Rebirth in the end times: The whole family keeps a low profile

Heavy snow fell for half a month, and most people in the town chose to stay in the village.

Most of the roads are buried under snow. The government has limited manpower and can only clear the snow on provincial roads and important sections. Therefore, the provincial roads are unobstructed. The sanitation workers' wages are subsidized with coal, rice or cooking oil every week on top of the original wages.

The doors of some people's homes in Xinxu Village were buried by heavy snow and could not be opened. However, the situation around the houses of those families who regularly cleared the snow was slightly better and they were not unable to go out.

The Su family not only cleans up the snow around the house every day, but also uses the extreme cold to make large and small ice cubes and store them in the space.

The edible small ice cubes are made by cooling boiled water directly. When you drink cold drinks in extremely hot weather, putting some ice cubes in them will definitely make you feel refreshed.

Just fill the plastic frames that you have stockpiled with big ice cubes with well water and let it sit overnight. Part of the tap water in your home is frozen, and the water flow is only half as large as before. The Su family would rather use well water as it is more convenient.

A plastic frame filled with water weighs more than 100 kilograms. Wang Jie and Su Zhangming are basically the only ones responsible for casting the frozen ice cubes into molds.

There is limited space in the backyard, so we can only make 30 large ice cubes and 8 large buckets of small ice cubes every day.

There are hundreds of large ice cubes piled up next to the food area in Su Yun's space. Although Su Yun cannot enter the space, it is easy for him to stack these ice cubes using his consciousness.

Anyway, they were free and there was no need to visit other people's homes during the road closure caused by heavy snow. From time to time, Su Yun used his consciousness to wander in the space, reorganizing and stacking the supplies in each area, and he also tried to fill the top-level space that had not been used before with corresponding supplies.

In this way, half of the idle area was vacated.

Aunt Su and Ma Su really enjoy staying at home, watching TV series and cooking delicious food.

When Su Yun was tidying up the space, she found a lot of supplies that needed to be processed and cleaned. They washed and cut them slowly with the warm water in the kitchen.

They collected a lot of mashed potatoes, so they took out half of them, washed them, sliced ​​them, shredded them, and cut them into cubes for later use.

Peel the lettuce and bag it for later use.

There was a batch of chicken greens that didn't look very good, so we took them all out, picked out the good ones and put them in storage, and the bad ones were fed to the chickens together with the potato peels.

Hundreds of pounds of water chestnuts in the space needed to be cleaned and peeled for later use. The family spent a long time with peelers to finish the process.

There were two trucks of sugarcane taking up space and there was no professional juicer to squeeze the juice, so Su Yun wrote it down on the memo, and planned to get a small home-made sugarcane juicer next time he had the chance.

In the past, the family was busy making money for a living and spent little time together. They did not stop to prepare three meals a day seriously like they do now, and they almost never watched a complete TV series together. During this period, after Zhang Lili's recommendation, the family began to watch the TV series "The World", which prompted Dad Su to keep telling the children stories about their era.

The heavy snow is still falling. At present, it seems that the food reserves of most families in the village are enough to last for a year or two. The chickens, ducks, fish, meat and snacks that everyone stocks up during the festivals are enough to last for a while, not to mention that every household in the countryside has some food reserves.

But since the power outage, some people rushed back from outside, and the atmosphere in the village suddenly became weird.

There are many people like the Su family who do business in the town all year round and only return to the village occasionally. These people returned to the village one after another after the power outage. Some relatives in the village were happy, but some began to be wary.

The biggest contradiction is borrowing things: should I borrow, can I borrow, how much should I borrow, when should I return it, and how should I return it?

Some things that seemed trivial before can now easily destroy the feelings between people.

Occasionally, you can see conversations between them in the group.

"@Meng Dafang, you came to my house a few days ago to borrow charcoal. It's time to return it. I don't have much left."

"It's just a little charcoal, why are you so stingy?"

"You call me stingy? You said you would pay me back in two days. You don't keep your word."

"Where can I get you charcoal now? The car won't start. Wait a minute." Meng Dafang was also very depressed. He brought his family back to the village from the town to avoid the cold, so he asked his cousin's family to borrow some charcoal to get by. It's only been a few days and he was in a hurry to ask about it. His cousin's wife really didn't give him face.

"If you borrow, you must return. It's not difficult to borrow again. For 20 kilograms of charcoal, you have to compensate me with 300 kilograms of firewood, otherwise don't borrow things from me in the future." Li Jie Ni used to be looked down upon by Meng Dafang's family. This time, when the extreme cold came, Meng Dafang came to borrow charcoal. She felt embarrassed to refuse for the sake of her relatives. She was already aggrieved, and was afraid that Meng Dafang would have to borrow food from her in the future, so she simply started a quarrel in the group. It would be better if they never had any contact with each other again, so that their own food would not have to be subsidized to Meng Dafang who came back to the village from outside.

There are many people who have the same idea as him. Now when you see relatives coming to visit, nine out of ten times they are here to borrow things, especially those who moved out and settled down and have moved back now.

"Don't talk about this in the group, I'll go talk to my cousin myself!!!"

"Don't use your cousin to pressure me. I won't take it..."

"Dear fellow villagers, I just came back from the county. Do you have any extra charcoal and grain at home that you can sell to me? The price is absolutely right." Li Han actually still had some grain at home, and he wanted to stock up a few more bags at home.

"@李翰, ask your uncle's family. They grow seven or eight acres of land every year, so they don't lack food."

"My uncle sold it before the New Year, so there isn't much left."

A nosy villager chimed in: "Ask Alan if he wants to sell the grain. They haven't found a vehicle to transport the grain this year."

"Okay, if anyone has his home phone number, I'll ask."

"no"

"no"

"I do not have either"

"Ask the village chief, he will definitely have it."

Unfortunately, he miscalculated. Su Yun had previously told Lan's father that this year would be unstable and the grain must not be sold.

I can still send WeChat messages in the group, but I don’t know how I charged my phone. Now most people’s phones are out of battery, and all electrical appliances are unusable. Heaters, rice cookers, induction cookers and water heaters have basically become decorations.

The villagers who originally relied on heaters to survive suddenly have to rely on firewood and coal for heating and cooking. This will not be a problem in the short term, but if it continues for a long time, when the coal burns out and the house becomes as cold as outside, people will die.

Brother Tan sent a notice in the group as early as when the power outage occurred, requiring every household to clear the snow at the doorstep, and each household was also required to send one person to participate in the snow removal operation on public roads.

Su Yun's family asked Wang Jie and Su Zhangming to take the children to participate in a collective snow-clearing activity, which they regarded as physical exercise. Various children's shovels were used, and their momentum in shoveling snow was no less than that of adults.

Brother Tan couldn't help but give a thumbs up to the Su family's children. In such cold weather, many adults, let alone the children, didn't want to go out.

Other families' children were hiding at home to keep warm by the fire. Only 3% of the families in the village could come out to help clear the snow, and % of the families did not send anyone out to clear the snow.

It took everyone a week to clear the snow on the village roads. If someone did not join in the snow clearing, everyone would knock on their doors and call for help. Later, for families who really did not want to help, everyone would avoid their doorsteps when clearing the snow and only clear the village roads.

After the snow was cleared, more and more people started visiting the village, and most of them exchanged their extra things for others' extra things.

Bartering seems to be in fashion from now on.

After clearing the snow, Lan's father started to collect firewood in the back mountain. Su Yun sent him eggs and milk several times, as well as half a bag of shelled peanuts. Su Yun gave him some candy, two bags of beef balls and a pig's trotter in return. Every time Lan's father got something, he packed it carefully, hid it on the cart, covered it with a tarpaulin, and took it back to satisfy Alan's craving.

Li Han really called him to buy food, but his phone had been frozen and could not be turned on. Li Han brought his wife to his house to buy food. When Lan's father refused to sell, Li Han's wife pointed at his nose and scolded him for being stupid, saying that he had money but did not know how to make it, and that he was blind and had a broken brain.

Lan's father did not mention these to Su Yun. It was his little cousin who heard them when he passed by his house and told them to Su Yun when he came to visit.

Su Yun asked him to take care of Alan's family. After all, the two families lived close to each other and he could help out in case of emergency.

Lan's father has a small family, so they didn't prepare much for the New Year. Apart from the common bacon, couplets, some fruits and roasted nuts, they didn't buy anything else. The few pounds of pork belly they bought before the New Year had long been eaten. The only vegetables at home were bacon, homemade dried vegetables and some beans. The radishes planted in the vegetable garden were buried under the heavy snow and were all frozen.

Those frozen radishes can be dug out and stored in the cellar and still be eaten.

Neither of them was willing to eat the pig's feet and meatballs they got from Su Yun. Every time they felt craving for them, they would take a little bit and stew them with the frozen radish, and save the remaining soup for soaking rice next time.

One month has passed since the extreme cold came. Today is the second day of the second month in the lunar calendar, when the Dragon King raises his head. It is said that the Dragon King, who controls the clouds and rain, is either awakened by thunder or by devout people on this day. People pray for good weather and the revival of all things. This is commonly known as the Spring Dragon Raising its Head.

People don’t get their hair cut in the first month of the lunar year, so they wait for this day to line up to get their hair cut, which means they will be proud and have good luck throughout the year.

Especially for those who have young children at home, they yearn for their children to be successful in their studies and have good health.

The Su family decided to cut their hair together today. In the past month, everyone washed their hair once a week. Not only was it troublesome to take care of, but they also had to blow dry their hair immediately after washing to avoid catching a cold. Su Yun was even electrocuted by his own hair several times.

Anyway, everyone wears a hat when going out now, so no one will notice these details.

I haven't been out for a month, and my family has quietly installed a generator in the basement.

The generator is turned on one day a week, and today happens to be everyone's favorite call day. Su Yun used a children's electric hair clipper to give the children a handsome crew cut on the third floor. The 6-year-old cousin had short hair that reached her ears. After the haircut, the children took a bath directly in the oversized bathtub. Zhang Lili put the children's clothes into the dryer in advance to heat them up, and then provided the children with clean shoes and socks.

After taking care of the child, Zhang Lili and Su Yun gave each other a neat short haircut and immediately felt a lot more relaxed.

Su's mother and Su's aunt were also helping each other cut their hair on the first floor. Su's father and Su Zhangming started arguing after cutting their hair for a while. Both of them had haircuts that looked like they were bitten by dogs, which made people laugh. In the end, Wang Jie took the matching short combs and combed their hair again before they stopped.

After cutting hair and taking a nice hot shower, everyone took out their commonly used electronic products to charge them. The small room on the second floor usually houses some dryers and household batteries. At this moment, all the sockets in it were full, and mobile phones, tablets, flashlights and household batteries that were commonly used were all being charged.

When the generator is not turned on, a small battery is enough for the family's daily use for a month, so the Su family only turns on the generator on the day of bathing.

The batteries of all sizes in the space were fully charged before the extreme cold. They would not burn oil if they could.

Almost no one has been talking in the group these days, and I guess their phones are all turned off.

There was still signal on the cell phone, and the family gathered around the fireplace, grilling meat and reading the news.

Su Yun took out two mini radios for the children to play with. The kids fiddled with them from time to time and listened to the radio randomly. Although all channels were reporting on topics related to extreme cold, the children did not listen carefully. Instead, they took tools to disassemble the radio to check the parts inside.

Wang Jie marked all the channels that he might need to use in the future and recorded them in a notebook.

I have to say that the organizational ability of the village cadres in Xinxu Village is still very good. People are arranged to clear the snow on the village roads every few days. If the car can still be started, you can drive to the town or other villages to visit.