translator: baumkuchen

Lu Qingjiu sat before the grave for a very long time. He talked to his grandmother about a lot of things. He talked to her about Yin Xun, who'd already turned into a mountain G.o.d, as well as his tenant who'd just accidentally lost his own tails, Bai Yuehu. Before, every time he saw his grandmother's grave, what filled his heart would be sadness, regret and remorse. He felt remorseful for himself not being able to rush back here in time before his grandmother left the world, letting her die all alone.

Now, after returning to Shuifu village, staying by her side in another way, the sadness and hurt in Lu Qingjiu's heart had lessened by a lot. After cleaning off the snow that had gathered on top of the gravestone and arranging the offerings neatly in front of the grave, Lu Qingjiu smiled and bid goodbye to his grandmother, then got up and left.

After getting home, Bai Yuehu and Yin Xun both didn't dare to come disturb him. The two's cautiousness actually amused Lu Qingjiu a little. He was a grown man already, even if he wasn't in a good mood, he wouldn't take it out on the people around him.

"What do you guys want to eat tonight?" Lu Qingjiu asked their usual most frequently asked question.

"I want to eat hotpot." Yin Xun raised his hand. "The especially spicy kind."

"Anything's fine," Bai Yuehu said.

Lu Qingjiu said, "Then we'll have hotpot. It'll be spring soon, so let's gather all the remaining ingredients and finish them off, so that we don't end up wasting them."

Lu Qingjiu used sticky chili bean sauce and b.u.t.ter to make a hot and spicy soup base, boiling it with chicken soup. The soup became a gorgeous bright red, with dry chili peppers and Sichuan peppers floating about on its surface.

Part of the ingredients they used in the hotpot were the different types of fresh meat Bai Yuehu brought back, and the other were the things they'd been keeping in the freezer. There weren't many vegetables, only things like dried yamakurage and edible tree fungus, which could be dried and kept, and would be fine after just being soaked in water.

Lu Qingjiu's favourite wide gla.s.s noodles and dried tofu weren't left out either. Compared to Yin Xun and Bai Yuehu, he could basically be considered a herbivorous animal.

After bringing the pot to the living room and placing it on top of the charcoal basin, Lu Qingjiu called them over to eat.

Having hotpot really was the best way to pa.s.s the time in the winter. A few friends would gather together and talk as they eat, and wouldn't have to worry about the food getting cold. Rather, the more they ate, the warmer they would get. Lu Qingjiu took a big bite of their specialty wide gla.s.s noodles. After chewing it, he swallowed it down and lifted a hand to wipe off the sweat on the tip of his nose. The wide gla.s.s noodles were made from sweet potatoes. When they were raw, they were hard, but after being cooked, they became soft and chewy, incredibly appetising. They were an ingredient Lu Qingjiu really liked. The fresh meats Bai Yuehu brought back were also very delicious. Sliced into thin pieces, and placed into the red soup, they could be taken out after just ten or so seconds of boiling. Not only could they taste the delicious spiciness, they would also be able to taste the original flavour of the ingredients.

The house was filled with the scent of spice. After a while of eating, Lu Qingjiu finally took off his down jacket. The tip of his chin was dotted with sweat.

"So spicy." Yin Xun swallowed. "The day after tomorrow will be the last snowfall. After the snow stops, the temperature should start to rise."

Spring was finally coming.

"I've almost finished all my candy." Lu Qingjiu swallowed the meat in his mouth, then said, "We can start thinking about what we want to grow in spring."

"Anything's fine," Yin Xun said, "I'm not picky."

Lu Qingjiu said, "En, let's go to the town when the time comes and take a look. Last year had heavy snow, so the harvest this year will definitely be good." There was a reason behind the saying that auspicious snow leads to a good harvest, snow would kill most of the pests in the soil, so the germination rate of the next year's crops would rise. Of course, they didn't need to worry at all about that. After all, there was Bai Yuehu, the little farming expert, Lu Qingjiu just needed to choose what he wanted to plant.

As the temperature became warmer, the snow also gradually began to melt. From the trees extending above the roof, bits and pieces of snow began to fall. When sleeping in the house at night, they could hear the sound of melting snow falling.

Yin Xun poked off all the icicles hanging on the eaves in order to avoid them from falling and hurting people when they started melting. Apparently, an example of this had happened before. During the time that the snow was about to melt, a girl had been walking under the eaves when an icicle fell and pierced into her skull. Just like that, she had died.

The toughest season was finally about to be over. Lu Qingjiu was a little happy. He finally didn't need to wrap himself up like a hibernating bear every day, and could wear clothes that were a little thinner.

At the end of January, Su Yan sent Su Xi back, along with an unhappy-looking Rain Master's Concubine. She had changed into an especially cute puffy dress, and was sitting in Su Xi's fur with a gloomy look on her face. The simple and crude clothing Lu Qingjiu had made for Su Xi had been swapped with an exquisite cotton padded jacket. It could be seen that the person who had made the clothes was very good with their hands. It was just a pity that because of the problem with his fur, Su Xi, dressed in his little cotton padded jacket, no matter how you looked at it, still looked so much like a poodle…

"These are the clothes my wife made for them." Su Yan handed Lu Qingjiu a huge bag.

When Lu Qingjiu saw the clothes in the bag, he was stunned. He originally thought that these would be Su Xi's daily necessities, but after seeing them, he realised that this was actually a bag of little clothes, and from the measurements of the clothes, they clearly weren't for the little fox, but for the Rain Master's Concubine.

Su Yan let out a dry cough, as if a little embarra.s.sed. He explained, "Su Xi's mother really likes that little girl."

Lu Qingjiu, "…Ah?"

Su Yan said, "It's because when fox spirits are small, they're always in the form of a fox. After they mature, they'll take human form, and it'll always be that of a grown human, so we don't get to see children in human form." Let alone this kind of thumb-sized, incredibly cute little girl. Even though the little girl's ident.i.ty was a little scary, this didn't stop his wife's maternal instincts from rising up.

Lu Qingjiu seemed to understand why the Rain Master's Concubine had that unhappy look on her face. Not knowing whether to laugh or cry, he said, "Alright, I understand."

"My wife even made her a wooden house. She said that you can put it next to Su Xi's bed," Su Yan said, "Sorry for the trouble."

"It's no trouble, no trouble." Lu Qingjiu looked at the little wooden house Su Yan had talked of. That house was a two story wooden house, with an extremely fine structure. The interior even seemed to have been set up with a bed and a dressing table and such. It looked like Su Xi's mother had already started viewing the Rain Master's Concubine as a cute Barbie doll…

Su Yan left after putting the things down. The Rain Master's Concubine disappeared into Su Xi's neck ruff. Lu Qingjiu moved everything next to Su Xi's bed, arranging the clothes one by one inside a room in the little wooden house. As he watched the little fox roll around with Xiao Hua and Xiao Hei, for a while, he felt as if he'd become a mother. However, fortunately the appearance of Yin Xun helped this feeling disappear, making him realise that he was a father.

"The road to town seems to have been cleared," Yin Xun had come back to report to Lu Qingjiu, "We can drive the pickup truck to town to eat xiaolongbao again."

Lu Qingjiu asked, "It's been cleared just like that?"

Yin Xun said, "Yeah, the temperature seems to be rising very fast this year."

Lu Qingjiu said, "Alright, let me get ready, then we can go to town to buy some fresh ingredients, and have xiaolongbao while we're at it. Go call Bai Yuehu over too."

"Okay." When xiaolongbao was brought up, Yin Xun happily left.

Lu Qingjiu changed clothes, then went to start the pickup truck that had been parked by their entranceway. After not driving their family's pickup truck for an entire winter, Lu Qingjiu felt really apologetic towards it. However, during the coldest point of winter, the pickup truck had disappeared. Lu Qingjiu had asked Bai Yuehu about it, who told him that it had gone to dig a hole to get through the winter. Now that it had just started to warm back up, the pickup truck had reappeared at Lu Qingjiu's door.

Lu Qingjiu fed it the last of the fruit gummies. The pickup truck ate very happily, honking a few times.

The three got onto the pickup truck and headed out of the village. As they left the village, they even b.u.mped into Uncle Chen. When he saw Lu Qingjiu, he greeted him.

Now that winter was over, the entire village had also began to recover. On both sides of the road, they could see villages preparing for spring ploughing. This winter hadn't been very long, it seemed that it hadn't been too hard on everyone.

Lu Qingjiu drove the pickup truck onto the mountain road.

There was still some snow that had yet to melt on the road, but it could already be opened to traffic. The pickup truck wasn't very fast, but it was sufficiently steady. Even if Lu Qingjiu didn't hold the steering wheel, it could drive itself perfectly fine. Furthermore, it still remembered the mountain road, slowing down in all the places it should in advance.

A few hours later, they arrived at town. Lu Qingjiu parked the truck, and led his family's two children to the xiaolongbao shop.

Unlike Shuifu village, the town was still very lively. Because Bai Yuehu's outstanding appearance and shocking eating ability had long since left a deep impression of them on the shop owner, when he saw Lu Qingjiu had come, he smiled and greeted him, "You haven't been by in such a long time. Do you want to start with ten baskets like last time?"

"En." Lu Qingjiu sat by the entrance. He looked at the ruckus outside, and saw that there even seemed to be people holding things like cameras. He asked, "What are those people doing?"

"Seems like they're filming some show." The owner served Lu Qingjiu his xiaolongbao. "They just came to town, they're so noisy."

Lu Qingjiu watched them curiously, but Bai Yuehu and Yin Xun were both rather uninterested. Rather than look at them, they preferred to aim their gazes at the steaming hot xiaolongbao.

Popping down one xiaolongbao after another, Yin Xun stuffed his face until he looked like a frog. The way he ate wasn't very elegant. Bai Yuehu's face clearly wasn't very big, but Lu Qingjiu couldn't see any hint of the dumplings after they entered his mouth. He really didn't know just how big his mouth was.

Lu Qingjiu watched for a while, then said, "These people don't seem to be from here."

They were all dressed very fas.h.i.+onably, not at all in line with the simple temperament of the town here. Next to them were even parked several vans, and there were people holding cameras, seeming to be filming something. Surrounded by all of them, seemed to be a young man, with beautiful silver-gray hair. Even though his back to Lu Qingjiu and he couldn't see his face, from his straight-backed figure, it could be seen that this person's temperament was different from that of other people.