Meng Yan's Transformation

Winter in the Great Northern Wilderness came especially early this year. When the cold wind blew, the rivers stopped flowing, the ice froze three feet deep, the black soil froze hard as iron, and snow flew all over the sky. I don't know how long it has been snowing, but the snow is more than one meter thick. Legend has it that the Snow Queen has two daughters, one is the kind and gentle Princess Elsa, and the other is the vicious and fierce Princess Adele. They originally ruled the kingdom north of Iceland. This year, driven by dark magic, Adele did not listen to the Queen's control and madly expanded her own territory. Her ultimate dream is to let her ice and snow magic rule the whole earth. So the vicious and fierce Princess Adele flew over Siberia and the Greater Khingan Mountains to the Great Northern Wilderness. She shook her long yellow hair and whistled past. Wherever she went, it was covered with ice and snow. The vicious and fierce Princess Adele saw the Northeast land that she had cast a spell on: looking inside and outside the Great Wall, there was only wilderness, and she showed a vicious and satisfied smile...

In the vast white snow, Zhan Zi'an drove the donkey cart, and Yunqing sat on the cart. They rushed from Dongshuanglong to Aobao Team 4. The father of Dongshuanglong's production team leader celebrated his 80th birthday and asked Yunqing to write a picture of his 100th birthday. Every household in the surrounding villages would consider it an honor to have Yunqing's calligraphy when they had a birthday banquet or married a daughter-in-law. Zhan Yu, Yunqing was helped by Captain Dongshuanglong when she first arrived in the Great Northern Wilderness. "Repaying a drop of water from others should be a spring of gratitude" is Yunqing's way of life. So Yunqing went to Captain Dongshuanglong's house to write a picture of his 100th birthday, and then gave a gift, had a banquet, and drank some wine. Yunqing was a person who didn't drink at all, but Captain Dongshuanglong's family entertained him and urged him to drink. Yunqing couldn't refuse the hospitality, so she drank a little. Yunqing couldn't handle the wine and felt dizzy, so she hurried home and urged Zhan Zi'an, who came to send her, to catch up with the donkey cart and send her home.

It was originally a road of more than ten miles, but it was very difficult to walk because of the ice and snow. It felt like the road was very far away... The sky gradually darkened, and the sky was full of thick, low, gray-yellow turbid clouds. The northeast wind howled and ran wildly in the wilderness. It seemed to hold a sharp sword that could penetrate the tightly worn wolf fur coat, not to mention the exposed face, which was cut by the sword one by one, causing unbearable pain. The crescent moon that had just risen was knocked down by the howling northeast wind and retreated to the horizon without a trace. The sky first sparsely snowflakes, and then clusters and clumps of goose feather-like snow fell from the sky. The wind mixed with snowflakes flying in the air, like thousands of silver butterflies walking in the air, and also like dandelions with fluffy seeds falling, like catkins spinning and dancing, and like the dense silver swords thrown by the vicious and ferocious Princess Adele...

The snow was falling all over the place, like silver powder and jade chips, and the sky and the earth became even more gray and white...

Zhan Zi'an whipped the donkey hastily and finally got home. Zhan Yu was waiting anxiously at the door: "Are you frozen? Come in quickly!"

"Zi'an, where is your mother? Why hasn't she come back?" Zhan Yu asked anxiously.

"I came back with my mother! My mother drank some wine and felt a little dizzy, so she told me to catch the bus and go home quickly! I clearly saw my mother getting on the bus at first, and then she said she felt so dizzy that she lay down on the bus!" Zhan Zi'an said anxiously with tears in his voice.

"Children, go to each household in the village to find help! Find your mother, find your mother!" Zhan Yu instructed the children.

The children went to different houses to look for help. "How could I lose my mother? How could I lose my mother?" Zhan Zi'an cried and said to himself.

Zhan Yu pulled the crying Zhan Zi'an over and asked, "Do you remember the way you came back? Do you remember where you saw that Mom was not still in the car?"

All the men, women, young and old from the entire village of Aobao Team 4 gathered at the production team headquarters. The elderly and children stayed behind at the headquarters, and all the rest of the people, some holding torches, some holding flashlights, and some holding lanterns... began to walk into the snowy night as dark as ink, looking for the lost Yunqing!

The villagers of Aobao Team 4 searched for Yunqing all night, and finally it was Aunt Zhang’s eldest son Zhang Jingrui who found Yunqing frozen unconscious in a snow hole with his big black dog...

Aunt Zhang took off Yunqing's frozen cotton jacket, rubbed her feet with snow, and instructed Zhan Yu to rub Yunqing's body...

Yunqing finally came back from the gates of hell, and the villagers finally put their minds at ease, and the villagers who had been waiting for him left one after another.

Yunqing was wrapped in bandages. She was so cold that her entire body was covered with frostbite.

Without Yunqing to do the housework, the house became messy and disorderly. Sister Yingying and Xiao Mengyan asked for leave from school and cooked together. The stove was about the same height as them, which was too high for them. When the rice in the pot boiled, they needed to stir the corn grits or millet rice with a spoon or shovel, otherwise the rice would burn. The burnt rice tasted terrible. Every time this happened, the two sisters would bring a small stirrer, one holding it while the other went up and used the spoon to stir the corn grits or millet in the pot. The arms always felt that they were not long enough to stir the rice at the bottom of the pot. Xiao Mengyan was fumigated by steam several times on her wrists, which caused big blisters. Her sister helped her prick the blisters and let the water out. Then she asked Aunt Zhang for badger oil and applied it on the wound to prevent it from festering.

"You always get your hands burned by the smoke. From now on, I'll go up to the stove to stir the food, and you just need to help me hold the stool down below." Yingying said with heartache as she looked at Xiao Mengyan's scalded hands.

As soon as the rice cooker boiled and the lid was taken off, steam filled the room. The stool under the stove could not be seen clearly, and the two sisters often fell on their backs if they stepped on it.

Yunqing rested for a while, and some of the wounds began to scab over. Her hands were the most severely frozen, and they began to fester and become infected. Zhan Yu had to amputate Yunqing's left ring finger and little finger, which were already festering. The ring finger on her right hand was not too festering, so she kept it for the time being.

When the class teacher, Mr. Gao, visited Zhan Yu's home, she saw that the two sisters were busy doing housework and had no time to study. She asked the two sisters to return to school, attend classes, and make up for the missed lessons.

Zhan Yu held a family meeting to discuss which sister should drop out of school and do housework at home.

In the end, elder sister Yingying decided to give up the opportunity to go to school in favor of her younger sister Xiao Mengyan, and do housework at home.