek with the females.
On this day, as usual, Little Tata drove away the natives in the cave and hid himself in a particularly secluded corner.
"Tata".
The sound of a mother beast could be heard nearby.
Tata was secretly pleased; this time he had hidden himself very well, and the mother beast had not discovered him.
The young mother, who doted on her cub excessively, was happy to play these little games with her little monster. Even though she could smell the baby's milky scent, she deliberately took a longer route, pretending she hadn't found him.
As the mother beast walked away, little Tata chuckled with excited glee.
Suddenly, a strange-looking beetle crawled into his burrow. The territorial little cub couldn't tolerate this weird, ugly thing invading his territory.
"Aww!"
The little monster let out what it considered its fiercest roar.
(to be continued)
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