The wind and snow were like a frozen bolt of cloth, wrapping tightly around them, making even their breaths taste of ice shards.
The prison cart finally halted in a mountain hollow sheltered from the wind.
Necks hunched, the escorting officers cursed and grumbled as they ducked into a makeshift, tattered felt tent to warm themselves by a fire.
The “resting place” left for the prisoners was nothing but a bare clearing in the woods, hung with icicles.
The old and young of the Shen family helped each other tumble out of the prison cart.
The moment her feet hit the snow, Shen Taotao’s legs gave out. Her vision went black; the bit of chaff cake in her stomach had long since dissolved into nothing.
She gritted her teeth and forced herself to stay upright. She couldn’t afford to fall, and neither could her family.
The frigid wind scraped across the surface of the snow, lashing at their faces until they stung.
He Shi quickly pulled Shen Taotao into the tight embrace of her own filthy cotton robe, but the robe was as thin as paper, trembling like a dry leaf in the wind.
“Taotao… lean on Mother…” He Shi’s own teeth were chattering violently.
Shen Dashan silently moved over to block the wind, corralling the female family members within the triangle formed by himself, Shen Xiaochuan, and their father.
Held by her mother, leaning against the hard backs of her eldest and second brothers as they tried to shield her from the wind, Shen Taotao nearly burst into tears again.
She couldn’t cry. Tears would instantly freeze into tiny icicles on her face.
Shen Taotao knew all too well from the original owner’s memories how brief this “rest” would be—the time it took to eat a meal, at most.
Her eyes were fixed on the packed ice and snow beneath her feet, her mind rapidly sifting through information.
Black soil, Bei Da Huang, high latitude, making fire by drilling wood.
Ta Tou Dunzi! Where are the Ta Tou Dunzi?!
Like a drowning person grasping at a life-saving straw, Shen Taotao abruptly pushed her mother’s hands away with a force that startled He Shi.
She practically threw herself to her knees in the snow, her hands beginning to claw at the thick drifts like a madwoman.
An icy, bone-deep chill instantly shot between her fingers, but she seemed not to feel it.
“Taotao, what are you doing? Stop… you’ll freeze your hands…” He Shi cried out in alarm, trying to pull her up.
“Little Sister! You mustn’t!” Shen Dashan grew anxious as well, reaching to grab her.
“Leave me alone!” Shen Taotao didn’t even look up, her voice hoarse but unyielding. “Father! Eldest Brother, Second Brother! Are there any sharp branches? A wooden stick will do! Quickly!”
Her actions were too sudden, too urgent, even a little crazed.
But in that moment, the Shen family had no mind to wonder if her behavior was “strange.”
Only one thought remained in their minds: This is bad! The suffering has driven Little Sister mad!
A look of terror finally appeared in Shen Fu’s (Father Shen) lifeless eyes. With trembling hands, he pried a finger-thick piece of broken wood from a crack in the prison cart’s floorboards and passed it over, his voice frantic and anxious. “Tao… Taotao, Father is useless… Father has failed you…”
His tone was as if his daughter’s madness was all his fault.
“Little Sister! You rest! Just point to what you want to dig! I’ll dig for you!” Shen Dashan’s eyes were red. He snatched the short stick from Shen Fu’s hand, knelt directly beside Shen Taotao, and without a second look, began stabbing it fiercely into the snow!
Shen Xiaochuan also rushed over. “That’s right! Little Sister, just tell us! I’m strong! Don’t you do it!”
Shen Taotao had no time to explain.
She brushed away the loose snow Shen Dashan had churned up, revealing the dark brown frozen earth beneath.
She dug her fingertips hard into the surface. A nail split, but she paid it no mind, her fingers fumbling inside until they touched something like a grass root.
“This is it!” Shen Taotao’s eyes lit up instantly, her voice sharp with the excitement of someone who had found a life-saving talisman. “Dig! Dig under this ‘mound’! Quickly!”
The moment Shen Dashan heard “dig,” he didn’t hesitate for a second. Wielding the awkward piece of broken wood, he drove it into the frozen earth with all his might.
Shen Xiaochuan, ignoring his freezing hands, used them directly to help break apart the hard clods of earth his brother pried up.
Shen Ersao also hurried over to clear away the smaller bits of dirt.
The three of them went at the spot Shen Taotao had pointed out with a frenzy, as if they were unearthing a treasure.
The frozen earth was as hard as iron. The web of Shen Dashan’s thumb split open, blood mingling with ice shards, but he didn’t make a sound.
Shen Xiaochuan’s fingers turned bright red and went numb from the cold.
“Careful! Deeper! Get the core!” Shen Taotao directed urgently from the side.
Soon, Shen Xiaochuan managed to pull out a small handful of something resembling grass roots.
There wasn’t much, just a small handful.
“This…” Shen Dashan looked at the dark stuff in his hand, then turned to Shen Taotao in confusion.
What did Little Sister want this for?
“Well done, Eldest Brother!” Shen Taotao snatched it from him, carefully cleaning off the large clumps of dirt to reveal the dark brown, fibrous fluff inside, which looked like tobacco stems.
Then she quickly handed two thick wooden sticks to Shen Xiaochuan, who had the steadiest hands.
“Second Brother, drill for fire!” She pressed the small wad of fluff at the point where the two sticks would rub, her voice trembling with a do-or-die desperation.
Shen Xiaochuan looked at the unremarkable clump, then at his sister’s face, which was purple with cold but her eyes alarmingly bright. His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing.
He took the sticks, squatted in a slightly more sheltered spot, and, gritting his teeth with an audible crunch, began to drill with all his focus.
Scrape, scrape!
A tiny spark, like a firefly, finally struggled into existence and landed on the small bit of dry, flammable fluff.
A faint, orange-red flame suddenly leaped up!
“It’s lit! It’s really lit!” Second Sister-in-law cried out, her voice choked with sobs and disbelief.
“Quick! Eldest Brother! Father! Block the wind! Block it now!” Shen Taotao practically roared.
Without a second thought, Shen Dashan and Shen Houpu squatted down like two walls, using their bodies to shield the tiny, fragile flame.
With the wind blocked, Shen Taotao began adding the smallest, driest twigs she could find, feeding them to the fire bit by bit, extremely slowly.
The tongue of fire greedily licked at the dry twigs, making a soft crackling sound as it quickly grew a little larger.
A wave of warmth, though faint, was undeniably real, instantly chasing away the biting cold from their skin.
“Heavens…” He Shi stared at the flame of hope dancing on the frozen, snowy ground. Her lips trembled, wanting to cry and laugh at the same time. It all resolved into her clutching Shen Taotao’s shoulders tightly, large, hot tears splashing onto her daughter’s cold outer clothes. “My Taotao… My Taotao is so clever… Mother’s…”
Just then.
Plop.
A small, round object fell from the crooked-neck pine tree above, landing right on the back of his neck.
“Hm?” Shen Xiaochuan subconsciously reached up to feel it. He pinched the object, which was ice-cold but not hard, and held it up to his eyes.
It was a not-quite-ripe pinecone, and he could see the pine nuts exposed inside.
“Little Sister! This…” Shen Xiaochuan quickly handed the small, broken pinecone to Shen Taotao.
Shen Taotao’s eyes stared intently at the base of the pinecone, where a few tiny teeth marks remained.
Her mind made an instant connection. It wasn’t frozen solid and had just been gnawed on by a squirrel, which meant there had to be a squirrel’s food stash nearby.
Shen Taotao’s head snapped up. Her gaze, like that of a nocturnal hawk, instantly locked onto a small, inconspicuous hole in the tree trunk, half-covered by snow. It was about the size of an adult’s fist.
“The tree hole! That tree hole! Quickly!” Shen Taotao’s voice cracked with excitement. “Eldest Brother! The stick! Poke it in! Not too deep!”
Without a word, Shen Dashan grabbed the stick, aimed for the edge of the hole, and carefully inserted it. Not daring to use too much force, he just stirred it around gently a few times and gave it a flick.
Whoosh!
A jumble of small things rained down on them.
Slightly hardened pine nuts, half-eaten acorns, a few red wild hawthorn pits, and several shriveled little nuts of an unknown variety.
Although they were all covered in bits of grass and dirt and there weren’t many of them scattered sparsely on the snow, in this landscape of icy despair, they shone like gold.
“Food… food…” Shen Xiaochuan’s voice was faint.
The eyes of every member of the Shen family instantly turned red.
Shen Taotao pounced on the stash like a bandit who had finally found her treasure. “Quick, pick them up!”
With all hands on deck, even Shen Fu moved with newfound agility. They quickly gathered every edible morsel that had fallen in the snow, desperately piling them together.
In an instant, a circle of heads crowded around the small, weak fire.
Shen Dashan picked up a rock and smashed a pine nut. He didn’t control his strength well, and half the nut, shell and all, was flattened, revealing a tiny bit of grayish-white meat inside.
He paid it no mind, picking up the flattened nut and stuffing it into Shen Taotao’s mouth. “For you, Little Sister. You eat first.”
He Shi was also fumbling to shell another pine nut. “Taotao, open your mouth.”
Shen Taotao looked at the half-crushed, dirt-flecked pine nut being pushed to her lips. She saw the startling red smear of blood on it from her brother’s cut finger, and then she saw her father, second brother, and second sister-in-law, all clumsily but desperately shelling that tiny bit of wild food…
The sorrow that had been temporarily suppressed by the warmth surged violently into her nose, making it sting and swell.
She didn’t refuse. She opened her mouth and took in the gritty morsel that tasted of mud, pine resin, and blood.
She bit down hard. It was tough, astringent, with an overpowering taste of pine oil.
But she chewed with all her might, crushed it, and swallowed it raw.
The moment that insignificant, strange-tasting thing landed in her stomach, the empty, burning abyss that had been there for so long… seemed to have a tiny crack sealed.
Even if it was just a sliver.
Shen Taotao watched as her family members, while fighting their own urge to eat, took the largest, most cleanly shelled portion of pine nuts and tremblingly pressed them into her hands…
“Little Sister, eat quickly…”
“Taotao, you must be starving…”
“Mother has failed you…”
Hot tears could no longer be held back, falling in large drops onto the dirt-flecked wild food in her palm, more precious than gold.
Shen Taotao wiped her face fiercely, wiping away the tears and all her weakness.
She grabbed a small handful of the mix of nuts and crumbs and forcefully stuffed it into the mouth of her mother, who was still shelling nuts for her.
“Mother, eat!”
Before He Shi could react, she unceremoniously divided the rest in her hand and stuffed it into the mouths of Shen Dashan, Shen Xiaochuan, and her second sister-in-law.
With the very last bit, she pinched it, forced open the mouth of Shen Fu, who had been shrinking in the corner, and pushed it in.
“Everyone eats! Swallow it, all of you!” Shen Taotao’s voice was thick with emotion, as domineering as if she were giving a final order. “We’re a family. Not a single one of us is allowed to starve to death. We need strength to keep digging, to keep searching.”
The cold wind still blew, and the sleet still stung their faces.
But that food, snatched from a squirrel’s mouth, was like a thin, warm current spreading through their nearly frozen limbs.
The fire crackled, illuminating several battered faces that were finally beginning to show a flicker of life.