Chapter 321 Exhausted
He dared to go out only after putting on clothes. As soon as he came back from pooping, Mu Xi cleaned them up and then he struggled to take off his clothes again.
In short, I never wear any clothes once I enter the house.
Going to the toilet was like a battle every time, and the two people and four dogs were in a panic.
However, Zhao Yeqing is a little bit of a germaphobe when it comes to the follow-up work after the dog has defecated. He only helps the dog put on clothes when it is about to go out. Mu Xi is the one who does all the work after the dog comes back from defecating.
Zhao Yeqing looked at the four dogs that had just returned from the parade. They were shivering from the cold, and he found it a little funny.
She had previously ordered the few to be cleaned up before they could come into the house to warm themselves by the fire, and the few were obedient and waited quietly for Mu Xi to finish cleaning before coming over.
As soon as he sat down by the fireplace, Da Huang sneezed. Zhao Yeqing held his face and observed: "Is he catching a cold?"
He looked like he had a runny nose and kept sneezing.
Mu Xi washed his hands, poured some ginger tea into Da Huang's bowl, watched it walk over and slowly drink it, and said with certainty: "It's a cold for sure."
Dogs can drink ginger tea when they have a cold, but the taste is quite pungent and they generally don’t like to drink it.
Rhubarb naturally doesn't like to drink it, but whenever it gets sick, it becomes very obedient and realizes that this can cure itself. When it can't go out to find herbs, it will just drink the ginger tea obediently. It is very sensible.
Every time he saw Dahuang being obedient and sensible, Zhao Yeqing would think of the time when they first arrived at the grassland and saw it running out from the back slope of the mountain with a flock of sheep, with golden sunlight behind it and standing on the top of the mountain against the light.
When Dahuang came back after drinking the ginger tea and lay down next to the fireplace, Zhao Yeqing also sat on the ground, stroking its back and massaging it. After a while, Dahuang's soft snoring was heard.
The dog at home doesn't snore much. You can only hear it when it has a cold.
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The darkness outside the window continued, and the specific temperature outside could no longer be detected, but the two could still feel that the temperature was still dropping.
It was not until Mu Xi was burning three charcoal basins in the breeding basement and saw that the temperature on his watch showed only minus 20 degrees Celsius that he guessed based on their previous experience that the temperature outside was definitely more than minus 70 degrees Celsius.
The cows, sheep, horses, and pigs in the house were all able to make it, except for the newborn calf, which needed extra warmth, and a large brood of chickens.
In this temperature, chickens are unlikely to lay eggs. Dozens of them huddle in the corner all day long. Mu Xi has given them thick padding to keep them warm, so nothing should happen in the short term.
But if the temperature continues to drop, it’s hard to say.
As the weather gets colder, milk production is slightly lower than before, but after deducting the calf's rations, we can still squeeze out more than ten pounds of milk every day.
Muxi caught a chicken from the chicken coop. Today, the two of them wanted to drink some chicken soup to warm themselves up, so they plucked the chicken directly in the basement, and then carried the killed chicken and half a bucket of milk back to the house.
After leaving the basement and walking a few steps back to the house, the freshly slaughtered chicken had already frozen solid. I left it in the house for a while until the chicken gradually softened before I started chopping it up.
The chicken we chose was an old hen that had been raised for more than two years. The meat needs to be stewed for at least two hours.
The chicken soup that the two like to drink does not contain any other ingredients, no mushrooms, and no medicinal herbs. They just throw the chicken into the water, add ginger slices and start to cook the soup.
The grain-fed chickens we raise ourselves have almost no fishy smell when they are freshly slaughtered. All you need to do is boil them over high heat with ginger, and most of the chicken fat in their stomachs will be picked out. The chicken will be fragrant, nourishing, and not greasy at all.
The meat at home was the one that didn't need to be saved, so the two of them steamed some rice, ate it with the meat and soup, and then finished the whole pot of soup.
In this season, you need to eat more meat to maintain body heat.
Because the temperature continues to drop.
Last time, after the two of them replaced the curtains with thick canvas curtains, the temperature in the room could be kept above five degrees. But now, not long after, even with the floor heating in the room, the temperature can hardly be maintained above zero.
-70 degrees or 80 degrees?
Zhao Yeqing didn't know either. The two of them tried not to think about it too much. They just did whatever they could now. If the temperature of the floor heating was not high enough, they would burn a charcoal basin.
Bring the charcoal basin that was used for barbecue into the house and light it. When the charcoal fire inside is burning the hottest, the temperature in the room can barely be maintained at two to three degrees above zero.
Mu Xi remembered that when Zhao Yeqing was a child, his favorite game was Monopoly, but he didn't have a deep impression of it. It took him nearly half a month to combine the game he remembered with his own ideas to make a self-made Monopoly.
He exchanged the urban business for farmland, ranch and livestock breeding, which was closer to their current life.
Zhao Yeqing couldn't let it go and took him out to play every day.
After receiving the affirmation, Mu Xi became more and more inspired, and he created various board games and chess games one after another.
I gradually endured the long winter nights for half a year with the company of various small games.
The rice, flour and timber reserves that the two men had made before the coming of winter have almost run out.
Although we can still grind rice into rice despite the severe cold, the most important material for heating, wood, can no longer be produced.
The heating in the basement cannot be stopped, and the two of them can no longer use the charcoal basin to burn in the house. They can only use the floor heating. The temperature provided by the floor heating cannot reach above zero degrees, so they can only stay in the house wearing thick clothes.
When they didn't need to do anything, they would sit on the floor near the stove and play games.
After the game was over, Zhao Yeqing threw away the chess pieces in his hand, stretched his red, frozen hands to the stove to warm them, watched the fire get smaller, and threw another piece of firewood in, "If this continues, do you think we should go out to chop wood?"
It was still pitch black outside. Although it wasn't snowing, there was a cold wind blowing from time to time and it was terribly cold.
But we can't live without firewood, right? Without firewood, we will freeze to death.
You have to make a choice: wait to freeze to death in the house, or go outside and face the unknown and terrifying darkness.
It’s really dangerous to go out in this temperature now, but when it really comes to this, I have no choice but to go out.
Another way is to dismantle the kitchen at home. The wood taken down can be used for burning for a while, and then you can rebuild it when the temperature rises.
This is also a last resort. After all, after the kitchen is demolished and there is no firewood left, you still have to go out.
The two of them just wanted to try to reduce the risk as much as possible. What if? What if they could hold on until dawn...
Deep down, one can deliberately ignore the fear of darkness, but when the reality brought by the darkness forces one to face it, one feels suffocated in the chest.
The two planned to tear down the kitchen as soon as they woke up, but after waking up, everything was different.
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