The forest's fourth winter.
It was the dead of winter, and the mountains and forests were covered in white snow, with heavy snow falling all around.
The biting cold wind howled into the room through the cracks in the door, only to be blocked back by the thick curtain.
Jiang Xi and Du Ling, wearing thick sweaters, were sorting through rattan fibers in the house. The tangerine peel soup simmering on the clay stove emitted a rich citrus aroma. Next to them were two roasted potatoes, their skins cracked open to reveal the yellow, sandy flesh inside.
She took down a rabbit fur cloak and hat from the wall and dressed herself properly. She went to the warehouse and took out the wheat she had saved up during the autumn harvest. She specially took a ceramic basin and filled it halfway.
Then he went to the kitchen to grind the wheat into flour. The wheat flour he grew himself was not as white as the flour in the original world; instead, it had a slight yellowish tinge.
Add salt to the flour, stir it with chopsticks until it becomes flocculent, then knead it into a ball by hand. Once the dough is smooth, casually take a rattan lid from the side and put it on the basin before returning to the main house.
As soon as she took off her cloak, before she even sat down, she heard Yan Jing'an come out from the inner room and say, "I was so suffocated, Jiang Xi. My illness is really cured. Look, I hardly cough at all these days. I want to go out too. Staying in the room all day is so annoying."
Hearing this, Jiang Xi smiled, picked up the kettle and refilled the tangerine peel tea, saying, "It's only this year that things have gotten a little better, so don't go out and make yourself sick. If you go out and catch a cold, your old ailment will flare up again, and you'll feel terrible too."
After saying this, Yan Jing'an wanted to say something more, but considering his physical condition, he held back.
For the past three years, he has been kept warm by a stove every winter. His pneumonia only started to improve last year, and it hasn't recurred this year, even in the depths of winter.
He was feeling restless and bored, spending all his time cooped up in his room with nothing to do.
Jiang Xi said, "Alright, let's make dumplings tonight. Hang in there, the snow should stop in about a month."
Two days ago, Yan Zheng had a small pig with a small ear, and there was still a piece of hind leg meat left. It's almost the end of the year, so we should have some fun.
This year's wheat harvest is pretty good. Apart from the wheat saved for seed, the four of us can still afford to eat noodles once a month.
So, Jiang Xi used the flour that was only available once a month to make steamed buns, mantou, and tonight's meal was the first time they had eaten dumplings since entering the forest.
After the snow stopped, the sound of a door opening came from the courtyard, and Jiang Xi's face lit up with joy: "You're back."
Yan Zheng pushed open the courtyard gate. His face was numb from the cold, and he was carrying a roe deer in his hand.
Upon hearing his voice, the ducks in the duck coop in the yard started quacking loudly.
The dumplings were made with pork and wild scallion filling. The wild scallions inside were crisp and tender, and Jiang Xi and Du Ling had specially dug them up from the forest in the autumn and planted them in the vegetable garden.
This is the best time to stir-fry vegetables and make fillings.
Seeing that there was a lot of flour prepared, Jiang Xi took out more than a dozen frozen shrimp and frozen corn from the ice pile in the yard and made a shrimp and corn filling.
After everything was packed up, Jiang Xi and Yan Zheng moved the prepared items and ingredients to the main house.
The four of them drank tangerine peel tea while making dumplings, each one plump and white. The dumplings were then cooked on a clay stove and taken out while still hot. They had thin skins and generous fillings, and with each bite, the oily broth was the first thing that caught the taste buds.
The aroma of meat mixed with the fragrance of scallions is the taste of the New Year from my memories.
Jiang Xi then used her homemade tomato sauce and bone broth to make a steaming pot of tomato and vegetable soup.
The crackling of firecrackers in the courtyard and the steaming hot meal dispelled the winter chill.
Before going to bed that night, Yan Zheng poured out the hot water that Jiang Xi had used for soaking her feet, then closed the door and lay back in bed.
The fire in the kitchen was burning brightly, and the warmth emanating from the fireplace made the bedroom incredibly cozy. Jiang Xi even found the down comforter a bit too warm, so she only covered her legs with it.
Just before falling asleep, she heard the ringing of the bell again.
In my dream, I could only vaguely hear a child crying and a young woman speaking, but I couldn't make out the details, and I couldn't see anything even if I tried to open my eyes.
The child cried all night, and the noise gave Jiang Xi a terrible headache when she woke up the next day. She thought to herself: "Perhaps the energy of the bell is weakening. I wonder what this dream is trying to tell me this time."
Before I was fully awake, I heard the little black dog in the main room making bird calls and scratching sounds at the door.
Yan Zheng slowly opened his eyes, his voice hoarse with sleepiness: "It must be the rabbit that escaped."
After saying that, she glanced at Jiang Xi beside her and saw that she was awake. She turned to her side and hugged her.
He asked in a hoarse voice, "Why did you wake up so early today?"
In the early morning, the fire in the stove would gradually go out, and the house would get a bit cold in the morning. Jiang Xi pulled the blanket up tighter and snuggled closer to Yan Zheng.
The response was a murmur: "I was dreaming again, it was so noisy."
Xiao Hei seemed to have an inexplicable obsession with the rabbits in the yard, getting extremely excited whenever it heard them make a sound.
By the third year, their two-legged rabbits had become an infestation. Jiang Xi couldn't help but complain: "They're so prolific, giving birth to a litter every two or three months."
By now, the group had reached a point where they wouldn't eat rabbit meat unless absolutely necessary.
The rabbit hutch wasn't big enough, and rabbits would jump out every now and then. Since there were too many rabbits, the group became too lazy to catch them.
Since we can't possibly finish running it all, why bother?
Before long, Yan Zheng was completely awakened by Xiao Hei's voice, so he simply got up, dressed, and prepared breakfast.
When he got to the kitchen, he suddenly felt something was wrong. He looked around but didn't see anything.
So he walked to the gate of the courtyard and looked outside.
His expression changed drastically when he saw something under the trees; his face turned extremely pale.
He quickly closed the courtyard gate again and woke up Jiang Xi and Yan Jing'an.
When Jiang Xi arrived at the courtyard gate, her pupils contracted when she saw the child lying under the tree.
Yan Jing'an and Yan Zheng picked up their swords and went over. The child was about three or four years old, his face was blue and purple from the cold, and he had frostbite all over his body.
Yan Jing'an looked at his worn-out cotton-padded clothes and said, "He must have come from outside."
This immediately put everyone on high alert.
Jiang Xi suddenly remembered the jingling sound in her dream, and she quickly said, "Last night I entered the dream of the bell again. In the dream, there was a child who kept crying. Could it be related to this child?"
The two men exchanged a glance, and finally Yan Zheng stepped forward, picked up the child to examine him, and took out a bell from his arms.
After confirming there was no danger, he carried the child into the house. Jiang Xi took off the child's cotton-padded clothes and then specially took out a down comforter to cover him with.
"I'm afraid he's quite cold; we should make him some ginger soup."
Du Ling was incredibly curious about strangers, and upon hearing that ginger soup was being made, she quickly said, "I'll make it, I'll go."
After drinking the ginger soup, the child fell asleep again. Jiang Xi looked at him and suddenly remembered the vow that Jiang Xi in black made when she answered the bell in the dream.
— —Jiang Xi, a descendant of the Du family, received the bell today. From now on, he will certainly live up to the family's expectations, support the family business, and help the descendants of the Du family.
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