In the end, most of the villagers of Qingfang Village gathered together, just as Yang Poxiao had feared. Those who came later, the villagers without food, all asked the Village Head for rations.
The Village Head's family had to ration their own food, so how could they lend any out?
Apart from the Village Head himself, the Yang family refused to lend anything, and the other two families were even more unwilling to lend. Then the villagers of Qingfang Village erupted into a great battle. In the end, the three major families emerged victorious, of course.
The three major families were unwilling to let those people follow them, and the Village Head, under pressure, dared not be soft-hearted anymore.
Mu used to do all the physical labor in his family, but after he left, the work fell to his older and second older brothers. However, the whole family had grown lazy, and no one was willing to go out and fetch water or forage for wild vegetables.
Mu's Mother had the rations that Mu had left for her, and with this small amount of rations, she sustained the whole family for a month. When the rations were finished, they all complained that Mu should have left more.
Mu's Mother didn't explain; Mu had only brought out this small amount of rations, leaving it all for them.
She also complained about Mu, asking why he had to make such a fuss and cut off ties. Wasn't everything fine? And he didn't even know when to come back.
Now there wasn't even anyone to fetch water or dig for wild vegetables. In the bitter cold, the whole family huddled together to keep warm, but it was no use.
The first to freeze to death was Mu's Mother. Until her death, she resented Mu's unfilial behavior and never looked for the reason within herself or realized that she had done anything wrong.
Those disaster victims without clothes stripped the clothes off the dead to keep warm, though it didn't help much, but it was better than nothing, allowing them to live one more day.
The surviving disaster victims headed for the mountains, hoping to find caves to shelter from the cold. With so many people, trouble was bound to arise. Disaster victims often fought over caves, or those with fewer people who found a cave would have it snatched away by those with more people.
In the snowy fields lay those frozen to death, as well as casualties from the struggles between people. It was a cruel competition, the survival of the fittest.
But further north, it was relatively peaceful, with no competition. Everyone found shelter for their own family, and if they couldn't find a place to shelter from the cold, they built houses themselves.
Some people also learned from Old Gu Six and dug caves in the mountains, coming to learn from Old Gu Six.
It took Old Gu Six and Chang Le six days to dig a two-room, one-hall cave dwelling. Old Gu Six and Chang Le compacted the floor and walls. They dug a pit in the floor of the room to build a fire for heating, so the rooms wouldn't get too cold.
The windows were covered with a layer of waterproof oilcloth, and the room doors were hung with rough cloth curtains that they had acquired for free during their first trip to the city.
It took another day to build the stove, the main door, and a small table for eating. The beds were made by stacking firewood about half a meter high, covered with dried grass and a grass mat, then blankets for sleeping.
Chang Le's bed was padded with two old cotton quilts, and he slept under a new cotton quilt. Old Gu Six slept under a down quilt.
Chang'an didn't know martial arts and lacked internal energy to protect her body, so she had two quilts: an old cotton quilt and a down quilt.
A fire burned in the pit in the room, and they wore thick enough clothes, keeping the whole place nice and warm.
To prevent the entrance from being blocked by heavy snow, they also built a porch at the main entrance to block the wind and snow from outside.
Those building wooden houses had almost finished as well. They only built one room per family to live in. The wooden houses had gaps that would let in drafts, so they had to seal the cracks with yellow mud mixed with crushed dried grass.
Chang'an and the others had already moved into their warm houses, with all their belongings piled in the kitchen area. The shed was dismantled and rebuilt next to the house. Old Gu Six and Chang Le took advantage of the not-too-deep snow to chop a lot of firewood and store it in the shed, so it wouldn't get wet.
The mule was also kept in the shed, with a fire lit to keep it warm. The shed had curtains to block the biting cold winds, so the mule didn't have to shiver from the cold.
Old Gu Six and Chang Le continued to go out and chop firewood, while Chang'an stayed home to cook for them and boil water to drink.
Whatever Old Gu Six did, Little Ya's Dad and the others followed suit. So after the blizzard struck and the temperature plummeted, they all had enough firewood stockpiled and hunkered down in their own shelters.
In the -50°C weather, with the onset of freezing mode, half the villagers of Qingfang Village froze or starved to death, including Mu's two older brothers.
The Village Head wondered about his two sons he had driven out, not knowing how they were faring. At the time, he felt no regret in expelling them, but along the way, without their help, the journey to escape the famine had been extremely difficult.
Third Yang snorted coldly and said, "What could have happened to them? Following Old Gu Six, someone so capable, they're probably living much better than us, the ungrateful brats."
Fourth Yang chimed in, "We didn't move very fast either, and we haven't encountered them the whole way, so perhaps they went north.
"Dad, do you think we chose the wrong place? Look, Old Gu Six went north, so maybe it's not as bad there as we thought."
"We've already come this far. Once the weather gets better, it'll only take three more months to reach Lingnan. To change course and go north would take almost another year. How could we afford to waste that much time? Let's just go to Lingnan."
When they fled the famine, they at least had cotton clothes and quilts, but even those weren't warm enough in this weather. The Yang clan all lived together in a cave, huddling around a fire to keep warm, which was still better than freezing to death outside.
As for the Yang Poxiao brothers they were so concerned about, they were living more than comfortably—eating their fill, dressed warmly, and in a nice, toasty house.
Living together, the brothers discussed their parents, "I wonder if our parents have found a place to shelter from the cold?"
"Don't worry, Brother. They're heading toward Lingnan, and with all those mountains, they're bound to find a cave to shelter in."
Yang Mingxiao truly wasn't worried at all. Their father wasn't stupid, and he was with the rest of the clan, too. Those elders wouldn't just stand by and let anything happen to their father.
Mu sat alone by the fire in the cave, lost in thought, imagining the fate that had befallen his mother and two older brothers. No matter how decisive he tried to be, he never expected them to meet such an end.
Blood ties and family affection weren't something that could be severed with mere words after over twenty years together with his mother and brothers. There were bound to be some lingering feelings.
But he only grieved for three or four days before getting over it. This was a natural disaster, not something man could control. Once he was settled, he would set up memorial tablets and make offerings for them.
Fear of cold couldn't keep Chang'an huddled in the bedding forever, she thought. But there was still an outsider at home, so she couldn't go for days without eating, could she?
With the cold weather, the cooking chores were handed over to Old Gu Six and Chang Le. Chang'an supervised while warming herself by the fire, and these clever folks learned quickly.
Their cooking might not be outstanding, but at least it was passable. Chang'an took on the role of idle proprietress, beginning her days of fattening up.
During their flight from the famine, Old Gu Six and Chang Le hadn't bathed at all. They felt disgusted with their disheveled state, so they went out, scooped up snow, melted it indoors, let it settle, then boiled the water for bathing.
Their peaceful cat's winter life was suddenly disrupted by a group of unexpected arrivals. These were no ordinary disaster victims—they demanded Chang'an's house for their master's lodging as soon as they arrived.
They certainly knew how to pick on the vulnerable.
