The wall was covered in a thick layer of frost. Jiang Yao scraped off a large basin of it with great effort. By the time she returned to the front yard, she was covered in sweat. Song Yulan had finished cooking and came out to call her.
“Yao Yao, what are you doing?”
Jiang Yao grinned. Her small mouth opened and closed, spitting out two words.
“Ice-making.”
“Ice-making?” Song Yulan became interested. “Let me take a look.”
Jiang Yao wiped her face with her sleeve and slightly narrowed her eyes.
Following Xiao Hei’s instructions, she found a large basin and a small basin. She placed the small basin inside the large one, filled both with cold water, and prepared another portion.
She added the “wall frost” into the large basin and stirred it with a wooden stick. Soon, bubbles appeared. She touched the water with her hand and could clearly feel that the temperature had dropped slightly.
Xiao Hei: 【Just pour everything in directly. I got you ten jin of nitrate from another system and put some in your pocket. Add it all together. I’m afraid it still won’t freeze.】
【You could switch items and you didn’t say so earlier?】
Then wouldn’t she have to do all this for nothing?
Xiao Hei: 【Sister Yao, if ice suddenly appears out of nowhere, you need an explanation for it, right?】
【Then couldn’t you have told me earlier? Now I look like an idiot.】
Xiao Hei: 【It’s fine. Only I know you’re an idiot.】
Jiang Yao: 【You better hope you never need my help!】
Song Yulan pulled over a stool and sat with her, waiting together.
About an hour later, Jiang Yao saw small ice crystals floating up from the water. She excitedly reached her hand in.
“Grandma, it worked.”
Song Yulan widened her eyes. She had never seen how ice was made before. She stared without even blinking and reached out to touch the water inside.
“It really is cold.”
Xiao Hei: 【It’ll fully freeze in another half hour. Take it inside first.】
Jiang Yao and Song Yulan went to eat first. After finishing their meal, they returned to the room. Both small basins were already filled with ice. Although it wasn’t very solid, it still shocked them.
“Grandma, this is real ice. Does that mean we can make popsicles at home?” Jiang Yao said excitedly, her eyes sparkling.
Her principle had always been: if she could make it herself, she would.
Now that she could make ice, didn’t that mean DIY popsicles were easy?
Song Yulan didn’t expect that even at her age, she could still experience something so novel.
“Let’s make them! Xiao Mu bought malted milk powder. Let’s find a heat-resistant container and try it.”
They immediately got to work.
Jiang Yao brought an iron lunch box and placed it on top of the ice.
“By noon, we should be able to eat popsicles.” With that expectation, the grandmother and granddaughter went to sleep happily.
It had to be said that with ice in the room, the temperature dropped significantly. Jiang Yao slept until two in the afternoon. When she woke up, she still felt lazy and drowsy.
She slowly rolled to the edge of the bed like a silkworm cocoon, put on her shoes, and sat there blankly for a while before going to check the lunch box.
“Hiss—so cold!”
The chill on her fingertips instantly drove away all her sleepiness. She wrapped the lunch box with a cloth and placed it on the living room table.
“Grandma, are you up?”
“I’m here!”
Song Yulan also came out of the room holding the iron lunch box. The two looked at each other and said in unison:
“Is the lunch box frozen?”
They looked at the lunch box on the table, which had already started to melt, and sat down in tacit understanding. They opened it and scooped it out with spoons.
A spoonful of iced malted milk powder went into her mouth, and Jiang Yao felt extremely refreshed.
“Grandma, this natural refrigerator is amazing. From now on, we can eat popsicles every day.”
But Song Yulan couldn’t eat them every day; Jiang Yao, being young, could.
“Yao Yao, you can’t eat them every day. Isn’t your monthly period coming soon? After eating today, you must not continue tomorrow.”
When women get stomach pain, it can be unbearable—especially those who didn’t take good care after childbirth or often washed with cold water.
Jiang Yao obediently nodded. She knew what Grandma said was right. In middle school, she once saw a girl suffer terrible period pain and roll on the ground, which scared her into stopping cold water for a long time.
Although later she learned that she personally didn’t usually get pain no matter what she did, she still only indulged occasionally and mostly drank warm water.
But she didn’t expect this body to suffer severe period pain. Even eating ice for the first three days made her feel like a wilted eggplant.
【Didn’t the original owner feel pain? How did she endure it?】
Xiao Hei: 【…She probably had a high pain tolerance. Also, she never ate ice before.】
Jiang Yao curled up under the blanket and hugged herself, asking Xiao Hei for a few heat packs. After sweating a bit, she finally felt slightly better.
But her lower abdomen was still bloated and occasionally cramped.
After Song Yulan learned she was on her period and uncomfortable, she became worried and went next door to exchange for some brown sugar with Yang Erni.
After drinking a bowl of brown sugar ginger tea, Jiang Yao’s face looked a bit more rosy.
A while later, Yang Erni came over with some red dates.
Song Yulan quickly thanked her. Yang Erni waved her hand.
“Don’t be so polite. Didn’t you also exchange a wild chicken with us? I’m the one who got the better deal. Just keep it and nourish Jiang Yao properly.”
Then she asked, “Is Jiang Yao feeling better?”
“Just a little better.” Song Yulan sighed. “It’s my fault too. I let her eat ice pops.”
Yang Erni froze for a moment, then comforted her. “Auntie, just be more careful next time.”
She had never seen such a good mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law before.
Song Yulan thought about it and felt they couldn’t accept the red dates for nothing.
She went inside and asked Jiang Yao if she could teach Yang Erni the ice-making method.
Jiang Yao held a plump red date and smiled.
“Grandma, just tell her. Every household actually has nitrate, they just don’t know its use.”
Before Song Yulan left, Jiang Yao asked her to bring two jin of nitrate.
“This is what I collected in the past two days. Give it to her together.”
“Alright.”
After learning that ice could be made from the white frost on the wall, Yang Erni’s first reaction was disbelief.
But when she saw the ice in the basin inside the house, she immediately denied her doubts.
She carried two bags excitedly back home. As soon as she arrived, she called her two naughty children playing outside to come back and scrape the frost from the wall.