Chapter 168 - Fishermen

 Zhang Yi took a little something to eat and gave it to Zhou Hai Mei.

 Her eyes lit up after seeing the food, and after thanking Zhang Yi with her last bit of reserve, she sat on the sofa and wolfed it down.

 Zhang Yi waited until she finished eating before he said to her, "Things are all clear to you, right?"

 Zhou Hai Mei nodded, "I know, you are finding me a home right?"

 Women in their forties were already able to look at things more fairly.

 Perhaps people of their age didn't value the so-called love as much.

 Getting married and living a life was all about a good match.

 As long as the conditions can be met, they can be together.

 So when Yang Mi told her that she could find her a long-term meal ticket, she agreed without hesitation.

 The only regret was - she had originally thought that the man was Zhang Yi!

 With Yang Mi laying the groundwork, Zhang Yi saved himself a lot of work.

 Before he set off, he solemnly reminded the two that the matter about the safe house and the shelter had to be kept secret!

 It must absolutely not be told to anyone from the outside world in any way.

 Otherwise, it was highly likely to cause greedy people to come over and snatch it.

 "If I were to know that anyone had leaked information about this place, then there would be no need for her to live."

 Zhang Yi's tone was flat and cold when he said this, but his eyes carried pure killing intent.

 Both women were terrified and hastily stated that they wouldn't do anything stupid.

 Zhang Yi nodded and did not say anything more.

 These two women were not young, and those who worked in the entertainment industry were not dumb and sweet, and would not do anything stupid like that.

 He instructed them just as a precaution.

 After explaining, he let Yang Mi go back inside the room and then brought Zhou Hai Mei to prepare to go back to the Yuelu neighborhood.

 The cold wind was sullen, and the icy north wind wrapped in ice and snow blew across the surface of the Heron River.

 Compared to when the snowstorm had just arrived, the falling snow had become much smaller nowadays.

 After all, under the extremely cold low temperature, there weren't as many water molecules in the air that could condense into ice.

 It was just that this low temperature still persisted, and the cold winds were as piercing as usual.

 Adjacent to Yunque Manor across the river was a town called Xu Jia Town.

 One river away was the villa area where the richest people in Tianhai City lived, while the other side was a rural area on the outskirts of the city.

 In the past, the people of Xu Jia Town made their living by growing grains and vegetables.

 Families built greenhouses and grew out grains and vegetables, which they then sold to the downtown area of Tianhai City.

 For many years, although they weren't as wealthy as the people in the downtown area, they lived a pretty good life.

 And after the extreme cold storm came, their lives were much more comfortable than those in the city.

 Although they also had to face the cold and low temperature, they did not lack in food.

 Moreover, their physical fitness was even better than that of the city dwellers.

 It was slightly ironic that with the arrival of an ice storm, they were instead living quite comfortably.

 At noon, it was also the time when the temperature was the highest every day.

 The outside temperature rose back up to minus sixty degrees, and the wind and snow were also slightly less severe.

 Above the Heron River, a group of villagers from Xu Dong Village who had wrapped themselves up tightly appeared.

 They came onto the ice, all holding various tools in their hands.

 There were also five or six dogs brought in, all of which were sled dogs like Alaskans and Huskies.

 But under the low temperature, the dogs were all wrapped in cotton coats.

 The people of Xu Dong Village treasured these dogs very much, treating them even more attentively than themselves.

 Because nowadays in the south, they were the only ones that could still be used as animal power.

 Only at this time, these sled dogs were different from the kind of silly look they usually saw.

 Their eyes were filled with fierce hostility, their mouths showed sharp teeth at the corners, and their fur was stained with blood.

 Led by a black-faced man in his fifties, the group of people arrived on the ice.

 The black-faced man walked back and forth on the ice a few times, sometimes getting down to look deeper into the ice.

 After a while, he adopted a stick inside his hand and knocked somewhere.

 "Right here, dig!"

 As soon as his words fell, the dozen or so people following behind him immediately came up, with several large ice-breaking equipment placed on top of the plow behind them.

 The people lifted the equipment down and placed it in the designated spot, then they tied a rope around the dog.

 "Run, run!"

 The person who kept the dogs yanked them firmly with the ropes and shouted twice, and several dogs began to run forward.

 At the same time driving the icebreaker to chisel through the ice.

 With the dogs' animal power, the efficiency of breaking the ice was very fast, and it didn't take long to dig a huge round hole in the ice.

 "All right, all right! I dug up fish!"

 The black-faced man in the lead reached out his hand to greet him, and the dog breeder hurriedly tugged the dog to a halt.

 The crowd worked together to lift the icebreaker out, and a dozen or so fish could be seen among the broken ice below. All maintain the state of freezing to death when stuck inside the ice.

 After the ice, the oxygen concentration inside the river became low, and the fish floated upwards in order to obtain oxygen.

 Although they didn't end up finding a hole to breathe, they also died near the surface of the ice.

 This provided good food for the fishermen of Xu Jia Town's generation.

 As long as they broke the ice, they could dig up frozen fish from inside the ice.

 This also became their main source of protein.

 A group of people were busy as usual, and the person leading the group was Xu Dahai from Xu Dong Village in Xu Jia Town.

 In the past, he was just a fisherman with an average status in the village.

 However, after the end of the world, he became the most important person in Xu Dong Village by virtue of his fishing skills.

 For example, when he comes out to fish now, he is only responsible for designating the place, and other people are responsible for doing the physical labor.

 A villager who kept dogs, Xu Manjin, came over and chatted with Xu Dahai.

 "Second Uncle, do you think everyone in the city is freezing to death in this cold weather?"

 Xu Dahai tucked in his hand and snorted disdainfully at the words.

 "These city people of theirs, they don't even know how to grow a crop on weekdays, they rely on us landowners to feed them."

 "Nowadays, I'm afraid that it's difficult to even eat a full meal, I think na, it's almost dead already."

 Xu Manjin nodded and said thankfully, "Fortunately, we are rural people. This weather is even worse, we have food inside our home and strength in our hands, so we are not afraid of not surviving!"

 "It's just that this weather, the cold is too oozing. When can we pass?"

 Xu Manjin looked at the luxury villa area across the river, with a hint of smug contempt in his eyes, but at the same time there was some confusion about the future.

 It wasn't true that they could survive, but this kind of life was clearly not what they wanted.

 Xu Dahai frowned slightly, his eyes squinting slightly in the wind and snow.

 "It's hard to say yo! But with this weather, we can live. As long as we're willing to work, we're not afraid of being starved to death!"

 "Back when I was in Mohe, the temperature wasn't much higher than here. We were still swimming bare-chested back then!"

 A few people were chatting about nothing.

 In the past, they always liked to get together and discuss international events, and they would always talk about Europe and the United States, and they would disparage other countries in their behavior.

 Nowadays, without a source of news, and in no mood to care about foreign affairs, they could only talk about how miserable the city people were living.

 Suddenly, a sound of an engine rang out in the distance.

 It came from right across the river.

 Although the sound was not very loud, in this ice world where everything was silent, it was particularly obvious.

 Xu Manjin froze, "Why do I seem to hear the sound of a motorcycle?"

 Xu Dahai pricked up his ears and listened carefully, then his face was filled with dismay.

 There was no mistaking it!

 It sounded like the fishing boat he drove when he was fishing.

 "How can there be a car at this hour? Aren't all the people in the city freezing to death?"

 A group of people all put down the work in their hands and looked in the direction where the sound of the engine came from.