Chapter 169: Why Is Hui All Alone?
Su Ran placed a clean large wooden basin under the neck of the red-skinned pig whose throat had been slit to catch the pig blood.
After the blood had drained, she added a bit of salt to the pig blood first, then had Hui help send the pig blood back inside the room.
The pig hide from the red-skinned pig was exchanged by an elderly rhinoceros beastman for a white-headed sheep.
When the beastmen came to watch, Su Ran noticed that these beastmen were all wearing animal hide clothing or wrapped in animal hide skirts to varying degrees.
Although compared to what Su Ran and Hui wore, they still wore much less, and they looked very shrunken from the cold wind, but after Su Ran curiously asked Hui, she could tell that this was already very good.
Because in the previous winter before Su Ran arrived here, they, including Hui, in winter were all,
Not. A. Single. Thread. On!
Su Ran just thought about it and couldn’t help shivering!
So actually, although the beastmen are more cold-resistant than humans, they are not unafraid of the cold.
Or rather, they just didn’t know how to create warming methods and got used to being frozen!
Of the freshly slaughtered red-skinned pig, one-quarter of the pork was used by Su Ran to make sausage, and the remaining portion was made into some boiled dumplings that same evening.
Then the remaining half was eaten clean by Su Ran and Hui within the next two or three days.
Time gradually entered deep winter. Now, besides making fire and cooking every day, feeding the small animals, and washing clothes, Su Ran and Hui had nothing else to do.
At noon this day, Su Ran and Hui went to the river in front to fetch ice.
Su Ran had made improvements to the tools for fetching ice.
She found a stone in the upstream gravel beach that was two palms long, relatively thin, and pointed at one end.
She used this stone directly as a chisel to drill holes in the ice surface.
And now, the place where they fetched ice every day was also chosen to be the same spot where they fetched ice the previous day.
An ice pit had already been dug out there by them.
Now, when fetching ice, as long as the chisel was placed about a dozen centimeters outside the edge of the ice pit and hammered hard on the chisel a few times with the hammer, the ice blocks on the pit wall could be easily knocked down.
At this time, Hui was wearing the thick animal hide gloves made by Su Ran. He directly reached into the ice pit with his hand to take out the broken ice blocks and put them into the wooden bucket.
The fur on the animal hide for the gloves faced inside the gloves, fluffy and very warm.
Meanwhile, Su Ran threw the chisel aside and started playing ice sliding nearby.
Of course, without ice skates, she was actually just slipping around on dry ice.
As a child who grew up in the north since childhood, slipping on ice was a natural skill engraved in Su Ran’s bloodline.
She slid on the ice and in no time had slid dozens of meters away bit by bit.
Hui, having loaded the ice blocks behind, shouted toward Su Ran who was sliding farther and farther away.
“Ran Ran!”
Su Ran turned her head and quickly slid back by stepping on the ice surface one step at a time.
When she slid close, she couldn’t brake in time, but she wasn’t panicked and directly plunged into Hui’s embrace.
This wasn’t the first time Su Ran had played like this, and Hui had long gotten used to this move of hers.
He naturally pulled Su Ran into his embrace, let her steady herself, and then released her.
Then he bent down and shouldered the carrying pole with one shoulder. Two wooden buckets hung from each end of the carrying pole, and in his other hand, he carried a wooden bucket full of ice blocks.
Su Ran also shouldered a slightly smaller carrying pole with a wooden bucket nearby, and the two walked back together toward home.
Inside the kitchen at home, a large water vat was placed next to the stove on one side.
Hui poured all the fetched buckets of ice blocks into the vat. Now he wasn’t worried about them not melting; when needed, he could just take out the ice blocks, throw them into the pot, and boil them to melt.
After filling with water, Hui took the several wooden buckets to the west bedroom inside and placed them there for easy use next time they went to fetch water.
At this time, Su Ran also brought in some firewood from outside and placed it next to the stove inside the room for later use.
After everything was brought in, she bolted the door panel and returned inside with Hui.
Inside the room, next to the stove, there was that small low table.
Now this small low table was always kept there every day, and on top of the low table were various small dried fruits, dried blue worms, and fruits taken from the cellar placed by Su Ran.
The fruits in the cellar had been stored for a long time, and many had already gone bad.
So to avoid wasting them all, recently Su Ran would often go down to fetch some up and place them on the small kang table to eat a bit whenever seen.
This also conveniently replenished some moisture for their bodies, which had become dry from staying indoors with the fire lit all the time.
Before sitting on the heated brick bed to rest, Su Ran first squatted under the window sill to check the small plants previously planted inside the room.
The two planting boxes she had made, on the next day, she had filled with soil and sown seeds.
And now, most of the sown seeds had already sprouted and grown.
Su Ran had even started plucking and eating the newly grown leaves of the housheng vegetable.
However, fruiting green vegetables like chili fruit and finger onion were growing more slowly.
To bear fruit, it would probably take another half month.
Su Ran took a wooden jar specially filled with water for watering these two boxes of plants, watered both boxes of green plants a bit, and pulled out a few small weeds that had grown inside.
Then she rinsed her hands with the water in the jar, covered the jar, took off her shoes, and climbed onto the heated brick bed.
The heated brick bed was very warm, and this temperature was a bit hot for Hui.
He kept taking off his clothes until only the inner animal hide autumn clothing remained before stopping.
Then he comfortably lay on the cotton felt, with his tail pressed under his buttocks, a section sticking out between his legs, leisurely swishing left and right.
Su Ran took off her coat and also lay down next to Hui.
The warm, bright sunlight shining in from outside the animal hide window cloth on the window, with Su Ran’s head resting on the soft cotton-stuffed cushion, looking at the bright window, she suddenly asked Hui:
“Hui, speaking of which, where are your mom and dad?”
This was something Su Ran had always been very curious about.
The beastmen settlement still had the habit of family group living.
Beastmen like A Huo and Xiao San, who had no companions but were adults, still lived with their family.
But Hui, from the day they met, had always been alone.
He also didn’t seem to have any siblings.
“Mom and dad?”
Hui turned his head to look at her, not quite understanding the term.
So Su Ran also turned her head to look at him:
“Mom and dad means…
For example, A Jin and Xiao Ju are going to be the mom and dad of their little baby! A Jin is the little baby’s dad, Xiao Ju is the little baby’s mom.”
“Later, when Ran Ran and Hui have a little baby, Ran Ran and Hui will also be the little baby’s mom and dad.”
“And Hui is the little baby of Hui’s mom and dad~”
“So,”
Su Ran looked at Hui curiously and seriously: “Where are Hui’s mom and dad? Why is Hui all alone?”
