Carefully supporting her sister, who had a prosthetic leg fastened to her hip joint, Little Red Riding Hood slowly pulled her out of her wheelchair.

"Are you feeling okay?" She clung to her sister tightly, fearing that if she stumbled, she would roll to the ground and suffer more damage.

"Hmm." Anya, who stood up, tried to take a few steps, then slowly let go of her sister's arm.

Wobbly out of a mechanical prosthetic that has been painted with a white and yellow theme, white and yellow are Anya's favorite colors!

The servo motor of the prosthetic leg that began to work made a soft, almost imperceptible smooth sound, and with the help of the built-in gyroscope, the angle of the knee and ankle joints was adjusted, so that Anya stepped steadily on the stone brick floor of the dining room under the concerned eyes of everyone - she looked like a human child who was just learning to walk.

This...... Did I really do it?

But...... The doctors and nurses at the hospital in the gathering place said that I would never be able to walk again?

Anya, who was standing steadily on the ground, looked at it with some difficulty believing what had happened in front of her, but she quickly became happy, and she couldn't wait to take another mechanical leg.

This is still a solid step.

Anya blinked, and a few tears almost unstoppably flowed from her eyes—but Anya let the tears fall and didn't stop.

She just made the transition and alternation of her footsteps in succession with a more skillful and faster movement - this clever little girl had learned to run.

But Anya's sister cried more than she did—even though Little Red Riding Hood covered her face with her hands and tried to hide it, she couldn't make everyone ignore her.

What made her cry?

It should be a very complicated emotion, but there must be a joy and happiness in it.

I am glad that my innocent and lovely sister is finally able to stand up again and play like other normal children; Thankfully, she's joined a fringe colony, and has a bunch of friendly and generous people you won't find anywhere else.

Here, she didn't have to sell her flesh for food, like most of the poor women in the colony, or die in the treacherous wilderness for a meager bounty to survive.

She and her sister were able to eat soft rice every day, take a warm bath at the end of the day's work that would make you forget your tiredness, and sleep peacefully in a large bed with a clean, soft bedding without worrying about being taken by wild animals while sleeping.

My sister doesn't even have to work here, and the only thing she has to do every day is to play—just play, carefree, like the rich kids in the gathering place.

And she? She can choose the job she loves and fight for what she loves.

It was a paradise life that she and her sister couldn't have imagined before—they were really happy and happy compared to the wanderers in the outside world who were struggling to survive under the swarms of insects and corpses.

It was probably the right decision she'd ever made in her life – so why was she crying?

She didn't know.

Soon, however, a figure stood in the way of Little Red Riding Hood, blocking out the light from some of the light bulbs.

Sitting on the dining chair and sobbing, she raised her head, and saw her sister who didn't know when she was standing in front of her, staring at her stunned, and then obediently stretched out her right hand to wipe away her tears, "Anya doesn't cry, sister doesn't cry either." ”

A week later.

Winter is less than three weeks away.

"Anya. You run slower. Winnie couldn't catch up with the nimble little girl in front of her, so she simply stopped and stood there gasping for air.

"Come on Winnie, you can catch up with me!" Anya crossed her hands on her hips and smiled at Winnie's encouragement, "Maybe I should run a little slower?" ”

"That's what you said ten minutes ago......" A panting Winnie rolled her eyes at Anya.

Since Bender repaired most of the water and irrigation pipes in the base, Winnie's daily work is only left to take care of all kinds of crops, because hydroponic crops basically do not need manual management, so the plants that Winnie has to take care of are actually all kinds of sweet potatoes, potatoes, corn and some soybeans cultivated in the soil - although it looks like a lot, but because the planting area is not large, Winnie will have a lot of free time every day to do what she wants to do- For example, playing with friends who have not yet mastered professional skills. Pure play.

The first batch of nearly 380 catties of sweet potatoes grown in the soil cultivation box and the 180 catties of rice harvested some time ago have provided enough energy for these two restless little guys, so the non-professional colonists in the colony can see these two lively and active little girls running around the base one after the other every day - although basically Anya runs in front, but occasionally the other way around.

"Hey, girls—if you don't want to get sick, you'd better get dressed." Mosilele, who had come out of the repair work to get a breath outside, grabbed two thick cotton coats and walked over to the two little ones, "Today's temperature is only 12 degrees Celsius." ”

Frankly, there are probably no more ugly and uncomfortable coats in the world—but they're the work of the gentle, lovely lady of Mosilaire—and they're still quite warm.

Winnie, who was dressed in her coat, suddenly crouched on the ground, reaching out and playing with a sweet potato plant at her feet.

The stems and leaves of this sweet potato plant are all listlessly drooping on the soil, and it looks a little unhealthy. The veins and margins of most of its leaves have shown a slight yellowing, which is not a good sign.

Winnie rubbed the yellowed leaf slightly, and found that it was very rough and hard to the touch, as if it had been magically drained of water.

Winnie, whose expression gradually became serious, looked around along the sweet potato plant again, and found that there were about a dozen sweet potatoes around that were more or less showing this symptom, and they were radially surrounding several sweet potatoes that were particularly yellow--but this sweet potato field was still fine when it was inspected yesterday, how could it be like this overnight?

Is it because I don't do my daily inspection carefully enough, or because this plant disease is extremely violent?

"It's blight, isn't it?" The old knife flicked the sick potato on the table, and guessed with some uncertainty.

These samples were all seriously affected sweet potatoes, without exception, the stems and leaves were yellow, the roots were black, and the roots of several particularly serious plants even showed signs of rotting.

"What then?" Bender chimed in.

"How do I know what to do, I haven't grown sweet potatoes before." The old knife shrugged his shoulders indifferently, but suddenly it occurred to him that it was about his food for the next few months, so his expression became serious, "Find out the culprit who caused the disease, and then bombard them with missiles!" ”

Mosilaire ignored the old knife's nonsense, but looked at Little Red Riding Hood and Bender again—but they both shook their heads slowly, not to mention Anya, who was only fourteen years old, with a blank face.

So in the end, she had to turn her attention to Winnie for help.

"I have a suggestion." Encouraged, Winnie stood up and attracted everyone's attention.

It's just that this little girl doesn't seem to be very used to being watched like this by many people, so she has some stage fright for a while, but fortunately, she calmed down and continued, "This strange phenomenon sometimes appeared in our previous tribal farmlands - although it was not so serious and did not spread so quickly, as long as all the sweet potatoes in the planting area were dug up as soon as possible, this ...... The effect of this 'blight' on the remaining sweet potatoes prevents more sweet potatoes from becoming inedible after being infected. ”

With that, Winnie sat down, leaving everyone still thinking.

The sweet potatoes in the planting area outside the main body need to grow for at least two weeks before they are suitable for harvesting, and early harvesting will inevitably cause a large-scale reduction in yields, and a large part of the food for everyone to survive the winter is made up of these sweet potatoes that are about to be harvested - but if you only dig up the diseased plants with a fluke mentality, it may cause more contamination of the growing area, and the infected sweet potatoes are probably not suitable for consumption in terms of rotting appearance - this is really a difficult choice.

But after a brief discussion, everyone unanimously decided to harvest all the sweet potatoes in the planting area, and quickly!

The sweet potato growing area was about 120 square meters, and it took four adults who had almost never done farm work to harvest it all.

After removing some of the inedible diseased tubers and the sturdy tubers of the reserved seeds, they were given about 1,100 pounds of sweet potatoes – a surprisingly unacceptable figure compared to the 800 to 1,600 pounds that Moschelaire and Winnie had estimated.

A large number of fresh sweet potatoes dug out of the soil were pushed into the large cold storage of the base by several adults in turn, using the small cart "AE86" made by Mosilaire before, and piled up into a pleasant hill.

In order to extend the shelf life of sweet potatoes and reduce their energy loss due to respiration, Mosilaire also deliberately adjusted the temperature of the cold storage to about 10°C.

These sweet foods high in sugar and starch will become an important food reserve for the colonists of the fringe colony of six people and one cat to spend the winter - although the cute carnivore Peanut does not eat sweet potatoes at all.

But rest assured, the colonists of our kind-hearted fringe colonies have left for it a lot of dried meat from wild ducks, quails, and geese. As long as you plan to eat them, the little peanuts should not be hungry even in the long winter.

Now that they had enough food and a little more clothing to keep them warm—if they managed to centralize the heating of a few important rooms, the cold winds of the winter would not be able to easily overcome the heavy walls of the fringe colonies.