Ye An

Ye An was awakened by a strange cry.

The fire in the furnace has been extinguished, only a few embers remain.Drops of unsteamed water hung on the chimney, and the boiling water in the pot became slightly cool.

The sun was setting, and the cold wind was blowing up, but no snowflakes fell.

Ye An slept for four or five hours this time, obviously sleeping very deeply, and there was no nightmare to visit, but his physical strength did not recover much.Probably because of the sudden relaxation, the fatigue from the past few days surged up overnight, knowing that it was time to get up, but the limbs were sore and limp one after another, just wanting to curl up in the warm blanket without moving, and soon fell asleep again.

"get up!"

Ye An clenched his fingers and pulled the wound on his palm. The pain stimulated his nerves and made him wake up quickly.

Throwing off the blanket and sitting up, Ye An walked to the clay stove, picked up the iron pot that was no longer hot, and gulped down three big sips of water.Wipe off the water stains around his mouth with his backhand, bounced on the ground a few times, and walked to the door to blow a gust of wind, finally feeling much more refreshed.

The roar of wild beasts came from outside the house, and it was the nocturnal mutant beasts that started to hunt.

Ye An removed some of the stones blocking the door, pushed aside the bark blocking the door, and looked out of the house.

The night is getting darker, a bright moon hangs high in the sky, and the stars are dotted around, sprinkled with cold brilliance, and complement each other with the ice lake.

Under the cracked ice, one after another swirls of water gushing out from the bottom of the lake, which are fish hiding under the water to avoid the cold.Aware of the change of seasons, mutated fish swim to the lake in large groups, looking for weak spots in the ice, ready to break through the ice at any time to absorb fresh oxygen, and prey on weak fish and beasts that accidentally fall into the water.

In the forest on the other side of the lake, the man staring at the wooden house has disappeared.No matter how greedy and vicious he was, he didn't dare to wander alone in the forest late at night when there were a lot of mutant beasts.

Not far from the shore of the lake, the bark of three or four giant trees has marks scratched by men with their fingernails, which symbolizes that there is a gopher hole nearby, so it is convenient to find it next time.

Under the tree, a fiery red mutant fox leaped quickly, chasing the white pheasant hiding in the snow, looking for the pheasant's nest, and devouring the eggs wrapped in hay.When the mutated fox killed the pheasant and dug up the remaining snow, a black leopard had locked on to it in the dense canopy and was about to jump down.

Ye An closed the door of the house tightly, and blocked the stone behind the door again, blocking the cold wind at night, and also blocking the beast roars and calls that echoed in the wind.

It was cold inside the house, Ye An grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around his body, re-lit the fire, and added five or six sticks of firewood.

The flame ignited, and the heat radiated outward. Ye An rubbed his hands together, and brought an animal skin bag from the wall, untied the bag, and poured out dozens of fist-sized pine cones.

At midnight, the forest is the most dangerous, even if there is a wooden house as a shelter, he dare not fall asleep easily.To get through the long night, he had to find something to do for himself.

Ye An sat cross-legged on the ground, picked up a pine cone, took out a short knife, and started peeling the pine nuts inside.The peeled pine nuts are concentrated on the plate, and when they accumulate to a certain amount, they will be poured into an empty pot and put on the fire to dry the water.

During the drying process, Ye An broke off a long branch and kept stirring it in the pot to ensure that the pine nuts were heated evenly.When the surface of the pine nuts turns black and ash, and there is a burst of burnt fragrance in the air, the pine nuts will be poured on the animal skins to cool, and then wrapped in clean animal skins for storage.

Dozens of pine cones allowed Ye An to harvest hundreds of pine nuts. Except for the hollow ones and broken ones, the rest were full. They could be smashed and crushed into powder, which could be used instead of salt.

The flame danced in the furnace, and the center of the flame was slightly blue.

The temperature in the room gradually increased, Ye An sat by the stove, his hands kept on, and a layer of oily sweat appeared on his forehead.

"rare."

Ye An put down the dagger, untied the blanket wrapped around his body, wiped off the sweat from his forehead, and put the processed pine nuts back against the wall.To avoid moisture, a layer of branches and dry grass was placed underneath.

"I'm going to find wood at dawn."

After processing the pine nuts, Ye An swept the pine cones into the firewood pile.

Slapping the debris off his hands, Ye An roughly estimated the time, and it should be around two o'clock in the middle of the night.The most dangerous time has passed, he can sleep for another three or four hours, and wake up just in the morning, so he can hurry up and work.

Ye An added a few more firewood to the stove to ensure that the flame would not go out too quickly. He lay on his back on the bed, wrapped himself in a blanket, and thought about how much wood he would collect tomorrow.

"You need to collect more firewood, and to make a table, it is best to find larger hardwood, and prepare door panels and windows."

Except for the fire and the moonlight falling through the cracks in the doors and windows, there is no more light in the room.Ye An opened his eyes and looked at the dark roof, talking to himself non-stop, not only to arrange the next plan, but also to relieve his loneliness and relax his nerves.

Just when he was about to fall asleep in a daze, there was another strange sound outside the house, mixed with the shrill calls of squirrels of different lengths.

After hiding by the pine forest for several days, Ye An could more or less discern the meaning of these calls. It was a group of squirrels hunting, and the target was the macaques living in the forest.

The animals that survived the catastrophe did not have a purely herbivorous population. Even migrating deer herds would eat meat when they had the opportunity.

Squirrels regard macaques as prey, and there are not a few squirrels that are hunted and killed by macaques in turn.The boundaries between predators and prey are often blurred, and one moment the winner is sure, the next moment it may be counter-killed.

Ye An witnessed a battle with his own eyes. On the day after he was almost cut down, a lone squirrel encountered three macaques, was forced to the snow, and was almost torn to pieces by the monkeys.

Ye An happened to be nearby and recognized the besieged red squirrel. Feeling anxious and angry, he picked up a shovel and a short knife and killed the leading macaque, trying to rescue the squirrel.

The macaque was fierce by nature. Seeing his companion being killed, instead of running away, he screamed and rushed towards Ye An, abandoning the squirrel.

Under the attack of two macaques, Ye An's arms and shoulders were quickly left with several wounds, and the blanket used for the coat was torn to pieces, hanging on his body like cloth strips.

Fortunately, the red squirrel's cry for help attracted its companions, and more than 20 squirrels arrived in time, surrounded the two macaques heavily, and angrily waved their claws to tear them to pieces.

Blood splattered all over the ground and sprayed on Ye An's face at the same time.

Rather than saying that the squirrels are hunting, it is better to say that they are venting their anger.

The red squirrel was jumping in the canopy, and Ye An could feel the pleasure of the other party.The situation a few days ago was repeated again. The pine cones fell to Ye An's feet with a few pieces of plant tubers in the middle.

Recalling this, Ye An's drowsiness disappeared, and he sat up suddenly.I've been busy for the past few days, and I forgot such an important thing!

Ye An quickly left the bed, lit a fire from the clay stove, lit a torch, found the tuber placed in the corner, and looked carefully at the firelight.

The three tubers are as big as an adult's fist, similar in shape to a sweet potato, with extremely hard skins that make a loud knock.Thinking it was frozen, Ye An roasted it on the fire for a while, but it was still as hard as a rock, and could not be smashed open.

There was really no way, Ye An could only fix the tuber and start cutting it with a short knife.

The outer skin of the tuber is no less than the bark, thick and hard, and the leaves are very difficult to cut.The inside is quite soft, the blade slides easily, the fracture is milky white, and transparent juice flows out, which has a fragrant taste.

"Should be able to eat?"

Ye An dipped a little bit of it with his finger and put it in his mouth, his eyes suddenly lit up, it turned out to be sweet!

Just when Ye An was delighted with his discovery, the man who left the forest by the lake returned to the hut where he lived, looked around carefully, but found no sign of the mutant beast, quickly moved away the stones and wooden stakes blocking the door, bent over Waist walked in.

The room was small, damp and cold, filled with an unpleasant smell.

There were two figures huddled in the corner, a woman in animal skins and a skinny child.

The man took out the gopher that had been eaten to nothing but its head and bones, and threw it in front of the woman.The woman didn't care about the dirt on it, she grabbed it and bit it, chewing up the remaining flesh and feeding it to the child in her arms.The child's eyes were surprisingly large, his hair was matted, and his face was covered in plaster.

They are not the man's family, but the "food" he catches and stores.

One of the woman's legs was broken, her bones were shattered, and she was carrying a child with her. There was no way she could escape.Even if he ran out, he could only become a meal for the mutant beast.

In a similar way, men survived several long snow seasons.

Looking at the woman and the child, the man sneered. He thought of an idea, an idea that he could find out the reality of the wooden house and snatch a good place without taking any risks himself.