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

Su Ma put the fish and shrimp that the children brought back in a large iron pot and roasted them over low heat to make salty dried fish and dried shrimps for the children as snacks.

All the larger fish were cleaned, marinated with salt, and then hung on the roof.

The three rabbits froze to death on the way back, and were made into smoked rabbits and hung on the roof.

The next day, Su Zhangminghe and Wang Jie went out early in the morning to get people.

Dad Lan, Uncle Zhibang, eldest cousin, younger cousin, Brother Tan and Mengzhe are all going. So the temporary team of "Lanbangao Chuangzhesu" consisting of 6 families in Xinxu Village is going to go fishing. Everyone brings the tools for fishing from home in the morning.

We entered the mountain behind Su’s house at 10 am.

The noise they made when they went to the back mountain was quite loud, and soon the whole village knew about it. Min's father had originally wanted to go to the river to fish quietly, but he didn't expect so many people to show up. They were so angry about the Su family's actions, but couldn't they tell everyone after a few days!!! This was simply outrageous.

Three men from the Su family went with Su Yun, and the ten people took fishing nets and buckets to the downstream of the stream in the back mountain to pull the nets.

Su Yun and his father Su were wearing one-piece fishing suits and standing in the middle of the stream, responsible for watching the net bag. The deepest part of the stream was less than 1 meter, and the two of them were very safe standing in the water.

The remaining few people took bamboo poles and drove the fish along the stream. A steady stream of fish were driven downstream, and there were many varieties and they were plump and delicious.

In just one hour, the dozen or so buckets that Su Yun brought were all full, and the number of fish in the net bag was still increasing. In the end, Su Yun could only put some of the fish directly into the space.

The remaining fish were caught in the fishing net they brought with them, and the two of them dragged them to the shore together.

Half an hour later, the people who were chasing fish upstream came back and shouted excitedly when they saw the shore was full of fish.

Even Wang Jie and Su Zhangming were very excited. Everyone who participated in the fishing, in addition to carrying the fish in their own buckets, gave the fish in the net bag to Su's father.

The snow underfoot was already difficult to walk on, and if we were carrying so many things, we would be exhausted after walking for a while.

He simply poured out all the water in the fish bucket to reduce some of the weight. Soon the fish were frozen solid. He then broke off a branch nearby and used it as a shoulder pole. He carried the fish bucket on one side and the fishing net and tools on the other.

The nine men were all carrying loads and walking in front, only Su Yun was following behind with only half a bucket of fish.

"We have harvested a lot this time. These fish can be eaten for two months after being processed. Finally, we don't have to eat frozen chicken and duck all the time." The excited tone was tinged with a hint of Versailles. Brother Tan's family had already vomited the frozen chicken at home.

"Oh, the stock at home is almost gone, and I don't know when it will be warm again." Mengzhe's family doesn't have many supplies, and most of the time they rely on the dry goods from their grandmother's house to survive.

"Rice and flour are fine, but they taste bland without vegetables and meat. The children's snacks have been finished long ago, and they keep asking for snacks every day." Su Zhe has three children. One of them is a girl who was raised in her sister's home after her divorce. She is about the same age as Tang Tang and is at the age when she is hungry.

"Where can we find snacks now? I only have a handful of sugar left at home, and I save it all for the children to put in their porridge. Otherwise, they will ask me to buy candy." The young uncle also had a worried look on his face.

"At least you won't starve to death. This means we won't have any extra meals. When the weather is good in a few days, we can catch some fish and keep them there. Let's be more positive. Several households in the village are out of food now. They are begging for food everywhere and now they have come to me. I am in a difficult situation and can't even save myself." Brother Tan was in a good mood originally, but when he started chatting, he suddenly felt that a few more hairs were going to turn white.

Fortunately, I stocked up a lot of ingredients last time to pickle the dead chickens and ducks, so I still have salt and oil at home, but my mother locked up all the ingredients, for fear that people at home would borrow the seasonings from outside.

"We are still better off than others. I heard that many people in the city can't get enough food and have come out to rob." Dad Su walked at the front of the team and shared some news he had heard on the radio in the past few days with everyone.

As they chatted, everyone found out that the Su family had a radio that could receive news from outside, and they all gathered around Su's father to ask about it.

Since there was no electricity and internet, everyone felt isolated from the world. The news from the outside world was basically what Brother Tan heard when he went to the town for meetings or to collect supplies. The information was not only limited but also very fragmented.

Although the city provided more assistance than the countryside during the extreme cold, it was only enough to keep the people from starving or freezing to death. It was simply impossible for them to go out to find firewood and river fish like them.

In the countryside, everyone has land and at least has hope, and there are more opportunities for making a living.

Mengzhe had originally planned to go back to work when the weather warmed up, but now he has no longer thought about going to work. It would be more practical to think about how to have enough food and clothes to eat and wear.

Those who had previously laughed at the Su family for spending money lavishly now felt that the Su family had made good money. Now that cash has depreciated even more, a bag of salt costs hundreds of yuan.

Wang Jie and Su Zhangming hurriedly finished their dinner and began to process the fish they brought back. The fish in the space were conservatively estimated to be around three or four hundred kilograms, so they could only process them slowly.

Most of the fish brought back were crucian carp. After processing the internal organs, they were all put into plastic boxes and then placed in Su Yun's space. These crucian carp were kept for making soup.

When you have time, clean the internal organs of the fish in the space, then apply salt and put them away. The temperature is not suitable for drying now, so you can wait until summer to dry them for two or three days to make dried fish.

There was a strong wind outside at night. People inside the house could hear the whistling wind outside the window. The biting cold wind blew up the snow on the ground and hit people's faces, causing tingling or numbness. Many people had severe frostbite on their hands and feet. Several middle-aged and elderly people with poor physical conditions in the village died one after another. Every time, Su's father only took his son and son-in-law to pay their respects.

Su Yun heard from them that funerals nowadays were just a simple formality, without even a proper meal. They just cooked a big pot of bone porridge or dried vegetable porridge and poured a bowl for everyone to drink, and then returned after a quick burial.

Since the last time Su's father took people to the back mountain to fish, more and more people have been going in and out of the back mountain. Some went to collect firewood, some to catch fish, and some who were good at hunting went out. At the beginning, everyone had some gains. They picked up a lot of firewood and caught a lot of fish. Even though some people who were not very good at working had very little gains, it did not dampen their enthusiasm.

Later, the Su family followed the villagers to the back mountain to pick up some firewood exposed on the snow. Sometimes when Brother Tan invited people to go fishing, he would also invite the Su family to join. After Su Zhangming and Wang Jie went twice, they found that there were obviously fewer fish in the stream. After a lot of trouble, they only brought back one or two small fish two fingers wide, and then they never went again.

Wang Zhihui came to the Su family to introduce himself and brought him some fish. He also gave him some fishing tools and told him to go back to Wangjia Village and catch some fish himself.

Usually everyone stays at home to help their children with their homework, exercise, and prepare some delicious food and put it in the space for future use.

Even if the Su family doesn't cook for a year, the hot food stored in the space is enough for the whole family to enjoy.

Rice balls that are easy to carry out, various kinds of flatbreads, buns, steamed buns, soy milk, fried dough sticks, dumplings, wontons and noodle porridge of various flavors for breakfast, fragrant and hot rice, bone soup, chicken soup, meat pot, stir-fried dishes, etc. for lunch and dinner.

There were even various washed, cut and ready-to-use ingredients and condiments. Thinking of the dazzling array of neatly arranged supplies in the space, Su Ma and Su Xiaogu completely entered the lazy mode during this period.

In the past, we cooked delicious food in a hurry, but now, if we want to cook something, we have to prepare the ingredients for several days.

Recently, Aunt Su and Mother Su have been preparing ingredients for frying and are planning to fry some crispy delicacies today. They think that the snacks that Su Yundun sells are fine for adults to have as a snack, but it is cleaner and more hygienic for children to make them themselves.

For three consecutive days, I prepared a lot of ingredients for frying, including various fermented doughs for making fried dough sticks, pumpkin balls, twisted dough sticks, spring rolls, and scallion pancakes, as well as controlled potato strips and potato chips for making french fries and potato chips, and chicken nuggets and chicken steaks coated with breadcrumbs.

After lunch, everyone was busy in the kitchen frying beef and pork meatballs.

Before, Su's mom and dad used a meat grinder to make a lot of beef and pork puree. Su Xiaogu directly mixed salt, eggs, rice wine, and chopped water chestnuts into a bowl of pork puree. Su's mom added cooking wine, soy sauce, oyster sauce, eggs, green onions, ginger, five-spice powder, and sesame oil to another bowl of meat and mixed them evenly.

I could smell the fragrance even before it started frying. There were 4 pots of meat in total, all cooked into different flavors, including water chestnut, lotus root, five-spice, and onion flavor.

After Su Ma and Su Xiaogu prepared the ingredients for the minced meat, they began to heat the oil in a pan. The two large pots were placed on the modified stove, and under the stove, large pieces of dried firewood bought from the sawmill were burning. Firewood of all sizes from the back mountain were piled in the corner of the space and had not been processed yet. Some of them were not even dry yet, and would produce a lot of smoke when burned. When they had time, they would use an electric saw to cut the firewood shorter and then split it into pieces to dry.

The remaining few people used the spoons they usually used for eating to roll the seasoned meat paste into balls. After a while, a row of meatballs were ready. Su Ma and the sister-in-law had a good control of the heat, so they were responsible for frying the meatballs.

The delicious meatballs came out of the pot one by one. The children couldn't help but try one after another, and Dad Su couldn't help but secretly eat some with his chopsticks.

After placing the fried meatballs on the net to drain excess oil, Su Yun arranged for the children to sort and pack the meatballs. Wang Qi and Su Bowen could already write a lot of words, so Su Yun took out a roll of labels and asked them to write the names on the labels first, and then led their younger brothers and sisters to pack the meatballs.

The outdoor temperature is now over 50 degrees below zero during the day and around 65 degrees below zero at night. The meatballs will become hard after being left outside for a while. The children, wearing thick gloves, scarves and masks, shuttle back and forth through the door curtain between the kitchen and the backyard.

It took two hours to fry the meatballs. Fortunately, the wind was blowing from the head of the village to the end today. The Su family was closest to the end of the village, so the fragrance could not reach the village, which gave them room to perform.

While other families had no water, electricity or signal, the Su family's life was not much different from before the extreme cold. In fact, their lives were more colorful than before the extreme cold. Everyone had time to spend with their families and enjoy life.

Every day, they cook delicious food, watch TV series, read books, and feed the chickens and ducks in the old house. The children have obviously adapted to the extreme cold faster than adults. They spend no less than three hours in the underground training ground every day, doing archery, skipping rope or shoveling snow.

Several adults in the family lowered a coarse linen net from the second floor behind the house to make some simple nets. The children climbed from the first floor to the second floor in the backyard every day, which was both exercise and entertainment.

While Su Yun was thinking, Su Ma had already cleaned the oil and started frying French fries, potato chips and chicken fillets. The fried French fries and potato chips were evenly sprinkled with a little seaweed salt, and they tasted even better than the KFC French fries before the extreme cold.

I filled 8 large bags, sealed them and placed them next to the bags of popcorn in the space.

Four children were holding plates of French fries and chicken steaks, eating while watching popular science videos on a tablet. These videos covered everything from daily life to the mysteries of the universe.

It took five hours by the time the fried dough sticks and twisted dough sticks were finished, and it was already dark. Fortunately, I had done the preparations beforehand, otherwise I would not have been able to finish frying these high-calorie foods in one day. I marked the fried oil separately and put it in a space.

No one mentioned dinner. They just kept eating and frying the whole day. Su Yun was worried that they would get a sore throat the next day, so he took out the homemade honey grapefruit jam from the space and made a big pot of honey grapefruit tea for everyone, which was both greasy and refreshing.

My body smelled of firewood and fried food again, so I drank some honey grapefruit tea and quickly went to take a shower.

Su Yun and Zhang Lili placed two wooden bathtubs on the third floor and watched TV series while taking a bath.