Chapter 95 Overwintering
When Lawrence got up in the morning, he felt that it was getting later and later outside.
The sky, which normally should have been bright, was still pitch black.
Lawrence got out of bed and walked over to the fireplace to look at it.
There was a faint glow in the fireplace.
"It must have been burning for five or six hours. Yesterday I put a piece of wood root the size of a football. You can still see a small fire at this time."
Lawrence pounded the wood with a fire stick a few times, and the wood pile that was almost burned out quickly turned into a pile of red spark charcoal.
He grabbed a branch from the firewood pile about a meter and a half away, broke it twice and placed it on Mars.
Lawrence waited quietly. After more than ten seconds, flames climbed onto the branches.
The room gradually became brighter, and the temperature began to slowly rise.
crackle~
The wood in the fireplace made a crackling sound as it burned, waking up Salil who was sleeping nearby.
Sariel, who was sleeping facing the wall with Sophia in her arms, turned around and saw Lawrence, who was cutting meat in an iron pot with a knife under the warm firelight in the fireplace in front.
Sariel lay on her side, covering her cold shoulders with a sheepskin mattress, and placed her cheek on the soft pillow made of fox fur, looking at the busy and quiet man quietly.
Sariel closed her eyes and opened them again after more than ten seconds, and she could still see Lawrence.
She soon lay down peacefully again, waiting for Lawrence's call.
"Gah!"
The crow in the window made a meaningless cry, waking up Saryl and Sophia, and also attracted Lawrence's attention.
Lawrence stood up and approached the window and found the crow nesting quietly in a small nest made of squirrel and mouse fur.
Without paying too much attention, Lawrence quickly took another piece of meat and put it on it.
"time to eat."
The crow looked at Lawrence quietly. After Lawrence disappeared from the window, the crow picked up the meat strip and swallowed it.
Sophia got up from the bed and said excitedly: "Master, I also want to see the crow!"
"Don't pay too much attention to or touch the crows, otherwise you will harm these little animals," Lawrence advised.
Seeing Lawrence say this, Sophia agreed honestly, "I know."
Lawrence said: "Get up and eat. It seems that we need to prepare more firewood as soon as possible. It is best to prepare some charcoal as well."
Sariel sat up and said, "We have enough wood and meat to eat, so don't worry."
Lawrence asked Saryl and Sophia to get up, and while they were eating, they started talking about the biggest troubles in the future.
In a few days, the world here will enter eternal night and enter the darkest hour for at least twenty days.
At first it was pitch black, as if it would never dawn, then all kinds of strange colors filled the sky, and the world was always dim.
On days when the sun doesn't appear, temperatures can drop to terrifying levels.
At this time, they are either hibernating or hiding in caves to eat stored food. They will freeze to death outside soon after going out.
The normal response is to sleep.
Eat, sleep, eat, sleep...
One meal a day, and then no matter how hungry I am, I don't eat or drink water. I just rely on the fat on my body to get through this difficult moment.
Cooked and frozen meat jerky is the best food. It does not need to be heated, just take a few bites when you are hungry.
After the lean meat is cooked, leave it aside. It will become hard and dry soon. You will usually take a bite when you are hungry, and you can reduce consumption by sleeping for a long time.
Lawrence was clearly not one for such dreary days, so more firewood was needed for light and warmth.
Clean carbon is the best fuel in this period. Lawrence thought of the Cloda people. Although those people lived in warm areas, they were in the same sky as his own, and they could not live normally during the eternal night.
People can survive more than twenty days on a small amount of food, but it is more difficult for animals. Some food and fodder must be prepared.
Sariel asked curiously: "Lawrence, how does your hometown spend the eternal night?"
Lawrence is also a barbarian, living in a land also called the Barbarian Kingdom.
"The place I lived before was closer to the territory of the Southern Kingdom. Although there was eternal night, it was only a day or two of darkness at most, and it didn't last as long as here."
Sophia followed up and said: "This is the first time I have heard of this kind of thing. I have never seen it before. It doesn't seem to be this cold in my hometown."
Salil suddenly sighed: "I really envy a place like that."
Lawrence was silent.
Salil obviously expressed her sincerity. Listening to Salil's words, Lawrence couldn't help but reflect on whether it was a bit bad for him to lead them to live in seclusion here.
But soon Lawrence thought about Andrew entrusting Salil to him.
Salil and Sophia are obviously people with secrets, and they don’t have much to rely on now!
"I'm not strong enough now. When I am strong enough, I will take you to the south to live in a place with a better environment."
Lawrence promised Salil and Sophia: "I have been living here for the past few years. We now lack the strength to gain a foothold outside."
Salil nodded seriously, "Lawrence is right, the outside is not suitable for us."
She was obviously the cause of the incident, but she didn't realize it. At this time, she was on the conservative side again.
Sophia said to Lawrence: "Wherever the master goes, I will go. Even in the past, everyone avoided me, as long as you really like me, master."
Lawrence did not view Sophie as a slave from the beginning, but as a future companion.
"Stop talking nonsense, let's eat. After dinner, we will go outside and chop down a pine tree. Two trees will be enough."
"Okay!" Both beautiful girls agreed happily.
Cutting down a tree is easy, especially with Salil's assistance. The two of them knocked down a small tree with a thick waist and used an ax to cut off the fallen branches along the trunk.
Fallen branches are used as fuel, and the leaves are left aside because they are inedible. The main fuel for cooking is branches, and the best fuel for heating is large pieces of wood that can withstand burning.
The crows were active nearby after flying out of the house. They would look for bugs in tree trunks in the woods to eat, but they obviously had no intention of leaving.
After helping cut down the tree, Salil looked at the weather and the road down the mountain in the distance.
"Lawrence, I'll go down the mountain and bring the fodder up. It's such a waste to feed the sheep."
"We're together," Lawrence said.
Salil smiled and said: "No, I can do it myself. You and Sophia will prepare the wood. Nora and I will be back soon."
Lawrence wanted to go down the mountain with Salil to get the hay that had been stored before, but if he went there by himself, he would definitely have to take Sophia with him. Then there would be no one at home, and the wood in his hand would definitely not be finished today.
"Okay, you let Seravan and Itty feed the pigs and chickens once every two days. There will be enough hay for the remaining sheep to survive the night forever."
"Okay!" Salil quickly went back to prepare. Not long after, she put on a sheepskin robe with a hood and led the Dom sheep who came out reluctantly.
Lawrence said: "Be careful and come back as soon as possible. It gets dark early now."
Salil agreed again: "Okay."
Sofia also said goodbye to Salil. Under the watch of the two of them, Salil quickly led the sheep away down the slope.
Lawrence said to Sophia: "Hurry up and work quickly. Salil should be back after finishing the things here."
"Yeah!" Sophia obediently knelt down and put the branches into the basket.
Lawrence continued to chop the tree trunks with an axe. There was still wood in the house that could be used for more than ten days. As long as the two trees were chopped and put into the house, they would be able to be burned directly after more than ten days.
It snowed outside at noon, and Lawrence had to interrupt his work.
"Sofia, you go back to cook, and I'll go see Salil."
Sofia looked at Lawrence nervously, "I'll go too, please, Master, take me with you..."
Lawrence smiled and said, "Don't worry, I'll just go to the hillside and take a look. We are two hours away from the house. It takes more than fifty minutes from here to the farthest place down the mountain where we can see."
"Salil has been gone for a long time, and she should be back now. If I go there and take a look, I will know where she is."
Lawrence pointed to the mountainside in the distance. The road on the mountain was very long, but sometimes you could see very far away from a high place.
Sofia felt much relieved, nodded and said, "Okay, I'll go cook now."
Lawrence went back together to get the wooden sticks. It was very unsafe to ride the sheep at this time, and Dom the sheep was very disobedient and unwilling to go out.
The wind and snow in the sky are getting heavier and heavier, and Lawrence is becoming more and more worried about Salil.
After comforting Sophia, Lawrence walked forward step by step with his cane.
Lawrence was very familiar with the roads here. He knew exactly where the roads were easy to walk and where they were slippery.
There were no more footprints of Dom Sheep and Sariel on the ground. Lawrence squinted his eyes as he walked forward in the wind and snow, and kept calculating the distance and time between the house down the mountain and here.
Sariel's character will definitely not be delayed in the house.
She has always grown up here, so she should be fine.
Lawrence walked steadily down the hillside, passing through several undulating hills and entering the mountain road that sloped downward.
When standing on this steep mountain road and looking down, the surrounding wind and snow have made it difficult to see the road clearly.
"Lawrence, are you there?"
Lawrence suddenly felt his body relax and tried his best to look into the wind and snow, but the suffocating cold wind and snow slag lowered his sight to within two or three meters.
"It's me! Sariel! I can't see you!"
Salil shouted: "I am hiding between Nora and the mountain wall. You squat down and don't move. I will go over now and I will stop in a few minutes."
When Lawrence heard it, he said: "Okay!"
Lawrence waited on the spot for three or four minutes, and finally saw the Dom sheep, which was a head taller than him, and Salil, who was walking next to the Dom sheep.
The two quickly stood in tacit understanding on the left and right sides of Dom Sheep. Dom Sheep was walking up the mountain carrying fodder, while the two of them tried their best to lean their heads and bodies against the warm wall and slowly returned.
Lawrence knew the terrain better than Dom Sheep.
"Sariel, it's going uphill, be careful not to slip."
"good!"
After a few minutes, the wind and snow quickly stopped, and the dazzling sunlight and dazzling snow made the air seem dry and thin.
Lawrence breathed a sigh of relief, looked at the little blond girl waiting for them to go home at the door of the house, and speeded up the pace with Salil in tacit agreement.
The forage problem of Domu sheep has been solved, and the fuel and food are basically no problem. What follows is a warm and long night.