Winter's vegetables were prepared as winter was coming. This year, she turned forty.
Although she looked quite young, her age had reached that point, and she paid special attention to her diet and keeping warm.
Precisely because she lived alone, she needed to ensure her physical health even more. Once the harm and wear and tear on her body accumulated to a certain extent, it would be impossible to recover.
She recalled what her grandmother had once told her. Her grandmother said that in her youth, she wasn't afraid of the cold in winter or the heat in summer.
But when she grew older, her bones would ache on rainy days or during winter, though it was too late for regrets. Therefore, she had repeatedly told the young Wen Qian many times.
Even when young, one needs to protect one's health and not squander it simply because of youth.
So from childhood, Wen Qian knew not to indulge in the cold, but at that time, she wasn't aware of how difficult her grandmother's era had been.
The work they did was all physical labor, whether it was transplanting rice seedlings, carrying grass on their heads, turning over soil, repairing roads, or tending fields and ditches. Despite their efforts to stay warm and avoid the cold, their generation's physical condition would inevitably deteriorate with age due to the demanding manual labor.
Although Wen Qian now arranged reasonable work hours for herself, she could still sense the overall decline in her physical fitness.
Therefore, she started sleeping on a heated brick bed quite early and made sure to exercise indoors during the winter.
Working and exercising are often two different things, but many people conflate them.
In her current living conditions, even though she had ample supplies, Wen Qian had to do everything herself by hand.
Bending over to harvest or gather crops would make her back and waist ache, so during winter, she would apply moxibustion from time to time.
Although she had stockpiled medicinal ointments in the past, she didn't use them often, only applying them during the busy farming seasons.
In fact, her living conditions were already quite good compared to others. If even she felt this way, then her peers were probably more aged and had a wider range of physical ailments.
However, the neck and shoulder issues she had developed from sitting at a computer for long periods while working were no longer as severe.
When the weather outside was freezing cold, Wen Qian would take out the black sesame seeds she had finally cleaned in the kitchen and prepare to make sesame paste.
The process was relatively simple: roast the sesame seeds, roast the glutinous rice, then add white sugar. Afterward, grind it into a powder using a small stone mill.
She could also add other nuts to grind together. The powder could be mixed with hot water for a decent-tasting drink, and small fruits could be added too.
Sometimes, when she didn't feel like eating, she would have a cup of this drink, which provided a good sense of fullness.
On her birthday this year, she had treated herself to a cake, lighting candles and singing the birthday song.
At the rate she celebrated her birthday, she felt she might not even finish the cake she bought, so whenever she felt bored, she would cut a slice and eat it.
If she finished it earlier, it didn't matter; she could use her old rice cooker pot as a mold and make a cake batter in the oven.
She would then whip up some cream with a hand-mixer and decorate it with some fruits, making her own birthday cake by hand.
But now that it was winter, she only cooked in a pot indoors, let alone using an oven.
This year, she made clothes for herself at home. Only then did she realize that the cheap fabrics she had bought years ago, though inexpensive, were clearly machine-made.
These ordinary fabrics, after being stored for over a decade, would normally have deteriorated.
But the ones she took out now still looked new, so she used the new fabrics for the inner layers, while the outer layers were still made of plain, coarse, flawed old materials, not looking as new.
As it was snowing outside now, she wouldn't be going out much, so she could wear her new clothes at home. But to keep them from getting dirty, she would wear an outer layer on top.
She could wash the outer layer more frequently, while the thick inner layers didn't need as much washing.
So the "new clothes" didn't really look new, just with better insulation.
In other seasons, her dressing would basically match her current neighbors, or else her brand-new clothes would stand out too much in this environment.
Her physique hadn't really changed much over the years, and she didn't make new clothes every year. Instead, she would make enough clothes on a sewing machine in one year to last her for the next few years.
Other than that, she rarely used the sewing machine, except for patching up worn or accidentally torn clothes.
After taking two days to cut fabrics of various sizes, she started operating the sewing machine.
She hadn't even taken out her new sewing machine; she was still using the old one from her hometown.
If someone were near her house at the time, they could hear the rhythmic clacking sound coming from inside.
Over the course of a week, she made new clothes for herself and also new cotton quilts and quilt covers.
The new quilt covers were ones she had previously ordered online, mostly discounted stock or products with minor flaws. She had bought quite a few.
And back when she was in An Province at her old home, she had washed all these purchases in the washing machine.
Looking back, she realized she was quite lazy at the time, using electric machines to do any work that could be done that way in advance.
Now, as she took out the fragrant new quilt covers, she felt her past self was a clever little thing.
Although she had her own solar panels, their power output clearly couldn't support using a washing machine; at most, they could be used for lighting or charging her phone and laptop.
Moreover, after the volcanic winter, solar power basically couldn't function properly. Without being used for a long time, she couldn't really make use of it now, her life completely separated from such high-tech devices.
The solar panels she had later obtained in the desert and Gobi were intended for use as boards, so they didn't serve any practical purpose either.
When the external conditions simply didn't allow for it, she seemed to gradually forget about phones and computers.
Initially, she had downloaded quite a lot of materials and videos, but now she couldn't even recall them.
Even when she had questions, she mostly consulted the books she had stockpiled instead of searching for electronic books on electronic devices.
After putting on new clothes and new bedsheets, she later replaced all the pots, bowls, and utensils in her home with new ones, storing the old ones in her space.
How should I put it? This seemed to have become a chain reaction, as she even took out new knitted dolls from the space to replace the ones hanging on her wall.
It was a bit like when she was a child, and every New Year's Eve, she would fold her new clothes and pants neatly and place them at the corner of her bed, looking forward to wearing them the next day.
At the age of forty, she experienced the joy of having everything new.
It was winter, and staying in this new environment with new objects would reduce some visual fatigue.
There were few people in this place, and even though they were neighbors, she didn't invite anyone to come and see her new place, as it wasn't that big of a deal to have new things.
The new year arrived quietly like this.
