Zhou Quchuan's injuries had just started to improve when the temperature abruptly cooled that night, dispelling the previous hot and dry air. The sudden coolness, carried by the night wind, made one shiver involuntarily.
Before going to bed, Zhao Lian took out two thin long-sleeved shirts from the backpack and covered herself and Zhou Quchuan with them to avoid catching a cold at night.
However, she was worried, not knowing if this temperature drop was just a passing cold front, or if it would stay cold like this for a while.
After all, she had only just started to prepare the winter food reserves.
Luckily, Achuan had awakened a "rapid recovery" type of special ability. If things continued as they were, he would be able to help with the work in a few days.
The next morning, when she checked Zhou Quchuan's wounds again, she found that the wounds on his knees and other parts of his legs had completely scabbed over, and new pink flesh had grown. The wounds on his upper body had also completely healed.
Zhou Quchuan stood up and walked around the room, looking a bit pale and weak, but at least his mobility wasn't an issue.
Zhao Lian had wanted him to rest for another day or two until he fully recovered, but he insisted on going out to help with the work. After some consideration, she agreed.
With his rapid recovery, there was no need for a stretcher. The wood that he had chopped yesterday could be used as firewood. However, it would be inconvenient to go chopping wood outside in case it snowed in the winter. So while the weather was still good, more wood needed to be cut and stored.
When Zhao Lian saw how quickly Zhou Quchuan's injuries were healing, she had considered leaving for the New Canyon Base early. According to the journey, perhaps they could reach the base before the heavy snow arrived in winter, which would provide better security for their living needs.
However, this idea was rejected by Zhou Quchuan, as he knew that the highway to the New Canyon Base had already been blocked. They would have to find another route, and without navigation or maps, there was no guarantee they could find a way. He didn't want to risk being trapped in the wilderness during winter without food or drink if they left during winter.
Moreover, at this time of the year, it was when the activities of bandits and mountain thieves were most rampant. With no preparations at all, it would be very dangerous for the two of them to set out like this. He suggested waiting out the winter and first going to the base nearest to them to gather information and see if they could find a car and enough gasoline, then head to the New Canyon Base.
After some thought, Zhao Lian found his reasoning sound. Having just escaped from another base herself, she had found a long lost sense of peace in the deserted farm where she had lived for the past few days. As long as there was sufficient food, there was nothing wrong with continuing to live there.
Xinkou base was her last attempt to integrate into human society, and if it still didn't work, she planned to return to this abandoned farm and live alone.
Since they had made the decision, the two of them had to start preparing for the winter food.
Zhou Quchuan's clothes were a bit thin, so she needed to find some warm clothes for him first.
Fortunately, although this farm was not large, it used to be inhabited by many people before the apocalypse. Even though now, some had died and others had mutated, the place was now deserted, but many things inside were still preserved.
Before settling down here, Zhao Lian had already checked all the houses that could be opened around for corpses, naturally, she saw quite a few, but because too much time had passed, they had long rotted into white bones.
She led Zhou Quchuan into a bedroom of a household and apologized to the two dried corpses lying tightly in bed, then she found a few thick clothes from the wardrobe.
Most of the clothes were also rotten and damaged, but still of good quality, well-preserved and wearable.
Zhou Quchuan took a glance at the dried corpses on the bed, feeling somewhat helpless, and let her compare the clothes on himself.
Then, the two of them were lucky enough to find two thick military coats in another room, and now they had outerwear for the winter.
After collecting the clothes and shoes, Zhao Lian chopped a small tree branch the size of an arm, peeled off the branches and bark, made a simple washing stick, and asked Zhou Quchuan to wash the clothes by the river, so they could dry and be worn when the weather got cold.
Seeing Zhou Quchuan obediently carrying the clothes and the stick, Zhao Lian took a knife and went into the nearby woods to gather some wild vegetables and fruits, cut some firewood, and see if they could catch some game.
Approaching noon, when Zhao Lian finished cutting a pile of branches and was coming out of the woods with a bag of wild vegetables and fruits, ready to move things and wood in batches back to the house, she saw that several tree stumps had been erected on the river bank at some point, with iron wires tied to them for drying clothes, and the iron wires were dripping with water from the washed clothes.
Obviously, it was done by Zhou Quchuan.
Zhao Lian felt surprised, and looked around the riverbank without seeing Zhou Quchuan's figure, but not far away, there was a dense sound of water splashing. She quickly put down what she was carrying, and ran towards the sound.
She found a low-lying area covered by tall grass, where Zhou Quchuan was collecting a fishing net, and there were quite a few river fish flapping inside the net.
Seeing her approaching, Zhou Quchuan greeted her, "Come help me with the net."
Zhao Lian went down to help him pull up the fishing net, and there were at least a dozen or twenty fish inside, and they were not small.
"Where did you find this fishing net?" Zhao Lian asked with some surprise.
"It was in the cellar of the house next door. I also found a few unopened bottles of white wine in it. If it gets too cold in winter, we can have a couple of sips to warm up." Zhou Quchuan said nonchalantly. In fact, both the fishing net and the wine were found in a small town over twenty kilometers away that he visited. With his speed, the round trip and the search for items took only about fifteen minutes.
As for the zombies in the town and the mutated beasts along the way? The zombies couldn't even catch up to his footsteps, and as for the mutated beasts, none dared to come forward after feeling his aura.
"Even wine?" Zhao Lian couldn't help but widen her eyes. She didn't usually drink, but as Zhou Quchuan said, if it gets too cold in winter, she might have a sip or two as well.
Zhao Lian didn't doubt Zhou Quchuan's words, as many houses indeed had cellars. She had searched a few and next door's cellar was locked. She hadn't smashed the lock to see the situation, but she didn't expect it to store these good things.
It seemed she had to take some time to carefully search all the houses here.
After putting the fish into several buckets, Zhou Quchuan set up the fishing net in the water again.
The two of them wouldn't be able to finish so many fish in a short time, so they planned to make some of the fish into dried fish for the winter reserve.
However, neither of them had experience in this area, so the only way was to try their best to remove the scales and gills of the fish and dry them in the wind. If their hands could handle fire, they would use the warmth to further remove the moisture, in order to preserve them for a longer time.
After processing the fish, the two of them went back into the house for lunch.
For lunch, they made a big pot of creamy fish soup from the two fresh fish they had caught, and also had some leftover rabbit meat and wild vegetables from yesterday.
Regarding the two wild rabbits they had obtained, Zhao Lian had tried to peel off their skins intact as much as possible. After some simple tanning, she intended to make them into gloves or shoes, which would be useful in winter.
After surviving in the wilderness for some time, many things that used to be "impossible for me to do" had turned into "I can also do this". It could be seen that, under the pressure of survival, the potential of humans is endless.
However, the events of today made Zhao Lian look at Zhou Quchuan with a new light. From the things he did, he seemed to be more adaptable to outdoor survival and had slightly stronger abilities than her.
After finishing lunch, at Zhou Quchuan's suggestion, the two of them planned to clean up the "open-air kitchen" next to the main house and use it for cooking from now on.
After all, the main house was their sleeping place, and with no exhaust fan, cooking inside would always affect the air quality, making them uncomfortable after smelling those odors for too long.
Since they were going to live here for a few months, they naturally wanted to make themselves as comfortable as possible.
After inspecting the kitchen next door, they found that it was a typical self-built rural kitchen in the area. The furnishings inside were very simple, with nothing but a stove and a broken water tank, a small table, two broken little stools, and what should have been hung on the wall, but after a long time, had rotted away, leaving only the black remnants of the original items.
As for the oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, even though they didn't look spoiled, Zhao Lian didn't dare to use them.
The two of them worked together to clean up the kitchen, throwing away all the broken things, including the rusty bottom of the large iron pot. Fortunately, such iron pots were almost in every household, and they quickly found a suitable one after searching.
After cleaning up the kitchen, Zhou Quchuan moved all the firewood to an outside stack and then, under the eaves, made a new place with iron wires to hang the processed fish for drying.
Zhao Lian cleaned the main house, found some relatively clean bedding from nearby houses, and rearranged the beddings.
Since they were going to live here for a few months, she and Achuan naturally couldn't always sleep in the same room, so she planned to clean and use the adjacent room as her bedroom.
However, as soon as she left, she saw Zhou Quchuan dismantling the window of the adjacent room?
"What are you doing?" Zhao Lian hurriedly stopped him.
"The window of our room is broken, I'm going to replace it." Zhou Quchuan said naturally, holding a monkey wrench from somewhere in his hand.
"I'm going to sleep in that room. Don't dismantle it, go dismantle the windows of other rooms."
"You're going to sleep in there?" Zhou Quchuan was taken aback, and at that moment, a few raindrops the size of soybeans splashed onto their faces.
"It's raining, let's go back inside and talk." Zhou Quchuan said to Zhao Lian, taking the lead back to the main house.