The water glass placed on the wooden table by the window is an enamel cup. It is completely white and has a red five-pointed star on the left side of the cup ring. It is probably made in Moscow. The inorganic glass enamel on the surface of the cup was exposed after inadvertent bumps during countless uses.
The metal underneath, exposed over time, will leave blood-red rust stains, which will always make people feel unhygienic at first glance.
The stove deep in the wooden house is lit, and white light shines through the window. At the intersection of light and fire, hot water pours from the kettle into the enamel cup on the table, and the colors of light and fire melt into the silver chain.
Falling, a lot of temperature passed away in the process, and white mist overflowed into the air.
Old Arian was lying on the fire bed, tilting his head and silently staring at the little girl pouring water with her back to him. She was not very tall, and she could only reach the kettle on the table by stepping on the wooden bench. Even after finishing
She carried the little boy on her back all the time during such dangerous moves. This effortful look always made people worry that she would lose her balance and fall.
After the water was poured, the enamel cup filled with hot water was brought to the fire pit. The little girl climbed onto the fire pit, placed the boy behind her in the warmest corner, held the enamel cup and knelt down next to old Alian.
He took a small sip first, then handed it over and put the rim of the cup to the old man's freeze-dried mouth.
The hot water touched the chapped lips, and while it squirmed slightly, a few red snakes spilled out of the fragile wound. Old Arian drank half of the water without saying a word. When he was about to continue drinking,
The water glass was moved away.
The girl silently put the remaining half of the water glass aside, probably because she was worried that the other person would drink too quickly.
After a while, the old hunter looked at the little girl and spoke. In a dry and hoarse voice, he tried to say a few words to communicate with the little girl. However, after a few seconds, he found that the little girl just turned back quietly after hearing his movements.
He looked at him indifferently without any communication or feedback. Only then did he realize that this beautiful girl with black hair might not be a Yakut.
"What's your name?" Old Arian chose to speak in Russian, his voice was very low, because every additional word he said was torture to his injured abdominal cavity.
The little girl took a small sip from the enamel cup, lowered her head and was quiet for a while, as if she was hesitating or thinking about something else. After a long time, she raised her head and spoke. "Yelena." She answered the old hunter's question.
, using pure Yakut language, "You should talk less."
She handed over the water glass in her hand again, and the old man came closer and sipped the warm water that was almost cold. She silently watched the old hunter drink water, which was what the female hunter asked her to do before entering the coniferous forest.
Among the survivors of this wooden house, there is probably only one female hunter who is willing to take care of this injured old man. Other than the female hunter, everyone else will probably just look at the death of this old man coldly, even if he is the real owner of this house.
Old Arian, who was drinking water, slowly turned his cloudy eyes, and from the slanted window not far away, he saw figures outside in the snow. With his sight, it was not difficult to see clearly a face that he could hardly forget.
Vika with a shotgun.
The little girl finished feeding the water in the enamel cup and was about to get off the kang to find a kettle to fill the water. But at this moment, a hand stretched out from behind her and held down her shoulders, pushing her onto the kang. On the other side, the enamel cup in his hand also fell out of his hand and fell to the ground, rolling far away.
The person who pushed the little girl away was Dusha. Wearing a bearskin hat, she was obviously aggressive and had bad intentions. Maybe after the huntress left, no one could confront her anymore, so now her purpose was clear.
"Old thing." Dusha stretched out her hand and grabbed the old hunter's collar, and with one hand forcefully pulled the frail old man up from the kang and brought him in front of her.
Their eyes faced each other, and the wrinkles on the old forehead were so thick that they could dig out black mud. The old, turbid eyes stared at this woman who was several times younger than him without blinking.
Dusha looked at the old guy, sniffed, licked her lips and whispered, "There is still food in this house, right? You hid it. Tell me where the food is."
"There are other cups in the house, at the bottom of the cupboard." said the old hunter.
The little girl raised her head and glanced at the old hunter, then silently got off the bed and walked to the cupboard. Sure enough, she found a set of enamel cups from the bottom layer and placed them one by one on the wooden table.
"You old thing, believe it or not, I will throw you out to feed the wolves." Dusha's expression was a bit scary. Although her mouth was vicious, she did not dare to do anything with her hands except to pull her collar. She would also turn her head to look out the window from time to time in worry. Has anyone noticed anything strange inside?
When she turned back, she specifically glared at the little girl who was filling the water again, probably to threaten her not to let her scream and talk. The little girl was also very cooperative, quietly doing her own thing without saying a word.
"Old man, I know you hid food. There can't be just a little food in this room." Dusha licked her dry lips and whispered, "Don't be so selfish, everyone is hungry now. If we starve to death, you won’t be able to leave alive.”
"Then let's die here together, bitch." The old hunter looked at Dusha and twitched his lips, his face full of disgust.
Dusha secretly cursed a Russian curse and threw the old hunter onto the fire bed. She didn't care that the old man's expression was contorted due to the pain of the wound. He walked repeatedly in the wooden house and rummaged through the cabinets from time to time as if he was having a convulsion. As if he suddenly remembered something, he rushed to the corner and fiddled with the cabinet shelves.
The old hunter looked at the woman's madness with cold eyes, and could tell that the woman was indeed very hungry. Even though her breakfast this morning included half of the share given by her brother, she was now so hungry that she was panicking. Even if she did nothing, the woman She is born to get hungry faster than men, but she has never been hungry before and now all she can think about is food.
Not to mention Dusha, even Vika and Adam who were in the snow were obviously exhausted. Their workload far exceeded that of Dusha who had done nothing. Although they were only hungry for a long time, they were still hungry. The obvious feedback is that the expression is impetuous, anxious, and restless.
It's only a matter of time before they become irritable and fearful. In this state of mind, it's very easy for them to fight and hurt each other. The evils caused by hunger gradually begin. Under this gradually increasing pressure, there are always some people.
will collapse prematurely.
"Ha!" Dusha suddenly let out a cry of surprise in the wooden house. She didn't expect that she actually found something after searching around like a catharsis.
It was a loose wooden board hidden behind a wooden cabinet with sundries in the corner. When Dusha kicked the wooden cabinet over like crazy, she suddenly noticed the wooden board that was in disrepair. Under the guidance of a woman's sixth sense,
She immediately bent over and moved the board, and sure enough, she found a hidden space behind it!
Dusha's scream of surprise attracted the attention of people outside the wooden house. Vika and Adam were the first to rush in. As soon as they rushed to the door, they saw the big butt squatting by the wall. Adam only looked at it a few more times.
As soon as I saw him, I was accidentally elbowed by Vika on the lower side of my left ribs as he entered the door, causing me to gasp in pain.
"What did you find? Food?" Vika hurried over and her face was filled with joy that she hadn't seen for a long time. There had been almost no good news this whole day, and now there was nothing more exciting than finding food.
Something that can cheer people up.
"Old guy, do you think I can't find it if you don't tell me? You selfish ghost, you deserve to starve to death, you old bone." Dusha excitedly groped around in the space behind the wooden board while cursing the fire kang.
old hunter.
At this time, Vika also turned his head and glanced over, only to find that the old man lying on his side was staring at Vika expressionlessly, without any trace of anger.
A few seconds later, Dusha, who was stroking in front of the wooden board, was suddenly shaken. Vika and Adam, who were walking over, both poked their heads to see what they had found to eat. In the end, they only saw Dusha, who was trembling inexplicably, slowly straightening up.
Holding a wooden toy in your hand?
A wooden toy car.
Dusha looked down at the toy car, which was poorly carved, and twitched the corner of her mouth a few times, then slammed it to the ground, lay down and put her whole arm in to rub it, and then one weird thing after another was touched.
Out came: Kaleidoscope, Wooden Dagger, Wooden Pistol, and Rubik's Cube.
They were all toys, and they were all old toys. In the end, Tusha even pulled out a chess set. She was stunned for a long time and turned around to see the old hunter's sarcastic smile before she realized that what she had found was not a food storage room at all.
, screamed angrily.
The old hunter also laughed amidst her screams. He was still laughing even though the pain involved in the wound was unbearable, until Dusha smashed the chess in her hand to the ground, and all the chess pieces inside burst out and scattered all over the floor.
, each piece is hand-carved from wood.
The cruel reality has been placed in front of them. There is indeed no food in this house. They have fallen into a crisis of running out of food. In just one day, they will sink deeper and deeper into the abyss of hunger.
With the intrusion of Vika and Adam, and even the commotion attracted the lieutenant colonel who was wandering around in the snow without knowing what he was planning, Dusha finally failed to find the trouble on the old hunter's head.
After everything, everyone returned to the wooden house to warm themselves by the fire, waiting for the one person who had not returned in the end.
The sky began to darken at six o'clock in the afternoon. When the cuckoo popped up the wall clock to tell the time, a figure finally appeared in the coniferous forest outside the window. It was a female hunter, returning from wading through the snow with a big bag in her hand.
This time, even the bandit brother and sister, who had always been at odds with her, opened the door and greeted her. Although they didn't say anything, their eyes were honestly fixed on the big bag.
The female hunter let go of the bag on the ground, walked directly to the table, picked up a cup, poured water and drank. Behind her, Dusha rushed over like a hungry wolf and opened the bag. When she saw what was inside
His expression became stiff when he was talking about something.
"Why is it all grass (pun intended)!?"
By the light of the stove, you can see clearly that the inside of the cloth bag is full of weed-like green plants, mixed with some black and red berries. The biggest comfort is that you can occasionally see a few mushrooms.
"Didn't you find the prey?" Lieutenant Colonel Andre took the bag from the frustrated Dusha, took a look at the harvest inside and asked in a deep voice.
"No, not a single rabbit or bird was seen. It was as if they were dead." The huntress drank the water and exhaled, shaking her head. "I only found some wild stone thorns and blueberries in the bushes. Originally, I thought
I dug mushrooms, but the snow was too thick, so it was time-consuming and laborious to dig. After a few rounds, I only found a few colorful mushrooms."
"Can these be eaten?" The lieutenant colonel took out a handful of serrated leaves from the cloth bag. Most of them were green, and a few were deep and bright red.
"Eleutherococcus senticosus." The female hunter who was resting on a chair reached out and grabbed a dark red leaf and threw it into her mouth and chewed it twice. "The red buds are the most delicious and have a special fragrance. People in the town
They often use it to cook hot pot, and the rhizomes can be used as medicine and should also be eaten together."
"It's impossible to fill your stomach with these things," Vika whispered.
"When it comes to eating, you still have to look at berries, but the snowstorm knocked out many berries in the bushes. I walked around and only found these. There may be more in the deeper woods, but I didn't dare to go." Female
The hunter put down the water glass and said, "This is all I can eat today."
"Eating grass?" Adam looked at the leaves in the lieutenant colonel's hand with a strange expression.
"It stands to reason that a good hunter will never starve to death in the wilds of Siberia. He will only get fatter and fatter." The female hunter swallowed the sprouts she was chewing, "but I feel that this place is no longer the one I recognize.
That Siberian wilderness.”
"That snowstorm," said the lieutenant colonel, "something must have happened that we don't know about."
"That's for sure." said the huntress, "but no matter what, we have to set off early tomorrow morning and find a way to get out of here, otherwise we won't even have the strength to walk if we delay any longer."
The severe cold in Siberia is no worse than that in other temperate regions. Any action here will consume a lot of physical energy. Skipping meals for one day will literally deprive you of all mobility for the next day.
Just as the old people said during the famine, real hunger is when a chicken passes by in front of you, and you don't even have the strength to catch it. You can only watch it flutter past, leaving the chicken feathers all over the ground.
It was the despair of exhaustion, and it was also the despair that everyone in the cabin was about to face. The morning meal had been exhausted after the long journey, and everyone's stomachs were now filled with acid, and the cold accelerated blood circulation.
This will cause their physical strength to be depleted faster, and soon they will begin to burn body fat to support their actions.
"Do you think those things will appear tonight?" The huntress looked up and asked the lieutenant colonel.
"I don't know." The lieutenant colonel replied honestly. He turned to stare at the coniferous forest outside the window. "I only know that tonight may be our last chance to fight back."
"Yes." The huntress paused and nodded silently.
After tonight, once the next morning arrives, twelve hours later, the only people left in this room will be hungry people with their chests pressed against their backs, their physical strength reduced to the extreme. Not to mention those terrifying devils.
, even any wild wolf can plunge them into a situation of eternal destruction.
The kettle was boiling in front of the stove, and night fell quickly.