Storing Winter Supplies

The late-autumn wind carried a hint of chill into the Small Courtyard. Chen An stood beside the Vegetable Plot, watching the faint yellowing spread along the edges of the leaves, and felt a trace of unease.

The seasons in the Primordial World seemed to turn faster and more violently than he remembered. A few days ago, while patrolling the edge of the Safe Zone, he had noticed that the insect nests beneath the cliff had grown less active, while the birdsong in the forest had taken on a desolate note—signs that winter was approaching.

"We have to stock up on enough supplies before the cold wave seals off the mountains." Chen An rubbed the back of his slightly chilled hand and glanced over the animal hides drying in the courtyard, the freshly pickled vegetables in the Clay Jar, and the bundles of firewood stacked in the corner.

He knew that winter in the Primordial World was no mere "drop in temperature." It was a prolonged battle that tested one's will to survive. As someone who had crossed over from another world, he understood the importance of preparation better than anyone. Without a stable food supply, even the sturdiest Safe Zone would become a cold cage.

The first priority in storing food was processing the animal meat he had recently hunted.

Since the Safe Zone had been completed, Chen An's hunting efficiency had improved greatly. Using traps and torches, he had caught three deer-like herbivores, which he had temporarily named Green Mane Beasts, two nimble tree-dwelling foxes he called Crimson Flame Foxes for the time being, and had even risked injuring a relatively small Ironback Lizard once.

Though these prey had not reached the level of Demonic Beasts, they were still precious sources of Protein.

He dragged the two Green Mane Beasts he had hunted most recently into the backyard. The carcasses were still warm, and their fur gleamed with an oily luster beneath the autumn sun. Chen An put on gloves woven from beast sinew, took out a stone knife, and began butchering them. It was a technical job: he had to remove the organs precisely, leaving some for pickling, separate out the lean meat, and scrape the remaining meat clean from the bones.

The bones did not go to waste, either. He smashed them with a stone hammer, intending to boil them into bone broth or make simple "bone fertilizer" to nourish the vegetable garden.

He cut the prepared lean meat into strips three fingers wide and half a palm thick. Chen An recalled how smoked meat was made in the modern world, but he lacked salt and spices.

Still, the Primordial Wilderness had its own solutions. At the edge of the garden, he had found several bushes that gave off a spicy fragrance; when their leaves were crushed, they smelled somewhat like Sichuan pepper. In cracks in the cliff, he had also gathered several small white flowers whose roots and stems yielded a faint salty taste when ground.

He mixed these "natural seasonings" with the strips of meat, threaded them onto vines, and hung them in a well-ventilated spot beside the pottery kiln to dry for half a day, removing some of their moisture.

The key to smoking meat lay in controlling the heat and choosing the right fuel. Chen An dug a shallow pit in the open ground outside the pottery kiln, lined the bottom with damp clay, and then arranged dry pine needles, cypress branches, and peach pits on top.

These were all kindling he had collected earlier, and they produced thick smoke when burned. He hung the meat strips above the pit, covered the opening with a stone slab, and left only a narrow crack for the smoke to seep through.

"Crackle—"

Amid the faint crackling of the burning pine needles, smoke began to churn inside the pit.

Chen An stayed beside the pit, adding fresh fuel from time to time. He knew that smoking meat required patience. If the time was too short, the meat would spoil easily; if it was too long, it would become burnt and bitter.

After roughly two hours, he lifted the stone slab. The meat strips had turned dark brown, with a thin layer of oil condensed across their surfaces, and gave off a mixed scent of pine resin and spice. He took one down and bit into it. The meat was firm and chewy, with a clean herbal sharpness beneath its salty fragrance. It was easier to preserve than raw meat and could provide energy for longer.

For the next three days, he repeated the process, turning all the hunted meat into jerky. He carefully packed the dark-brown strips into Clay Jars, sealed the mouths with clay, and stacked them in a cool corner of the main house.

The Clay Jars were new vessels Chen An had fired in the pottery kiln. Their airtightness was excellent, effectively keeping out moisture. It was the closest thing to "vacuum packaging" he could think of.

Aside from meat, storing fruit was equally important.

Although Chen An's vegetable garden could produce vegetables, he had yet to successfully cultivate any fruit-bearing crops.

However, the wild plants of the Primordial Wilderness were far more generous than he had imagined. On the hillside at the edge of the garden grew broad stretches of low bushes bearing red-and-yellow berries, which he had named Warm Sun Berries. Beside the stream beneath the cliff, several old plum trees were laden with fruits that were green with a tinge of red, which he temporarily called Winter Plum Fruits.

Some of these wild fruits were sweet and juicy, while others were slightly astringent, but all contained abundant vitamins and sugar.

Chen An knew that when fresh fruits and vegetables were scarce in winter, these dried fruits could provide nutrients and prevent scurvy.

He carried a bamboo basket—a container woven from vines and soaked in resin—along with a stone knife and a cloth, and set out. He was especially careful while picking them. The skins of the Warm Sun Berries were thin, so they had to be picked and placed down gently. The pits of the Winter Plum Fruits were hard, so he had to avoid cracking them.

When he returned to the Small Courtyard, he poured the fruits onto a stone slab, first picking out the rotten or damaged ones, then rinsing the sound fruit clean with fresh water.

Drying fruit required ample sunlight and ventilation.

Chen An stretched several vines across the open ground in front of the main house, assembling a simple drying rack.

He cut the Warm Sun Berries in half and laid the Winter Plum Fruits whole across the vines, keeping the layer no more than one fruit thick. For the next half month, he turned the fruit once every morning to ensure it received the sunlight evenly.

The autumn sun was not as fierce as the summer sun, but it lasted longer. After half a month, the fruit had dehydrated and hardened, its color shifting to dark brown or deep red, while a concentrated fruity fragrance filled the air.

He divided the dried fruit between Clay Jars and animal-hide bags.

The Clay Jars were airtight and moisture-resistant, making them suitable for long-term storage. The animal-hide bags were lighter and more convenient to carry on future outings. Looking at the colorful dried fruit, Chen An could almost see a warm scene in the depths of winter: everyone sitting around the fire pit, chewing dried fruit along with their jerky.

After storing the food, Chen An turned his attention to the house where he lived.

The little house, built from stones, wood, and mud, had held up reasonably well against the storms before, but it was clearly not sturdy enough to face winter in the Primordial Wilderness.

The roof came first. The original thatching could keep out the rain, but it could not withstand the cold wind.

Chen An cut several bundles of dry reeds gathered from beside the stream, mixed them with thatch, and spread the material over the roof again.

Reed fibers were tougher and could lock in heat more effectively. He also deliberately thickened the layer along the ridge to keep accumulated snow from collapsing the roof.

Next came the walls. He mixed the remaining clay into a thicker mud plaster and coated the walls all over again.

He mixed chopped grass and animal hair into the plaster, increasing its adhesion and insulation.

For several cracks, he scraped them open with stone shards, filled them with fresh clay, and compacted it with a wooden board.

Finally, he fastened a layer of tightly spaced wooden fencing to the outer walls with vines, forming an air-insulation layer. The idea had come to him from the principles of insulation in modern architecture.

The most important parts were the doors and windows. The gaps in the door panels made from raw wood were too large, so Chen An soaked animal hide in resin, cut it into strips, and stuffed it into the gaps around the doors and windows.

Animal hide was soft yet resilient. It could block the wind without completely cutting off the light. The windows had originally been nothing more than simple wooden lattices, so he added a curtain woven from beast sinew. During the day, it could be rolled up to let in light; at night, it could be lowered to retain warmth.

The process of reinforcing the house lasted an entire week. Chen An had cut his hands on stone shards and been pricked by wooden splinters, but when he looked at the completely renewed little house, he felt immensely secure. This was no longer merely a shelter from the wind and rain, but a "fortress" he had prepared for winter.

Besides storing material supplies, Chen An also made two kinds of "soft" preparations: organizing his fire-starting materials and recording what he had learned.

He ground the pottery shards fired in the kiln into flint-like shapes, mixed them with sulfur collected from minerals in the cliff, and made several boxes of "fire tinder."

The tinder was dry and highly flammable. Even during the damp winter, it could quickly ignite a campfire. He also sorted and stacked the dry firewood in the Safe Zone. Thin branches were for kindling, thick logs for heating, and the largest pieces were stacked in the corner as "emergency fuel."

In addition, he began recording his survival experience on animal hide.

His notes covered everything from setting traps and identifying edible plants to smoking meat, storing dried fruit, and even reinforcing houses. He used blackened charcoal as a pen and carved his experiences onto the inner side of the hide.

He was not doing this for anyone else to read. He simply wanted to avoid forgetting, during the long winter, the survival wisdom he had bought with sweat and hard lessons.

On the eve of the winter solstice, Chen An stood in front of the reinforced little house and gazed at the moon, which was growing rounder on the horizon. The barrier around the Safe Zone shimmered with a faint silver glow in the moonlight. The vegetables in the garden had stopped growing, but they still retained their lush green appearance. Beneath the eaves hung