Winter was approaching. Zhao Gao and Madam Chen headed to the mountains almost every day; the firewood they had at home was nowhere near enough to see them through the winter, and they had to stockpile as much as possible to survive the long, frigid months.
Without it, the freezing temperatures could kill a person—there had been precedents for exactly that. Once the heavy snows arrived, the world would be blanketed in white, making it impossible to even find a place to step. People rarely ventured out unless it was for something urgent, preferring to stay home, burn the hearth, and keep warm. It was so cold outside that no one was foolish enough to go out and suffer for no reason. If one caught a chill and fell ill, they might not even find a doctor; doctors were human too, after all, and they feared the cold, rarely making house calls in the winter.
Right now, it wasn't just Zhao Yan's household busily preparing firewood; the entire village had been mobilized. Everyone, from the old to the young—save for the very small children—was heading to the mountains with great diligence. Zhao Yan had originally thought their home was in a remote, sparsely populated area, but over the last half-month, the path in front of his house had been worn flat by villagers trekking back and forth to cut wood. There were those with axes, those with large wicker baskets on their backs, those clutching thick bundles of rope, and even some more ambitious souls pushing flatbed carts. The coming and…
Chapter 147