The archery competition on the other side had already declared its champion. The experienced hunter, Vick, hit the golden balloon with a single arrow. It was said that he could hit the eye of a running deer while hunting.
Suddenly, Ina appeared to present him with the first prize.
The people around looked at Vick with envious eyes, wishing they could be the ones receiving the prize from Lady Ina.
Vick, one hand cradling a giant teddy bear taller than himself, and the other shyly scratching the back of his head, revealed a neat row of white teeth. Several people came up to ask if he was willing to exchange the teddy bear for other things, but Vick shook his head decisively. Even if they offered a bear made of gold, he wouldn't part with the teddy bear personally given by Lady Ina!
The next archery competition was not in its current form. The four-winged thunder hawk, its feathers still speckled with snow, was invited to be the referee. A giant cardboard box was pushed out, and the temporary host started explaining the rules. It turned out that the box contained dozens of helium balloons. As soon as the box was opened, they would immediately fly into the sky. The competitors had to spot and hit the only golden balloon among the colorful flurry. There was only one winner in this competition; everyone else would receive a consolation prize.
Lesley still couldn't forget the teddy bear Vick had won. Anty encouraged her, "You should sign up too!"
Lesley hesitated, "I can't pull such a heavy bow..."
Anty immediately took her over and asked the "staff member" with a holly badge on her chest, "Do you have a smaller bow? Lesley needs a bow and arrows that match her."
Without a word, the staff found a bow and arrows smaller than those used by others and handed them to Anty.
"Go for it! Lesley, maybe you'll be the one taking the teddy bear home!" Anty waved her fist at Lesley.
Lesley showed a somewhat nervous smile, nodded vigorously, and turned her head to focus on the distant box.
Three, two, one! The countdown ended, the box opened, and dozens of beautiful balloons rushed to the sky.
She drew the bow and notched the arrow, and found it!
The arrow shot out, and the golden balloon in her sight burst open. However, there was no joy on Lesley's face. She knew that given the speed of the arrow, the balloon shouldn't have exploded so quickly. In other words, it wasn't her who shot down the balloon.
In the sky, a White-feathered Pelican and The Goldfinch were retrieving the balloons that had flown elsewhere. Ina watched the two busy birds and complained to the system, "You're really stingy, five hundred balloons can only be played for a few rounds, and you have to arrange special birds to recycle them to make ends meet."
The system helplessly explained, "Those are meant for decoration for the celebration, who would have thought you'd come up with so many ideas?"
Lesley stood to the side holding her consolation prize. There was no standard for the consolation prizes. Some people got a pair of fluffy gloves, while others received a box of candies. Lesley held her wreath and watched the back of the champion. Before Anty could come over to comfort her, Lesley spoke first, "Sister Anty, this wreath is for you!"
Anty was taken aback, "But you won this..."
Lesley was a little shy at first, "You've always been taking care of me. You always share your baked potatoes with me, and teach me to read and count. If it wasn't for you, Lady Ina wouldn't have asked me to work at the restaurant..."
She remembered Anty's fingers turning red from the cold when she was teaching her to write in the snow, remembered Anty apologizing to the guests for the mistakes she made due to inexperience or recklessness, and remembered Anty sharing half of what Lady Ina gave her. Lesley's voice gradually became firm and lost its shyness, "My prize is your prize, without you, there wouldn't be a Lesley today."
Anty took the wreath handed to her by Lesley, wore it on her head, and spun around to show off her new adornment.
"It looks nice!" Lesley clapped her hands.
Anty smiled and said, "Let's go and see elsewhere, there are many places we haven't visited yet!"
The two girls ran off hand in hand.
On the other side, a snowman-building competition was being held.
Before Anty and Lesley could even find their footing, they were nabbed to serve as judges.
There were five teams participating, but twenty judges. Each judge was given a paper rose dyed red, to be given to the team they thought built the best snowman.
The topic of this snowman-building competition was "Dragon". Such a difficult topic!
However, despite the murmuring among the participants, the competition started on time.
The waiting process was somewhat long, but after a while, the participants looked up to find the judges had run off. The area around the barbecue snack cart was crowded with people. The judges had pinned the paper roses behind their ears, reaching out eagerly for the grilled skewers.
The skewer vendor, shaking a spice shaker, introduced, "These are from a few long-tailed sheep that were freshly slaughtered yesterday. The lamb legs were cut into chunks and marinated overnight. You guys came at the right time, there are only a few hundred skewers!"
He handed the grilled skewers to the crowd, "The remaining lamb? It's made into lamb soup, the stall is near the skiing competition!"
The aroma of the lamb skewers wafted over to the snowman-building contestants on the breeze. They took a few hearty sniffs of the smell and immediately felt their stomachs emptying, despite having eaten quite a few snacks along the way. They were still hungry.
"To the contestant, you can't leave the field during the competition! Otherwise, it will be considered a forfeit!" A young referee, responsible for maintaining order, sternly warned a team that was trying to sneak away to eat lamb skewers.
One of them retorted boldly, "I forfeit! Everyone, hear this, there are only a few hundred skewers of lamb, with so many people sharing, by the time we finish building the snowman there won't be any left for us."
Almost everyone participating in the celebration knew each other, and they were all jokingly shouting about wanting to eat lamb skewers. The referee cleared his throat, "I forgot to mention the prize for the snowman-building competition! That is — a hundred skewers of lamb!"
The contestants immediately calmed down. Now, if they queued up, they could only taste two or three skewers, not as satisfying as winning a hundred skewers later. If they divided it among the three or four people in their team, they could have a satisfying meal.
The team that had chosen to forfeit earlier wanted to cry but had no tears. They blamed the referee, "Why didn't you say something so important earlier!"
The referee was obviously very familiar with the forfeiting team, made a big face at them, went over to stick a label representing "forfeit" on their half-finished work, and as he walked by, he quietly admonished, "Don't forget to bring me a couple of skewers." And he muttered, "If I told you the prize, who would help me snatch the lamb skewers?"
The lamb skewers were soon gobbled up by the crowd. Everyone thought the uncle was about to pack up, but he took out a few racks from the cabinet under the barbecue cart, skewered a whole rabbit, and started roasting it on the charcoal fire.
The golden and oily rabbit was displayed in front of everyone from all angles. The brush dipped in the secret sauce repeatedly brushed over the sizzling rabbit meat, and the fragrance of the meat floating around was simply tantalizing.
The rabbit meat on the barbecue cart had been briefly roasted before, so it was quickly cooked now. The uncle put on the transparent gloves given to him by the holy lady and tore the whole rabbit into small pieces with bones and flesh. While tearing, he said, "This hand-torn roasted rabbit is made from our own raised snow fluff rabbits. They grow up eating the grass that grows on our land, the meat is the firmest and delicate, and thanks to the feed from the holy lady, snow fluff rabbits can mature in two months. Come on, everyone, try this!"
Anty squeezed to the front of the stall and quickly came out with two boxes filled with hand-torn rabbit meat. She and Leslie took a corner of the rabbit meat into their mouths. It was so hot! And so fragrant!
The specially formulated sauce, slowly roasted with the charcoal fire, had seeped into the bones. The outer skin was crispy and the inside was tender. Antil ate with oil flowing around her mouth, and Leslie chewed on a piece of crispy bone, making a crunching sound.
As it was torn from a whole rabbit, the rabbit meat given to the two of them was thick and thin, each with its own flavor. The plump chunks of meat were rich and tender, while the thin meat near the bone and skin was crispy and refreshing. The best part was the crispy and chewy cartilage mixed with the aromatic rabbit meat, the more you chewed, the more fragrant it became, leaving a lingering taste.
After eating the hand-torn rabbit meat and taking a sip of the still-warm barley tea in the water bag, the sweet and malty liquid turned a circle in the throat, both greasy and thirst-quenching.
Uncle roasted four rabbits, and the snowman-building competition here was nearing its end.
Anty and Lesley held their paper roses and looked at one team after another.
The first team built a large pointed castle, which was extremely beautiful. The judges walked around the castle and asked, "Where's the dragon?"
The competitors who built the castle pointed to a vague silhouette behind a window, "The dragon lives inside the castle!"
The judges let out a round of boos, for such a strategy to evade the subject.
The second group was the one that had just forfeited, and everyone directly bypassed them to come to the snowman of the third group.
It was clear that the third group had worked very hard, but the direction of their efforts seemed a bit off. The dragon's wings, claws, and tail were all there, but the proportions were out of balance, and it looked strange no matter how you looked at it.
"The neck is too thick! It looks like a sea lion with wings, not a dragon at all!" One judge sharply criticized it.
"How do you know a dragon doesn't look like this? You haven't seen one!" The contestant of the third team confidently retorted.
"In any case, it wouldn't look like what you guys have piled up!" The judges shook their heads and moved on to the next group.
The fourth group might have had no idea how to build a dragon, so they simply gave up and built a giant snowman over a meter tall.
The snowman was innocently charming and very likable. He had a big smile and shiny eyes made of stones. If this weren't a thematic competition, this group would definitely win the final championship.
The judges sighed with regret as they walked toward the last group. At this time, Anty and Lesley just noticed that the contestants of the fifth group were Dusì and Lusen. She quietly winked at Dusì, she would definitely support Dusì!
Unexpectedly, the snowman they built was indeed resembling a dragon, the long and winding tail of the crawling dragon was with barbs, the back had sharp spines, the four huge claws clung to the ground, the body was depicted with layers of scales, the wings were wide and full of feathers.
Indeed, it was the appearance of a dragon as everyone imagined. Although a closer look at the body part was a bit like a giant lizard, there was common ground between dragons and lizards in the first place, so it wasn't wrong to build it this way.
In such a short period of time, the two of them were actually able to create such a lifelike snowman? Anty admiredDusì even more, and the other judges felt the same. Several people who originally planned to give their paper roses to the first and fourth groups turned back, and Dusì and Lusen received a whole bunch of roses.
Finally, the referee announced: "The winners of this snowman-building competition are Dusì and Lusen!"
Lusen hurriedly spoke up: "No! We have two more teammates in our group." As soon as his voice fell, the snow sculpture dragon suddenly moved, startling the people around it. The accumulated snow on the dragon fell off, revealing a giant lizard and an eagle about to take flight.
No wonder they felt something was off, it turned out this dragon was made up of a big lizard and two eagle wings!
The Four-winged Thunder Eagle was very proud to play the wings of Lady Ina, stretching its wings throughout the process without moving, which was indeed hard work. The role of the Lizard was even more significant, without it, there would be nobody for the snow sculpture dragon. In the end, Dusì and Lusen each got ten skewers of mutton, and the remaining eighty skewers all went into the stomachs of the Thunder Eagle and Lizard.
Dusì and Lusen walked over to Anty, greeting: "It's noon now, let's go to the Summer House for lunch."