Natural Disaster: Back to the End of the World

Part 20

The news was broadcasting the severe snow disaster situations from various places, and all flights were canceled. Now, transportation was limited to land routes, with no other normal means of travel available.

The situation in the village wasn't great either. Normally, heavy snow is considered a good omen for a bountiful year, and such snow would be seen as a sign of an abundant harvest. However, the cabbages and other vegetables in the fields hadn't been harvested in time and were partly frozen in the ground.

After winter set in, some vegetable patches suffered frost damage. These vegetables usually sell well, but they are grown on small plots of land that are mainly for personal use. The yield isn't large, just enough to sell a little in town to improve their living conditions. They harvest only what they need and avoid waste.

But when they finished clearing the snow from their roofs and went to the fields to pick vegetables, everything was covered in snow, obscuring the soil beneath. Though these vegetables are relatively frost-resistant, they weren't too worried. However, once they cleared the snow, they found that the red cabbage and other vegetables were frozen. If not harvested soon, they would spoil and only be good for their own consumption.

Yao Ziqing's family was building a new house this year. Lei Li was focused on the construction and had little time to tend to the vegetable patch, so they planted only a small amount of vegetables, enough for the winter. When the snow first fell, Lei Li harvested all the mature vegetables. Later, when Si'er and the others returned and wanted to eat pickled fish, Lei Li picked all the vegetables from the field the day before the temperature dropped further. An aunt from the vegetable patch remarked that the frost-damaged vegetables could have been left to grow a bit longer and would have fetched a good price.

The day before, they had said that the young men didn't know how to manage things, but now, just a day later, they wished they had harvested the vegetables earlier to sell them and make a little extra money. With so many vegetables to consume at home, they worried about how long they would last.

The village head had not initially considered the vegetable fields. With the pressing issue of people dying from the cold, he hadn't had time to address it. He worried that villagers might sell their remaining grain for a bit of money, making life difficult if the disaster continued for a while. Now, with everyone's vegetable patches ruined by the snow, people were scrambling to buy grain, wishing they had stocked up earlier to feel more secure. The unusual weather made everyone feel a sense of crisis.

This feeling wasn't unique to just one family. That afternoon, Lei Zheng came with his brother Lei Lin to borrow a car from Lei Xiao, hoping they could go together. Seeing that Yao Ziqing wasn't interested, Lei Xiao handed over the car keys, letting them go on their own. Lei Zheng and Lei Lin came back with large and small packages, buying mostly flour, instant noodles, packaged noodles, and some handmade noodles. When returning the car, Lei Zheng remarked:

"Everything we got was hard to come by. The people at the store were acting as if the world was ending tomorrow. They were grabbing things as if missing a single package would mean starving."

Lei Lin nodded with lingering fear. "The fighting power of those aunties was incredible. My brother and I couldn't compete with a fifty-year-old auntie."

Their grandmother joked, "What do you kids have to do with this? Such matters are best left to your mother."

The brothers imagined their mother fiercely handling the situation and shuddered in unison.

In Fan's Village, a pig farmer had scheduled a pig slaughter for today. Previously, with the weather being relatively good, many people had planned to buy. However, when Lei Li and Lei Lang arrived, there were only a few buyers. When Lei Li arrived at the pig farmer's door on a tricycle, he saw someone leaving with a large piece of pig leg meat. He thought there would be many people, but upon entering, he found only Uncle Liu cleaning the area.