Chapter 87 The True Epilogue: Winter Peace
In the days that followed, Zhao Xuan and Lu An began to renovate the house across the street.
This house is one of the best-preserved in the entire village. Its structure is similar to their own house. It has only two floors and a wide rooftop platform. Because the house is located on high ground, the view from the rooftop is excellent. The house has been uninhabited for many years, but there is no sign of leaks, no cracks in the walls, and even the doors and windows are intact. The only drawback is that the courtyard wall is too low, only a little over a meter high. People standing outside the wall can see everything inside, and children can easily climb over the wall.
But none of this is a drawback for Lao Dao; with his fighting prowess, whether or not there is a courtyard wall is not a big problem.
Old Dao really liked this house. He said he didn't like climbing stairs, and this house was perfect since it only had two floors. The second floor was used to store grain, and the first floor was his living room. The rooftop was perfect for drying quilts and clothes without getting dusty.
Zhao Xuan and Lu An started by cleaning the house.
They threw away all the broken furniture in the house, then carefully cleaned the floors and walls. On the roof, there was a solar panel that had long been unusable, but they threw away the old and heavy solar panel. The moss and bird droppings on the platform were cleaned up, and all the loose railings were reinforced.
Besides the front yard, the house also had a backyard overgrown with weeds, where a crooked orange tree and a half-dead magnolia tree grew. The two spent several days cleaning both yards. Zhao Xuan even found a book on "Planting and Maintaining Fruit Trees" among the books he brought back from Taiping Town. He immediately put what he learned to use, pruning the orange tree and then, by analogy, pruning the magnolia tree as well.
While Zhao Xuan was pruning the trees, Lu An dismantled the broken small door in the backyard and made a new door out of bamboo, about half a person's height, and then put it back in place.
When the Yao family learned that Zhao Xuan was repairing the house for Lao Dao, they had already leveled the front and back yards. The two-story house and the small courtyard with two old trees looked clean and bright. Without saying a word, the Yao family joined in during the winter off-season.
Lu An and Yao Yuan, with their dog, searched several deserted villages and found some sturdy and usable furniture, including a wooden bed, a table, and several benches. They washed the furniture with boiling water, dried it in the sun for a few days, and then moved it into the house. Zhang Xiaohe, on the other hand, cut several curtains out of bed sheets. She was skillful and had a good eye; the curtains were made by sewing together several layers of bed sheets, making them opaque and quite beautiful.
When Zhao Xuan and Lu An decided to stay in Shangxi Village, they scavenged everything they could find in both Shangxi and Xiaxi villages, including clothes, bedding, pots and pans. Zhao Xuan had no problem sharing his share.
So, with the efforts of both families, the small building was cleaned up and renovated just before the winter solstice.
The house is fully furnished, the door has a new lock, and there are two old trees in front of and behind the yard, making for a very nice view.
After that, Zhao Xuan and Lu An would occasionally go and tidy up the house, since they had nothing better to do anyway.
The weather is getting colder every day.
Sometimes, when you wake up early, you can see the vegetable garden covered with white frost, and the water tank will have a thin layer of ice. To get water, you have to break the ice first, and when you speak, white breath will come out of your mouth.
The distant mountains turned dark green. Most of the trees here are evergreen, with a few deciduous trees standing out in the dark green, or bright yellow or fiery red.
The village remained as quiet as ever, except for the occasional crowing of roosters from next door. A person walking through the village could clearly hear the sound of their shoes scraping against the pebbles and the breath they exhaled behind them.
This winter's activities seemed similar to last year's. Zhao Xuan and Zhang Xiaohe started making various kinds of pickles, while Lu An and Yao Yuan went to clean the streams irrigating the paddy fields. The silt that had accumulated over the past year was a good thing; it could be used to fertilize the fields. A Mian gave birth to a lamb, delivered by a dog. The Yao family hadn't forgotten that they had already given Zhao Xuan and his family the goat milk on credit, so the dog started bringing milk every day.
Zhao Xuan and Lu An both changed into thick clothes, and their bedding was replaced with down comforters, with a wool blanket on top. It was especially comfortable to snuggle in there at night.
They spent significantly more time in the kitchen because cooking required fire, and sitting in front of the stove was warm. Sometimes they simply ate at the stove instead of in the living room.
When the sun is shining, Zhao Xuan likes to sunbathe in the yard. She moves a chair there and sits to play video games or do chores. Lu An likes to sit next to her, repairing small gadgets or reading.
Zhao Xuan played Zelda: Breath of the Wild on and off, without any strategy guides, and she still managed to defeat the four Divine Beasts. Lu An watched her from the side. He had played the game before, but he had never taught Zhao Xuan how to play. There were a thousand ways to play this game, and watching Zhao Xuan's unexpected moves was even more interesting.
460 goes out less often now. When it gets cold, it likes to curl up in the big sofa, completely covered with its little blanket except for its nose. Sometimes Zhao Xuan can see it running out of its bed, its legs trembling, to go outside to pee, and then quickly running back to curl up in its little blanket again. Sometimes it probably realizes that it's been too lazy and hasn't fulfilled its duty of guarding the house, so it will occasionally climb out and curl up by the stove or the brazier, finding another warm place to stay.
As usual, the two families smoked meat and lit charcoal together in the same two tobacco curing barns, one for smoking meat and the other for lighting charcoal. The two families took turns keeping watch at night. Zhao Xuan liked to spend the night here because it was warm, and his hands wouldn't get cold while lying here playing games or reading.
The smoked pork was from the pig they slaughtered in the fall. They had deliberately saved enough pork to make cured meat for the winter. There were also some wild rabbits and pheasants, game caught at the hunting lodge. This year's harvest was plentiful, and even if they didn't slaughter the pig, the remaining pork and game would be enough for both families to eat until spring.
The day after the meat was smoked, which happened to be the Great Cold, everyone suggested celebrating together. Zhang Xiaohe wanted to learn how to make baozi from Zhao Xuan, which Zhao Xuan had promised when they made white rice cakes. So the two families got together and made baozi at Zhao Xuan's house.
The skin of white rice cake is made by pounding steamed rice, while the skin of baozi is made by frying rice flour.
The soaked rice is ground into a smooth rice paste. Then, the rice paste is put into a pot and stir-fried with dried cudweed. During the stir-frying process, the rice paste will turn into soft rice clumps, and the cudweed will be incorporated into the rice clumps, turning them into a glossy gray color.
The process sounds simple, but in reality, it's just as complicated as pounding rice cake dough.
The main problem was the exhaustion. You had to keep stirring with a spatula, and Lu An was so tired that he took off his coat in the minus three degree weather, sweating profusely.
Zhao Xuan had never actually made glutinous rice cakes before; this was another pilot project where she was creating them based on her memories. Therefore, she was extremely serious and meticulous this time, personally overseeing every step of the process: how high the heat should be, how much oil to add, and to what degree the cakes should be fried to be considered properly cooked. And then, the first batch burned.
Zhao Xuan was heartbroken. The burnt glutinous rice cakes were so soft and mushy that they couldn't be shaped and had to be fed to the pigs.
While Lu An and Zhao Xuan were preparing to stir-fry the second batch of rice batter, Yao Yuan and Zhang Xiaohe had already cleaned another pot and were preparing to stir-fry the filling.
Zhang Xiaohe and Yao Yuan were quite open-minded. Regardless of whether the rice dough over there could be stir-fried, they would first stir-fry the filling. If that didn't work, the remaining rice batter could be spread into thin pancakes, filled, and made into spring rolls.
The filling is quite generous, with freshly smoked bacon as the main ingredient. The bacon, with its alternating layers of fat and lean meat, is diced and mixed with winter bamboo shoots, shiitake mushrooms, dried tofu, dried shrimp, shredded taro, and chopped scallions. This filling differs from the white rice cakes we eat in spring, which use spring wild vegetables for a refreshing and rustic flavor. The fillings for these baozi (sticky rice dumplings) are mostly pickled foods, also carrying a strong seasonal character. The bacon is fresh, the dried mushrooms are fragrant, and the dried shrimp is fresh—all rich in flavor and perfect for winter. These ingredients, stir-fried in oil, release an aroma that fills even the rising smoke.
In the post-apocalyptic world, it always takes more time and effort to find something delicious to eat.
Both families got up early. Zhao Xuan and Lu An soaked rice and ground it into rice milk, while Zhang Xiaohe and Yao Yuan picked and cooked vegetables. Even the dog was busy, carrying water several times early in the morning. Then, as Zhao Xuan had instructed, he took 460 out to look for pine needles.
The group worked busily until noon before they finished making the dough and fillings. Lu An and Yao Yuan moved the square table from the dining hall to the courtyard, where everyone sat and made glutinous rice cakes.
The method for making baozi is similar to that of bai guo, except that the finished product is smaller. The outer skin of baozi is light gray, which is the color of dried cudweed.
Zhao Xuan placed the washed pine needles in the steamer, using pine needles instead of a steamer cloth, which made the steamed buns more fragrant.
Everyone divided the work: Lu An cut the dough, Yao Yuan and Zhang Xiaohe kneaded the outer skin, and Zhao Xuan and Gou Gou filled the dumplings.
The wrapped glutinous rice dumplings can be eaten on the spot, or they can be placed in a steamer and steamed before eating. The gray glutinous rice dumplings are arranged in a spiral shape, filling the entire round steamer, which looks very festive.
The dog had never eaten baozi before, but after making one, it couldn't resist trying it first. The outer skin of the baozi was very chewy, made from the fibers of cudweed, so it didn't stick to its teeth and had a herbal aroma. The filling was rich in various ingredients, with all sorts of fresh and fragrant flavors vying for attention on the tongue. Not only was the taste rich, but the texture was also diverse. The dried tofu and bamboo shoots were crisp, the meat and mushrooms were chewy, and there were also slippery taro, moist white radish shreds... Stuffed foods are simply one of the greatest inventions of mankind.
Seeing the dog enjoying its food, Zhao Xuan handed it a wrapped dumpling: "Here, eat if you like it. You'll have the energy to work when you're full."
Both families worked quickly and efficiently, eating as they made the dumplings. When they had almost finished eating, the three steamers were filled with the dumplings they had made.
After noon, the wind picked up again, and the temperature dropped noticeably.
As Zhao Xuan was carrying a round steamer towards the kitchen, he suddenly felt a cool sensation on the tip of his nose. Looking up, he saw that fine, fluffy snowflakes were falling from the gray sky.
"Oh my god, it's snowing!" Zhao Xuan exclaimed with delight.
The others looked up as instructed, and saw snowflakes falling silently, like a grand pantomime.
Snowflakes melt into water as soon as they land—this is the snow of the South, with a soft, watery quality. It is not grand and it is difficult to accumulate snow. It also lasts for a short time, sometimes overnight, sometimes only a few hours. If you are not careful, the shy snow of the South may go unnoticed.
Zhao Xuan hadn't seen snow for over a decade. Since the apocalypse, human traces had diminished, causing winter temperatures to drop year by year. Their village was very remote, and sometimes when they woke up early in the morning, they could see one or two snowflakes hanging on the branches of the big trees in the mountains. But this was the only time he had ever actually seen snow fall.
The snow absorbed the sound, making the surroundings even quieter; Zhao Xuan could even hear the breathing of the people around him.
Zhang Xiaohe was also happy to see Xue. She was directing Yao Yuan and the dog to move the tables and chairs back into the living room. She said, "Our harvest will definitely be bountiful next year."
460 had never seen snow before. It wagged its tail happily and stuck out its tongue to catch the tiny ice crystals, looking very happy. Suddenly, it stopped, tilted its head, and pricked up its ears. It seemed to be listening to something. Then it quickly darted out of the yard.
The gate wasn't locked, and when 460 darted out, it was so fast that it was just a blur of black shadow, and then its barking faded into the distance.
Zhao Xuan and the others didn't pay any attention at first, but then 460's barking came closer and closer from afar, accompanied by its cheerful barking and two light footsteps.
Because it was snowing, everyone was tidying up in the yard. 460's shout was so loud that it temporarily drowned out the sound of footsteps until two figures appeared in front of the yard gate, at which point everyone realized what was happening.
Zhao Xuan's heart skipped a beat, fear creeping into his heart, while the man in the courtyard suddenly jumped up, instinctively reaching for the most handy weapon for self-defense.
Their stress response lasted only a few seconds; after seeing who was at the gate, they all froze in place.
Two figures stood at the door, one tall and one short. The taller one was over 1.8 meters tall, as muscular as a wall. He was a man in his forties with a buzz cut and a menacing scar below his ear. He was holding a bicycle, with his small, deflated bundle on the back—he was still the same as before. Even though he had taken many things with him when he left, he returned with only that pitiful little bundle.
Beside the middle-aged man stood a petite figure, a girl, less than 1.6 meters tall. She wore a dirty, oversized military overcoat and tall shoes, and carried a beautiful sniper rifle that was almost as tall as her. The girl pursed her lips, her eyes sharp and stubborn, but upon seeing so many people in the courtyard, a hint of shyness flashed across her face. She moved back, retreating behind the middle-aged man.
Lu An recognized the two men, and looked at them incredulously: "Brother, Little Bear?"
Old Dao's gaze swept over everyone present: Zhao Xuan, Lu An, the Yao family, and 460 wagging its tail wildly beside him. He grinned, a bright smile spreading across his face, pulled the teddy bear forward, and announced in a loud voice, "Everyone, I'm back with my daughter..."
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