The next morning, just at dawn, Nozawa was awakened by the cold.
In the winter of central Japan, while a temperature of five to six degrees might not freeze someone to death, it's also far from comfortable, especially when sleeping under clothes at night.
In the Middle Ages of Japan, even sleeping was a kind of torment.
Nozawa missed blankets, heating, and air conditioning as he got up, checked on Meng Ziqi's condition, and found that he was still in a deep sleep. Feeling disappointed but helpless, he could only continue to wait.
Just as he made a bit of noise, the straw curtain in the earthen floor was lifted at one corner, and Yayoi, with a small face flushed red from the cold, peeked in and respectfully asked, "Master Nozawa, are you getting up now?"
Nozawa was surprised that this young girl had been waiting at the door so early, gave a quick reply in astonishment.
Yayoi directly rolled up the straw curtain and hung it on top of the door frame, then brought hot water and a cotton towel, intending to help him wash his face and hands.
"I'll do it myself." Nozawa, feeling a bit uncomfortable, quickly refused.
Ever since he could remember, even as a child, he had always washed his own face and brushed his teeth. He hadn't had such experiences before. His father was a drunkard who ignored him and often beat and scolded him when drunk, while his mother reportedly ran off with someone early on, leaving him with no impression of her—most of his childhood was spent at his uncle's or Meng Ziqi's house. He had been quite independent from a young age, and once he had the ability to take care of himself, no one ever helped him wash his face.
Yayoi hesitated, thinking that this was different from what her mother taught, but she dared not force her help.
Nozawa didn't mind her, washed his face himself, then carefully wiped Meng Ziqi's head, face, and neck before taking back his own coat and covering him with a quick-drying shirt. Once he finished these tasks, Yayoi hurried to pour water, which Nozawa didn't stop, and took out a dental chewing gum to substitute for brushing his teeth—this bottle could last just over a month, and he would need to find out how to maintain dental hygiene, as there were no dentists to be found these days.
While pondering, he went to put on his shoes and slung his backpack over his shoulders. When Yayoi returned and saw this, she exclaimed in surprise, "Master Nozawa, breakfast is about to be ready, are you going to..."
"No hurry for breakfast, I'm going out for a walk."
"Ah, this..."
Yayoi, somewhat perplexed, dared not stop him and cautiously followed him. Nozawa didn't mind, he walked straight out of the village, crossed the bridge, and headed towards the mountains along the Kodaijigawa.
Thirty minutes later, he stood on the mountain ridge, looking once more towards the Ise Mountains. Occasionally, light mist wafted through the mountains, but it was far from the dense fog he had once encountered, where he couldn't see even three feet ahead.
"Master Nozawa, are you going into the mountains?" Yayoi, still following behind him, asked worriedly, "There are bears, mountain whales, and wolves in the deep mountains, can you manage by yourself?"
Mountain whales are wild boars; when the Japanese Emperor prohibited meat-eating, the ban mainly concerned four-legged animals, leading to the extinction of domestic pigs in Japan. Wild boars had to change their names, becoming a type of fish—at that time, the Japanese considered whales to be fish.
Similarly, rabbits became a kind of bird, their long ears regarded as wings, and even in modern Japan, rabbits are counted in "feathers".
The Yin Yang Master of the Heian Era further promoted this view, leading the Japanese to regard eating animal meat as impure (likening it to eating corpses, as the Yin-Yang Path considered corpses impure and shrines would not build cemeteries, leaving funerals to monks), making it a custom for the Japanese to refrain from eating animal meat, which persisted for nearly a millennium, resulting in malnutrition among the populace during the ancient and Middle Ages of Japan, with average height barely reaching 1.4 meters.
Of course, this was only a custom; when people were extremely hungry, they ate whatever they could find and didn't always abstain from meat, especially the Samurai class, who consumed meat, sometimes even considering it medicinal.
Thus, there was a significant disparity in height and weight between the Japanese Samurai class and the common folk. Many "tall individuals"—a height of 1.7 meters in Japan was considered tall, and Nozawa, standing barefoot at 1.79 meters, was definitely among the "tallest of the tall", in the absolute pinnacle of height.
But this had nothing to do with Nozawa; he didn't care whether the Japanese were short. Seeing no sign of fog forming in the mountains, he turned and walked back down, telling Yayoi, "Don't worry, I'm not going into the mountains, just taking a walk."
Yayoi, standing just over a meter tall, had followed him up the mountain with her short legs, out of breath, and now Nozawa, after standing on the ridge for two minutes, was heading down again, leaving her even more bewildered and slightly dizzy—a result of her malnutrition.
But there was nothing she could do; she could only follow behind him again.
Nozawa wasn't too disappointed when he saw no fog forming in the mountains; he had come to look with only a faint hope, already prepared for a long-term struggle. If fog had formed, he would have immediately carried his son into the mountains to gamble on returning to the modern era. But since there was no fog, it was time to execute the survival plan!
As he approached Hibi Village, he saw the environment he hadn't been able to discern clearly in the darkness of the previous night.
The village was surrounded by a circle of thick wooden fences, with a simple wooden watchtower at one corner. Around the village lay extensive fields, those closer to Kodaijigawa being more orderly, while those extending towards the hills grew more fragmented.
It was late winter, and the rice fields were mostly in a state of dry stubble, filled with the remnants of harvested rice (the small stumps left after harvesting), leaving it unclear whether winter paddy technology had not reached here, or perhaps this area was not suitable for such agricultural techniques.