No matter the person or matter, neither can stand persistent worry.
After a night of the northern wind, it first started with a light drizzle, followed by a rustling noise, and then, fine snow grains that looked like salt particles filled the vision. Around ten in the morning, large snowflakes started to flutter down.
The straw roof could not block out the incoming cold at all, but fortunately, Feng Qingxue brought back lots of coal in her supplies yesterday.
Now, she was burning a brazier in the bedroom.
The brazier was something she had picked up from a junk shop. It was made of brass, intricately patterned, and seemed to be an antique.
With the brazier, the room had become much warmer.
Feng Qingxue tossed a couple of sweet potatoes into the brazier. Before long, the smell of the sweet potatoes pervaded the room.
While waiting for the sweet potatoes to be thoroughly cooked, Feng Qingyun, bundled up like a ball, bounced around the room.
"Sister, it’s snowing. Do we have enough grain to eat? Should I eat less at noon to save for the next meal?"
"You don’t have to economize, we have enough."
"Oh!" Feng Qingyun stopped bouncing because she was tired, and the sweet potatoes in the brazier were cooked. She hooks out the cooked sweet potatoes with a fire hook and cools them on the ground. Once it was cool enough to touch, she handed it to Feng Qingxue. She peeled the sweet potato and fed Feng Qingxue a bite. Then she looked at the needlework in Feng Qingxue’s hands,"Sis, we already have quilts. Why are you still making more? This one is larger and thicker than ours."
Feng Qingxue smiled and said, scratching her head with the needle, "It’s for Tianjun and Tianzhi."
She had noticed a long time ago that everyone in Mr Lu’s family used a stack of hay as their bed, and they only had an old, worn-out quilt. You could just look to realize that the filler within the quilt had hardened into clumps, and they probably had to add a military coat or woolen clothes to sleep at night.
Therefore, after altering the old clothes a few days ago, she took the old quilts and clothes she got from her brother and sister-in-law and deconstructed, washed, dried, and then turned them into new quilts. The outer and inner fabric was made of salvaged material from the old clothes, and it might not look significant on the outside, but the cotton padding inside was brand new—it was both fluffy and soft.
In her past life, when she had bought so much cotton in the northwest, she knew she couldn’t transform the raw cotton into a usable form. So, after returning home, she spent a lot of money to have all the cotton processed into wadding of various sizes and thicknesses at the factory.
The old cotton she removed wasn’t wasted either. She carefully hammered it several times and made a thick mat out of it.
Feng Qingxue often told her sister recently, if it weren’t for Lu Jiang’s money and vouchers, they wouldn’t have enough supplies to get through the winter without begging. Therefore, knowing that these things were for the Lu family, Feng Qingyun nodded, looking very serious, and said, "We should give them."
The snow showed no signs of stopping. After she finished her needlework, Feng Qingxue did not have time to rest. She immediately got busy preparing pancakes, cornbread, steamed buns, steamed dumplings, and making a couple of hundred frozen dumplings. Most of them had a cabbage filling, but some were mixed with a bit of fat residue and glass noodles. They kept some at home and the rest were all packed up for the Lu family, along with the clothes and quilts.
Taking her journey through the snow, without Feng Qingyun, Feng Qingxue put the items in her storage space. She took it out only when she was approaching the Wanglou Brigade, adding some pasta, brown rice, cabbage heads, eggs, and sausages from the storage space.
Carrying multiple packages to the Lu family was very exhausting for Feng Qingxue.
There was only one old quilt in the house. The elderly Mr Lu, as well as the young Lu Tianjun and Lu Tianzhi, all found the nights exceedingly harsh. Seeing Feng Qingxue braving the snowstorm to deliver the supplies, the eyes of the three generations immediately reddened.
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