Chapter 48: Wind and Snow Fill the Night Sky

  "There's an abandoned school up ahead, we can go there to take shelter from the wind and snow." By the time we arrived at Shiba Li Puzhen, the sky had already darkened. The wind and snow were blowing fiercely, stinging people's faces, and in the village, except for the occasional barking of dogs, there was not a sound.

  Every household chimney started to emit a faint smoke, which was the time when people were preparing dinner. The witch took the lead and slipped into the village to explore, then hid herself in the wind and snow again, pointed in one direction and said to us.

  The so-called abandoned school in the mouth of the female monster was actually a ancestral hall of a wealthy family in the village before. After the war broke out, the soldiers and bandits came to wreak havoc one after another, and it fell into disrepair. After the world became peaceful again, it became an office location for the government.

  It wasn't until more than a decade later that it finally became an elementary school. However, after the elementary school was established for several years, the teachers gradually couldn't bear the harsh living environment and left one after another. The village had applied to the higher authorities several times to get some new teachers to come over, but there was no response afterwards. After so many years of twists and turns, the school was finally abandoned.

  According to the villagers of Tuanzi Village, "When the children grow up, they will naturally go out to find a way to make a living. Reading books is something that only rich people can afford to do, it's better for them to learn a trade like being a bricklayer when they are 13 or 14 years old." The concept of compulsory education is not important to them at all, and it's far less practical than the children bringing back several hundred or thousand yuan every month!

  Sneaking into the village, I walked along the wall root, making a rustling sound as I headed towards that dilapidated big house. As I walked, I observed this vast village that seemed to have no end in sight. Eighteen Mile Pavilion, eighteen miles long from east to west, if managed properly, wouldn't it have been upgraded to a town by now?

  Most of the houses in the village are made of stone or logs. There is no electricity in the village, and as soon as it gets dark, every household lights up their oil lamps. Those who don't even have oil lamps simply use the fire from the stove to light up. A family sits around the stove with bowls in hand, eating dinner. After dinner, they go to bed on the kang (heated platform). Some people dream, while others make babies!

  This is a place where communication basically relies on shouting, transportation basically relies on walking, and security basically relies on dogs. If I had to describe 18-li-pu with one word, it would be "poor!" Of course, after many years, 18-li-pu also experienced a great turnaround, countless local girls went to work in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and brought back considerable wealth for their families.

  Many years later, I returned to 18th Li Pu, and it had changed a lot. Almost every household had built small villas, and the smallest courtyard in front of the door had at least one modern car parked inside. But how did they accumulate so much wealth for their families in such a short period of time? You'd have to ask those sisters who mixed with the northerners, Shanghai people, and Guangdong people.

  We slipped into the already dilapidated small school, pushed open the wooden door of one of the classrooms, and our group of four walked in. Except for the blackboard that had fallen to the ground and a few desks and chairs with broken arms and legs, all that was left was a floor covered in dust and the wind and snow blowing in from the window to keep us company.

  "Crack!" The lamp grass wrapped tightly around the down jacket, and with one foot, it crushed the small stool in front of it into pieces. Then, it made a gesture to light a fire for warmth. After walking all day, everyone's boots were already soaked through. At this moment, when they stopped, they felt that their boots were filled with melted snow water, and their feet made a "squeak" sound as they stepped on the boots. And we had all sweated more or less, but didn't feel it while moving. As soon as we stopped, our bodies were like being soaked in water, and everyone was shivering with cold.

  "Start a fire, this place is remote, no one will come! Otherwise, we'll freeze to death here before the zombies move!" The female demon hugged her chest and shivered as she spoke to me. It seems that only the heaven that doesn't give anyone any face can make the female demon surrender.

  I gathered a bunch of weeds and a few pages of trash paper, under the cover of the thick body of the lamp grass, I finally managed to ignite the fire. The witch, on the other hand, borrowed from the night color, and somehow brought out a pot, which was filled with a full pot of snow. In addition, there was also a jar of pickled vegetables.

  "Which household did you bring misfortune to?" I placed the pot on the fire and started melting the snow inside. Then, I patted my hands and sat down beside the fire, asking the blushing little demon girl.

  "It's really hard to say, what's the disaster, I even left 50 yuan for people. Is this broken pot and half a bottle of pickled vegetables worth 50? To say that, they still took advantage of me!" The female demon wrinkled her nose at me, making excuses for herself there.

  Half an hour later, the snow in the pot had all melted into water. I took out the mantou from my bag and broke it into pieces with a crunch, throwing them into the pot. The female demon then poured in the half bottle of pickled vegetables, calling it "Pickled Vegetable Mantou Stew!" Looking at the things in the pot that were slowly cooking into a mush, I just couldn't associate them with stew.

  "Let's just make do with something to eat!" Niutian Yu got up and fetched a few branches as thick as chopsticks from the outer tree, carefully scrubbed them in the snow for a moment, brought them into the house and distributed them to everyone, saying softly. What a gentle and thoughtful girl she is! I took the branch handed over by Huo Jingying and silently praised her in my heart.

  No chopsticks, no bowls! The four of us used branches to pick up the lumps of dough from the pot and ate them with the sour vegetables that had been cooked inside. Without mentioning the taste, at least it was a hot meal. After finishing dinner, our bodies finally felt warm.

  "Ah, why are you taking off your shoes? It stinks to death!" My body was warm from the roasting, but my feet were getting more and more uncomfortable. I listened carefully to the movements in the room and decided to dry my boots first. The boots were full of water, and if I really encountered a zombie later, it would greatly affect my speed. However, at the moment when I took off my boots, the smell from my feet completely overpowered the sour pickle smell that had filled the room before. To put it in the words of a certain host who loved to say this phrase years later, "This is so cool, it's unbelievable!"

  "Come on! You take off your socks, dry them and put them back on!" Unlike the demon girl who looked at me with disdain all over her face, Nose Runny walked gently to my side, took the boot that was dripping water from my hand, turned its cuff upside down, and helped me roast it by the fire. And very kindly reminded this poor Taoist to dry his socks first! The difference between people, how can it be so big?

  "Hey, hang your socks on the tree branch to dry! Don't idle your hands, rub your feet back and forth, or you'll get frostbite!" Huo Jingying leaned my boots against the fire to dry, then ran out to find a tree branch over a meter long and handed it to me.

  "Tsk, tsk, tsk, how romantic!" I said, hanging my smelly socks on a tree branch and roasting them over the fire with one hand, while rubbing my feet back and forth with the other. The demon girl, who had been watching coldly all along, let out a sour expression at this point, even more sour than pickled vegetables.

  "Master uncle, stop teasing us." Niutian's face was thin and couldn't withstand the flirtation of the demon girl. She immediately blushed and weakly begged for mercy.

  "Tsk, tsk, tsk, this is truly a pitifully clever person." The female demon shot me a fierce glance, and with a series of "tsks" she vented her spleen.

  "I say, aren't your boots being roasted?" I looked at my own pair of boots that were being roasted to a stinky smell and asked the other two women and one man.

  "You think everyone is as shameless as you are, with a face thicker than the city wall's corner?" The female demon gave me a white eye and said disdainfully.

  "It's smelly, but I'm doing this for you guys, for the team. If I don't dry these boots, how am I supposed to cast spells and fight that corpse later? You don't want me to die miserably under the awakened corpse's claws just because my boots are wet, do you?" I pinched my nose, flipped the boots over, and continued to roast them while talking to the female demon.

  "You really... dare to say anything. Some things, can't be said casually." Unexpectedly, the demon girl and the snot girl heard this, both stretched out their index fingers and poked my temples on either side. Then the two of them scolded me in unison.

  "It can be said that it's dried!" More than two hours later, when we had burned all the broken tables and chairs in the classrooms on both sides to a crisp, my boots were finally dry. But Dengcao and the others never took off their boots to dry them. The two women were embarrassed to show their slender feet in front of men, which was understandable, but what did this coarse and rough monk have to be ashamed of? I couldn't understand Dengcao!

  "What time is it?" The witch yawned and nudged me with her elbow, asking. The fire in front of us was gradually weakening. With the wood we had on hand, we could maintain it for at most another hour.

  "It's almost 11 o'clock!" I raised my hand to glance at the 5-yuan electronic watch on my wrist and said to the female demon. It was past 10 o'clock, and the entire village had already plunged into darkness. At this time, 99% of people were asleep. If the corpse didn't move by midnight, it meant that we four would have to wait in the cold for it!

  "It's 11 o'clock, it should be about time! According to Mei Jiugu, every time the corpse moves, it won't exceed 1 o'clock in the middle of the night. We still have some time, let's take turns resting, staring at each other like this isn't going to work!" The female demon said with another yawn.

  "Master Aunt, you go sleep for a while first, while the fire is still burning. We'll call you later!" Nuo Ti said considerately to the witch.

  "Alright, I'm really tired. Remember to wake me up in half an hour, I'll take over for you guys!" The witch was truly exhausted and soon fell asleep squatting by the fire pit with her knees hugged to her chest.