Xia Yibing opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say.
"On the contrary, Xia, have you thought it through? About whether or not you want to have a new life with me..."
“Eh? …Eh???”
"To be honest, I still feel like I'm in a dream."
Hitzfeld put the washtub down and reached out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind his ear.
"My mother's feelings for me... I want to know... I want to experience what it feels like, so I also want to gain the identity of a 'mother'."
"So Xia..."
"Can you help me with this?"
When Xia Yibing regained her ability to think, the two of them had already washed up and were lying in bed.
This time the roles were reversed. It was Hitzfeld who slept soundly, while Xia Yibing started to stay up late and suffer from insomnia.
Although I am happy...
I'm glad she agreed to it, but this is why I didn't want her to agree...
Xia Yibing tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep, her mind full of pity and resentment.
Pity is naturally the angel who pities her.
I'm unwilling to do so... It is said that children are the fruit of love, but if the premise of giving birth to a child is like this, wouldn't it be a bit too disrespectful... disrespectful to life itself?
wrong.
What am I thinking about...
Obviously, the more critical thing is what to do if failure occurs. This is a major event that threatens the survival of the world!
Aisuen said she had a way...what could she do?
Even Yusilian couldn't hold back anything, she didn't know as much as Yusilian, she wasn't lying to me...
Since she couldn't sleep anyway, Xia Yibing vaguely remembered that Hitzfeld was taking notes while she was taking a shower.
Haven’t you finished reading most of her books?
Take notes…notes?
After thinking about it, Xia Yibing got up, tiptoed to the table, picked up the girl's notebook and turned on the desk lamp.
With the help of the halo, she vaguely saw an exquisite map on the last page.
There is a large letter on the map:
Depp-Valtina.
Isn't this the name of the Cursed Ice Lake?
Xia Yibing was stunned.
She didn't expect that Hitzfeld would choose such a place for his honeymoon.
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Don't worry about certain problems. In order to prevent some readers from saying that spoilers are not good, I won't explain what the problem is. I can only say that those who understand will understand, and I won't explain to those who don't understand~
By the way, has it been a long time since I asked for votes? Writing a book should also have a sense of ritual~ It would be best if you could vote for me monthly or something. Anyway, I know that many of you forgot to vote at the end of last month, so why not give it to me now! *^▽^*)
Chapter 4 Legend (2 in 1)
Depp-Valtina is a name that is not very popular.
At first glance, anyone would think this is a person's name, and most people can't tell whether it is "Depp-Valdina" or "Depp-Valdina" - it is difficult to judge the other person's gender simply from the pronunciation of the name.
But in fact, these are the names of two people, referring to a man named "Depp" and a woman named "Valtina". They left a legendary story in the farthest north, and the crystallization of this story is the Cursed Ice Lake.
The legend goes that the Cursed Ice Lake was not so cold at the beginning. In the early days, it was actually a place similar to Allwater. Although it was very cold in winter, it was not so cold that normal people could not survive and ordinary life was completely extinct here.
There are also rumors that it was spring-like all year round there at the beginning, and that it was the other side of the "coldest"... Xia Yibing had learned some knowledge about the planet's magnetic field and poles from Hitzfeld, and now she no longer believed this rumor.
But the story does begin there. It is an ordinary lakeside village. The villagers make a living by hunting and fishing on the ice. They live in distinctive houses built with ice. Every household has a big dog that can pull carts in the snow, and everyone is an expert skier.
There are many versions of the story about "Depp" and "Valtina" after this opening, but the most widely circulated and recognized one is undoubtedly "Depp touched the curse of God."
It was an ordinary afternoon, perhaps a snowy day. A young man named Depp followed the villagers to go fishing on the lake, but his mind was full of Valdina who was left at home. He racked his brains to think about how to convince his father to let him marry her.
The first time they met, he fell deeply in love with the girl. Her smile and figure lingered in his mind, and she even existed in his dreams.
Yes, Valdina was very beautiful. She had platinum blonde, almost pure white, soft curly hair, a rosy face with a white complexion like snow, and ten fingers like jade. Even though most of the girls in the village were pretty, she could still stand out from everyone else.
Girls like this are very popular, and Depp felt he had to hurry up and propose.
But the problem is that the way to propose marriage in the village is to prove that you are a "mature hunter." Because only a "mature hunter" can find sufficient food from the uninhabited snowfields and ice lakes without relying on anything.
To prove this, Depp needs to choose one of two options: either he is abandoned by the villagers in the snow and survives for a week, and not only must he survive within this week, but he must also bring back enough meat for five people to enjoy.
Or he could choose Ice Lake, which also takes one week and is for five people, but the meat requirement is replaced by fish.
The village can provide some basic tools, such as utility knives, chisels, a broken fishing net, etc., plus a one-day ration, but no other help will be provided.
This is also the coming-of-age ceremony in the village. Only those who have proven themselves are qualified to marry and have children... and usually as long as they can pass it, they can usually get married the next day after returning.
Depp has been looking forward to that day and has made a lot of preparations for it.
More than once he went to consult the old hunters in the village, asking them about the wild animals in the snowfields and their living habits in various bad weather conditions.
He also consulted the most skilled fishermen more than once, and gradually mastered the skills from weaving fishing nets to digging ice holes.
Not long after, Depp's experience came.
He thought carefully and felt that the weather during this period was too bad. Choosing to hunt in the snow would result in a large consumption of physical energy in searching for and tracking wild animals, and he might end up getting nothing.
Because wild animals have nothing to eat in the winter, except for those that have not yet consumed their stored fat, they can stay in their caves and not come out. Otherwise, the worse the weather, the more they will come out to hunt.
This meant equal danger, and Depp's physique was not much better than other young men of the same age. He thought about it and believed that if he encountered ferocious beasts such as polar bears and white wolves, he would most likely not survive.
So he chose the frozen lake and asked the villagers to leave him a chisel, a pick, a hammer, a saw, a knife, a broken net, a sled, enough food for 3-4 meals, and a Sherlock dog.
Yes - the Sheldon is a breed of dog that originated from here, and it is because of this origin that their fur is as white as snow.
Back to the story... Depp's development went smoothly at the beginning. According to the experience taught by the old man in the village, he did not rush to dig an ice hole on the first day, but seized the time and used the tools at hand to find a suitable location to start building a house.
How to build it? With ice bricks.
The ice on the frozen lake is very thick, and it is far from being able to be broken through in a short time. In the coldest and most extreme conditions, even if a dozen adult men break through it, it will freeze again in more than ten minutes if left alone, so it is not suitable to waste energy on this at the beginning.
Depp first broke the ice on the shore, broke up the huge ice blocks with a chisel, pulled up the ice blocks with a pick and ropes on the breaking net, and then cut them into ice bricks with a saw.
In less than a day, he built an ice hut, where he could make a fire, rest and keep warm, and he also put the Sheles dog in it.
As for rations, he only ate one portion on the first day.
After waking up, I was hungry, so I ate my second helping. After a short rest, I left the igloo and started thinking about where to dig a hole to catch fish.
This also requires a certain amount of weather. It can't be too cold, as he won't be able to maintain the ice cave by himself. Otherwise, when the fish are caught, the net will be frozen and torn, and he will have no choice but to return to the village.
Unfortunately, he encountered this situation.
At noon the next day, the sun came out above the ice lake. This was the best opportunity Depp had been waiting for. He immediately found a selected spot and started to chisel the ice. It took him several hours and consumed a portion of his food rations. Finally, he chiseled out two connected ice caves.
He cast the net, touched his face with his fingers to feel it, and felt that the temperature should not be too high at this time. As long as he could catch the first net of fish as soon as possible - not too many, just enough to sustain his survival, then this cycle would be established, and it would get better and better until he returned with a full load on the last day.
But unfortunately, the sky strangely changed color.
As Depp watched in astonishment, it turned into a mixture of green and purple, emitting a strange light downwards. A blizzard rose almost from the ground, instantly submerging him in the wind.
Depp took a lot of effort to escape back to the shore. To be honest, he was lucky that he did not get lost in that situation and walked all the way to the center of the lake.
The center of the ice lake is a forbidden area. Depp doesn't know what's going on there, but the old people in the village said that under no circumstances should you try to go there because there is a curse from God in the lake.
If possible, Depp certainly didn't want to trigger any curse from God, but he was at his wit's end... He didn't want to eat the Sheldon, so he chose to let it go. He took the last bit of food and set out lightly, intending to go to the center of the lake before the snowstorm stopped.
He must have loved Valdina too much and thought that if he couldn't come back as a hero, he might as well die like a hero.
God’s curse…Is there really a God in this world?
If there was, he hoped to trigger a miracle there. He wanted to exchange power from the gods, at least... power to get him through the last period of time.
...The above plot comes from the once popular Wien opera "Depp on the Snowfield". There is another version of this story from the female perspective called "Valtina". To be honest, it doesn't have much connotation, but it can represent the attitude of people in a certain region towards love, their love for life in suffering and their yearning for hope.
Xia Yibing couldn't say anything more profound. After all, she was not a writer, nor a researcher of opera history, so she couldn't say anything profound. Because of her profession, she even doubted what the taboo was that Depp had touched in Legend of the Ice Lake.
Very suspicious... It seems that all versions of the legend say that he was desperate and went to the deepest part of the ice lake, and then suddenly it was said that he triggered some kind of curse... The curses took various forms, such as he saw an ice giant there... he saw the ice and snow goddess there... he saw a kingdom castle carved entirely out of ice and snow there, and so on.
But the results were all bad without exception. Whether it was the ice giant, the ice goddess or the ice and snow kingdom, they all believed that Depp should not see them, and therefore wanted to curse the entire ice lake and the entire snowy area.
Curse of extreme cold.
From that time on, the ice lake was no longer a place where normal life could survive.
Its temperature has changed from "only occasionally minus 20 or 30 degrees Celsius, most of the time minus 10 or 10 degrees Celsius, and it's not impossible to survive if you grit your teeth" to "minus 40 or 50 degrees Celsius all year round" in Allwater.
Not to mention humans, even the most cold-resistant animals can’t stand this kind of temperature.
The ice lake soon turned into a pure dead zone. No one dared to fish on the ice lake anymore. The thick surface of the lake was never broken again. It continued to freeze under the scouring of wind and snow, completely isolating the world under the ice.
The Ice Lake Warriors thus came onto the stage of history - Xia Yibing remembered that the origin of this saying was... After surviving on the snowfield, the humans found that they had gradually changed. They gained the ability to see through the pale ice and snow, and could maintain their physical strength to fight for a long time in the most violent storms, not sleeping for three days and three nights.
The legend of Depp and Valdina was brought about by these warriors. At the end of the story, a girl named Valdina was worried about Depp, and on the seventh day she stepped into the blizzard despite all the persuasion. Many legends confirm that she and Depp were frozen into ice sculptures on the lake.
This story is regarded as the cause of everything, and from then on the nameless ice lake also had a name.
This is "Depp-Valtina", or the legend of the cursed ice lake.
So it's not hard to understand Xia Yibing's shock... This damn place is minus 40 degrees Celsius all year round! This is no longer a place where normal people can live, right?
She didn't talk about whether King Toredor betrayed the Ice Lake Warriors when Sara founded the country, or whether the disappearance and extinction of the Ice Lake Warriors were true. Even if that place was not an uninhabited area, there were still lunatics building settlements there... Isn't such an environment suitable for living?
She was sure they were going on a honeymoon, not to suffer and survive in the wilderness?
And she also said she wanted to give birth to a new life.
Xia Yibing was not an expert in this area, but she had at least seen pigs run - she clearly remembered those pregnant women, and how everyone took care of them and reminded them to keep warm.
After all, more people always freeze to death.
The islands outside of her Goli are better than those over there...
Continuing to look at the notes, Xia Yibing felt more and more overwhelmed.
Hitzfeld seemed to be serious. Not only did she draw a topographical map of the area near the Cursed Ice Lake, she also specially arranged the itinerary along the way.
Xia Yibing lay back on the bed worriedly, wondering if they were qualified to take off their clothes in such a cold environment.
The next day, Hitzfeld woke up feeling refreshed.
Xia Yibing was in a miserable situation. She didn't fall asleep until almost dawn. The most important thing was that she left the notebook next to her pillow and forgot to put it back in its place.
Hitzfeld smiled slightly, crawled over to cover her with the quilt, put away the notebook, washed and changed his clothes, and began to prepare breakfast for the family.
"Your Highness, are you not going to take me with you this time?"
Daryl asked as she helped her in the kitchen.
She knew... knew what Hitzfeld was going to do next.
After all, although the mechanical apostles have no sense of taste, their other senses have been enhanced. Yesterday, Hitzfeld and the others did not lower their voices when they were chatting, and she could hear it from below.
"The transformation of Jiyang is a huge project, I still recommend that you stay in Wayne."
Hitzfeld nodded and turned the spread pancake over.
"but……
"This is the order from the Mechanical Princess~"
The girl blocked her defense.
"It won't be troublesome, I promise."
Daryl refused to accept, but she couldn't disobey the Mechanical Princess.
On the bright side, the Mechanical Princess promised her that she would study the heritage of the Kingdom of God carefully after returning this time, and also promised to find time to return to Colossae and rebuild the skeleton of the mechanical factory.
Then she had nothing to say.
Others were afraid of that kind of extremely cold environment, even a robot like her was afraid of it, but she felt that for her own prince, that little bit of wind and snow was not worth mentioning.
Because the appearance of the dead bone ice needles represented another meaning of extreme cold, she was not afraid of the cold in the wind and snow...
