Chapter 60: Chapter 59: A Man in the Snow Like Jade, a Peerless Young Master, Who Says Farm Work Isn’t Handsome?

It was already buried under the heavy snow.

’No wonder the two dogs were barking so frantically. They were buried.’

Li Xiang grabbed a shovel, went to the doghouse, and dug away the snow. Once the two dogs saw the light of day, they yapped excitedly. Then, they saw the vast expanse of white snow and grew even more thrilled. One after the other, they tore off and plunged into the snowdrift.

The snow was incredibly deep this time, already past Li Xiang’s knees. When the two dogs entered the snow, the lower halves of their bodies vanished. But they were still having the time of their lives, like a couple of young children.

’Poor dogs. They’ve probably never seen this much snow in their entire lives.’

Li Xiang then went over to clear the snow from the entrance of the chicken and duck coop. He opened the door, and the birds inside were already getting impatient. The big rooster, with its red comb and colorful feathers, led the charge, dashing outside. The rest of the chickens and ducks, treating it as their leader, quickly followed.

Having been cooped up all night, they were desperate to get out. However, the big rooster had barely run a few steps before it stopped short.

It stood in the snow, its claws sinking deep. A cold wind whistled by, and it couldn’t help but shrink its neck. It looked around in a daze, and then... it turned around, flapped its wings, and flew back into the coop.

Seeing this, the other chickens and ducks scurried after it. In less than ten seconds, the entire flock, having just taken a short stroll, had retreated back inside.

Cold. It was too cold. At least seven or eight degrees below zero.

Still, this wasn’t the coldest it would get. The temperature could drop to over ten degrees below zero, which was almost unimaginable for the south.

’If this were ancient times, the Emperor would have to issue an imperial edict of self-blame!’

"So you guys get cold even with all those down feathers," Li Xiang couldn’t help but chuckle. He walked to the storage shed, used a broken gourd ladle to scoop out half a ladleful of old grain, and scattered it at the entrance of the coop. After that, he paid the flock no more mind.

He had many other things to do.

The most urgent task was to rake some of the snow off the roof. The new kitchen and the covered walkway were fine; they were recently built and very sturdy. But the old house was in a precarious state. With such thick snow pressing down on it, it was at risk of collapsing.

Fortunately, his family’s old house had also been reinforced this time and was holding up for now. But this snowstorm wouldn’t end so easily. It would continue intermittently, stopping and starting for over half a month. If he didn’t clear the snow in time, even the reinforced old house wouldn’t be able to withstand the weight.

Li Xiang took out a long-handled rake, went to the side of the wall, and began to gently pull down the snow.

If he used too much force, he might dislodge the roof tiles, which would cause leaks. When his old house was reinforced, they had also "serviced the tiles."

"Servicing the tiles" is a craft that involves rearranging the tiles on the roof, replacing any bad ones along with any rotten wooden battens.

To be honest, Li Xiang’s old house had a lot of character. It was well-maintained and could almost be considered an "ancient dwelling." It had a sense of history, a feeling of having witnessed the passage of time. If it were in a more developed area, it would definitely be a popular photo-op spot.

If he opened a coffee shop in the backyard, he could easily charge twenty or thirty yuan a cup and make a killing.

In the backyard, the snow on flat ground was about knee-deep, but at the base of the walls, where some snow might have fallen off the roof earlier, it was already over a meter high. This was one of the reasons the snow had poured inside when he opened the main gate in the morning.

Li Xiang had cleared most of the snow from the roofs of the old house and kitchen when his grandmother woke up.

"Be careful. Why don’t you wait until I’ve swept the snow in the walkway before you come out?" Li Xiang was worried his grandmother might fall. At her age, a fall was a serious concern. A broken bone, especially a fractured pelvis, wouldn’t be easy to recover from. And long-term bed rest would lead to muscle atrophy and could cause things like deep vein thrombosis.

Although there wasn’t much snow in the covered walkway, some had still drifted in. His grandmother was obedient and waited in the main hall.

Li Xiang switched to a large broom and began sweeping the walkway. After he finished, he went to help his grandmother.

His grandmother laughingly scolded him as she pushed him away. "Your grandma isn’t so old that I can’t walk!" The old woman had her pride.

Li Xiang smiled. "I was just worried about your leg pain."

"You know, since drinking that Snake Wine you made, my legs have been much better these past few days than in previous years," his grandmother said with a cheerful laugh.

Li Xiang thought to himself, ’It’s probably not just the Snake Wine. It’s more likely because of the Tier One Spirit Grass she’s been eating.’

After his grandmother went into the bathroom to wash up, she started preparing breakfast. Li Xiang, meanwhile, went back to shoveling. All the snow he had raked down from the roof had to be moved somewhere farther away.

For now, he could only pile it up. When he had more time, he planned to build an Ice and Snow Castle. ’Hmm, I should post a video about it,’ he thought.

’You know, we southerners can make snow sculptures too now.’

Although the Apocalypse was coming, life had to go on. Not just go on, but be lived to the fullest. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

This was finding joy in hardship, and more than that, it was a positive mindset for facing disaster. After all, even if you were pessimistic and wore a long face all day, would that stop the disaster and the Apocalypse from arriving?

Having been reborn, Li Xiang felt it was important to please himself. It was a bit like that saying, "If you can’t even sweep a room, how can you sweep the world?"

In the backyard, next to the old house, a tall persimmon tree stood alone. Thirty or forty bright red persimmons hung from its top branches, like red lanterns. A splash of red against the pure white, it was truly worthy of the name "Marquis Ling Shuang"—a beautiful and pleasing sight.

Since the persimmon tree had lost all its leaves, leaving only bare trunk and branches, it hadn’t accumulated much snow. Li Xiang took a bamboo pole and gently poked at the slightly thicker patches of snow on the branches, causing it to fall with a soft RUSTLE.

Not far away, on the mountainside, some of the pines, cypresses, and bamboo—trees that remained lush even in deep winter—were not so lucky. They were nearly all bent over by the weight of the snow.

Heavy snow presses the green pine, but the pine stands tall and straight. Yet if the snow is too heavy, even the green pine will break. This was especially true for the pines and cypresses of the south, which rarely experienced such extreme weather.

And just then, a CRACK echoed from halfway up the mountain. A small tree, unable to bear the weight, had snapped in two.

This was not an isolated incident. Cracking sounds could be heard from the mountain from time to time. If one looked closely, many trees and bamboo stalks had already been snapped by the pressure.

Li Xiang gazed at the vast, white expanse covering the mountains, a thousand thoughts running through his mind.

If it were possible, he wished the Apocalypse would never come.

No one cherished these simple, peaceful days more than he did.

In his past life, it was this same snowstorm. In hindsight, this abnormal, super-heavy snowfall had been a harbinger of the disaster, but at the time, no one had paid it any mind.

It was the same now; not many people were taking it seriously.

This was because such rare, heavy snows were not completely unheard of in the south. For instance, in ’08 and ’16, the south had experienced widespread heavy snowfall.

But this time was truly different. This time, it lasted for an exceptionally long period. In every winter that followed, it was abnormally cold, and even in the south, heavy snow became commonplace.

Some people even proposed installing centralized heating in the south.

Southerners had long been envious of the north’s centralized heating.

"In just over nine years, we’ll reach that Star Realm. It’s not close, but it’s not that far either," Li Xiang sighed.

He silently did the math. The Solar System traveled about 6.4 billion kilometers a year, which meant 64 billion kilometers in ten years. The number seemed huge, but how did it compare to a light-year?

One light-year is approximately 9.4607 trillion kilometers. 64 billion kilometers is about 0.0068 light-years. In other words, when we are just 0.68% of a light-year away, endless disaster will descend!

"No matter what the future holds, I’ll live every day to the fullest!" Li Xiang pushed aside his distracting thoughts, pulled himself together, and continued shoveling snow.

The Extraordinary Inheritance he had obtained was particularly suited for Cultivation while doing farm work, and shoveling snow was quite similar to digging earth.

With such a massive amount of snow to shovel, it was only natural to incorporate his Breathing Technique and Body Techniques to increase his efficiency. At the same time, it was a rare opportunity for training.

HUUU... HAAA... HUUU... HAAA...

With a unique breathing rhythm and Force Manipulation technique, with every shovel of snow he lifted and tossed far away, Spiritual Power circulated within Li Xiang’s body, and a faint radiance spread through his flesh and blood.

This caused his complexion to become increasingly rosy. His skin grew translucent, fair with a hint of red, as if he were enveloped in a holy glow.

A man in the snow, as flawless as jade; a gentleman without peer in all the world.

’Who says farm work can’t be handsome?’