Yun Zhen had a good night’s sleep, but the next day, she still woke up freezing.
WHOOSH!
The howling wind sounded like the roar of a wild beast, oppressive and heavy.
In the next room, the blizzard battered the wooden door—BANG BANG!
It groaned under the weight—CREAK CREAK!—sounding as though it would shatter into pieces at any moment.
She gasped, wondering what was going on.
Yun Zhen got out of bed and hurried to the next room.
Her mother sat on the bed holding Xiaobao, wrapping the two of them tightly in a quilt.
Yet, even beneath the heavy covers, she was shaking violently, her lips trembling and her teeth chattering.
“It’s too cold!
With a blizzard this fierce, is God refusing to let us live?” Tremblingly, she hugged her granddaughter tightly, her eyes filled with inescapable despair.
Old Dad Yun poked at the flickering fire with a wooden stick, anxiously adding more straw.
The flames refused to catch; instead, thick smoke billowed out—PUFF PUFF!—leaving his face blackened by soot.
“COUGH COUGH COUGH!” Yun Zhen couldn’t help but choke on the thick smoke.
“Dad, let me do it.” She sat down next to him and tinkered with the kindling.
WHOOSH!
The fire instantly flared to life.
Old Dad Yun heaved a massive sigh of relief.
“Oh man, I’m too old and useless now.
I can’t even start a fire.”
In winter, fire was a life-saving treasure.
Old Dad Yun stared at the crooked wooden door, terrified it would be blown away at any second.
“The snow is falling harder, and the wind is even stronger.
I don’t know if it’ll stop today.
If this keeps up for ten days or half a month, will anyone in the village even survive?”
Yun Zhen’s face was filled with worry.
Deep down, she even felt a trace of panic.
She had assumed that having cotton quilts meant they had nothing to fret over, but today’s blizzard was several times more bitter than yesterday’s, as if it was intent on wiping out every living soul.
“We can’t leave the house in this snow.
People in the village are probably going to die today!” Her heart sank to rock bottom.
When the villagers ran out of food and firewood before, they could still go up the mountain to strip tree bark and boil it for sustenance.
But in today’s weather, anyone who stepped outside would be blown away in an unknown direction.
If they stayed inside, they had nothing to eat.
They were damned either way—either choice meant death.
“Sigh…” For a moment, the room fell dead silent, everyone’s hearts heavy and bitter.
Old Dad Yun silently grabbed a handful of straw and carefully plugged the gaps around the door.
“Mommy, Xiaobao is cold.
Xiaobao’s tummy is completely empty again, and little bugs are gnawing at me inside.” Xiaobao whimpered in pain.
She was as thin as a wooden stick, with no meat on her bones to ward off the cold.
Yun Zhen pulled two packets of instant noodles from the snack bag and set the clay pot over the fire.
“Mommy will cook some savory noodles for you.
Once you drink some hot soup, you won’t be cold anymore.”
Yun Old Lady spoke up bitterly, “Zhen Niang, these noodles are meant to save our lives.
We just had them yesterday; how can we keep eating them today?”
Yun Zhen replied gently, “Eating them now is saving our lives!
Today is colder than the past few days.
If we don’t drink some hot soup to drive out the chill, we won’t even make it through the night.”
Old Dad Yun chimed in to persuade her.
“Wife, listen to Zhen Niang.
It doesn’t matter if us adults endure a little hunger and cold, but how old is the child?
How can she freeze along with us?
This weather is cold enough to turn a person into an ice sculpture.
Maybe we won’t feel so cold after some hot soup.”
Their little granddaughter was just barely over two years old; she certainly couldn’t endure hunger and cold like an adult.
Yun Old Lady sighed and nodded.
“I wasn’t thinking straight.
Xiaobao is still so little.
Let our family just do our best to stay alive.”
Yun Zhen didn’t just cook the noodles; she also took a few sausages from the snack bag, snapped them into pieces, and crushed a braised egg into the pot.
An aroma even richer than yesterday’s wafted through the air.
Even though they had eaten it the day before, they were still amazed by the heavenly smell.
Yun Old Lady let out a bitter sigh.
“If only we could eat these savory noodles every day.”
But they didn’t have that kind of luxury.
If their daughter hadn’t been favored by an immortal who gave her some life-saving food, they would still be gnawing on grass roots and tree bark.
Yun Zhen took a sniff, her face full of intoxication.
“This smells way too good!” It was enough to make anyone drool.
Once the noodles were cooked, she divided them into four bowls in varying portions.
After topping them off with brimming ladles of hot soup, everyone in the room began gulping down their saliva.
“Zhen Niang, how many packets of savory noodles are left?” Reluctant to eat too quickly, Yun Old Lady slurped a sip of broth from the edge of her clay bowl and sighed in pure bliss.
“One packet,” Yun Zhen answered.
Originally, there had been five small packets inside one large bag.
They had eaten two yesterday and two today, leaving only one.
“Is this meat?” Old Dad Yun scooped up a piece of sausage and took a bite.
It certainly had the texture of meat.
“It’s called a meat sausage, so it should be made of meat,” Yun Zhen nodded.
The more she ate the food from that place, the more amazed she became.
“Meat!” Seeing her grandparents and mother eating meat, and finding so much meat in her own bowl, Xiaobao happily scooped up a piece and stuffed it into her mouth.
She had never eaten meat before; she had only heard her mother say it was the most delicious thing in the world.
It was so soft and fragrant.
She wondered if this was really meat.
Xiaobao’s eyes lit up.
She picked up pieces of sausage from her own bowl and offered them to the three adults.
“Grandpa, eat.
Grandma, eat.
Mommy, eat.”
“Good girl, Xiaobao,” Yun Zhen smiled.
Outside, the heavy snow filled the sky, and the freezing wind pierced to the bone.
Inside, the fire was burning, and the steam from cooking hadn’t dissipated yet.
There were cotton quilts on the bed.
Eating a hot meal and drinking warm soup instantly washed away some of the chill in their bodies.
“After having something hot to drink, I don’t feel so miserable anymore.” Old Dad Yun moved his hands and feet, his previously stiff, frozen limbs finally coming back to life.
Yun Old Lady stopped shivering as well.
A person truly had to be well-fed and warmly dressed to feel like they were actually alive!
Having eaten two full meals, Yun Zhen listened to the raging blizzard outside, and a sudden wave of indignation rose within her.
She wondered if they were truly destined to freeze to death in this dilapidated house.
“Dad, Mom, I want to try and see if I can go to that place again.
If I can, I could gather more winter clothes to keep the cold out, and figure out a way to bring back some food.”
Yun Old Lady sighed.
“The immortal manifesting their power before was a miracle.
How could we get a second chance?”
“Zhen Niang, you can give it a try, but if you can’t go over, don’t force it.” Old Dad Yun was actually on the same page as his daughter.
If she could return to that place, their family wouldn’t have to die.
Perhaps…
perhaps they could even give back to the village.
The aroma of the savory noodles was incredibly overpowering; he absolutely refused to believe that nobody had smelled it.
As for why no one had come knocking on their door, most of the villagers were kind-hearted.
Even if they caught a whiff of the food from their home, they would suppress their hunger and refrain from asking.
Over the years, their family had received plenty of help from the village.
To eat so well while their fellow villagers suffered from hunger and the biting cold made Old Dad Yun feel deeply ashamed.
But he couldn’t share the food.
If he did, his old wife and the children would surely die.
Yun Zhen touched the red mole on her palm, filled with anticipation.
“Since there was a first time, I believe there will definitely be a second.”
Perhaps her desire to return to that place and scavenge for treasures was just too strong, but she suddenly felt the red mole on her palm growing hot—hotter and hotter.
“Mommy, it Liangliangs!” Xiaobao suddenly pointed at Yun Zhen.
The elderly couple looked over, only to see the red mole on Yun Zhen’s palm emitting a bright glow.
Old Dad Yun’s expression changed drastically.
A voice in Yun Zhen’s head told her that the red mole was transformed from the bracelet.
The last time she went to that place, the bracelet had glowed.
Since the bracelet had turned into the red mole, the red mole glowing was the same as the bracelet glowing.
She could finally return to the place of her dreams.
Overjoyed, she couldn’t wait to share the thrilling news with her parents.
But it was too late.
An intense white light enveloped her.
Then, like a magic trick, she vanished into thin air right before the eyes of her parents and daughter.
“Zhen Niang!” the elderly couple cried out in unison.
“Old man!
Where is Zhen Niang?
Where is our daughter?”
“Mommy??” Xiaobao’s eyes widened in shock.
Old Dad Yun’s lips trembled.
“She…
perhaps she was summoned to that place by the immortal.”
Having lived for decades, this was the first time they had seen a living person vanish right before their eyes.
The shock to the old couple was nothing short of monumental.