Chapter 83 Cold Rain
The sky was gloomy, and threads of rain as fine as cow hair intertwined in the air, as if covering the world with a veil.
In the streets and alleys, pedestrians are hurrying, some holding umbrellas, some wearing straw raincoats, all rushing on their way in the drizzle.
There was a long queue at the east gate of Dazhao City, and people were leaving the city in an orderly manner.
Lin Xianwen sat in the ox cart, holding a hot water bottle and huddled together with his cousins, looking at the drizzle outside.
Lin Youfu was wearing a straw raincoat and a bamboo hat, sitting outside the carriage and driving. The cold wind blew, like ice knives stabbing his body, penetrating his heavy clothes, stinging every inch of his skin, bringing a biting chill.
The rain wet the road, making it muddy, and the rain mixed with the mud to form puddles of muddy water. The cold weather and muddy roads made travel even more difficult.
Lin Youcai rubbed his hands, his face full of worry, "We can't go on in this weather."
In this weather, no one, whether traveling on foot or in a carriage, could bear it.
The RV is able to work because of the external support, the damage is automatically repaired, and the water, electricity, oil and gas in the RV are automatically replenished. Otherwise, given the road conditions, it would only need a small repair every day and a major repair every three days.
"What should we do? It's going to rain when we leave the city today! It's so cold that my bones ache." Old man Lin stuffed his hands into his arms, feeling the warmth of the hot water bottle.
Lin Youcai: "I don't know what to do. We can travel in winter without rain or snow. But now it's raining, wet and cold, and people and animals can't stand it. If it continues like this, they will definitely get sick! If it snows, it will be even worse. I'm afraid there will be fewer people in the team."
Lin Yougui: "How about we find a village to stay in and wait for the weather to get better before continuing on our journey."
Old Man Lin: "What about the food? What about the fodder for the livestock? One more day of delay means one more day of fodder consumption. We were lucky this time. We saw that we were running out of food, but we got the candles for free. We sold them for some money and replenished everyone's rations in the city."
Lin Youxiang: "What should I do? Alas..."
Lin Yougui: "In previous years, we could still survive the winter on the heated kang in the house. What can we do now..."
Lin Youcai: "Let's go for a walk. If it snows, we can find a village, spend some money and stay for a few days."
Old Man Lin: "If I were at home, it would snow in November. It's mid-December now and I haven't seen any snow yet, which is good."
Lin Youcai: "After walking for a few months, the place is different and the weather is different."
We walked and stopped, and at night we stopped in the wild fields by the roadside, and it was wet everywhere.
The wet firewood burned, emitting thick smoke, but the smoke and fire could not stop the cold, as everyone sat by the fire, shivering and with pale faces.
Lin Zisu wore a raincoat and braved the cold wind to go to the field. In this weather, she had to deal with physiological issues, and her butt was icy cold. When she put on and took off her pants, her hands couldn't help shaking.
Everyone finished their work quickly, walked back with one foot in water and the other in mud, and climbed back into the RV shivering with cold.
Lin Zisu rubbed her hands to relieve the stinging in her palms caused by the cold.
The smell in the car was hard to describe, but Lin Zisu didn't dislike it at all. She didn't want to get out of the car at all.
The adults still endured the cold and got off the bus. They had to eat and drink. They opened two three-legged iron racks and placed them on the ground. They took down two large iron pots and put them on the racks. Needless to say, this three-legged iron rack for the pots made the people in the team envious. It was so convenient. They didn't need to find stones to build a stove or dig a pit to bury the pots. They could just put them up and put them down to light a fire.
Lu was washing rice with shaking hands due to the cold, while Yang was lighting the fire, and Feng, Cuihe and Xiatao were washing the cabbage bought in the city. Tonight, we would make vegetable porridge. We would not travel at night, so we would drink a bowl of vegetable porridge to warm our bodies and then rest.
Shen Xianglan lifted a corner of the straw mat, opened the small square cover outside the RV, pulled out the water pipe, turned on the faucet, and poured water into the pot.
Qiuyue squatted in front of the pot and lit the fire. When the pot was full of water, Shen Xianglan covered it with a large wooden board that had been washed clean.
The wooden pot lid was too heavy and took up too much space, so Lin Youcai chopped it down and burned it. Old Mrs. Wang was so angry that she stamped her feet and became increasingly helpless about what to do with her son.
Occasionally, people from the team would come to get water, and Shen Xianglan would put half a bucket in each bucket, just enough for food and drink. They didn't bring much water, and there was no water source nearby.
The car automatically refills water every day, so I don't have to worry about running out of water. This year is not a drought year, so there is no shortage of water. It's just that on the road, if you want to find a place with water, you have to rely on luck.
After a night of sleep, no one slept well. The weather was damp and cold, and everyone was afraid of falling asleep and not being able to wake up.
As soon as the sky was light, everyone got up, stretched their bodies, added wood to the fire, boiled hot water to drink on the way, and cooked a pot of hot porridge to warm their bodies so that they could continue on their journey.
By noon, the team saw that the road was no longer flanked by rolling fields, but by mountains.
Along the way, there are mostly flat lands, and there are occasional mountains on the roadside, but they are rare.
The mountains before our eyes have towering peaks. Because of the drizzle, the mountains are shrouded in clouds and mist, as if it is a mysterious veil bestowed by nature.
The rolling mountains, one after another, opened the eyes of those who grew up in the plains. Their faces, which had been numb from the hard days of traveling, also became lively.
When you go out, not only is traveling difficult, but you can also see different scenery and different rivers and mountains.
Everyone was immersed in the scenery of nature when the marching team suddenly stopped.
Lin Zisu was stunned for a moment when she saw the RV suddenly stalled. She tried to start it several times but failed.
She turned to look at my mother, and they looked at each other in silence.
Lin Youcai knocked on the car window, "What's wrong? Why did you stop the car suddenly?"
Lin Zisu frowned, looking puzzled. Seeing that there were many people in the car, she opened the door, got out and talked to her father aside.
Lin Zisu lowered her voice and said, "I don't know! It suddenly stalled and couldn't be started repeatedly. There was no prompt on the display screen."
Lin Youcai had a hunch that something was wrong. "Could it be that something is broken? Did the hacker disappear?!"
"Beep beep beep..." The sound of the horn came from the RV. Lin Zisu was about to speak, but she was annoyed by the sound. She thought it was her two 4-year-old cousins who broke free from their parents and ran over to press the horn while she was not in the driving seat.
She opened the car door with an unhappy look on her face, only to see that the driver's seat was empty. Shen Xianglan had just stood up and was about to call her.
Confused, she climbed up to the driver's seat and pressed the horn button. The horn sound disappeared and a red exclamation mark appeared on the display!
Lin Youcai followed and asked, "What's wrong? Who is pressing the buttons randomly?"
Lin Zisu said with a complicated expression: "No one pressed it."
Shen Xianglan: "It just rang suddenly by itself!"
Old Lady Wang: "What's going on?"
Old Lady Ye: "What happened to the car? Is it broken?"
"I feel something is wrong! Dad, look!" Lin Zisu pointed at the red exclamation mark on the screen.
The red exclamation mark disappeared from the screen, and two big red words appeared: Danger.
Lin Zisu and her father looked at each other in silence, and both saw the heaviness in each other's eyes.
Shen Xianglan asked anxiously: "What happened?"
Lin Zisu: "I have a feeling something terrible is going to happen..."
Shen Xianglan came over, saw the two words clearly on the screen, and her face changed drastically.
“Ding ding ding ding!!! Ding ding ding ding!!!”
The sudden sound of a gong was deafening, followed by Lin Benshu's shouting.