Today was the latter part of the winter month on the lunar calendar.
Zheng Zhilan opened the main house door and stepped out, leaving it ajar. Only a sliver of light from the incandescent bulb shone through the crack, casting a thin line on the ground outside. She gathered the leftover bones from the dinner table into a basin and walked over to the dog kennel to feed her beloved dogs, her steps as steady as if it were daytime.
The air outside was growing cold, visibly so. Everything else about living in the mountains was fine, except for the high humidity, which made the winters particularly chilly.
Only a sliver of the waning moon hung in the sky.
You could only spot one or two stars.
That was actually quite good, considering that winter nights in Yan City were generally foggy, with neither stars nor moon visible. Thanks to the mountain's height, the clouds that might otherwise obscure the stars and moon only reached halfway up, piling up in the valley on the opposite side.
