Chapter 140

Bonus Chapter thanks to Wilson, Shadoerunner, Divi, insertnamehere, Michelle in Colorado

Li Tie and the other students went back home with a sigh of relief. In a relaxed manner, they happily packed up, washed and went to bed.

On the 15th floor Xu Mei knew that Yu Xinran was tired. The girl was tucked into bed before the two ladies went to wash up.

On the 16th floor, Zhang Yi had just returned home when Wang Duo could not hold back and wildly kissed him again. The two people reached the bedroom with their clothes scattered around.

Zhang Yi lay on the bed, Wang Duo above him, hands on both sides of his head. "Winter…we won't go outside…okay?"

Zhang Yi bit his lip, looked for a moment before nodding. Wang Duo sighed in relief before leaning down and nibbling his lover's neck.

The couple in 1604 were not as crazy as their neighbors, both of them were exhausted and unprepared for night activities. They still took a good, hot bath so soothe their almost frozen bodies.

Luo Xun put his head on Yan Fei's shoulder. "Let's not go out for a while…"

"Yeah, winter is too dangerous. Such a large blizzard, if we go out again in winter, I am afraid we won't even get out of the door." Yan Fei was a bit perturbed.

If Luo Xun did not bring a compass, if they did not have a fire user or his own ability, they were afraid that they would not made it back today.

"No going out…It was my fault, I almost forgot how scary outside base was during winter…" Luo Xun was also very afraid, he had known about the blizzards and snowstorms after the end.

But he was generally holed up in his basement during the winter. The danger of a blizzard, the concept of terror had not been not concrete, which led to the decision, "Before winter we need to get as many crystal cores and supplies ready as possible, winter was for staying at home!"

Yan Fei smiled at him in comfort. "This is the first time, we have no experience on how to spend winter. We can pay attention later, anyway the weather is really bad these past few months."

They were able to smoothly go out in November – of course there was heavy snow but it was not as serious. They could not imagine what the weather was going to be like in December?

Luo Xun had plenty of experience how to spend winter, prepare food and growing crops at home. He lacked experience in accumulating nuclei. But now, they would naturally be ready for winter in advance.

Gales blew for a full three days. If last month the snow was more than meter, after this weather – the first floor was completely sealed by snow, it even spread to the second floor sometimes.

These days Yan Fei would shake the metal mesh on the roof at night, so the neighboring buildings had thicker snow in comparison.

Because of the heavy snow, almost all the activities stopped on base. Li Tie and the others had not gone out in three days. More people felt worried about something wrong with the signal tower. They were unable to make calls, send messages…simply put the network was interrupted.

On the day that they returned, their bosses told them that work was off for the next while. Naturally they returned home afterwards.

"Eat sliced mutton today!" With the snow outside, why not eat some meat?

Upon their return, they froze the mutton outside the window. A large chunk was sliced thinly with a knife. Since no one ate any yesterday, it was natural to eat their fill.

"Good! Let's go and pick vegetables, you're in charge of cutting the meat." Xu Mei pulled Song Lingling and Yu Xinran together went to pick vegetables.

The blizzard was too fierce, even if they wanted to sell vegetables, they could not get out the door! So, eat at home. There were still pickles at home, food that everyone loved to eat.

A couple people heated a piece of leg meat and slowly cut with the knife – it was so mouthwatering, they wanted to get started faster.

Luo Xun collected all the sesame at home. This fall's harvest gave sauce as well as a few bottles of oil. It was not much but enough for everyone to eat mutton while leaving seeds for sowing. They also had pickled leek flowers among their jars of pickles. Luo Xun had stocked up supplies before the apocalypse.

The team worked together to prepare today's lunch. A total of three bronze pots on the table were burning charcoal, all made by Yan Fei. They usually used something else to cook their food, but a little luxury was fine to eat rare mutton meat.

This time, in addition to mutton, there was a variety of vegetables on the table. From green leafy vegetables, to bean sprouts, potatoes, winter melon slices, pumpkin and sweet potato. The two men also prepared some sheep belly. There was a platter on the table.

"Do you want to get some duck?" He Qiankun suddenly suggested.

"Duck? Add some flavor?" Everyone was interested.

Mutton slices were dipped into the boiling water in the copper hot pot. The liquid turned into tantalizing mutton soup. As long as there was onion, ginger or garlic to counterattack the smell, people could enjoy delicious vegetables boiled in the soup.

Duck meat was thawed and brought over. Xu Mei suddenly remembered that they had no chance to dry some mushrooms in sun with the snow.

After washing and cutting the mushrooms, the aroma of soup wafted around.

"The snow seemed to have stopped?" Halfway through the meal Han Li noticed some sunshine through the window.

The group looked out, one person got up and looked closer, "Ah? It's completely stopped!"

Since last night, the wind had not stopped, there was still scattered snow. Now, the sky's clouds had finally dispersed revealing blue skies.

Some people looked downwards, the heavy snow had almost completely covered a makeshift two storey building. Whatever was buried underneath was almost unnoticeable.

The first floor had been completely sealed by snow, even the windows were covered. If there was not enough circulation in the hallway, people thought of ways to unblock their windows. They were afraid that the basement occupants were lacking air?

"Come back to eat. There's so much snow outside, I think that for a short time no one cannot go out. Let's wait until ability users clear the road." Luo Xun spoke to the team and continued to eat.

The warm aroma of meat filled the room and the team sat back down and continued enjoying today's tasty lunch.

Li Tie and the others were still thinking about work, but also waiting for phone signals to be restored. They wanted to contact their bosses before returning to work. As for Luo Xun, Yan Fei and Zhang Yi? They were really glad about their early resignations, otherwise they could have had to go out for work in this weather.

Another day passed, Luo Xun continued to nest at home. From time to time they cared for the crops, played with the dog and little girl and bickered with Zhang Yi. They also watched the snow from their balcony. It had to be said that Luo Xun was much more comfortable during the winter compared to his last life.

Dazed after a nap, Luo Xun vaguely heard the doorbell ringing. Both people woke up confused – the bell continued ringing. Generally speaking everyone met at specific times. Xu Mei and the others also had a key to the next room, they rarely searched each other out.

The two men put on their clothes, found that Wang Duo was at the door.

"Other building people said there was going to be a meeting. Organizing the area, came over to speak with us." Wang Duo pointed at the staircase, the couple hurried over.

The people downstairs did not enter the 15th floor. There were two doors stopping the chance of peeing, especially since there were vegetables in the hallway – the less people knew the better.

Now they were talking with neighbors at the first gate outside the door.

Seeing Luo Xun and Yan Fei arriving, Li Tie stepped forward and introduced them. "This is our captain, these are our neighbors from the 7th, 10th and 12th floors."

Willing to take the initiative to contact neighbors but also persuading people to participate in sweeping snow…People with some ability and wanted to take the opportunity to expand their forces.

But now people had strong senses of caution, they feared each other. Few people were willing to let them enter, only speaking in the hallway. They did not even enter the 15th floor…but they knew that the team was not simple, there had been little contact until now.

The man from the 7th floor seemed to be the one in charge of the organizing the snow sweep. He smiled at Luo Xun, "Captain Luo Xun? We also discussed with the people in the building next door. Each home will send a few people taking turns to clear up the road in front of our buildings. Does not need to be much, just enough so that everyone can get out. As for snow in the neighborhood, that will wait until we have spoken with other people.

Going out to clear roads but everyone focused on their own busy lives. There were so many people living in the building that one person per family would be enough to clear the entire neighborhood. Unfortunately there were quite a few people that did not want to get involved. If not everyone was going out to sweep and it was so cold outside, who would subject themselves to that? If they wanted to go, they also needed proof that people from other places were going too. Plus, were there not people dedicated to clearing rubbish? Snow was supposed to cleared by these people too? Why are the people who pay rent every month also have to clear snow?

Luo Xun did not say anything and nodded to indicate that people would be coming. This affected their own people and others. It was not the entire neighborhood, only the entrances to their building.

There were two people from the 5th while four people from Luo Xun's team. The couple with Li Tie and He Qiankun volunteered. The others would join only if needed.

16 floors but only a total of 32 people? However the building's entrance…even if fewer people came it would not cost too much effort to clear away the snow.

The building was facing the outermost wall with a highway. On the other side was military encircled farmland. In between there were two storey earthen houses build by a group of earth users in fall.

When the four went downstairs to help clean snow, most of occupants of earth houses also came out to deal with snow.

Unlike Luo Xun, who struggled to shovel snow, they climbed to the roof and dealt with snow piles from top to bottom.

These two storey buildings had an interesting design, the first floor was about 50-60 square meters, the second floor was half that leaving part of the roof ready to use as a terrace.

They finally cleared a snow filled road. Some people from an earth house appeared and laughed at the difference in height – then smiled while walking away…*Poof* The man walked straight into snow and was buried…

The shovelling man pointed back at the fallen person and laughed, he felt it appropriate towards the man who laughed at him before.

Perhaps it was the man had fallen to harshly, or the laughing voices were too loud…close by there was *Bang* sound. A two storey building had collapsed with screams.

These earthen houses were not built with quality building materials. There were also earth users who would secretly build thin or hollow walls in order to save time and effort. The first few windy days made the walls brittle then came meters of snow. When the people came to clear up, they forgot to remove the roof snow, along with the vibrations, the house was crushed under its own weight.

The sound was loud, the people were all stunned, until cries for help rang out. They began to quickly clear up the snow and went to help save lives.

Soon after the people were rescued, it should be said that the original roof was not strong and the family did add any weight. Although the roof was crushed by snow, the only injuries were some scrapes, at most broken arm or leg – no deaths.

The people were moved for temporary rehousing, it seemed like more houses in the distance had actually collapsed…

How dangerous was shoddy work with substandard materials? A heavy snow was enough to show the real danger. It was lucky that the collapsed house was near them since the people's lives were saved. But the rest were not as lucky. People in charge of clearing snow found other houses that had collapsed due to the snow but there were no people near the building. Along with the heavy snow…the people had all frozen to death before being found.

The rarely used road was cleared by residents in a day but the road outside did not have people come until five days later, when communications had resumed. If someone in the neighborhood was going out, they had create their own path.

Some people saw an opportunity to save water – there was so much snow outside, some could be used for cleaning/cooking. Of course it had to be distilled carefully after all it was likely to contain the zombie virus.

There were also many people who had no fire starting supplies. Coal and fuel were not cheap and after the end many people dared not leave base, so not much had been saved.

Luo Xun had heard that five or six households were found frozen to death in the blizzard just in their area.

"Have you finished eating?" Luo Xun asked as he was dealing with the crops in the hallway.

Zhang Yi raised an eyebrow, "Your man absorbs nuclei like eating food?"

"So you're done sucking up?" Luo Xun did not care about the change in word.

Zhang Yi squinted and could not resist saying, "Captain~your man should teach you how to speak."

Luo Xun did not look back as he continued to deal with the planting racks with vegetables. Yan Fei asked, "What happened to the big core?"

The sheep's head also had a crystal core, not as big as the ducks, but far larger than a normal nuclei. Zhang Yi had determined it was a level three nuclei and Luo Xun gave it to him since he would be the only one able to use it.

Zhang Yi exchanged it for all the non-wind nuclei he had on hand. Of course, Luo Xun distributed the nuclei to everyone – after all the duck's core was still a fixture at home.

Since the nucleus had been obtained, Zhang Yi decided to absorb it, but because the energy was too large, he nested at home to absorb and was not involved in clearing up snow.

"I feel like I'm nearing an upgrade." Zhang Yi ruffled his hair with an agitated mood. "I reckon that at level four I would need level four nuclei…but now I'm on the edge…we might have the chance to hunt for level four cores the next time we leave base."

Luo Xun helplessly sighed. "Are fourth level crystal cores so easy to find? Don't count on any in the short term. If we do find any, we'll store them at home first. Wait a bit before upgrading and absorbing."

Right? Those nuclei were best used after completely exhausting oneself. Unless it was a fight, it would wasteful to use the nuclei only for replenishing energy.

"I know, but it's uncomfortable just to leave it." Zhang Yi was slightly upset but went to grab a basket, "Collect food?"

"Today communications were restored and several contacts are rushing to buy food." Yan Fei explained.

Today the teams that bought crops from Luo Xun frantically sent text messages. It seems that the teams were crazy with hunger after dealing with the heavy snow. There had been no phone calls from the military yet.