After the heavy snow, the roads became difficult to traverse.
Fortunately, the treehouse was not far from the dilapidated temple, so Wen Chaosheng reached it in little time.
His thinking was simple: if the woman was dead, he would have to quickly find a place to bury her.
This was not spring or summer; it was deep winter.
Regardless of what trouble the woman had, as long as he found a random spot and dug a pit, after a night of snow, everything would be erased, leaving nothing behind.
The reason he chose to save this strange woman, covered in injuries, was simply because Wen Chaosheng saw that despite her wounds, she still had a trace of Qi remaining, not yet dead.
Thinking of how he, too, was living so miserably, he couldn't help but feel a touch of pity.
In Wen Chaosheng's eyes, he could die at any moment, tomorrow or the day after, from an illness or an accident, either of which could claim his life.
This world was not without cultivators who absorbed Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi and refined their bones and physiques.
While they couldn't control the wind to pluck stars or boil oceans, their strength was beyond what Mortals could achieve.
However, these things were too far removed from Wen Chaosheng; he dared not think about them, nor could he.
The only thing he could think about was surviving first.
Precisely because he was weak, he held an extraordinary reverence for life.
Upon arriving at the dilapidated temple, Wen Chaosheng pushed aside the weeds behind the stone statue, preparing to collect the woman's body.
In his eyes, this woman could not, and should not, be alive.
But as his hands parted the weeds, what he saw were a pair of cold and indifferent eyes.
A night of wind and snow, sharp as blades, she had endured it.
For some reason, Wen Chaosheng was actually stunned by the light from those eyes.
The moment the woman opened her eyes, he smelled the scent of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
Perhaps using these four words to describe the current situation was not entirely accurate, but seeing that gaze, Wen Chaosheng had an intuition.
That was, the woman before him had killed people.
Countless people.
But the terrifying killing intent in the woman's eyes only lingered for a moment, then returned to the lifeless look of last night, her spirit dispirited and her face full of Death Qi.
"I'm starting to regret saving you," Wen Chaosheng said truthfully.
"Your injuries are all from weapons.
Although I'm not a Jianghu person, I can tell that they weren't left by the same type of weapon.
Someone like you... is bound to be accompanied by trouble, and great trouble at that."
The woman didn't reply, her breath weak, as if she was pondering, or perhaps waiting for Death.
Seeing her like this, Wen Chaosheng frowned slightly and asked again, "What's your name?"
This time, the woman actually looked up at him, hesitated for a moment, and said, "A Shui."
Wen Chaosheng was startled: "No surname?"
The woman's voice was low and faint, as if she was talking to herself: "I used to, but it was left in a city."
"A fire broke out in the city, burning for seven days and seven nights, and my surname was burned away."
Wen Chaosheng didn't understand what the woman was saying, but he knew that if the woman in front of him wasn't mentally ill, she had an untold story.
However, all of that had to be put aside for now.
If the woman died, it would actually simplify things for Wen Chaosheng; it would just be a matter of finding a pit in the snow and burying her.
He wasn't that interested in the woman's story.
Now that the woman wasn't dead, he didn't know what to do with her for a while.
"What are your plans next?" Wen Chaosheng asked casually, implying that he wanted the woman to leave quickly.
His food was hard to come by, especially in winter; an extra mouthful of food might mean an extra day of life, and Wen Chaosheng absolutely did not want to share it with a stranger of unknown origin.
But now that the woman wasn't dead, if she insisted on staying, and he didn't give her food, and she eventually died in front of him, Wen Chaosheng subconsciously felt that he had killed her.
He was certainly capable of doing such a thing, but it would create an unnecessary knot in his heart, making him uncomfortable.
At present, the best outcome was for the woman to leave on her own.
When asked this question, A Shui's eyes remained unfocused for a long time, finally saying in a daze, "I came back to see my parents."
Wen Chaosheng raised an eyebrow: "In Ku Hai County?"
A Shui nodded slightly.
Wen Chaosheng asked again, "What are their names?"
A Shui: "My father's surname is Yun, and he's called Yun Zijing."
"My mother's surname is Gou, and she's called Gou Yu."
Wen Chaosheng chuckled: "Never heard of them, but you're from Qi.
If you have identification, you can go directly into the county town and find the county magistrate.
But looking at you, you don't have any silver, and given Liu Jinshi's disposition, he probably won't help you..."
He paused, then suddenly declared decisively: "No, he definitely won't help you."
"Anyway, if you want to go, then go.
The county should be better than out here."
A Shui lay in a pile of weeds, her hair disheveled, looking more like a refugee than Wen Chaosheng.
"I haven't been back for many years; I don't know the way, and I don't know anyone."
Wen Chaosheng scoffed: "What good is telling me that?"
"Do I know them?"
Only then did A Shui remember that Wen Chaosheng had said last night that he was a refugee, not from Qi, and mostly couldn't enter the county town.
Wen Chaosheng tidied himself up, felt his clothes weren't warm enough, stuffed some more weeds into his deerskin, and prepared to leave.
"Let me tell you, there's little to eat outside.
When the snow covers everything in winter, there are no wild vegetables, and the small river will freeze solid.
Breaking the ice is a hassle, and even if you guard it all day, you might not see many fish."
"No fish, then I have to eat the food Dog Master shares."
"But Dog Master has been aging fast these past two years, and this winter is especially cold.
If I eat too much, I'm afraid Dog Master won't make it through."
He said, turning back to A Shui to summarize: "Anyway, there's nothing for you to eat."
"If you stay here, you'll die sooner or later."
A Shui seemed indifferent to her predicament, instead asking Wen Chaosheng an utterly unimportant question: "Who is Dog Master?"
Wen Chaosheng pointed his hand towards the county town.
"In another hour, you'll see him... I warn you, no matter how hungry you are, don't even think about Dog Master."
"Otherwise, I'll fight you to the death."
"I mean it."
A Shui didn't say anything, closed her eyes, and went back to sleep.
Wen Chaosheng didn't have time to waste with her; from his observation, the snow probably wouldn't stop for long, perhaps it would continue to fall in half a day, and foraging was urgent.
Walking another five li to the south, past the continuous white hills and ravines, there was a stone bridge.
Frost and snow covered it with a thin layer, but it still didn't hide the marks of time.
This bridge was older than Wen Chaosheng.
Beneath the bridge, a ditch about a zhang wide was the small river Wen Chaosheng spoke of.
But at this moment, after a night of heavy snow, the small river was long gone, covered along with the ice surface in the vast expanse.
Wen Chaosheng searched according to the marks he had left yesterday, finally finding several wooden sticks inserted straight into the ice.
These wooden sticks were intentionally left by Wen Chaosheng last night, each cut from trees that had never withered, and fixed in the mud beneath the ditch.
Last night, the ice was still thin, so doing this wasn't too strenuous.
Now, Wen Chaosheng would rely on these wooden sticks to break the ice.
He pulled out an axe from his deerskin; this was a treasure Zhang Hunter had given him, a hammer and axe combined.
He struck it hard at an angle against the frozen point where the wooden stick met the ice, and immediately a few cracks appeared around it.
Doing this wouldn't actually save him much effort, but it could cleverly reduce the recoil on his tiger's mouth.
In this season, he wasn't warmly dressed, didn't eat enough, and his limbs were always cold.
If the recoil was too strong, his tiger's mouth simply couldn't withstand it.
If a large wound appeared, he would have a difficult winter.
As Wen Chaosheng hammered the wooden stick dozens of times, the surrounding ice surface became covered with cracks.
He retreated several steps, standing in a safe position, and delivered a final blow to the heavily cracked area.
Crack!
The ice shattered, revealing a large hole.
Wen Chaosheng stared into the hole, using a wooden stick to check the approximate thickness of the ice below.
It wasn't very thick.
Beneath the ice, the water was as clear as a mirror.
Wen Chaosheng squatted beside it and observed for a while, seeing no swimming fish.
He felt no discouragement about this, because Wen Chaosheng wasn't even there for fish.
He had lived in this area for dozens of li outside for three years, and no one knew better than him whether there were fish in the ditch in winter.
The fishermen of Ku Hai County would go to Chensha River in the north and Mian Lake in the east, but they would never come to the south, because this small ditch rarely had fish even in spring and summer.
Wen Chaosheng broke the ice to measure its thickness.
What he was looking for were the hibernating frogs here.
Ordinary frogs prefer to hibernate in caves or under thick layers of fallen leaves.
The cold of winter helps them repel almost all predators, and they are also very unlikely to freeze to death, so a slightly hidden place is enough for hibernation.
But the frogs of this world are different.
They like to hibernate in groups in moist soil.
Having determined today's search area, Wen Chaosheng immediately began his work.
Although these frogs were rumored to be poisonous, their toxicity disappeared after being thoroughly cooked, and they tasted very delicious.
They were Wen Chaosheng's main food source in winter.
It was just a pity that Ku Hai County was barren.
Although the number of these frogs was not small, their distribution was too scattered, and with bad luck, he might not find even one in two or three days.