The priest fell.

On the surface, this farce was considered over.

The underground shelter temporarily issued regulations banning all religious gatherings.

Big Sister Zhang was executed by firing squad.

She took full responsibility for organizing and inciting the crimes, sparing her son and others.

Minions like Yang Rong and Zhao Yao, who hadn’t directly caused any serious incidents, were spared the bullet.

They were directly merged into the search teams for labor.

The shelter’s prison didn’t keep idlers.

The most dangerous places relied on these search teams to risk their lives.

The authorities’ attitude toward these people was: if they can be used, use them; if they die, it doesn’t matter.

During their sentence, food was not provided.

How much they could eat each day depended entirely on the earnings from that day’s search; if lucky, they might scrape together some insect powder biscuits to fill their stomachs.

If a family had some resources, they could redeem their people.

Deng Mifen fought against objections and redeemed her younger brother.

Although he was back, during the day he still had to go out with the search and rescue team.

At night he could stay at home but still had a marker on his foot marking his sentence; if he reoffended during this time, the punishment would be harsher.

Deng Feiyu was exhausted every day, like a dead dog.

Whenever he ran into Yu Xifeng, Deng Feiyu would deliberately keep his distance.

Hu Qiangyong sold off his family assets to redeem Zhao Yao.

During the day, the whole family of four went out with the search and rescue team.

When Zhao Yao encountered dangerous tasks that had to be done, Hu Qiangyong and his two sons took turns stepping in.

Three able-bodied men were more useful than Zhao Yao in most situations.

The female prison guard in charge of Zhao Yao turned a blind eye and sometimes even gave some leniency.

Yang Rong wasn’t so lucky.

Xu Qingrou couldn’t come up with the resources.

Even if she could, she wouldn’t.

She tried to borrow from Hu Qiangyong but was kicked out.

Hu Qiangyong hadn’t forgotten that when Zhao Yao first went to that cursed Sun God Cult, it was Xu Qingrou who had instigated it.

Damn it — his own wife was in prison while Xu Qingrou was still free.

What a piece of work.

Only Xu Qingrou and Yang Sizhu were left.

Xu Qingrou held her daughter, overwhelmed by sorrow.

The heating was damaged; the eighth district where Xu Qingrou was located was the first to be affected.

Her place was already on the outskirts, so the temperature was barely bearable in normal times.

Now it dropped sharply, down to minus twenty degrees Celsius.

The two of them didn’t have enough fuel.

Yang Rong joined the search and rescue team, hoping for some relief from Xu Qingrou.

He stayed in the underground shelter at night with other labor prisoners.

Among the labor prisoners, there were factions to bow to.

If you couldn’t bring anything, you had to sleep in the worst, coldest places and do the hardest work.

Yang Rong hated Yu Xifeng so much he could have eaten him alive.

But all he could do every day was clean toilets, sleep near the door, and eat the one cold, moldy biscuit they gave him.

For water, he would catch a handful of ice from the surface, hold it in his mouth, and let it slowly melt and warm before swallowing.

When visiting the prison, Xu Qingrou gave dry words of comfort, full of emotional support but no practical help.

Through the bars, Yang Rong cursed loudly.

He called Xu Qingrou a fool, a waste of space, incapable of handling even a small matter — only knowing how to suck her own blood.

Xu Qingrou had lived with dignity her whole life; when had she ever fallen to this state?

She gritted her teeth and left.

Xu Qingrou ran to District Two to look for Yu Xifeng.

She had heard from Zhao Yao that Yu Xifeng was spotted in District Two.

She selfishly hoped Yu Xifeng could send supplies to redeem Yang Rong.

She didn’t even know that Yang Rong was the one Yu Xifeng had sent to prison.

Xu Qingrou couldn’t find Yu Xifeng and was turned away by Sister Yun.

Inter-district movement controls had tightened, and unnecessary travel was prohibited.

Xu Qingrou slipped in twice through loopholes.

Sister Yun called the patrol team to register her, and after that, forget about getting into the inner circle — Xu Qingrou couldn’t even get into District Two.

Yu Xifeng went into her space and collected a batch of chicken and duck eggs.

The salted egg yolks she ate at Zhang Qiu’s place tasted pretty good.

Yu Xifeng gave Zhang Qiu two sweet rice dumplings in exchange for his method of curing salted duck eggs.

Zhang Qiu thought that wrapping cooked glutinous rice in raw lettuce leaves didn’t deserve to be called a rice dumpling.

Yu Xifeng pretended not to hear and took a bucket of mud from Zhang Qiu.

Even though the mud was all used the same way, with the same procedures, for some reason the taste was just a bit off.

Old Cai had Zhang Qiu.

Sister Yun had a chubby cook.

Ordinary ingredients tasted three times better.

Yu Xifeng’s own cooking skills were ordinary, but with food and the conditions to heat and cook, she was already better off than 99% of the survivors.

Plus, she had stockpiled takeout, fresh-picked fruit, and a supermarket’s worth of snacks to satisfy her cravings.

That day when Yu Xifeng went into the space to collect eggs, she happily discovered that her big white goose had laid an egg.

Good news: the big white goose was female and laying eggs.

Bad news: the big white goose didn’t give the eggs to her.

After laying the egg, the big white goose stopped bothering the chickens and ducks, lying in a corner every day.

Yu Xifeng watched the goose for several days, sensing something was wrong, and went in to check.

The goose was brooding.

There was only one female goose in the chicken pen; if it kept brooding, the egg wouldn’t hatch into a gosling.

Yu Xifeng tried to pull the goose off the eggs.

The goose squeezed its body off the egg but protected it tightly with its wings, not giving an inch.

Yu Xifeng and the goose were at a stalemate for a while.

Finally, Little Orange jumped down from the roof and scratched the goose.

The cat and the goose fought fiercely, feathers flying, and the passing chickens got pecked in the crossfire.

Only then did Yu Xifeng manage to take the goose egg.

The goose cried out heart-wrenchingly behind her.

Yu Xifeng slipped away quickly.

The goose egg was large, requiring two hands to hold; the shell was smooth and white.

It was a beautiful egg.

Yu Xifeng examined it carefully and happily stored it.

No rush to eat it; she wanted to save more.

Three days later, the goose laid another egg.

The goose seemed emotionally attached to her first egg, so the second wasn’t a big deal.

After laying, the goose immediately went to eat from the food bowl.

Yu Xifeng arrived just in time to collect the second egg with ease.

With a second egg in hand, Yu Xifeng boiled the first one.

She had never really eaten goose eggs before and was excited to taste that large portion of egg white.

Boiled egg whites were so tasty, and such a big portion would be satisfying.

Thinking the egg was big, she boiled it an extra ten minutes.

She peeled off the shell full of anticipation.

Inside, the soft egg white smelled fragrant, and the yolk was three times the size of a regular chicken egg yolk.

Yu Xifeng took a bite and fell silent.

Such a big egg, such a taste.

Perhaps Yu Xifeng had become too picky; she found the whole egg tasteless but not worth wasting.

It was too fishy.

Eggs could be this fishy?

Yu Xifeng only took one bite and gave up on the idea of hatching the goose eggs.

The big white goose was ruling the chicken pen and was almost like a deity.

And goose eggs weren’t tasty.

Yu Xifeng didn’t give up; she stir-fried the second goose egg with chives.

She even added an extra spoonful of soy sauce.

But the fishy smell clung on and wouldn’t go away no matter what.