Chapter 157: Let’s Have A Snowball Fight
Su Ran arrived at this Beastman Continent, and the first snowfall continued until midnight before stopping.
The next day, she discovered that the river in front of the house had completely frozen over with a layer of ice overnight.
The ice layer wasn’t very thick; it was the kind of thickness that could be smashed open by throwing a stone the size of an egg.
But with the temperature dropping rapidly recently, Su Ran felt that it wouldn’t be long before the river froze solid enough to skate on the ice surface!
However, if the river water froze, her water usage would become a bit troublesome.
So she turned to ask Gray: “Gray, when the river water freezes into ice, how did you drink water before?”
Beside her, Gray was using a wooden stick to poke through a piece of ice surface, then using the wooden stick to make the hole a bit larger.
Hearing Su Ran’s question, it didn’t lift its head and said matter-of-factly:
“Just eat ice blocks directly~ Smash the river water open with stones and you can eat the ice blocks!”
Eating ice…
Su Ran turned back; indeed, that was the only way.
Of course, for convenience, she could also dig a well.
But the river was right at the house doorway, so there really was no need.
It was also because Su Ran was really lazy; at least in the short time, it wasn’t necessary, so she had no idea of digging a well.
After Gray poked open a hole in the ice surface, it used the wooden bucket it brought, dipped it into the river water, filled it with water, and lifted it up.
It was wearing a thin pair of red-skinned pig animal hide gloves on its hands, which Su Ran had insisted it wear.
Although Gray wasn’t afraid of the cold, that didn’t mean it wasn’t cold.
Especially since its hands had to be immersed in the ice-cold river water; it was fine now, but who knew if there would be problems later when it got older.
Su Ran felt she finally understood now; before, in winter, she clearly wasn’t cold, but in her parents’ eyes, she always seemed underdressed!
She followed behind Gray, stepping into the large footprints Gray had made, walking back home step by step.
Yesterday’s snow was thick; one step down reached almost to Su Ran’s knees.
At the house doorway, when Su Ran got up in the morning, she had already used a shovel to clear a small open space.
At this moment, Gray carried the water back into the room and poured it into the water vat.
Su Ran took a broom, put on a backpack, and walked to the west side of the house.
The four-eared ox’s fodder was all kept there, covered with a specially sewn animal hide blanket on top of the fodder pile.
There was a lot of this fodder piled up; later, Su Ran worried it wouldn’t be enough for the four-eared ox to eat through the winter, so she collected much more, now divided into two piles on the ground.
She walked to the nearest pile of dry grass, first using the broom to sweep the accumulated snow off the animal hide blanket covering it onto the ground.
The too-high places she couldn’t reach, so she ignored them for now. After sweeping, she lifted one corner of the animal hide blanket and hugged a few handfuls of dry grass from inside into the backpack.
After filling the backpack, she covered the animal hide blanket back, then carried the backpack around to the east side of the house, heading toward the small animal room behind the house.
Inside the small animal room, the slightly larger animals were two four-eared oxen and one red-skinned pig.
Living together with these three animals were also three two-tailed beasts and one dwarf deer.
The dry grass Su Ran took was mostly white bean fruit grass dried in autumn.
Four-eared oxen and dwarf deer both ate grass leaves; the red-skinned pig needed separate feeding.
Although two-tailed beasts didn’t eat grass leaves, they would rummage through this dry grass themselves to find any unharvested white bean fruits to eat.
However, the white bean fruits in the dry grass fed to the four-eared oxen and dwarf deer were definitely not enough for these few two-tailed beasts.
So later, Su Ran still had to take some other food separately and feed these animals again.
Among these small animals, one four-eared ox had been just a calf when first caught; now, months later, it had grown quite a bit larger.
And among the three two-tailed beasts, two of them had self-amputated one tail when caught.
Now both had grown new tails, but one was still long and one short.
After feeding these animals, Su Ran went back to prepare some food for the red-skinned pig and the little birds next door.
Then she mixed some warm water and fed each a bit.
After feeding them all, she returned to the front, just as Gray came out of the small wooden house carrying a white-headed sheep.
“Ran Ran, stew white-headed sheep today?”
It was carrying the white-headed sheep by its hind leg; with the current cold weather, these stored prey had all frozen hard like bricks.
“Sure.”
Su Ran nodded in agreement, looking at Gray’s expectant gaze.
The meat on white-headed sheep was very fatty, with a lot of fat. So every time stewing, Su Ran would cut off some of the fattier meat from the belly and save it to refine mutton fat or make other food.
For this piece today, she planned to refine it into mutton fat, then mix the greaves from frying and eat them as small snacks during the daytime when there was nothing to do.
Because Gray said they wouldn’t go out anymore, Su Ran and they had officially entered winter and begun the winter rest season.
Suddenly idle, with nothing to do during the daytime and less labor, they got hungry later.
This morning’s meal was prepared unhurriedly; by the time Su Ran and Gray ate, it was already past nine-thirty in the morning.
After eating, Su Ran pulled Gray outside.
She handed Gray a bone shovel, then pointed at the snow on the roof: “Gray, push the snow down from up there, and also from the storage room and small animal room.”
“Okay~”
Gray looked up at the roof; the white snow on the roof was dazzling under the sunlight.
Gray instinctively squinted its eyes, then held the bone shovel in hand, spread its huge wings behind, and in the blink of an eye flew up to the roof.
The wind from the flapping wings blew the loose snowflakes off the roof.
Su Ran happened to be looking up, and suddenly got a face full of icy coolness.
“Ah! Gray!”
The icy snowflakes poured directly from her neck into her clothes; Su Ran yelped in shock from the cold, jumping away from under the eaves!
Meanwhile, Gray on the roof looked down at her in confusion:
“Woo? Ran Ran?”
Su Ran hurriedly brushed the snowflakes off the hat on her head, rolled her eyes helplessly at the innocent werewolf on the roof: “I’m fine, hurry up and shovel the snow!”
“Woo~”
Gray wagged its tail, saw Su Ran was okay, then lowered its head to start shoveling snow.
At this time, Su Ran walked to a nearby clean snow-covered area, squatted down, and busily worked for a good while.
After two minutes, she suddenly stood up and shouted toward the werewolf on the roof who was seriously working: “Gray!”
“Woo?”
Gray raised its head in response, but the instant it did, it sensed a dangerous aura rapidly approaching.
It “whoosh!” stood its two wings up to shield itself in front.
The next second, there was a “smack!” sound!
A white snowball directly hit its wings, instantly shattering into pieces!
