Chapter 197: Snow
Wu Heng brought out two wild chickens, startling everyone—but their aching, sore bodies immediately perked up with energy.
“Holy crap, A’Heng, where did you get these chickens?” Even if he had to crawl, Lin Mengzhi insisted on getting closer to take a look. These were nothing like the chickens he knew—not just mutated, but with faintly glowing, multicolored feathers and long, beautiful tails that extended past their bodies.
Shukui and X naturally gathered around as well; they were quite interested in the wild chickens.
“I caught them earlier near the Liuzhou Base.” Back then, the few he caught were only meant to serve as breeding stock. But now several months had passed. Aside from the hidden threat of Doctor Chen, they had almost no natural enemies in the space—they roamed freely across the mountains. Eating two at once, Wu Heng didn’t feel the least bit reluctant.
Lin Mengzhi gave a thumbs-up. “That’s my brother.” Then he turned around. “So, who’s going to kill them? I’m not doing it.”
“You’ve killed people before, and you’re scared of this?” someone muttered.
Lin Mengzhi immediately pinpointed the speaker—of course, it was that kid Shen Ruyi again. How did Shen Ping’an end up with a younger brother like him?
“I’ll do it. I’ll handle dinner tonight,” Shen Ping’an said to Ao She. “Brother Ao, you take a rest.”
Ability users recovered and adjusted hundreds of times faster than ordinary humans, so Ao She didn’t stand on ceremony with Shen Ping’an and simply sat back down in his spot.
Xue Qi, meanwhile, busied himself refilling everyone’s cups with water and adding firewood to the iron barrel—basically helping with whatever people needed. Of course, when it came to going to the bathroom, they were on their own.
The house turned out to be better insulated than they had expected. With the fire burning strongly, the air quickly grew warm enough to make them comfortable. Their stiff joints and sluggish blood flow gradually regained sensation, though the lightheadedness from the high altitude only eased slightly.
Wu Heng, warmed by the fire until his limbs felt limp and sweat formed on his back, took off his wolfskin coat.
The smell of fresh blood from the wild chicken drifted into his nose. Wearing a hoodie, he followed the scent and quietly slipped out the back door—but the moment he stepped over the threshold, he immediately shrank back inside.
Too cold.
Noticing that he had come back, Xie Chongyi reached out and squeezed a few of his fingers. His gaze flicked over the tiny, red gemstone-like “insect eye” on the other’s snow-pale earlobe, and he smiled.
Old Lin—who had earlier insisted he had no extra food—came out hugging two jars of pickled vegetables.
Lin Mengzhi spoke bluntly, “Ha! You old man—earlier you said you had no food, and now you suddenly do. You just want to eat our chicken, don’t you?”
The people nearby started picking at their fingers or pinching their thighs, exchanging looks as their expressions threatened to crack. Xue Shen pressed a finger into his palm. “No puns allowed.”
Old Lin, completely unaware of what they meant, set down the jars, took out an iron pot, and removed the kettle hanging on the hook. “Since I’ve brought out my own stored food, what’s wrong with letting me have a bite of the chicken?”
“Well, that’s true,” Xue Qi said as he crouched beside the jar, opened the lid, and sniffed. “So sour—can this even be eaten? Didn’t they say fermented foods can’t be eaten anymore?”
“I made this after arriving here. There’s no problem,” Old Lin replied. He took out a porcelain basin decorated with peony patterns and began grabbing handfuls of pickled vegetables, releasing a rich, fermented sour aroma that instantly filled the room.
Wu Heng and Xie Chongyi both instinctively leaned back at the same time—but still couldn’t escape it.
“This is the real deal. A true luxury—nowadays, even if you want to eat it, you can’t,” Old Lin said.
Only then did Wu Heng step closer. After taking a careful sniff, he realized this sourness was different from vinegar or the pickled vegetables sold in supermarkets before. This one was more fragrant—aside from the initial moment of discomfort when it was first taken out, what remained was a rich aroma that strongly stimulated saliva.
“You eat this every day?” But vegetables were still vegetables—no matter how good they smelled, for a carnivore, their appeal could at most go from 0 to 1. Wu Heng got straight to the point.
Old Lin’s thin, withered wrist stiffened slightly. He let out a snort. “Without abilities, hunting isn’t easy.”
“If you already have abilities, why not leave this place?”
Old Lin snorted again. “That would only bring me closer to death.”
“Living on vegetables all the time—you might as well be dead,” Wu Heng said softly. “Since you said before that living has no meaning, why would you rather endure this and keep living?”
It was the first time Old Lin had met someone who could follow his line of thought—and was willing to talk to him. Even if it was just a young man, even if it sounded like he was talking back, he gave the boy a meaningful look. “And who told you I’m pursuing meaning?”
Wu Heng’s eyelids slowly lowered. The pickled vegetables in the porcelain basin were a glossy yellow, the stems and leaves layered over each other. He watched for a while, then felt the class monitor had been right—this old man really was a bit unwell.
Old Lin went back to grabbing handfuls of pickled vegetables from the jar, wringing them dry before tossing them into the basin. In a tone that sounded almost casual, he said, “When a person strays too far off course, they’ll be forced back onto the right path—so they understand that being able to eat a full meal in peace matters more than anything they chase. People are like mayflies; what we struggle for every day is just this mouthful of food…” He raised a limp, soaked stalk of pickled vegetable in his hand, his eyes gleaming. “Look at this—beautiful, isn’t it?”
—
A warm, satisfying dinner began.
After being cleaned, the two wild chickens yielded seventy to eighty jin (about 35–40 kilograms) of meat. From the texture, it was clear they were still quite young—if they had been allowed to grow a while longer, their weight might even have doubled.
Chunks of wild chicken, combined with pickled vegetables, dried greens, and the leftover mushrooms from earlier, filled three large iron pots to the brim. Inside the tightly shut house, steam billowed like fog, drifting upward toward the skylight faster than it could escape.
Wu Heng placed the chicken offal that Shen Ping’an had portioned out earlier in front of X and Shukui. There were also chicken necks and heads mixed in.
A dog, a bird, and a human—three “creatures”—squatted together in the corner. When Xie Chongyi glanced over, Wu Heng had already reached into X’s bowl, grabbed something that looked like a piece of chicken liver, and tossed it straight into his own mouth.
X spread its wings and was just about to screech when the boy pinched its beak shut.
Wu Heng treated them equally—he ate from X’s share and from Shukui’s as well, then stood up and went back to sit beside Xie Chongyi, a trace of blood still at the corner of his mouth.
“You don’t think a dog’s food bowl is dirty?” Xie Chongyi reacted quickly, knocking away a few pairs of chopsticks and, swift as lightning, snatching away an uncut chicken leg.
The several-jin-heavy drumstick landed right in Wu Heng’s bowl. Wu Heng looked at the drumstick, then at Xie Chongyi. “Then do you think my mouth is dirty?”
“…Is that even the same thing?”
Maybe yes, maybe no. Wu Heng grabbed one end of the drumstick, tilted his head, and took a big bite. The moment his eyes lit up, everything else was forgotten.
At this point, the pickled vegetables and mushrooms only served to enhance the flavor. The broth was rich and delicious, and the meat was tender, smooth, and naturally sweet. Wu Heng ate without restraint, stuffing meat and even bones into his mouth.
During the meal, no one had time to talk. Amid the rising steam, there were only the sounds of chewing and swallowing, along with the constant bubbling of the iron pots.
“If only we could eat hot meals like this every day.”
“This is amazing!”
“A’Heng, start a chicken farm!”
After the meal, everyone lay around haphazardly on the large shared bed padded with dry grass and coats, chatting about anything and everything.
There were two fire buckets still burning with dry wood inside the house, so it wasn’t exactly cold—but it wasn’t particularly warm either. Wu Heng slipped both his hands into Xie Chongyi’s clothes; animals, after all, ran warmer than plants.
He was nearly asleep, while the others were still talking. His name would pop up from time to time. Half-asleep, Xie Chongyi unconsciously ran his fingers over him—his neck, face, waist… just about anywhere within reach.
“I hope we can cross this mountain by tomorrow night, then we can start building walls and houses.”
“What kind of house should we build?”
“I want a maze-like castle,” Xue Qi said.
“I prefer something like the Jiangnan water towns—white walls and green tiles, so beautiful,” Ruan Silian said.
“I personally prefer an Instagram-style aesthetic,” Dou Lu said seriously.
“Wabi-sabi style isn’t bad either,” Xue Shen added.
“Hey, hey, hey—having a place to live at all is already good enough!”
“Keep it down, someone’s asleep.”
“Who?”
Lin Mengzhi propped himself up. In the darkness, it was obvious—those two were the ones clinging to each other the tightest. He curled his lips and lay back down. “I knew it.”
After lying down, Lin Mengzhi suddenly sat up again. “Shen Ruyi, did you sneak food tonight?”
Shen Ruyi, who hadn’t fallen asleep yet, reacted as if stung and immediately sat up too. “Who sneaked food? I only ate pickled vegetables and glass noodles—I didn’t eat your chicken!”
“You drank the soup.”
Shen Ruyi’s furious eyes quickly filled with tears. “Then just kill me!”
“Can you sleep already?” Xue Shen pressed Lin Mengzhi back down, then glanced over at Shen Ruyi. “Go to sleep.”
In the middle of the night, faint murmurs and quiet sobbing could still be heard in the small wooden cabins, but after a while, even those sounds faded, and everyone drifted into sleep.
Some time later, the fire bucket in the center of the room gradually dimmed from bright to dull, until even the iron barrel turned cold.
Crack.
Crack.
Whooo—
Crash—
As a series of faint, scattered noises arose, Wu Heng opened his eyes in irritation. The moment he did, a collapsing sound came from his right. He looked up—an entire section of the roof, weighed down by thick snow, was plunging downward at high speed.
Wu Heng lashed out with a vine whip, sending the falling mass crashing into the opposite wall. The snow burst apart, scattering flakes onto many people’s faces. Along with the sudden commotion, everyone woke up at once.
Following Wu Heng’s gaze, they stiffly looked up. Through the gap in the roof, their sleepiness vanished completely—
It was snowing. A heavy snowstorm. Thick, goose-feather flakes falling so densely that even the night sky was no longer visible.
“We need to leave,” Wu Heng’s clear voice rang out.
The group rushed out of the cabin.
“Holy shit!” Lin Mengzhi was the first to jump outside, and nearly a third of his body sank straight into the snow. He lifted his leg and tested it. “This deep? Good thing I’m 1.93 meters tall.”
“……”
Their gazes turned toward the forest. The vast expanse of white had already swallowed the autumn woods from the day before. Looking back at the houses on either side, all of them had collapsed—and the one they had slept in looked like it was about to follow.
“Wasn’t Old Lin in the cabin next door?!” Lin Mengzhi suddenly realized, his teeth chattering as he made to head over.
“I’ll go check.” Xue Qi stopped him and ran out from under the eaves toward the neighboring structure, now buried in the snow like ruins.
“What do we do? Are we setting out now?” Zhou Yi asked.
Snowflakes had already begun to settle on Xie Chongyi’s tousled hair. He gave a slight nod. “Do everything you can to stay warm—we’re leaving now.”
The wolfskin coats were made from mutated wolves, so warmth wasn’t the issue. Their real challenge was climbing upward through icy, high-altitude terrain without relying on abilities. Even flat ground would have been much easier.
After speaking, Xie Chongyi noticed Wu Heng beside him shivering as he fumbled to put on his gloves, another pair tucked under his arm.
The boy grabbed the gloves from him, tossed the extra pair to Shen Ping’an, and turned slightly. As he deftly helped Wu Heng put them on, his sharp gaze swept the surroundings, alert for any danger that might be lurking in the snowy night.
Once the gloves were on, Xie Chongyi raised his hands to fasten the buttons Wu Heng had missed at the collar, then pulled a hat over his head, tucking in his ears and hair completely. Wrapped up tightly like that, Wu Heng lost the sharp definition of his brow and jawline—only his features remained visible, giving him an androgynous kind of beauty.
Lifting his eyes, he looked at Xie Chongyi with eyes reddened from the cold, glistening faintly with tears. “Thank you, Class Monitor.”
With that kind of look, in Xie Chongyi’s eyes, it was no different from saying ‘I love you.’