After transmigrating, he supported his family by working at a garbage dump.

The chicken coop had been built long ago when Zhang He said she wanted to raise chickens. It was right next to the toilet in the backyard and covered with a thick layer of thatch.

However, when building the chicken coop, they didn't consider that it would snow later.

Zhang He paced back and forth in front of the chicken coop, still feeling uneasy.

Worried that the chicks would get cold, she asked her two children to help her line the top and inside of the chicken coop with plastic bags she had brought back from the garbage station, and then cover it with straw. This would both insulate against snowmelt and keep them warm.

The mother and her two children spent half an hour tinkering and finally managed to set up a home for their first brood of chicks.

Zhang He was quite generous when it came to feeding the chickens, always chopped up fresh vegetable leaves and mixed with a small amount of rice, which was indeed a bit extravagant.

Xu Zhuzhu told her that there was broken rice bran in the supply mall that could be exchanged for two jin (1 kg) for 1 point. Zhang He then asked Xu Zhuzhu to help her exchange for ten jin (5 kg) specifically for feeding the chickens.

Actually, Zhang He's original intention was not to raise them, but to let the chicks roam freely in the wasteland in the backyard, so that the chicks that foraged for food on their own would grow stronger.

But then it started snowing, so feeding them is now out of the question.

Zhang He sighed softly.

In the current situation, the villagers are eating coarse grains, while those who fled here, having done business for a few days, are feeding their chickens with rice.

It's hard to guarantee that no one in the village holds a grudge, especially the Zhang family.

Fortunately, they lived far from the village, so they visited Li Quanfu and Old Man Deng more often. Both families were good people and wouldn't gossip.

But Zhang He was still careful, and recently she replaced the plastic buckets that contained rice with small wooden buckets, and put the plastic buckets at the garbage station.

Several days passed in this mundane routine, but the snow fell even heavier.

The howling wind in the middle of the night seemed to have torn a hole in the sky, pouring down bucket after bucket of snow, covering the sky and the earth without stopping.

Their family burns three or four sections of charcoal every day, but fortunately Li Quanfu had given them a sack beforehand.

These days, Xu Wenjie often stands in front of the door, staring blankly at the falling snowflakes, his expression seemingly anxious.

The noisy world seemed to quiet down, and even the sounds of chickens crowing and dogs barking in the village were much less. If it weren't for the daily cooking smoke, where could one find any trace of human presence in the valley?

The first thing Xu Wenjie and his wife do every morning is shovel the snow in their yard, but the next day it still piles up into a thick layer. The snow they've been getting these past few days is as thick as the snow that fell for several months before the Lunar New Year.

Going out became difficult again, let alone going to the market, so the Xu family's dumpling business was put on hold.

Xu Zhuzhu was bored at home with nothing to do. All she did all day was go to the garbage station or crawl into bed.

She thought, since she could control things in the garbage dump, could she also control the temperature or smell inside?

If they could, their family could have gone to the garbage dump to escape the snow disaster, but the experiment failed.

The good news is that the other trash can contents finally came out. Although they weren't new and were still just a bitter spoon, something was better than nothing, and Xu Zhuzhu exchanged them for one point.

……

That day, just as dusk was falling, Xu Zhuzhu was sitting cross-legged on the bed, summarizing the newly added points data from the garbage station over the past few days.

The garbage station hadn't had a garbage truck come to collect garbage for a long time, and recently, there had been far fewer people throwing garbage there. Xu Zhuzhu initially thought it was because they only went there at night, so they didn't encounter anyone.

But during these snowy days, the family had been going there during the day, and despite the clear blue skies over the garbage dump, they hadn't seen a single person; it was as if the area had been completely isolated...

Thinking of this, Xu Zhuzhu felt a jolt in her heart.

Is this what isolation means?

Just then, a series of urgent knocks on the door pulled Xu Zhuzhu back from her reverie.

Her father and mother exchanged a glance, looking at each other in bewilderment. With such heavy snow, everyone in the village was staying indoors and not going out.

These past few days, even Li Quanfu has had little contact with them, so who would be knocking on the door at this time?

"who is it?"

Xu Wenjie stood by the door and asked loudly.

However, apart from the howling cold wind, no one answered outside the courtyard.

For some reason, Xu Zhuzhu felt uneasy. She subconsciously touched the beads hanging around her neck, but found no abnormal temperature.

"Bang bang bang—"

There was another burst of rapid, drum-like knocking, but this time, the force of the knocking seemed to have weakened.

"I'll go out and see."

Xu Wenjie stood up and put on his cotton-padded coat.

"Husband!" Zhang He grabbed his arm worriedly. Xu Wenjie wrapped his arm around Zhang He's hand, squeezed it, and said with a gentle smile, "It's alright."

As he spoke, he took out the dagger that they had kept under the bed, hid it in his sleeve, and walked into the courtyard with a torch in his hand.

Zhang He quickly hugged the two children into her arms.

The raging cold wind, mixed with snowflakes, rushed towards him, the chill hitting his eyebrows and eyes, his breath instantly turning to frost, and obscuring his vision. He could only squint and grope forward by the faint light of the fire, fortunately, it was all the roads he was used to walking.

As he approached the courtyard gate, Xu Wenjie gripped the dagger in his hand, his tone unusually calm: "Who is it?"

His answer was a silent stillness.

As if he had made a decision, Xu Wenjie took a deep breath before slowly opening the door.

Almost the instant the courtyard gate opened, a weak figure staggered and slid helplessly towards his feet.

His eyes sharpened, and the dagger in his hand was already drawn, but his action was interrupted by an extremely weak female voice.

"Save me...please..."

The owner of the voice stretched out her stiff hands and tightly grabbed Xu Wenjie's robe, as if grasping at a lifeline.

"What happened, young lady?" Xu Wenjie tugged at the hem of her clothes, but couldn't pull it out.

"...Please...please..."

Her trembling lips opened and closed, and her tired and listless eyes were filled with pleading and expectation.

Before Xu Wenjie could reply, the girl had already fainted, and she couldn't pry his hands off his clothes.

Xu Wenjie's eyes flickered slightly. In the firelight, the girl looked to be only fifteen or sixteen years old, but due to the previous situation, he focused his attention and looked around the courtyard.

Only after confirming that there were only the girl's footprints, both walking and crawling, in the snow in front of the door did he secretly breathe a sigh of relief and call Zhang He out.

Zhang He, who had been listening to the commotion outside the courtyard from inside the house, rushed out in a hurry, carrying a stick.

"Master!"

The moment she saw the girl lying in the snow, she paused, "What happened?" and looked at Xu Wenjie in confusion.

The girl in the snow was pale and bluish-purple, her breathing weak and shallow. Her clothes were expensive but looked very thin, covered with snow and mud, indicating that she had been struggling in the snow for a long time.

Xu Wenjie shook his head, not wanting to speculate. "She's all alone. Maybe she's a rich girl who got lost? Let's help her inside first."

Zhang He suppressed her surprise and quickly stepped forward to help Xu Wenjie lift the girl up, saying, "She's frozen to the bone."

The moment he touched the girl's body, a sharp pain shot through her fingers. The coldness felt like needles piercing her fingertips, causing her to quicken her movements.

Hearing the commotion, Xu Zhuzhu and her brother came out and helped carry the person inside.

Stepping into the house where the charcoal fire was blazing felt like stepping into another season, making the couple's movements much easier.

The house was warm and cozy. The Xu family placed the girl by the fire. Xu Wenjie pulled Xu An to the yard to boil water to avoid the commotion. Zhang He and her daughter Xu Zhuzhu quickly changed the girl's soaked clothes.

It was at this moment that the mother and daughter discovered that the girl's back was covered with dense scars, new and old ones layered together, and there wasn't a single patch of good skin on her back...

From her neck down, the girl's smooth, fair skin resembled tree bark, peeled and torn by time, leaving it scarred and battered.

Xu Zhuzhu gasped. Her hand reached out uncontrollably towards the scar, but the moment she touched it, she immediately pulled it back as if she had been electrocuted. A strange feeling rushed to her heart, making her feel suffocated.

Zhang He watched, her brows furrowed, covering her mouth so she couldn't say a word, but her eyes reddened.

The girl was only fifteen or sixteen years old, in the prime of her youth, but no one knew what she had gone through.

However, the scars on his body didn't look like knife wounds or whip marks; instead, they looked like burns.

Looking at the girl's thin clothes and beautiful face, Xu Zhuzhu had a hasty guess in her mind, but she hoped it wasn't true...