All told, Migo's little campaign of "delivering warmth" dragged on for more than two solid hours.
By the time he trudged back into the city, snow still sifting steadily from the sky, and stood before the three-story building he now occupied, the eastern horizon had already begun to pale with the first hints of dawn.
After more than two hours of uninterrupted exposure outdoors, Migo felt as though every inch of his body had been frozen into a single block of ice.
Even wrapped in a military greatcoat, helmet secured, and waterproof fur-lined boots pulled tight, he was still shuddering uncontrollably from head to toe.
What left him utterly baffled was that the very same gear produced a completely different result when worn by John and the others.
Those half-barbarian brutes, horned skulls and all, could not even fit a helmet properly.
Yet in weather that had Migo trembling to the bone, they showed not the slightest sign of cold. On the contrary, after all the activity, steam was practically rising from their heads.
The stark contrast was something Migo simply could not wrap his mind around.
It was only when he was about to step straight into the building, and happened to glance at the outdoor thermometer hanging beside the entrance, that he finally saw the number etched upon it.
"Minus twenty-one degrees."
In an instant, realization dawned.
At minus twenty-one, the Russians of this world could strip to the waist and swim at leisure; swap them for natives of some tropical island, and they would freeze to death in short order.
By the same logic, such a temperature was well within the normal range for the indigenous folk of the Great Wasteland.
Cold, yes—but nothing unprecedented. They had endured worse in years past, and now, with thick coats and proper boots, this was little more than a small kiss from winter.
As for Migo himself, his hometown in Xiang Province rarely dipped below a few degrees under zero, and places like Yang City scarcely knew what "sub-zero" even meant.
It was akin to snatching a native of Guangdong and tossing him straight into a Siberian winter.
This was no longer a matter that could be solved by piling on one coat after another; it was a question of sheer cold resistance.
And when he considered that this minus-twenty-one was merely the appetizer of a long, brutal winter, Migo felt as though even his heart was on the verge of freezing solid.
An hour-long soak in a hot bath, with boiling water constantly added, followed by a massive bowl of steaming hand-pulled noodles—
When the sun rose once more over the Great Wasteland, the southern youth who had nearly been frozen to ruin finally felt life return to his limbs.
Sleeping through the daylight hours? That simply would not do. Word of it would spread, and it would tarnish the radiant image he had only just begun to establish in the minds of his newly recruited subordinates.
Having weighed these concerns, Migo forced himself to shake off his lethargy.
Before long, he was leading people to sort through the supplies they had brought this time, picking out the seeds and preparing for the work of planting.
To the majority of the locals, farming sounded simple enough—but in truth, it was a profoundly sophisticated craft.
Unfortunately for them, aside from Zhu Dachong, the man in charge of cultivation, no one else was even allowed to get close for a look. Any curious onlooker was promptly driven off by guards wearing expressions of unyielding vigilance.
To the uninitiated, planting meant little more than digging a hole, tossing in a seed, covering it with soil, and sprinkling on some water.
Then, naturally, crops would grow, ready to be harvested and enjoyed.
That notion was not entirely wrong—but it applied only to certain plants like maize, and it ignored the intricate demands of field management during the growing period.
Take tomatoes, for instance: even their seeds needed to be soaked in warm water first, to break dormancy before they could be sown.
As for potatoes—those legendary, high-yield, drought-resistant "transmigrator's miracle crop"—they could not simply be buried whole.
The proper method required cutting them into several pieces, soaking them in diluted rooting solution for no less than five hours.
Only then were the chunks to be retrieved and set in a cool, shaded place to sprout. When tender green shoots finally emerged, they would be ready for planting.
And so, Migo and Zhu Dachong, the cultivation supervisor, set to work together inside a greenhouse repurposed as a nursery bed.
A dozen or so guards stood watch at a distance, alertly protecting this "advanced technology."
The only exception was Laura the cat-girl—the broadcast room announcer—who lingered nearby, awkwardly fumbling with a digital video camera as she recorded the scene.
The reason was simple: given Migo's status, it would be impossible for him to spend long stretches inside a greenhouse tending crops.
Thus, for matters of seedling cultivation and sowing techniques, he could only demonstrate them once, following the technical guides he had downloaded onto his phone beforehand.
If Zhu Dachong forgot anything later, these recordings would be his only reference.
More importantly, Migo intended to film certain things in the Wasteland and bring them back to the modern world's internet—yes, specifically to spite that director Steve.
That said, he had no intention of handling the filming personally.
And so, the female announcer from the communications room—a former waitress who had grown familiar with modern electronics over time—naturally entered Migo's field of view.
After all, a cat-girl who could competently operate a broadcast system already qualified as a genuine high-tech professional in this world.
Though Migo had yet to decide exactly what he wanted to shoot, there was no harm in letting her familiarize herself with the equipment in advance.
On this morning, as the snow gradually melted and the sun climbed ever higher, a scene of astonishingly wholesome life and labor unfolded beyond the sub-city walls of Meri.
Hundreds of men and women carried buckets of pungent farmyard manure, carefully spreading it into the soil of the remaining greenhouses.
Unseemly as it looked, this manure would serve as the base fertilizer for the coming crops. After some time, they would also apply the urea and compound fertilizers that Migo had gone to such trouble to transport.
As they worked, the laborers could not help but steal glances toward the place where Lord Harry Potter stood.
Even though layers of separation reduced him to no more than three hazy silhouettes, the mere thought that these greenhouses would soon be filled with legendary crops was enough to set their hearts racing with excitement.
Farther away lay two distinctly separated groups.
On one side, the city guard, led by the two vice-captains O'Neill and Zhang Tiezhu, were pushing through various drills with grim determination.
Throughout the training, every member of the guard displayed a level of seriousness never before seen.
They had heard that once the newly recruited guards were trained to a passable standard, Lord Harry Potter intended to form two fully regular companies.
These companies would adopt the same standardized organization and equipment as the pre-war professional armies.
Even without much imagination, it was clear that these two companies would become the sharpest, most elite fist of force in the future of Meri's sub-city.
To join them—better yet, to become an officer—was the most honest ambition shared by all.
On the other side, a wide circle of naked men squatted under the watchful eyes of the minotaurs, scrubbing years of ingrained filth from their bodies with icy water.
Each time a scoop of snow-white laundry detergent was dumped over them, these acne-covered fellows howled and shrieked like the damned.
Yet with every round of scrubbing, the muddy sludge in the buckets before them gradually turned clear.
Men who had once weighed perhaps seventy kilograms found themselves whittled down to sixty-nine, sixty-eight, bit by bit.
Just as Migo had predicted the night before, the heavy, chemical fragrance of detergent spread far and wide across the Great Wasteland…