Once all the cotton quilts were finished and had been basking under the pale winter sun for no more than two days, the weather turned overcast and gloomy.
Everyone had thatched over the bamboo rooms and laid out the soft, sun-warmed quilts—one underneath, one on top. Although there were no sheets or covers, lying inside was warm and soft, a vast improvement over the previous bedding that had been lumpy and let the heat escape.
Since both the men’s and women’s sides had even numbers, they paired up to share beds. The ten quilts were just enough for everyone.
A few days later, snow began to fall. The flakes weren’t large and fell sparsely, stopping after only half a day.
After the workshop was finished, Zhao Penglai wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Once Liu Cuo Jin and the others finished smelting the iron, they could immediately start building the new house.
While constructing the workshop, he had already made his calculations: if Yu Muyang had fired enough bricks, they’d use a paved brick foundation; if not, they’d ram the foundation with three-in-one soil. While the house would prioritize practicality and convenience, it also couldn’t be too shoddy. When the time came, the roof form would use a flush-gable style, and the framework would depend on how quickly Xia Qing processed the timber—if fast, they’d use a combination of column-and-tie and post-and-beam construction. The base wall couldn’t be done sloppily, either; they could use the slag from smelting, mix it with Yu Muyang’s discarded broken bricks and tiles, grind it all finely, then mix in quicklime to make a crude cement. The problem was the grinding would be labor-intensive, and limestone was mostly gathered from the riverbed since they hadn’t opened a stone quarry. Quicklime probably couldn’t be mass-produced either. He wasn’t sure how much would be left after ramming the foundation; if none was left, the upper walls would have to be built with clay alone.
He had pictured things beautifully.
But reality slapped him across the face: smelting and forging with Wang Ran and the others required far more time than he’d expected. After building the workshop, Yu Muyang’s bricks and tiles were also insufficient; he resumed firing them daily to build up stock.
Yu Muyang’s brick kiln was right next to the smelting workshop. To keep the ash from interfering with their living, both locations were set a hundred meters away from their adobe houses.
On one side of Yu Muyang’s kiln, finished blue bricks and tiles were stacked, forming a wind-breaking wall. On the other side were unfired green mud-brick blanks and clay still being processed.
Yu Muyang led the water buffalo back and forth through the mud pit, letting it trample the clay until it was thoroughly pounded. Then he scooped it out, stirred it, and picked out impurities.
Jiang Beibei had originally come to see Wang Ran, but she happened to have finished sewing Yu Muyang’s shoes. So she brought them over first. She’d cut a piece of animal hide and used Yu Muyang’s flip-flops as soles to sew a pair of winter shoes.
“Don’t you already have processed clay? Why aren’t you using it?” she asked.
Half-jokingly, Yu Muyang replied, “You see, even after kneading dough, you have to let it rest. It’s the same with mud—it needs to rest too.”
Jiang Beibei chuckled softly and handed him the shoes. “Here, your shoes.”
The moment Yu Muyang saw the shoes, his eyes lit up, and he nearly jumped. He only had that one pair of flip-flops; after giving them to Jiang Beibei to modify, he couldn’t be bothered finding something else to use as shoes and just went barefoot. He stuck close to the furnace fire anyway, so he didn’t feel cold. Now, with the shoes in hand, he eagerly put them on. The fur lining was soft and warm, the fit perfect. In his joy, he blurted out, “Thanks, sis-in-law.”
Jiang Beibei’s face instantly turned red. She scolded, “Call me that again, and I’ll go tell the Village Chief!”
She turned and left, running into Zhao Penglai, who was also coming to check on the smelting progress. The two headed together to the workshop, which was much warmer inside than out.
Xu Yin stood on the raised platform, ceaselessly stirring the softened pig iron with a willow-wood rod to ensure full contact with oxygen. Liu Cuo Jin sprinkled in some finely ground ore powder. As she monitored the heat, she would occasionally take over from Xu Yin.
This was the greatest advantage that talents provided. Like how Yu Muyang, when firing bricks and tiles, knew that too high a heat caused cracking and too low a heat compromised quality; or like how Liu Cuo Jin, when refining iron, knew that insufficient heat left too much carbon, while too much heat turned it into wrought iron.
The extremely strong hands-on ability granted by their talents allowed them to precisely control temperature. In an era without technological equipment to accurately regulate heat, the ancients relied on decades of accumulated experience to judge the fire. With the boost of their talents, they saved decades of practice, making things easier for themselves and for their companions.
Once the refined iron had cooled a little, Wang Ran would use the fire tongs to clamp it out and start hammering. In the dead of winter, these men were drenched in sweat.
Zhao Penglai could see at a glance that this wasn’t something that would be done in two or three days. Many days had passed, and Wang Ran had only forged a single chisel knife.
Well then, there was no hope for this winter.
Zhao Penglai returned to the living area and looked at the shed they’d built next to the adobe house, which held a lot of collected timber. He sighed. Forget it—these newly felled timbers needed to be left to dry out anyway. They’d be usable next year.
Snow fell several times, accumulating on the ground. Just as everyone was happily waiting for Li Cunxin to give the order to slaughter the pig, Yan Baiyu’s trap in the forest caught a pig with a piebald black-and-white hide. Its build was a full size smaller than the one Xu Yin had brought back—probably just barely adult, or perhaps not even.
Clearly, they’d gained an extra livestock animal. Yet everyone’s heads drooped in dismay, looking on the verge of tears. Wang Ran and Jiang Beibei, having arrived late, didn’t understand the reason. After Yunxiu explained, they learned that the beautiful dream of slaughtering a pig for the New Year had burst with the arrival of this little piglet. They found it both absurd and amusing. The two of them hadn’t been around for Yunxiu’s ‘chanting’ and didn’t understand just how much everyone craved that pig.
That pig had been well-fed and well-cared for by Yan Baiyu for most of a year, gaining more than a full circle in girth—visibly rounder by the day. They all teased Yan Baiyu, saying she was like the kind of grandmother who could make her grandchild gain a full size just by coming home for a visit.
Just when everyone thought their sure thing had flown away and that Li Cunxin would keep the pig they’d raised for most of the year as a breeder, the little pig Yan Baiyu brought back also turned out to be female.
Now everyone was delighted. They took turns pestering Li Cunxin, whining that they wanted pork, until they annoyed her so much she laughingly agreed.
Before the pig was slaughtered, there was a little interlude.
Winter was dry and windless. The trees, having shed their leaves, stood bare. The world was pale and gray. The beacon fire in front of the house rose taller and more visible than ever.
Some people, drifting in this other world, saw the beacon smoke and sought it out.
They were three men. One wore winter clothes; the other two were wrapped in animal hides. Although they looked bedraggled, they weren’t in the desperate, escapee-like state Yu Muyang had been in when he first arrived.
The village gaining new members was something to be happy about, but things didn’t go entirely smoothly. At the time, only Yunxiu, Xia Qing, and Jiang Beibei were in the house to receive them. Seeing only three women present, the three men showed signs of trying to turn the tables and act as though they were the hosts. That was, until Xu Yin and the others returned, and they reined themselves in.
After that, the three men also refused to live together with everyone else and become villagers of their village. First, they scorned the idea of acknowledging Li Cunxin as Village Chief. Among the three, one was already the captain of their small squad, making decisions, and so he was naturally proud. Second, the three had been cooperating to survive in this other world for over a year by now, forming their own small group. They were familiar with each other, making it hard to integrate into the unfamiliar atmosphere of Li Cunxin’s larger group.
As if in defiance, the three didn’t leave to find another place but instead pitched thatched huts on the empty land next to everyone else’s houses. They declared that over there was Li Cunxin’s village, and over here was their village. This land had no name—whoever claimed a spot, it was theirs—and they’d each mind their own business.
Although no one stopped them, everyone kept a watchful, guarded eye.
The three built two thatched huts. When they’d arrived, they had brought some provisions with them, carried in back-baskets. No one got a clear look at what it was, but it was enough to deduce that one of the three likely had the Craft talent: Bamboo Craftsman.
Even though they had stored provisions, the three still went out to hunt every day. But winter food was hard to find, and their daily haul was meager.
It was under these circumstances that Li Cunxin’s group prepared to slaughter the pig.
The pig was bound tightly to a bench, its squeals drawing the attention of the three men in the thatched huts.
Xu Yin wielded the knife, draining the blood into a basin that Yunxiu held. She added clean water and stirred it so the blood wouldn’t set too hard and have a poor texture.
Then came scalding and scraping off the bristles, opening the belly, removing the innards, and splitting the carcass down the middle into two halves.
With no specialized butchering knife, Xu Yin still carved the meat precisely, separating exactly the right cuts. In the blink of an eye, the two hind legs, two front legs, two racks of ribs, tenderloin, pork belly, leaf lard, pig head, and pig tail were all laid out neatly on the table.
Under Yunxiu’s direction, everyone bustled around frantically: washing the innards, cleaning the sausage casings, mincing meat and stuffing sausages, then cleaning the two hind legs and rubbing them with coarse salt.
Inside and out, it was bustling and lively, just like celebrating the New Year. By contrast, the thatched huts next door seemed so much colder and quieter.
One man peered over toward the front yard of the adobe house and saw Li Cunxin and Yan Baiyu lifting two plump pork legs to hang from the clothes-drying pole. He stared blankly, unable to suppress a swallow of saliva.
Everyone worked until it was dark, using every method they could to preserve the meat long-term. What remained were the parts that couldn’t be stored and would be used right now to feast their five viscera temples.
That night, Yunxiu made hotpot, simmered in clear water with spices, ginger, and salt. To mask any gamey flavor, she’d added the spices, ginger, and salt a bit heavily. She worried everyone wouldn’t like it, but to her surprise, they scraped the pot completely clean, leaving not a scrap behind.
Yunxiu also simmered a pot of pork rib soup until it turned a milky white. The meaty fragrance, mixed with the spicy tang of ginger, wafted far outside.
Over in the thatched huts, the three men sniffed the aroma of the rib soup while gnawing on hot potatoes in their hands. Suddenly, the potatoes didn’t taste quite right. They chewed hard and swallowed, but their stomachs still growled. Even their fish soup, boiled soft with dried fish, seemed to carry a hint of meaty fragrance, as if shrouded in a delicate veil of delicious illusion borrowed from the rib soup. Once it went down, the gap in their hearts made the fish soup taste very fishy.
As the three ate, they kept swallowing their saliva. The sturdiest man cursed under his breath, “Son of a bitch. Putting out this huge smell on purpose—who do you think you’re testing? Like anyone here hasn’t eaten meat before.”
The other two remained silent, not responding.
On this side, everyone drank the hot soup, slurping the meat off the pork ribs ring by ring. When they’d finished a bowl of soup, their entire bodies broke out in a hot sweat. Tilting their heads back, they breathed out in satisfaction, the lingering aroma of meat seeming to remain on their lips and teeth.
Yu Muyang patted his belly and burped, then put on a shameless grin and pressed Yunxiu, “Sis, what are we eating tomorrow?” Yu Muyang was older than Yunxiu, but he had thick skin, so he could call her “Sis” without any shame.
“Braised pork belly with pickled cabbage, pan-fried spare ribs.”
The three next door probably couldn’t yet comprehend the craving of these people, who hadn’t even finished today’s meal before looking forward to tomorrow’s. Nor could they appreciate the warmth and comfort of cotton quilts on winter nights.
