My lord, spare his life!

Without warning, a large patch of white snow slammed into her face.

Zhang Yang looked on expressionlessly and saw Zhang Dami sticking its rear end up, its hind legs frantically digging in the snow—the snow it had just covered was its handiwork. Before Zhang Yang could even react, it excitedly dug a few more times.

Fan You arrived in a wheelchair.

"It wants you to play with it."

"Play with it? What's so fun about that?"

Zhang Yang kicked Zhang Dami's butt with a hint of displeasure.

"Don't stick your butt out at me, I don't do beastiality." Only those observational subjects in the beast-taming profession would hug their pets and call them husband, wife, and darling every day. Zhang Yang wondered if their behavior of manipulating their husbands, wives, and darlings into fighting counted as occasional brawls.

Fan You: "..."

Zhang Yang, standing to one side, suddenly remembered something.

She quickly pulled out a thick notebook and flipped through it.

She stopped at a certain page, her expression inexplicably conflicted—reminded by her notes, she remembered that some observed samples did indeed have a strange fondness for "snow," howling and screaming at the sight of snow, their excitement as if they had been injected with seventy or eighty stimulants in one go.

Since the goal is to imitate humans, it's essential to avoid revealing any flaws.

Taking a deep breath, Zhang Yang made a decision.

The corners of their mouths curled up in the same arc observed in the samples.

Then, under Fan You's surprised and suspicious gaze, she let out a hearty and excited laugh, spreading her arms and pouncing towards Zhang Dami. Zhang Dami dodged with a big backflip, whipping her tail like a whip to send a cloud of snow flying. Zhang Yang took the opportunity to crouch down, spin around, grab a handful of snow, and throw it into Zhang Dami's eyes.

She ran, jumped, buried herself in the snow, wrestled with Zhang Dami, and built an ugly little snowman on Zhang Dami's head.

Puyang Kui, who came out after hearing the commotion, was speechless.

She hesitated, "When did your lord become so cheerful?"

Was he possessed overnight?

Fan You: "...I'd like to know too."

This is absolutely bizarre!

Puyang Kui watched speechlessly as Zhang Yang forcibly grasped Zhang Dami's two front paws, forcing the creature to stand half-squat and playfully sweeping kicks at it. At first, Zhang Dami would trip over the kicks, but later it found a pattern and hopped around to dodge.

A smug and provocative glint appeared in his round, tiger-like eyes.

Hey, you can't scan it, right?

Zhang Yang noticed Zhang Dami's smugness: "A sneak attack!"

He lunges in, then delivers a tackle!

Zhang Dami, being thick-skinned and tough, didn't feel any pain. She only felt that she had lost face and angrily growled at Zhang Yang, saying that she couldn't take a joke.

Fan You observed quietly for a long time, then turned his wheelchair and walked away.

Only one sentence remains—

"She must have seen someone play like this before and learned it from them."

Those few words enlightened Puyang Kui.

Yes, imitation!

That makes sense.

Why did Zhang Yang's previous strange actions, whether it was murder or anything else, lack any personal emotion? Because deep down, Zhang Yang is just an innocent child; she naturally learns from whatever she sees. As for why she does it?

Perhaps no one ever taught her.

Puyang Kui: "Isn't she from the Zhang family of Jiukan?"

Fan You sneered, "You believed that?"

Puyang Kui: "..."

She naturally never believed it.

Only when Zhang Dami broke down and stopped playing with Zhang Yang did Zhang Yang's bright, excited smile vanish, replaced by her usual coldness, as she braved the wind and snow to return to the cave. Inside, a campfire had been lit, and the faint aroma of beef wafted through the air.

Zhang Yang mechanically drank a small half bowl to warm himself up.

"Why is it suddenly snowing?"

It's all Zhang Dami's fault; she made her forget what she wanted to ask.

When the game's developers introduced the Homestead feature, they mentioned a brand-new seasonal weather system, with significant differences in seasonal changes between the Homestead side maps and the main map. Zhang Yang had just had a snowball fight with Zhang Dami, and she found that the snow here was indeed much better done than on the main map, more closely resembling the "snow" described by the observation samples.

But that's not a reason for yesterday's autumn and summer to today's deep winter, is it?

Fan You said, "Because the Celestial Flame Star Lord has perished."

Zhang Yang was completely confused: "What does the two have to do with each other?"

Puyang Kui sighed, "The relationship between the two is vast. If that Tianyue Star Lord hadn't been defeated, the corresponding star-position cities and passes would be equivalent to the Star Lord's 'Star Palace,' which would receive the protection of Tianyue's stellar power. They would be either impregnable or perpetually spring-like, ultimately benefiting the common people. But once the Star Lord is defeated, not only will the people under his command suffer a backlash, losing their source of power, but these cities, mountains, and passes will also be affected. Tianyue, for example, suffers from the disruption of the four seasons and the changing seasons..."

"disorder?"

"The usual four seasons are spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Disorder means that the order of the seasons is disrupted. Farmers' work is highly dependent on the weather, so how can they make a living if the seasons are disordered? However, this kind of disorder does not happen every year; it usually happens once every four or five years."

If things are in chaos every year, no one can live in this place.

Each period of seasonal disruption does not last very long.

Zhang Yang nodded thoughtfully and wrote it down.

After having breakfast, the group braved the wind and snow to continue their journey.

Zhang Yang noticed that everyone else looked worried, their brows furrowed with an unfathomable sorrow.

As noon approached, thick, leaden-gray clouds still hung overhead, blocking out even a ray of sunlight. Heavy snow, accompanied by a cold wind, blanketed the official road, covering even the footprints left by the travelers in no time.

You can hear a crunching sound when you step on the snow.

After another hour or so, the village finally came into view.

Birds and beasts have vanished, and the crops under the thick snow still retain a green hue.

No one spoke until Zhang Yang broke the silence, patting Zhang Dami under her bottom: "Go on."

She could see a shadowy figure at the edge of the field from a great distance.

Upon closer inspection, they turned out to be two corpses.

One was an old man with dark, gaunt skin; the other was an old woman with a hunched back and a full head of white hair. Judging from their actions before they died, they seemed to be trying to cover the crops in the field with a thin mat made of reeds. Zhang Dami nudged the two of them with her nose, then turned to Zhang Yang and sobbed something. Zhang Yang said, "Well, even though they froze to death, you can't eat them. You can't eat people."

Zhang Dami let out a dissatisfied hum from her throat.

Fan You has learned to selectively filter Zhang Yang's remarks.

He said to Puyang Kui, "Jun Du, could you have your men take these two corpses to the village? They should be from a nearby village. If the bodies are not collected, in two days, wild animals will come down from the mountains to hunt for food, and they will likely become their meal."

Puyang Kui: "That's natural."

However, there were far more than just these two bodies.

Most of them were elderly, but there were also a few young adults.

Judging from their clothing, they had likely discovered the snow in the middle of the night and hurriedly wrapped themselves in their only warm clothing to salvage their crops. However, they had greatly underestimated the power of the snow.

The group entered the village, and all was quiet.

Puyang Kui turned around to check the nearest earthen house.

The earthen house was sparsely furnished, with only a "bed" in the corner—it was more of a makeshift bed than a bed. It consisted of a layer of stones at the bottom, a layer of wood on top of the stones, layers of reeds on top of the wood, and a tattered straw mat on top of that. On the straw mat, the mother and her two children, who had already died, were curled up together.

The mother and her two children had ice clinging to their eyebrows and their limbs were icy cold.

Clearly, he had been dead for a while.

Puyang Kui's voice was deep: "You're late."

Her men also searched the other huts; some were still intact, while others had collapsed under the weight of the snow, and all the people and livestock inside were dead. After searching the entire village, they found only about ten survivors.

These survivors were also frozen unconscious.

He survived only because he stripped the clothes off other dead villagers.

"Is that crying?"

Zhang Yang, with his sharp ears, heard a faint sound.

She directed Zhang Dami to lead her there.

Following the faint sound, Zhang Yang found a baby wrapped tightly in a dark stove. Judging by its size, the baby, whose face was blue and purple from the cold, was only four or five months old. There were no other adult bodies in the house. It was unknown whether the baby was dead or alive.

Zhang Yang stared at the baby for a long while.

Before realizing the baby might freeze to death, they pulled a thick coral fleece blanket from their gaming backpack and wrapped the child in it.

Use your fingers to gently wipe the black ash off the child's face.

So ugly, not cute at all.

Why did they freeze to death?

Puyang Kui was in low spirits, but still answered her question in a good-natured manner: "Because the seasons change so quickly, what kind of things do ordinary people have to keep warm? Every winter is just a matter of enduring it. If you survive it, you're lucky; if you don't, it's just your fate..."

"Why not light a fire to keep warm?"

One sentence completely ignited Puyang Kui's anger!

"Zhang Boyuan, are you asking me why people don't eat meat porridge? Where does the meat porridge come from? And where does the firewood for starting a fire come from?"

Zhang Yang's next sentence sent chills down one's spine.

"With so many corpses on the ground, can't we burn them?" Her peach blossom eyes held a hint of emotion. "They should be able to burn for quite a while."