"Ha~" Jian Yi exhaled a breath against the window, and the transparent glass immediately fogged up.
"Winter is here," Jian Yi murmured, wiping away the condensation on the window. The misty fields of early morning came into view, and it seemed like someone was working in the fields.
What are they doing?
With curiosity, Jian Yi added a thin down jacket and opened the door, heading downstairs to the yard.
Zheng Lanxin had gotten up early and was tending to the two plots of land she had prepared. The vegetable seedlings she had planted were already sprouting.
"Sis," Chen Junsheng, who was inspecting traps in the trench by the side of the house with Zhang Ming, heard the commotion and walked over naturally, asking, "What do you want for breakfast?"
"Anything is fine," Jian Yi replied casually. She pointed to Zhang Ming, who was at the side of the house, and asked with curiosity, "What are they doing in the field today?"
"I heard some noise last night, probably from mutated animals," Chen Junsheng answered.
Mutated animals? That was quite rare. They had been living here for over half a month, and it was the first time Jian Yi had encountered mutated animals coming to their door.
Seeing Jian Yi's curiosity, Chen Junsheng didn't have any intention of taking her over to see. "There may be danger, we'll tell you when we're done."
Jian Yi glanced at Chen Junsheng. His face was red from the cold, and the hot breath from his mouth turned into white mist in the air. He had bright eyes that looked at her with concern through the mist, as if he were afraid she would say she wanted to go see right now.
Did this kind of determination to protect her, as if they needed to shelter her in a warm greenhouse, give her the illusion that she was still a fragile flower?
But wasn't she different now?
Jian Yi felt a strange sense of incongruity in her heart. It had been too long, and she had experienced too much. Some memories were starting to blur. Was Chen Junsheng like this in the previous life?
Chen Junsheng didn't know what was on Jian Yi's mind. Seeing that she didn't seem to want to go to the trench, he thought he had convinced her.
With a smile on his lips, Chen Junsheng flashed a brilliant smile at Jian Yi and then went into the house to prepare breakfast for her.
Zheng Lanxin put down the small hoe in her hand, and a stream of water gushed out with a flick of her finger. She washed her hands, looked at the deserted gate this morning, and shook her hands to get rid of the water stains. She was about to go inside and wake up Tong Tong for breakfast.
"Auntie, what are those villagers doing in the field today?" Jian Yi asked curiously.
Zheng Lanxin walked past her, and her steps hesitated slightly. She smiled ambiguously and said, "They're planting winter wheat. You city kids probably haven't seen this before, right?"
Jian Yi automatically ignored the sarcasm in her stepmother's words and asked with confusion, "Don't they know the land is contaminated? Planting like this is a waste of good seeds."
Seeds without mutations were already scarce. Wasting them now meant that when they realized how precious they were in the future, it would be too late.
Hearing Jian Yi's words, Zheng Lanxin was visibly stunned, and she subconsciously asked, "So, we won't have anything to eat if we don't plant anything in the land?"
"What can we eat?" Jian Yi recalled the apocalypse from her previous life. The people at the top ate the grains and vegetables grown in the high-tech greenhouses, while those further down ate whatever stored goods were left. "Whatever is edible."
"What if we can't eat what we plant?" Zheng Lanxin swallowed nervously, feeling anxious.
Jian Yi shook her head. "I don't know. Let's try it first. If it's poisonous, we can eat a little less. Over time, we might get used to it. After all, people can evolve. Maybe if we eat a lot of poison, it won't be poisonous anymore."
Zheng Lanxin's expression darkened. Time had passed too long, and she had experienced too much. She had started to panic when she saw the little sprouts emerging from the ground, full of hope for the future.
Just then, there was a sudden cry of alarm from Zhang Ming's side, and Jian Yi and Zheng Lanxin turned to look. Zhang Ming had suddenly rolled on the ground, as if he had been attacked.
Jian Yi's expression darkened, and she rushed into the house to pick up the bow and arrow on the small table by the door, ready to go over.
"I'll go!" Chen Junsheng appeared in a flash and stopped Jian Yi with one hand while snatching the bow and arrow from her other hand. He immediately aimed at the trench in front of Zhang Ming and let loose an arrow.
"Squeak!"
A sharp cry came from the bottom of the trench. By the time Chen Junsheng had teleported to the edge of the trench, he saw a small, gray creature, about the size of a piglet, with a pointed mouth, two tiny eyes the size of green beans, and its body covered in sharp spines.
Unfortunately, its entire body had already been tightly bound by the mutated thorns that Jian Yi had planted in the trench, and it had been shot with an arrow. It was already on its last breath, launching its final attack.
That creature assumed it had escaped danger, but Chen Junsheng suddenly raised his right hand in the air.
With a grip of his five fingers, the space in front of him twisted and distorted. The mutated porcupine, terrified, stared with its tiny bean-sized eyes as its body was squeezed into a mass of paste within a second.
If there were an X-ray machine, one could see that the creature's brain had been compressed into a pulp. However, from the outside, it still appeared intact.
The creature's death was not gruesome, which meant Jian Yi wouldn't be scared when she saw it. Chen Junsheng secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
"Are you okay?" Jian Yi walked over and helped Zhang Ming, who had just fallen to the ground, concerned.
Chen Junsheng immediately turned around. Zhang Ming had just shaken his head to say he was fine, but before he knew it, he suddenly shivered. He then patted his butt and stood up on his own, propping himself up with his hands.
Feeling the chilling gaze withdraw from him, Zhang Ming breathed a sigh of relief, not knowing how many times he had done so since escaping death.
Jian Yi looked at the hand she had placed in the air and then at Zhang Ming, who had already stood up. She couldn't help but shake her head and put her hand back.
"Zhang Ming, are you injured anywhere?" Zheng Lanxin asked with concern as she watched him. She couldn't help but glance at the mutated porcupine that had died in the trench and exclaimed, "Such a large porcupine, it's the first time I've seen one."
Zhang Ming thought to himself, who hasn't? When he had just lifted the grass covering the trench, he had also been startled by such a large porcupine.
"Auntie, I'm fine. The porcupine only released one spine when it was about to die, and I managed to dodge it," Zhang Ming reassured her, still trembling with fear.
Seeing that he was truly fine, Zheng Lanxin went up to the thorn in the trench, seemingly curious, and intended to pluck it out.
"Don't move," Jian Yi stepped forward, patted Zheng Lanxin's hand away before she could grab the thorn, and then squatted down, picking up a piece of grass to wrap around the thorn. She pulled it out herself.
"What's wrong? Is it still poisonous?" Zheng Lanxin flicked her hand, which had been patted away, and her face turned ugly, but she didn't dare to lose her temper.
However, Jian Yi nodded solemnly. "It's indeed poisonous. If you touch it, your whole body will go numb."
Zheng Lanxin was startled, subconsciously took a step back, and then said dismissively, "Just a little numbness. It's not a big deal."