Living alone on the edge of a basin in Xia Province, Wen Qian hardly saw anyone unless she went far to the road.
Now she had bought all her supplies and was prepared for not going out.
At the same time, she had constructed a decent wall around her compound. The back wall was higher, and she had spread cement along the top and inserted glass shards or nails—a theft deterrent she had seen since childhood.
After finishing the back wall, Wen Qian decided to build a front wall as well, but without forgetting to leave observation holes.
Originally, Wen Qian had planned to install a gate, but then figured since she barely went out, she might as well wall it off completely instead of having a gate.
She left one section without nails or glass bottles, instead installing an overhanging wire mesh. Wen Qian figured that if she ever needed to go out, she could use a ladder.
After all, she felt secure without a gate.
Enclosing herself might sound funny, but for Wen Qian, it gave her a sense of safety.
After all, in the winter here, water turns to ice, so she wouldn't go far anyway.
All she had to do was collect ice blocks or snow from nearby, with nothing else to do.
She had plenty of food storage and an ample supply of firewood. When she had a chainsaw, Wen Qian had also cut down many trees from the mountain across.
After enclosing herself, Wen Qian started making daily schedules for herself.
Working out, reading, and keeping records took up a significant portion, along with learning various skills.
For exercise, there was calisthenics as well as practicing self-defense.
One was for activity, the other for protection. Wen Qian admitted her self-defense skills were virtually non-existent—she could only surrender in the face of sheer force.
But with this space, she seemed to have some room to fight back, so she needed to make herself more agile.
Spending a long time alone, just eating and drinking, could erode one's willpower and make one complacent. When real danger came, she might become a sitting duck.
Wen Qian had also modified a bicycle to grind flour or beans every day.
She only ground a small amount each day, calculated based on her exercise time. The ground food was not necessarily consumed the same day, so she could store the surplus in her dimensional space.
Originally, she had wanted to pedal to generate electricity, but the results were poor so she abandoned that.
Another major daily activity was reading books and keeping records. The books covered many subjects—some for practical knowledge, others just for passing time. She now rarely used her phone or computer, even though the solar panels still worked. She just didn't need electronics much anymore.
Sometimes she would read for most of the day, preventing boredom.
Then there was record-keeping.
Wen Qian had a notebook specifically for recording events after gaining access to her dimensional space. Back when she was stocking up, she didn't have time to write, but now she had plenty of time to recollect the past year's life.
Another notebook was dedicated to chronicling her current daily life, which was quite repetitive so it didn't take many words. But there was one thing she recorded daily—the weather.
She treated herself as an observation station. When stocking up earlier, she had bought many thermometers, both indoor and outdoor, with temperature ranges on the higher end.
Wen Qian's thinking was that there might be extreme weather in the future, so it was better to get thermometers with higher ranges so they wouldn't break or give inaccurate readings.
Every morning and evening, she recorded the outdoor temperature and humidity. Perhaps it wouldn't be useful later, but for her it was a task that prevented negative emotions from idleness.
In November, the weather was very dry with no snow for a long stretch until mid-November, when it finally snowed.
It snowed from the afternoon until the next noon before stopping.
Although it snowed, the accumulation wasn't much, just freshening the air. Wen Qian didn't bother collecting this snow since there was so little.
But not long after this snow, it started snowing again, giving Wen Qian a chance to continue storing snow.
She still had the snow and ice she had stored from when she was in An Province and hadn't used much of it.
Now that she was storing more, she figured she might as well stockpile as much as she could while her dimensional space still had room.
After all, besides wood and snow, there was nothing else for her to hoard here. And while she had stockpiled a good amount of water, it all required containers.
But ice and snow could be directly stacked in her space without containers. It was just storing water in a different form.
Although she lived near the Jade Mountain Range with its snow-capped peaks and water sources, Wen Qian still preferred to store things in her dimensional space first.
With food, water, and heating, Wen Qian felt secure living alone in Xia Province.
Meanwhile in November, the winter had already arrived in An Province with early warnings of a triple La Niña phenomenon.
Auntie Chen's family, living in An Province, had made their preparations for winter early on.
They had rebuilt a single-story temporary housing addition next to their house.
During the day they stayed in the two-story house, but at night they slept in the temporary housing.
This time, Auntie Chen's husband and son were both home, so they dragged many trees from the mountains to burn for heat, while also stockpiling plenty of food.
Many homeowners in their rural area had returned, believing that living in rural areas with land would be better than cities if something happened.
So the village had become lively again.
Auntie Chen hoped this winter would be better, but the early arrival suggested a harsh cold. Combined with news of this triple La Niña phenomenon, this winter would be tougher, so they could only make more preparations—there was no other way.
Like Auntie Chen's family, others in the area also worried about not having enough food.
Her son reassured his mother that humans could now synthesize starch from carbon dioxide, but Auntie Chen didn't believe it.
Fang Ya had heard of this too, but it would likely take a long time before such technology transitioned from labs to daily life.
Of course, her husband's words were just to comfort the elder, so she didn't say anything, though she did hope this technology would make more progress in the context of global food shortages.
If even the northwest wind could be drunk, then no one would have to worry about going hungry anymore.
