Chapter 53 - 46: Deep Winter

Chapter 53: Chapter 46: Deep Winter

Three days after Wang Meng’s team of survivors had departed, the once-clear sky was completely blanketed by a heavy, lead-gray layer of clouds, and it began to snow. It started as just scattered flurries. As the night deepened, the snowflakes grew larger and more numerous, eventually becoming a sky-covering blizzard, falling silently but with immense power.

The temperature had long since dropped below freezing. The pristine snow that had accumulated over the past two months hadn’t melted in the slightest, so the new snow fell unimpeded, piling up on the existing crust of ice. Inside his shelter, Xu Mo could clearly hear the howling wind and snow outside, along with the faint CRACK of dry branches snapping under the weight.

Xu Mo didn’t clear the area around his shelter as he usually would after a snowfall, especially not the snow in front of his door or blocking the path to the roof. This time, he intentionally left all traces of the natural snowfall untouched. The snow before his door, beneath his windows, and even the faint footprints he occasionally left on his way out were all quickly covered and erased by the fresh layer.

It was a necessary disguise. Xu Mo couldn’t be sure if Wang Meng’s team would be the last group of survivors to pass through this winter. Burying all traces of his activity beneath the pure white expanse would make it harder for any subsequent visitors to discover the life hidden within the building. This would minimize unnecessary contact and potential conflicts. In these ruins, marked as having "no value," complete "disappearance" was the best form of protection.

Xu Mo had expected this heavy snow to be like the others, stopping after a day or two. This time, however, it seemed the heavens were feeling particularly "generous."

One day passed, then two. The heavy snow showed no signs of letting up, continuing to pour tirelessly from the dreary, gray sky. His vision was filled with nothing but swirling snowflakes and a chaotic expanse of white. By the third and fourth day of the storm, any sense of ease Xu Mo had felt was long gone, replaced by a growing gravity.

On the fifth day, the oppressive white curtain outside his window, which had hung there for five full days, finally began to recede. The snowflakes grew sparse, then stopped completely. When Xu Mo looked outside, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, even though he had been mentally prepared.

The depth of the snow had reached an astonishing level. By his rough estimate, it was over five feet deep on average. In some low-lying areas and sheltered corners, the drifts were more than six and a half feet high! The entire world seemed to have been raised up a level, with many low-lying ruins and abandoned vehicles completely swallowed.

"This snow has lasted for way too long," Xu Mo muttered to himself. His thoughts immediately turned to Wang Meng’s team, who had left just a few days prior.

’Will they make it to Jiang City?’ An imperceptible trace of worry surfaced in his mind.

Although their contact had been brief and transactional, with both sides remaining sufficiently wary, Wang Meng and his people were, after all, the first survivors Xu Mo had met in this apocalypse who could still communicate and maintained a basic sense of order and decency. Trekking long distances in such extremely harsh weather would be unimaginably difficult and dangerous. Could their simple snowshoes even function in snow this deep? Were their supplies and food enough to withstand this sudden and even more brutal cold?

Xu Mo shook his head, pushing the useless worry aside. In the apocalypse, everyone had their own path to walk. Life and death were matters of fate, and he had neither the ability nor the desire to interfere.

BOOM—CRASH!

Just then, a dull, immense sound—a mixture of sliding snow and collapsing structures—came from another part of the town. In the quiet that followed the storm, the noise was especially jarring.

A chill went through Xu Mo. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard a sound like that. During the five-day snowstorm, similar sounds of collapse had echoed sporadically. It was clear that some of the already unstable or overburdened buildings had finally given way, crushed by the impossibly thick snow.

Xu Mo glanced up at the roof of his own three-story building. Although the structure was relatively sturdy, he wasn’t willing to gamble on whether the ever-accumulating snow might pose a danger to him as well.

’I have to clear the snow on the roof.’

Xu Mo went straight to the roof. He frowned, looking at the heavy, compacted snow, which was over three feet thick. Clearing it would have been a long and arduous task for an ordinary person, but for Xu Mo, who had already stepped into the Cowhide Realm, it was hardly a challenge.

He didn’t even bother with a snow shovel. Just by subtly circulating his energy and channeling power into his arms, he plunged his hands directly into the edge of the solid snow layer. With a low grunt, he engaged his core and heaved with both arms.

WHOOSH—!

A huge slab of compacted snow, the size of a door and weighing hundreds of pounds, was ripped free and sent flying. It soared over the low wall at the edge of the roof and landed with a heavy THUD behind the house.

In this way, like a human bulldozer, Xu Mo worked with swift efficiency. Before his inhuman strength, the heavy snow was as yielding as tofu. In less than ten minutes, the entire rooftop platform was mostly cleared.

Looking at the exposed concrete floor and the massive piles of snow he had tossed down with his ’bare’ hands, Xu Mo hadn’t even broken a sweat. He simply patted the loose snow from his gloves. For someone with his current stamina, this level of exertion didn’t even count as a warm-up.

However, even before the direct effects of the massive snowfall had fully passed, Xu Mo noticed another, more worrying sign—one that felt truly ominous.

On the second day after the snow stopped, Xu Mo went to the roof before dawn for his usual Qi Collection. He waited for a long time before a faint, almost imperceptible light finally appeared on the eastern horizon. When Xu Mo at last captured that wisp of Rising Sun Purple Qi, he instinctively glanced at the waterproof watch on his wrist, which was still stubbornly ticking away. The hands pointed to nine-twenty in the morning.

The sun was only just rising, and it was already past nine in the morning.

Later that afternoon, after Xu Mo had finished his daily cultivation, he noticed the light outside changing again. It was only about three o’clock, yet the sky was already dimming rapidly, as if dusk had come hours early. By four, it was nearly pitch black.

The days were becoming shorter; the nights, longer and deeper.

At the same time, the thermometer mercilessly confirmed his suspicions. For the past two months, while it had been cold, the temperature had mostly hovered between fourteen and twenty-three degrees Fahrenheit. Now, even at the height of the afternoon sun, the temperature struggled to break fourteen degrees. In the morning and at night, it plunged to five degrees, and sometimes even lower.

At these temperatures, the saying that the wind "cut like a knife" was no longer a metaphor; for an ordinary person, it would bring genuine, bone-deep pain. Xu Mo could feel the white plumes of his breath growing thicker, almost freezing into tiny ice crystals the instant they left his lips.

Standing on the roof, Xu Mo watched the weak, listless sun trace a short arc low across the southern sky. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature rose within him.

’Were the last two months, with their relatively ’mild’ cold and ’normal’ cycle of day and night, just a prelude to the real winter?’

’Was the true, brutal midwinter only just beginning?’

Xu Mo felt a pang of regret. He wished he had asked Wang Meng how long a normal winter lasted in this part of the world before the apocalypse. Was this extremely short daylight and severe cold typical for the region’s winter? Or had the global catastrophe completely altered the climate as well?

Without a frame of reference, Xu Mo couldn’t tell if this was a natural phenomenon or yet another ecological upheaval triggered by the apocalypse. This uncertainty about the changing environment was more unsettling than any obvious danger.

Xu Mo pulled his down jacket tighter. Even with his Cowhide Realm physique, he didn’t want to remain exposed to these low temperatures for long. After all, it would require expending extra energy just to maintain his body heat.

’If winter is only just beginning, and it’s going to last even longer, or get even colder...’ Xu Mo’s brow furrowed tightly as he looked down at the snow, deep enough to swallow a man whole, and then up at the pale sun in the sky, which looked as if it could be extinguished at any moment.

He had plenty of fuel and food stockpiled, but if the severe winter dragged on longer than expected, he would have to completely readjust his consumption plan. Furthermore, in an environment like this, the possibility of venturing out to explore was virtually zero. It seemed the apocalypse was about to reveal its most savage face.