In a frigid apocalypse, I went on a shopping spree with the reborn.

The experience of handling the power generation equipment boosted Jiang Qingyue's confidence, and she immediately began preparing for greenhouse cultivation.

The most basic requirement for growing vegetables is temperature.

This is perfectly fine.

All you need to do is dig a separate compartment in the shelter, run a pipe through the power generation compartment, and while generating electricity, the heat will flow through the pipe into the vegetable growing compartment, achieving multiple benefits in one go.

Then there's the lighting.

This isn't a big problem. She bought enough light bulbs and can generate her own electricity, so she can completely use light to replace sunlight, and vegetables can still photosynthesize.

Then there's nutrition, which is a bit tricky.

Even if she eats and excretes a lot, she can't produce much natural fertilizer. Besides, using her own fertilizer, even after fermentation, to grow vegetables is still a bit unsettling.

She doesn't want to do that unless absolutely necessary.

Besides this method, there's also wood ash. There's no shortage of that stuff in the future. She needs to generate electricity, which requires burning a lot of firewood every day. There's plenty of wood ash, but even plain wood ash isn't enough.

Jiang Qingyue took a small notebook and noted that there were only a few days left until the trading area reopened on August 1st.

As soon as the trading area opens, she needs to seize the time. Besides buying special items, the most important things are seeds and various fertilizers.

For example, urea, and other nutrient solutions needed for plant growth.

Huffing and puffing, Jiang Qingyue spent another day digging out a 30-square-meter cubicle.

"They're a bit small. They're fine for us to eat, but they wouldn't be enough to sell. But that's okay. We'll experiment first, and once we have some experience, we can dig more out from the side."

With the land secured, Jiang Qingyue began installing the heating pipes.

The entire cubicle was divided into neat grids using pipes, and when you stood at the door, it looked like you had turned a brand new page in a notebook.

Each small compartment is surrounded by heating pipes, ensuring that every vegetable will have its own private room in the future.

The room that previously supplied electricity was renovated. The heat and smoke generated by the fire first enter the planting room and are then transmitted to every part through pipes.

In this way, the secondary smoke extinguisher seems a bit redundant, as the smoke and some of the heat disappear after passing through the planter, and it's impossible for any of it to drift out.

"Not bad, not bad." Jiang Qingyue was very satisfied with her masterpiece.

Looking at the neat and tidy planting room, she felt that she had unlocked a new skill - bricklaying.

Although pipes made of mud and stones will inevitably crack over time, they can be repaired simply by applying more mud, so Jiang Qingyue was quite satisfied.

"Next, we'll chop wood."

Jiang Qingyue left the shelter with her tools, her heart heavy with worry.

At minus fifty degrees Celsius, almost everything except for a few extremely cold-resistant trees freezes to death.

She was also lucky; the shelter was surrounded by pine forests, which are extremely cold-resistant.

But that's only now. When the third cold wave hits, the pine trees probably won't be able to hold on, and they'll die.

Although a dead tree can still be used as firewood, it will not grow back once it dies, and every tree cut down is one less to grow.

It is a non-renewable resource.

"From now on, we'll have to go further and further away to cut down trees."

Sighing, Jiang Qingyue kept a close eye on her surroundings as she chopped down trees.

She hadn't forgotten Yu You's tragic fate. According to his underlings, Yu You was killed while chasing a white-haired animal.

If the other party can hurt Yu You, then they can hurt her too.

Fortunately, we didn't see any animals during the day, neither white nor black.

When Jiang Qing returned home that day, she sighed and laughed at the same time.

The speed at which firewood is being chopped is many times faster than before, and in just one day, the remaining space in the shelter has been completely filled.

If we cut down more trees tomorrow, there won't even be enough space to store them, so we'll have to expand the shelter again tomorrow.

After these days of continuous expansion, Jiang Qingyue roughly estimated that the current shelter is about 120 square meters.

This is not small at all; her house in Xingfu Community is only about 100 square meters after deducting the common area.

"What should we eat today?"

After glancing around, Jiang Qingyue decided to simply have a bowl of beef noodles.

I grabbed a vacuum-packed bag of fresh beef slices from the frozen section... well, actually it had been frozen for almost a month and wasn't fresh anymore.

But the taste is still good. She bought it herself, cut it herself, and wrapped it herself. One package weighs exactly one pound.

I took a pound of dried noodles.

One pound of noodles and one pound of meat were cooked into a large bowl, along with some dehydrated vegetables and seasonings.

She slurped it down and finished it in no time. Feeling her stomach was nine-tenths full, Jiang Qingyue ran to the food section and pulled out a loaf of bread that was about to expire.

After finishing the bread, I felt like I could have a little more, so I grabbed a bottle of milk to sew up.

Only when she could eat no more did she finally lie down comfortably on the bed.

I probably ate too much and felt a bit dizzy from the carbon dioxide, so I didn't check the messages on my personal computer that night and just fell asleep.

Eating too much the night before didn't affect Jiang Qingyue's appetite. Her digestion is excellent now, and she can eat a big bowl of food after a good night's sleep.

Her rice bowl has changed from being the size of her palm to the size of a rice cooker.

After finishing her meal, she began to expand the shelter, digging out enough space to store firewood.

She could have left the firewood outside, but that would have been too conspicuous. She felt she didn't have the absolute ability to protect herself, so everything had to be kept secret, even if it took more time.

After digging for two days straight and using up all the bags I had prepared before the apocalypse, I finally had to open the shelter door and carry them out to empty them.

However, when she opened the door that day, she was stunned.

Lots of firewood.

Jiang Qingyue thought she was seeing things, so she rubbed her eyes and looked again. There was still a lot of firewood piled up at the door.

The lengths were the same as the ones she had chopped herself, but the firewood piled up at the door was all round logs, unlike the thick ones she had chopped herself that could be split. These were all unsplit round logs.

The sections were stacked very neatly, one by one.

After seeing it clearly, Jiang Qingyue quickly closed the door of the shelter, retreated, and began looking for weapons.

With the composite bow and stun gun prepared, and the large axe also brought along, they carefully reopened the shelter door.

"Chirp, chirp."

As soon as Jiang Qingyue opened the door, she heard a short, sharp cry.

Following the sound, a little further away, a white, furry creature was carrying a piece of wood much larger than itself, walking towards them.

In an instant, Jiang Qingyue tensed up. Without even needing to confirm, she knew that this must be the white animal that had injured Yu You.

The other creature seemed to know that Jiang Qingyue was afraid, so it stopped moving forward, pointed at the wood in its hand with its front paw, and kept chirping.

What the hell are you yelling about?

Jiang Qingyue was completely confused, but she understood that it didn't seem to have any ill intentions towards her.

Looking again at the cuts on the firewood next to him, wow, upon closer inspection, they were remarkably similar to the wounds on Yu You's legs.

"So they all gnawed on it with their mouths."

That's it?

Jiang Qingyue couldn't help but wonder, because the little guy in front of her was just too small.

It was not much bigger than an adult's palm, thin and small, and looked like a baby rabbit that had just been born a few days ago.

It's hard to imagine that such a tiny creature could gnaw so much firewood for her in just two days.

Not only that, they even moved it to the entrance of the shelter.

"Chirp, chirp."

Seeing that Jiang Qingyue didn't move and his body remained tense, the little white creature tilted its head, thought for a moment, adjusted the direction of the wood, and pushed it hard.

The firewood rolled to the entrance of Jiang Qingyue's shelter, then chirped and gesticulated wildly with its two front paws.

Jiang Qingyue said, "I didn't understand."

"Chirp chirp."

The little one got anxious, pointing first to the pine forest where she often cut down trees, then to the neatly stacked firewood at the entrance of the shelter, and then to her own belly.

Belatedly realizing what was happening, Jiang Qingyue hesitated and asked, "You mean, you help me chop wood, and I'll give you something to eat?"

"Chirp chirp chirp chirp!"

The little guy nodded vigorously, and Jiang Qingyue saw joy in its tiny, beady eyes.

It was as if it were saying: You idiot, you finally guessed right.

Jiang Qingyue neither agreed nor refused, her mind racing with calculations.

Judging from the amount of firewood next to it, its chopping speed is not slow, no slower than her after her body was strengthened. It's just that because of its small size, it takes a lot of effort to move it over, and it can only move one piece at a time.

There are so many people at the entrance; I don't know how many times I've run around there.

It's small, so you can probably feed it well with just a little money.

What's this called?

Cutting one ton of firewood requires only two ounces of rice.

Where can you find such cheap part-time work?

However, its combat power is not low; even Yu You couldn't defeat it. She is slightly stronger than Yu You, but she probably still can't defeat it.

Trading with it is actually very dangerous.

But then Jiang Qingyue thought again, and it seemed she had no choice. If she didn't make the deal, she would offend the other party, and war might break out right now.

Even without war, she couldn't drive it away. It was so small, and with the vast expanse of white snow, it could hide anywhere, and she would never find it, no matter how long she searched.

On the contrary, it can always be lurking nearby, ready to strike her unexpectedly. If she gets hit by one of its attacks, she could be killed.

From this perspective, having more friends is naturally better than having more enemies.

After thinking it over, Jiang Qingyue quickly nodded: "Okay, but you can't hurt me. Of course, I will never hurt you either. Let's get along peacefully, and use words instead of physical force..."

As Jiang Qingyue spoke, she noticed the teeth marks on the firewood beside her and remembered Yu You's wound. Suddenly, she realized that she couldn't speak either.

Its mouth is not the same as her mouth.

"Anyway, you can't fight, you can't bite me, and you can't scratch me with your claws."

"Chirp chirp." The little guy nodded.

"Alright, the deal is done just like that." Jiang Qingyue picked up the piece of wood that had rolled over and put it aside. "Wait here for a bit, I'll go get you some food."

Not knowing what it liked, Jiang Qingyue rummaged through the food area for a while.

I grabbed a loaf of bread and a bag of salmon, but then, thinking that salmon looked a bit like a rabbit, I went back and grabbed a bag of dried fruits and vegetables, specifically choosing one that contained dried carrots.

"They look similar, and their tastes are probably similar to rabbits too."

Jiang Qingyue confidently took it to the door.

The little guy was already sitting there with his paws tucked in, waiting.

Jiang Qingyue stood a little distance away and showed it each item one by one, even opening them for it to smell: "Look, what do you like to eat? If you like them all, you can take them all."

It sniffed it, shook its head, sniffed it again, and shook its head again.

Does this mean they don't like any of them?

Jiang Qingyue was bewildered. Did she have to eat fresh carrots? But she didn't have any.

"Chirp chirp chirp chirp." Knowing she couldn't understand, the little guy suddenly took a few steps forward and pointed to the door of the shelter.

Jiang Qingyue quickly stepped back, watching it warily.

Fortunately, it didn't do anything. Instead, it made a gesture of pressing its face against the crack in the door and sucking wildly. Then, with a look of ecstasy, it stuck out its little pink tongue and licked it, pointing with its front paws into the shelter.

Jiang Qingyue paused for a moment, then pieced together its series of actions, and suddenly had a flash of inspiration, slapping her forehead: "You mean, you smelled that fragrance coming from inside earlier, you liked that smell, and you wanted to eat that, right?"

"Chirp chirp!" The little guy nodded vigorously.

Jiang Qingyue felt relieved and recalled what she had eaten in the past two days.

She's eaten bread these past few days, and she's already tried this one, but she doesn't like it.

Then we ate boiled seafood, beef noodles, and lobster porridge.

"Wait here, I'll get it for you."

Jiang Qingyue didn't know which smell it was coming from, but the stove inside was burning brightly, so it was convenient to try making each dish.

Besides, she was going to chop firewood after she finished shoveling the soil today, and now that it has chopped the firewood for her, she has plenty of time.

While Jiang Qingyue was cooking, the little guy would wait at the door. Even after Jiang Qingyue closed the shelter door, it would still wait there with its paws tucked in.

It was a tiny, pitiful little thing.

Jiang Qingyue opened her mouth, hesitated for a moment, and ultimately decided not to invite it in. Although it seemed friendly to her, Jiang Qingyue had not forgotten Yu You's fate.

This tiny creature, no bigger than the palm of your hand, is even stronger than her in combat.

Moreover, its small size allows it to unleash its full fighting power in any environment.

She was different. In the confined space, she couldn't use her skills at all, especially with a compound bow. In the cramped space of the shelter, it was no different from holding a piece of firewood.

Soon, Jiang Qingyue cooked a small pot of seafood stew, including the mantis shrimp and whelks she had eaten a few days ago, and made an identical dipping sauce.

Then it was brought to the door.

"Try it, is this what you smell?"

They even thoughtfully peeled the mantis shrimp, dipped it in the dipping sauce, and then carefully fed it to Jiang Qingyue's mouth. Throughout the entire process, Jiang Qingyue remained highly tense, fearing that it might suddenly attack. She fed it with one hand while preparing to retaliate with the other.

The furry creature just sniffed it, without even sticking out its tongue to lick it, and shook its head at her.

"Not this one? Then wait a little longer." Jiang Qingyue threw the mantis shrimp into her mouth and ate the rest.

She took some noodles and beef from the shelter and cooked a small bowl of beef noodles. The dehydrated vegetables and seasonings were exactly the same as what she had eaten that day, to ensure the taste was exactly the same.

Before she could even take the food out, Jiang Qingyue heard the furry creature lying at the entrance of the shelter, chirping incessantly.

The voice was tight, rapid, and excited.

Even before it was served, Jiang Qingyue knew it was just right; the fluffy little thing wanted was beef noodles.