Chapter 6

The woman who woke up, like her companion, was emotionally hazy about her situation and everything around her, except for her appetite, which was exceptionally clear.

This girl named Xia Qing had called out in her sleep, “No watery congee,” but when she accepted a full bowl of rice congee from Li Cunxin, she ate it with great relish, as if she were holding a delicacy of mountains and seas. She even licked clean the milky white congee residue sticking to the bowl’s walls, wasting not a single drop.

Most of the pot of congee went into the two’s stomachs; Yan Baiyu and Li Cunxin didn’t eat much themselves.

Hot food was the best medicine in this freezing, snowy land. The two’s spirits improved greatly, and they now had a clear understanding of being frostbitten in the snow and then rescued and revived.

Seeing that both were now lucid, Yan Baiyu told them to dry off, get dressed, and go back to the earthen bed in the main room.

After washing up, Li Cunxin and Yan Baiyu also followed over. Li Cunxin brought a clay basin and used the fire tongs to transfer the still-glowing charcoal from the congee fire into the basin, then carried it to the front of the earthen bed.

Li Cunxin and Yan Baiyu sat on the wooden stumps. The two women sat on the earthen bed, wrapped in the furs, the four of them gathered around the fire basin to warm themselves.

The candlelight on the table cast their shadows magnified onto the wall. Li Cunxin took a radish, cut it into chunks, and skewered them with bamboo chopsticks—four skewers in total, one for each person.

The four roasted the juicy radish chunks while having a fireside chat.

Li Cunxin and Yan Baiyu learned that the woman with the protruding ears was named Xia Qing, and the tall one was named Yunxiu.

The two had been in this world for over half a year. Their initial arrival point was that forest.

That forest was vast, bordering mountains to the north and a grassland to the east. For the two to have met in that expansive forest with limited visibility was a rare stroke of fate; it was also the only shred of mercy destiny had left them amidst its cruelty.

A modern person, well-fed and well-clothed, accustomed to gas stoves, electric lights, and running water—one second asleep in a soft, fragrant bed, the next second opening their eyes to find themselves in a beast-infested forest, with a large, round green leaf extending beside them, on which crouched an insect with menacing, multi-spined limbs, while at the tree root near their feet grew a patch of eerily colored mushrooms. In the distance came the strange cries of birds and the roars of wild beasts.

After a brief moment of bewilderment, the first reaction was disbelief—doubting this was a dream, doubting they had amnesia and forgot how they got there. After that, perhaps they would fantasize, thinking this was an extraordinary world like those in novels and TV shows where they had stumbled upon some grand opportunity, or that they were victims of a prank or kidnapping.

Such fantasies were usually accompanied by a hidden, nagging unease. Because it was too quiet here. There were no protective walls of steel and concrete, no order of laws and morals established by crowds of people. This was a primitive forest where life was savage. As modern people, their claws and fangs had atrophied, possessing little offensive power; their skin, flesh, and bones held little defensive strength.

When physiological needs kept stimulating them—fatigue, hunger, heat and cold truly manifesting on their bodies—they began to realize this was no dream.

After the initial hazy phase, two or three days later, the instinct for survival spurred their bodies into action.

Throats parched to the point of smoking, wanting water, but no stream nearby—how to find a water source? Feeling unbearably cold, without a lighter or matches at hand—how to make fire? Books had taught them; most people remembered the legend of Suiren drilling wood to make fire. It looked easy enough. They copied the method, taking two pieces of wood and drilling. Drilling until dark, hands rubbed raw, barely managing to produce a wisp of white smoke. What in the forest was edible and what wasn’t? Was that fruit poisonous? Large beasts had to be avoided; how to catch small flying birds and running beasts?

Amidst hunger and cold was a complete ignorance of their current situation. The unknown was always the most terrifying. In such a mental state bordering on collapse, they still had to divert a part of their focus to guard against the dangers lurking in the darkness of the forest at night.

They cried out to heaven and earth in vain, wailing and sobbing, calling for their parents. But even the greatest parents couldn’t appear before them out of thin air.

If this were a person’s solitary situation, if their will wasn’t firm, they might have just hung themselves from a tree with a vine.

But Xia Qing and Yunxiu met each other on the eve of their mental collapse and suicidal despair. This was the silver lining in their misfortune.

The two had gradually calmed down from the extreme terror of being stranded in an alien world and the extreme discomfort of wilderness survival, surviving until now. Half the credit went to their respective talents, and the other half to the emotional support they gave each other.

However, when it came to the talents the two had chosen, Li Cunxin found it utterly incomprehensible.

Yunxiu had chosen the talent: Cooking.

Xia Qing had chosen the talent: Craftsmanship: Carpentry.

As for whether these talents were useful—it depended on the context.

In a village setting, the talents of carpentry and cooking could play a critical role in the four basic necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter, and transportation. But placed in a forest where survival and one’s very life hung in the balance, they were especially useless.

Li Cunxin took the radish off the fire. The outer skin was already roasted to a golden, soft brown. She bit into it. It had a unique smoky flavor; the radish flesh was soft and tender, the hot juice scalding her tongue. “How did you two think to choose these two talents? If you had chosen Domestication like Baiyu, or chosen Hunting, your life in the forest would have been much easier.”

Xia Qing was also nibbling on her roasted radish. Hearing this, she laughed awkwardly. “I thought I was dreaming…”

Yunxiu said, “I didn’t fully grasp the situation at the time either. I just randomly chose one related to my profession.”

These two talents did have a sliver of use in the forest. Yunxiu’s Cooking talent included an understanding of ingredients, allowing her to identify edible foods in the forest. And Xia Qing, with her talent boost, had a certain understanding of various woods. She knew which woods were light and soft, which were hard, which resisted rot and repelled insects. She could use sharp stones to chop down small trees and build a shelter from wind and rain.

The two worked together and survived in the forest for over half a year.

Though the forest was dangerous, it also had one advantage: as long as one knew how to find and gather, the forest’s food resources were very abundant. This was the biggest reason they were unwilling to stray far from the forest.

When winter came, many animals hibernated, plants went dormant, and food became scarce and hard to find. The two had taken precautions and prepared for the winter, stockpiling food in their hut.

But accidents are ever-present. A black bear broke into their camp, forcibly took over their spot, and seized their food.

If it had been a fox or a rabbit, they might have fought it. But a bear as tall as a person? All they could do was flee in a panic.

Yan Baiyu was puzzled. “Black bears hibernate. They should be deeply asleep right now.”

Yunxiu said, “That black bear was injured. It might have been woken by an attack from another beast.”

Xia Qing said, “Its den had been taken, so it came to take ours. It was bitten by another animal, couldn’t beat it, so it came to vent its anger on us.”

“Animals also know to pick on the weak.” Yunxiu laughed. “That black bear was hurt and very aggressive. When it stood up, it was like a black mountain. The shadow and the rank animal smell pressed down on us, that sense of oppression… our legs went so weak. Our hearts were filled with nothing but fear; our minds could only think of running. We couldn’t even remember to grab our tools and food. We fled the forest and didn’t dare go back, but then it started snowing. We had to find a way to survive the night. It was almost dark then; we didn’t have time to find stones and chip them into axes. We could only break off thin branches and pull up thatch to make a simple grass hut against a leeward slope, hoping to make it through the night. But last night was truly cold. That thatch barely insulated at all. The few small furs we had managed to cure were all left behind with the black bear. We tried to start a fire but couldn’t get it going. The longer we were active, the more it felt like there was a block of ice in our stomachs. We were so exhausted. We knew we couldn’t sleep, that we might not wake up if we did, but there was no helping it. We couldn’t hold out…”

Hearing this, Li Cunxin and Yan Baiyu felt deeply saddened.

Yet the two who had experienced it firsthand were exceptionally calm in their emotions. It was as if they had undergone events so overwhelming, beyond what their spirits could bear, that they had reached a state of apathetic numbness.

Li Cunxin and Yan Baiyu couldn’t find any words of comfort. All they could do was let them rest well.

Now there were four people and two beds. In this special circumstance, they had no choice but to squeeze in, two and two.

Frostbite conditions were prone to complications. Yan Baiyu feared the two might have adverse reactions after catching a chill, so they let Xia Qing and Yunxiu sleep on the earthen bed, leaving both sets of furs for them. After seeing them off to sleep, they took the candle and went to the bamboo room.

Even though the furs had been given to Yun and Xia, it didn’t mean the two of them would suffer the cold.

In the past few days, when they had free time, the two had researched how to make a cotton quilt. Though it had ended in failure, with their imaginative spirits, they had connected wheat stalks into long “ropes,” woven them into a “bag,” stuffed cotton inside, and flattened it out, creating a “straw-cotton quilt.”

Although the gaps in the “bag” were uneven and cotton easily leaked out with large movements, although the quilt was uneven in thickness, although its surface was rough and the knots stuck out like stones pressing against one—it did provide basic warmth.

Tonight, this quilt came in handy.

Yan Baiyu’s eyes held beautiful shifts of light in the candle’s flame in her hand. She lifted her gaze to Li Cunxin a few times, a trace of distress on her face. She opened her mouth. “Cunxin…”

Li Cunxin was already sitting on the edge of the bed, taking off her shoes. “Do you want to sleep on the inside or the outside?”

Interrupted, Yan Baiyu was silent for a moment. “Inside, then.”

“With two people, this bed is definitely going to be a bit cramped.” The bed was about 1.2 meters wide, similar to a single bed in a student dorm. One person was just right; two people couldn’t turn over. “Let’s sleep head-to-toe.”

Li Cunxin took off her shoes, got into bed, folded her jacket to place behind her as a pillow, and tucked both hands under the quilt. Her eyes were very bright as she smiled shyly at Yan Baiyu. “I actually have somewhat bad sleeping habits. I like hugging things and clamping the quilt between my legs. It’s better for you to sleep on the inside; you won’t be pushed off by me. If my legs start wandering at night, don’t hold back, just kick me.”

“…”

“Were you going to say something just now?”

Yan Baiyu seemed to sigh as she blew out the candle. The room instantly fell into darkness, and the sounds of the wind and snow outside became clear. Once Yan Baiyu’s eyes adapted to the dark, she walked to the bed, took off her shoes and clothes in the dark, climbed to the inner side, and lay down. “It’s nothing. Let’s sleep.”