Cold Creek has run dry, whether we want to admit it or not.

Two rabbits are frozen in the stream and need to be dug out...

My wife has shed her skin, but she hasn't gained any cold-resistant attributes. She still hides in the cave every day. I'm still not used to her current appearance. She used to look somewhat human, but now she's only vaguely humanoid.

But then again, she was never really human to begin with~

After taking on this form, she developed another hobby - scaring me. Just when I'm starting a fire, she sneaks up from behind and opens her mouth, revealing her sharp teeth and letting her little snakes slither around. Luckily, I'm not afraid of snakes in close proximity.

"Boo!"

"Oh my goodness!"

"Hahaha..."

She always manages to scare me, and she finds it hilarious.

Until one night, she scared me so much that I almost grabbed my pistol. That's when she started to tone it down.

Apart from that, she sticks out her tongue because her tongue has also taken on a snake-like form. It was scary at first, but over time, it became kind of cute.

And then there's sleeping. Snakes hibernate, and while Medusa doesn't hibernate, her winter sleep has noticeably become longer. Her active time has been reduced to just four hours a day. And there's no telling when she'll wake up. If she gets up in the middle of the night, I can forget about sleeping. But thanks to her current form, I've witnessed many behaviors that she never exhibited before, such as using her tail to choke a giraffe to death...

My wife is clearly unsatisfied with my winter food reserves. So we went hunting a few times, but after catching the last giraffe, we stopped going out. Because it's not just the giraffes, even the birds are hard to come across in the forest.

The yams in the ground didn't produce seeds as I expected, so I had to dig them all up and stack them outside the cave. The big sheep is doing fine, but there's no grass for it to eat. I had to cut the leaves of the yams for it to feed on.

With the absence of pests in this temperature, storing food has become simple.

Firewood is also abundant. I chopped down a lot of trees before clearing the entrance of the cave, leaving plenty of wood.

Oh, how long will winter in this world last?

Rubbing my hands, I begin to prepare the day's meal. Well, it's more like a pot of soup. I bought a lot of barley bread from Night Fall Town earlier, and I throw it in the pot to stew with some meat. She has adopted my habit of only eating once a day after shedding her skin. But like me, she neither feels full nor hungry.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't even provide enough food for you to eat." I say remorsefully.

"Huh? What?" she replies.

"Sorry, I forgot you don't understand Chinese. I mean, is this kind of meal still satisfactory?" I rephrase.

"It's okay, how so?" she asks.

"No, actually... Are there enough food?" I ask.

"Um... well, there's very little," she says.

"Sigh..." I sigh and shovel the bread and rabbit meat from the bowl into my mouth with a fork. My wife holds the pot, eating with her hands. I thought she would learn to use cutlery after shedding her skin...

I asked my wife how long winter will last, and she replied that she doesn't know. It's understandable. After all, when winter comes, she lives like this, without distinguishing between day and night. In the past, she used to store a lot of food and hibernate in the cave for winter. But this time, due to shedding her skin and my presence, she didn't gather enough food. So she cherishes every meal.

"Which version of me do you like more, the current me or the past me?" she suddenly asks after we finish eating.

"Huh?" I'm taken aback by her question, which cannot be answered. It's like when a girlfriend cuts her hair short and asks which hairstyle you prefer, short or long.

If I say I like her past self, it means I don't like her current appearance. If I say I like her current self, it means I don't like her past appearance. If I say I like them both, that would be too insincere.

If she understood Chinese, I would have plenty of sweet words to eloquently respond to this question, but she doesn't understand.

"I... like them both," I finally say.

"No, that's not right."

Her face, covered in scales, gets closer to mine. In this state, her transparent eyelids continuously sweep from bottom to top, and her pupils form a single line. I can't repeat any half-truths in front of such eyes.

"I...""Go ahead."

"I liked the old you. But..."

"I told you to wait for me."

She turned her face away, looking unhappy because I didn't keep my promise.

"I'm sorry, it was my fault."

Ah, she's still angry. Why was I so impulsive back then...

Wait a minute, she asked me to wait for her, which means... she can turn back!

"Can you be like before?"

"Well... yes."

Although I don't know how long I have to wait, this is really great. Looking at her unhappy face, I also understood why she didn't come out before. Even if she's Medusa, she doesn't want her loved one to see her ugly appearance. If I hadn't met her, she wouldn't have to hide herself in the cave. But it was because of my recklessness that we resolved the final barrier between us.

How should I put it, is it a coincidence of fate?

"I told you... even if you stay like this forever, I still love you..."

"Thank you, you."

"Don't you call me husband?"

"Well, husband."

Although the flames of love burn brightly, the cold wind outside the cave shows no sign of stopping. The activity of taking a walk after dinner has also been canceled. Her four-hour daily activity now consists of sitting by the fireplace and chatting with me or reading. Although it's now below zero, it hasn't snowed yet, I really don't know how terrible the temperature will be after it snows.

Let's take one day at a time, the winter in the northern countryside is similar to the situation here, every day is spent playing mahjong around the kang, waiting for the arrival of the Spring Festival. After the Spring Festival, spring will be near. Unfortunately, Medusa doesn't know how to play mahjong, and there is no heated kang here. But we still have many activities to pass the time.

For example, recently she often tells me stories from the books. After learning the language for so long, and with many illustrations in the books, I can understand all those stories. Perhaps this world is also like my world, where literary classics exist. The most impressive one is the cheesy and clichéd fairytale of a knight saving a princess.

In the story, there is an evil dragon, and the knight, in order to rescue the princess captured by the evil dragon, crosses mountains and rivers and finally defeats the dragon and saves the princess. Fairy tales like this, when I was a child I might not have felt anything, but now that I'm grown up, I find so many flaws in them.

And I don't know if it's the fault of the story itself, but it feels strange to listen to.

The story takes place in the Mountain Dotch where we live. There is a black dragon in this mountain. Haha, it's interesting. I've been here for nearly a hundred days, where did the dragon come from?

And the knight is not just one person, it's a group of knights. How do you divide the rescued princess among them? A group game?

And why did the dragon capture the princess? This dragon must be a dragonophile, instead of looking for a female dragon, it has to find a princess.

Finally, the knights together defeat the dragon and save the princess. The king is very moved and says to the knights, "Thank you, you can leave now if you have nothing to do."

King, are you joking? To save a princess, risking their lives and spending time and resources, when they come back you let the knights leave just like that, what about the engagement with the princess? Even if there is no princess, you should at least give them gold and silver treasures?

...

Later, I understood. The central idea of this story is to tell us that the knights' dedication to overthrowing the dragon is priceless, they are the role models for us to learn from, without them, there would be no good life today.

Is this a work of "Kingdom Melody"?!

After finishing the story, while I was still silently criticizing it in my mind, my wife asked me such a question.

"If one day, I was captured by the dragon, would you come to save me?"

"What did you say?"

You've got to be kidding me, you've already become like this, no one would dare to capture you.

"I'm telling you, if one day I was captured by the dragon, would you save me?"

"You're saying, you were captured by a dragon?"

"Yes."

Why would a dragon capture you? Dragons like princesses, right?

"I must save you."

"Really?"

"Of course."

"Hehe."

"Uh... by the way, I mean, are there really dragons?"

"Who knows~"

Mischievously, she stuck out her tongue, closed the book, and prepared to go to sleep."However, you promised to save me and not leave me."

"Yes, as long as I am alive, even if it's God, he cannot take you away from me."

"Who is God?"

"God is a friend of mine from before... He is even stronger than the evil dragon."

"Oh..."

"Go to sleep now."

"Yes, goodnight, husband."

"Goodnight, wife."

Medusa's gentle breathing could be heard from under the covers, and I sat beside her, filling the fireplace with more firewood, feeling at ease.

Now, what I need to think about next is...

Is there really a dragon in this world? Don't make it sound too real! Why am I feeling so vulnerable!

After deciding to become stronger, I realized that I had more rivals to face...