Let me tell you, our big sheep at home is amazing!

After returning from Night Fall Town, life has returned to normal. According to reason, I should go and explore the Southern Plains and Guli Mountain. But I really don't want to be separated from my wife. Those who have had a girlfriend would understand that once that sticky feeling arises, even five seconds of separation feels too long.

So I just stay at home every day, feeling a bit out of sorts for two consecutive days.

The reminder to do something comes from the persistently cold weather. When I wake up in the morning, I can clearly feel that the temperature may not even reach double digits. Even if I'm unwilling to accept it, winter is gradually approaching.

Counting the fur, there are a total of 41 pieces. Besides fur, there is nothing in the house that can keep us warm. After learning the lesson from getting a cold in the last rain, I understand that I should prepare for the winter now. So I turned my attention to that big sheep...

The big sheep is very obedient. Even without being tied up, it won't run around. So I have to make it stay away from home, just in case one day my wife doesn't want to go hunting and decides to have this sheep for lunch. Speaking of sheep, naturally we have to think about its wool. I can get some wool from this sheep and maybe we can use it to keep warm during winter.

With such a silly idea, I started researching how to shear the wool...

Why not just use scissors? Of course, I have considered this question. And the reason I didn't go to shear the wool was - what if the sheep doesn't have wool in winter and freezes to death?

Although this sheep is livestock, it is still a living being. If it could talk, it would definitely protest to me: "I have pulled the cart for the family, carried goods for the family, don't shave my wool, I want to see the leader!" Whenever I think of this, I can't go through with it. When those five people died, I didn't even blink my eyes, but now I hesitate to shear the sheep's wool. Sigh...

But these are two different things. This sheep has contributed to the family, while those five people wanted to harm me. The nature of the two situations is not the same.

There's no way, I can't bear to shear the wool, so I can only find another way - plucking it!

In the skit performed by Zhao Benshan, there is a line that says "plucking socialist wool." I don't care if our family is socialist, but plucking wool is still feasible. The specific process is to sit next to the sheep with a small stool, put some water in a wooden basin, and reach into the thick wool with my hand to grab it. Each time I grab, some loose wool comes off in my hand. The plucked wool is put into the basin of water so that it won't be blown away by the wind.

Within an hour, I can collect a lot of wool. In addition, the sheep is quite large in size, so this method is pretty good.

Handling the wool is a bit troublesome. I don't know if it's because I lack experience, but the wool is very dirty. It needs to be washed twice, then dried in the sun, and finally stored in fur. So plucking the wool has become one of my daily tasks. My wife, under my influence, also joins me in plucking the wool, but from the look in her eyes, it's obvious that she is more interested in the sheep's legs than the wool.

After five full days of tormenting the big sheep, we couldn't pluck even half a basin of wool...

Since that fierce battle, I have often been awakened by nightmares. The bizarre and eerie scenes in the dreams are indescribable. I even get scared again when I wake up next to my sleeping wife. I'm afraid that one day Medusa will leave me, I'm afraid that the passionate werewolf will suddenly attack me, I'm afraid that the five dead people will come back for revenge...

"What's wrong?"

Once again, I am awakened from the dream, and perhaps due to my exaggerated movements, I have also awakened my wife.

"It's nothing, nothing..."

"It's getting colder recently."

"Yeah, it is."

"Are you cold?"

She places her hand on my chest, and my racing heart gradually calms down.

"I'm not cold."

I embrace her without saying a word. There are many things weighing on my mind, but I can't express them. I really want to talk to her about Night Fall Town, about my past experiences, but there is an invisible wall. Through that wall, no matter how we call each other, we can't hear a sound.

Everyone has pressure wherever they go. There is no one without pressure. Although we can choose to escape, after we escape, the pressure will multiply like cockroaches.

There isn't much way to relieve stress here, the only choice is to keep busy. From hunting to needlework, I do almost anything I can think of. After a few days, I feel like I have enough wool to make a blanket. With the needlework box I confiscated, I have turned into an image of a good homemaker once again.As I was counting stitches, it suddenly occurred to me that this blanket should be considered a "wedding blanket," right? If I had red dates, peanuts, longans, and lotus seeds, I would definitely follow tradition and sew these things into the corners of the blanket, symbolizing the wish for an early birth of a noble child. Oh, an early birth of a noble child, I really wonder if she and I will have children in the future. If we do have children, I wonder if they will look more like me or more like her.

Wait a minute, when it comes to giving birth, will it be giving birth to a human, a snake, or an egg?!

I laughed at my own thoughts, shook my head, and spread the wool onto the prepared fur.

"What are you doing now?"

"Well... um, like this."

Because I didn't know how to say "blanket," I used gestures as usual.

I spread a layer of wool onto one fur, then another fur, and covered myself like a blanket.

"Like this, it won't be cold anymore."

"Huh?"

"What do you think, am I a talented husband?"

"Hehe."

Why are you so mischievous, my wife! She blew the wool, and after it dried, the wool became separated. With her large lung capacity, tiny wool fell all over me.

Perhaps feeling a bit tired, I decided to play along with her nonsense.

"Wife, cough cough, I'm getting old, I can't move anymore..."

"Hahaha."

I placed the wool under my nose and pretended to have a beard, mimicking an old man.

"Cough cough, I'm so old, do you still love me?"

"Hahaha."

She laughed uncontrollably, her tail wagging along. The hole was filled with white wool flying everywhere, resembling snow. I was covered in it. The wool was constantly thrown into the air by us, then floated down gracefully with the resistance of the air. In this wool snow, her every smile and frown appeared slow-motion in my eyes. I wanted to remember even these everyday moments forever, despite not having a camera.

After playing for a while, I actually started coughing, as some of the fine wool probably got into my throat. I urged her to help me collect the scattered wool. The warmth provided by the wool might be reduced now because of our earlier mischief. It felt like there was less wool...

When the wool was finally sewn properly, there was still enough wool left on the sheep's body. I don't actually know how to sew, but people like us, 90s kids, had to learn many life skills out of necessity. When you're alone outside, you have to rely on yourself for everything, from food to shelter. If you can't cook, you have to force yourself to learn. Who can afford to eat at restaurants every day? We all have to work hard to earn money.

However, making a blanket is not something you can learn just by being forced to. When I showed the finished woollen blanket to my wife, as I lifted one side of it, all the wool filling piled onto the other side. This is called the "rolling package"...

So sometimes, it's not enough to just take action, you must also have the corresponding skills. Although our attempt at making a wool blanket failed, our lives didn't fail, and the preparations for winter must go on.