Early the next morning, the fringe colony.

Waking up from a sweet dream, Winnie lifted the thick quilt and stretched out for comfort.

It seemed to be warm today, so she didn't have to be as impatient as she had been a few days before, just dressed slowly and methodically.

She smelled the sweet smell in the warm air - she quickened her movements, said hello to everyone in the dining room, and ran to the kitchen.

Mosilaire was busy inside, and the two cauldrons on the stove were still bubbling with warm steam—the sweet smell of which came from the pots.

Winnie quietly ran behind Mosilaire and deliberately lowered her voice, "Guess who I am?" ”

"Hmm...... Let me guess...... Is it Anya? ”

Mosilele, who was busy with his work, did not stop his movements, and neatly cut a piece of sweet potato that had just come out of the oven and was still a little hot into some small even strips.

"That's not right."

"Is that Little Red Riding Hood?"

"Not really."

"Could it be Old Knife or Mr. Bender?"

"No, no, no!" Winnie, who was standing behind her, was a little angry.

"Ah, that's stumbling on me......" Mosilaire put down the knife in his hand and began to think with some distress, "Let me guess, I can't be wrong this time!" ”

"Take your time, don't rush!" Winnie was very tolerant of giving the pensive Mosilaire plenty of time to think.

"Oops, I see!" Mosilaire washed his hands and smiled and said, "It must be my cute kitten Peanut, right?" ”

"Ah......h

"Hey!" Mosilaire suddenly turned around and gently pinched Winnie's face twice, startled little fool, "Are you ready?" ”

"Hmm." Winnie grimaced at her and leaned forward, "Did you eat steamed sweet potatoes this morning?" ”

"I'd like bacon, omelette, and bread if I could—and a bowl of sweet soy milk—but we didn't," Mosilaire said to a large bowl with a few chunky hot sweet potatoes and handed them to Winnie, "help me get them." ”

"But," said Winnie, taking the bowl, staring at the two cauldrons steaming outward, with some confusion. "Do we need to steam so many sweet potatoes?"

"The weather is good these days, so I want to dry more dried sweet potatoes." Mosilaire took off his apron made of fox skin, took Winnie's right hand and returned to the dining room.

"Good morning, Sister Mosilaire!" Anya, who was obediently sitting in the dining chair, showed them a sweet smile, "Good morning, Winnie! ”

"Good morning, everyone." Mosilaire and Winnie greeted their friends and placed two large porcelain bowls filled with ripe sweet potatoes on the table.

The freshly boiled sweet potatoes are steaming in the warm light of the incandescent lamps in the restaurant, and the soft orange-red flesh beneath the fuchsia skin is still quite different from bacon, omelette and bread, but it is just as gluttonous to look at.

"But I'm starving." The impatient old knife couldn't wait to grab a large piece of sweet potato, but was scalded by the hot sweet potato and screamed - Rao so, the middle-aged scientist still stubbornly tore open its outer skin and took a small bite on it - it seems that he was still not happy to see some blisters in his mouth.

Bender and Little Red Riding Hood, who were sitting on the side, looked at each other and smiled, and they each grabbed a piece of the bowl. They weren't as frizzy as the old knives, but chatted and slowly ate the hot sweet potatoes in their hands.

These sweet potatoes do taste great, and the little ones who have been carefully cared for by Winnie are not only very large, but also seem to have a high sugar content, so that the soft sweet potato flesh can turn into a rich sweet taste when you eat it.

"There seem to be a lot of zombies around lately, and I don't know where they came from." Bender blew on the sweet potato in his hand.

"Zombie ......" Mosilaire thought for a moment, and it didn't seem like these walking corpses were a threat to the safety of the fringe colonies at the moment - unless one day these guys' moldy brains opened up and worked together to knock down the protective wall on the perimeter of the base.

"Maybe we need to clean up the zombies around in the next two days." Mosilaire handed Winnie the not-so-hot sweet potato in his hand and looked at Little Red Riding Hood, who was peeling the sweet potato for Anya, "Is your recent research going well?" ”

"Well, it's okay." Little Red Riding Hood smiled, "Mr. Knife and I have been analyzing the operation of the cannon turret and sniper tower and the production of related ammunition recently, and we should be able to figure it out soon." ”

"Thank you for your hard work." Mosilaire has always admired people who do research, after all, she probably only falls asleep on the spot when faced with headache-inducing data.

"Then you can make more delicious treats and treat us." The old knife squeezed his eyes at Mosilaire, grinned and swallowed the sweet potato in his mouth, and burped. "Hiccup—I'd like to eat fried bracken if I could."

"I agree." Little Red Riding Hood winked at Mosilaire, her face looking expectant, "Anya and I haven't eaten yet." ”

"Yes, so am I," Bender uncharacteristically raised his right hand aloft, for fear that others would not see it, "the gluttonous old knife has to talk about stir-fried bracken and other food every few days, but Little Red Riding Hood and I didn't meet them too late, and we will also try the good dishes made by Miss Mosilaire if we have the chance!" ”

"Okay." Mosilaire mysteriously joked playfully, "I'll cast a spell right away to bring us to the beginning of the next year,—— well, the preparation time for the spell is - half a year!" ”

With the half-year-long cold winter approaching, and the first round of large-scale restoration work and some important scientific research tasks in the colony successfully completed some time ago, everyone has been relatively idle lately, and has a lot of time to do what they want to do.

After breakfast, Winnie and Anya went to the bedroom to play homemade flying chess, while Old Knife and Little Red Riding Hood went for their daily morning run at the behest of Mosilaire, and she herself stayed in the kitchen to process the steamed sweet potatoes into strips that were easy to dry, and then, with the assistance of Bender, carried about thirty or forty pounds of sweet potato fries onto the roof of the base and laid them neatly on some clean wooden boards.

If nothing else, these sweet potato fries, which are still a little warm in the sun, will be dried into more than ten catties of dried sweet potatoes with a unique flavor and easy to preserve after five or six days.

Today's weather is fantastic, the sun is not too hot and it makes you feel comfortable and warm, and it is likely to continue for several days as it stands.

Overall, it's the perfect day for the wealthy upper-class to bask in the sun and enjoy life with a glass of wine – if only those disgusting zombies who gather not far away to drool at you – and Mosilaire doesn't like damn wine at all.

That seemed unrealistic, as they had neither red wine nor soft chaise longues to lean on, not to mention that it might be more difficult to make these planet-wide zombies disappear from their presences than to kill a mechanical centipede with her bare hands - oh mystery, she'd rather face dozens of disgusting zombies than deal with an extremely difficult mechanical centipede.

Of course, it's still possible to move a small bench and sit in the sun, and it's just as nice and nice – Mosilaire has always been easy to satisfy.

However, it would be even better if you had a glass of chilled strawberry juice on hand.

Mosilaire, who was leaning back in the dining chair and basking in the sun, waved at the two lively little girls who had run outside to play, and then yawned lazily, thinking a little greedily.

"Whew-"

A loud whistle suddenly sounded outside the protective wall, causing the dozing Mosilaire, who had lowered his head little by little, to open his eyes and get up from his dining chair to take a look.

More than 100 zombies on the north side of the protective wall and directly opposite the gate of the base heard the loud whistle, so they pushed and shoved and slowly walked away with the owner of the sound.

After a while, a young man dressed as a typical tribe climbed over the protective wall more than two meters high, jumped into the clearing on the edge of the base, and collided with Mosilel, Bender and others who rushed to hear the noise.

The young man in a fur tribal suit was dark-skinned and had some colorful paint on his face wildly, but he was not armed and did not seem to have malicious intent.

This guy was taken aback by Mosilele and Bender, who were already squatting on the side, and immediately raised his hands and said something to Mosilele - this made Mosileil, who could only speak the official language of the Empire, really a little confused, but Winnie, who was hiding behind Mosilele with a somewhat surprised expression, quickly picked up with this guy and chatted with him.

Winnie, who was gradually relaxing, finally made a complicated gesture at him, and the tribal youth quickly responded with a corresponding gesture, and the little girl was completely relieved.

"He said he was a 'leopard' from the 'Rose Mountain' tribe and had been observing us for several days and wanted to make some deal with us." Confidently, the little girl explained to Mosilaire, Bender, and Anya on the side: "They used to do business with the tribe where I lived, and he made the right gesture, so he shouldn't be a liar." ”

"But be careful, because I remember that the people of the 'Rose Mountain' tribe live in the Kore Hills two hundred kilometers away, and they don't have to come all the way here." Winnie added at the end.

Mosilaire consulted with his companion for a moment, then put down his gun and tried to communicate with the young tribesman with Winnie's help.

In the course of their conversation with the brave lad, Mosilaire and the others understood why the tribe of Mount Rose had migrated to this plain two hundred kilometers away in the treacherous wilderness - after all, because of the screaming zombies that had completely flooded outside.

A few months ago, a group of wandering corpses found the gathering place of the 'Rose Mountain' tribe hiding deep in the mountains, and launched a fierce attack on this large tribe of 2,000 people, after the fierce battle, only more than 400 people with a small number of livestock and supplies successfully escaped from the terrible col that had become hell, and began to evade the pursuit of the corpses in the vast land, trying to go to the pastures where the tribe used to graze and intend to settle down there again—judging from the general direction of the young man's hands and feet, Their destination doesn't seem too far from the fringe colonies - perhaps the colonists will have one more neighbor in the future.