“This is indeed a good idea,” Yu Hong nodded, accepting the suggestion.
“By the way, have you received any news lately?” He suddenly asked, remembering the quiet Yu Ren.
Two weeks had passed, and in a few days, his self-recovery rune formation would be ready for enhancement.
If Yu Ren returned during this time, it could be dangerous.
“As we predicted, that cursed thing has gone somewhere else. A small base got affected, and hundreds of people died,” Li Runshan replied helplessly. “Now, the higher-ups have started planning base mergers, as they discovered that with the nights growing longer and days shorter, the scale and danger of the black disaster are continuously rising.”
“I've noticed that too; the days are getting shorter. I thought it was just a seasonal change,” Yu Hong said in a deep voice.
“It’s certainly not that. The change is much greater than seasonal fluctuations,” Li Runshan sighed. “Besides, have you considered my previous suggestion? The idea of establishing surrounding bases centered on you.”
“Looking at this trend, we should first think about protecting ourselves. Why suddenly bring this up?” Yu Hong was surprised.
“I went out yesterday and ran into some lone adventurers mining for glow stones. They have decent skills. You know that anyone brave enough to be out here during this time isn't ordinary. There was one guy who was quite capable; he led a team of survivors who were running out of food, so I recommended they hide over at Baiqiu Village for now,” Li Runshan explained.
“So what’s your point?” Yu Hong inquired.
“I want to see if you're inclined to join forces. I've stocked up quite a bit of food from the supply team. Honestly, if it weren’t for Yu Ren’s intense pressure, we could handle regular troubles easily,” Li Runshan said.
Yu Hong nodded; it was indeed the case.
If it weren’t for Yu Ren’s overwhelming strength, he wouldn’t be so exhausted, trying desperately to enhance the rune formation.
“Think about it. After this wave of chaos, many people are starting to go out and live alone. The more people there are, the more likely problems will arise, attracting exaggerated attacks that are hard to deal with,” Li Runshan said. “On top of that, I’m by myself making jerky and mushroom chips; I can’t keep up. We really need some extra help. With the nights getting longer, it may lead to insufficient light. When sunlight energy becomes useless, we’ll have to rely on biological energy, and we must continue producing candles.”
“If there’s no light, how will the trees survive? What are you making your candles with?” Yu Hong was at a loss.
“You have a point. Maybe I should set up a human-powered generator or biogas for backup lighting,” Li Runshan sighed. “We can’t keep relying on the supply team for help; their trips are becoming increasingly challenging and the time between is getting longer. If we run out of food and they haven't arrived yet, it’ll be a big problem.”
“This is indeed an issue,” Yu Hong nodded.
“Let’s leave it at that for today. Your water supply system will arrive in a few days; I’ll notify you when it does. I also got some honeycomb-style frequency communicators. After setting those up, we won't have to run back and forth to communicate anymore. I spent all my savings on this, and we must reinforce our residence! Just the sunlight series equipment cost a fortune. I won’t talk anymore; let’s wrap it up,” Li Runshan concluded.
“Aren’t you the one who said you couldn’t afford the sunlight series?” Yu Hong immediately questioned.
“You heard wrong, wrong. Alright, today’s discussion ends here. Nana, say goodbye to uncle,” he added, turning to his daughter.
“Goodbye, uncle,” she replied sweetly.
Bam!
Old Li dragged his daughter into the stone house and shut the door behind him.
Yu Hong was left alone outside, speechless.
“This guy!” He expressionlessly hit the messy grass patch with a stick before turning to leave the courtyard.
Clearly, Li Runshan could barely get his hands on any sunlight series supplies, likely due to limited quotas, so even having money didn’t allow him to buy freely, which is why he was so frugal.
After leaving the post office, Yu Hong returned to his cave.
As usual, he checked the countdown progress of the large rune formation in the yard.
Confirming there were no issues, he continued mining for stone chambers.
His safe haven, the cave, was, in fact, connected to a small mountain.
The cave itself was a bit above the horizon, so digging additional stone chambers would only slightly lower it, not reaching the layer where the black insects lurked.
Yes, Yu Hong had named the thickness between the surface and the black insect layer the surface layer.
Anything below that was the black insect layer, for easier remembrance.
Puff.
A large frame of shattered stones was brought out by Yu Hong and dumped in a corner of the yard.
Looking at the sky, he turned and continued digging.
Before long, yet another large frame of shattered stones was emptied out.
Yu Hong was drenched in sweat, stretching his hands and arms, and began to use the broken stones to reinforce the walls of the yard.
At this time, the yard's wall had already reached half a meter in height, consisting of the stones he had dug up over the past few days.
With so many stones dug out, the stone chamber was nearing completion as well.
After arranging the stones, Yu Hong turned and returned to the cave, stepping down the stone steps into the dark corner.
Soon, he entered a somewhat irregular, square-shaped stone chamber.
The stone chamber was dim and cold, illuminated only by a cool light atomic lamp tossed in the corner, casting a faint green glow.
Yu Hong wiped the dust off his hands, paced around the stone chamber, roughly estimating its volume by counting his steps.
‘It feels much larger than the cave above; it's at least the size of two caverns.
This size should be fine for an activity room or storage room.
I’ll dig out new single rooms later.’
He then began carving new runes on the chamber walls to ensure that phantoms or other threats couldn't enter.
This place was hidden in the mountains, without other entrances or exits.
The phantoms likely hadn’t discovered it yet.
However, it was still necessary to establish a ventilation duct, so he had to create a passage to the outside.
‘Once the water system arrives, it can be set up here.
But without electricity, the supply system won’t work.
That’s a big issue.
The longer the nights last, the more insufficient light will become,’ Yu Hong lamented inwardly.
With new predators emerging in the blood tide, it had already caused him enough trouble.
Now, the lighting and power issues were starting to arise.
This problem wasn't just one he faced; all the hope cities would contend with it.
Some hope cities could utilize hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear, wind energy, fossil fuels, and so on.
But he was alone, had no basic knowledge of any of these, and lacked the necessary infrastructure and materials, with the surrounding environment being impossible to utilize.
‘If only I could get my hands on a nuclear reactor for power,’ he thought.
He had spoken with Old Li before, and had heard that some hope cities used mini nuclear power generators for energy.
They were about the size of a pressure cooker and could barely support the daily power needs of a small urban area.
Sighing, Yu Hong continued carving the runes on the wall.
Soon, the entire wall was covered with densely packed glimmering runes.
Ding ding.
The wooden barrel used to hold the ink powder was completely empty.
Yu Hong knocked the barrel, reaching in with a spoon to scrape it, but he could only get half a scoop out, not enough to complete even one rune.
‘I have to head to the mines again.
All the large glow stones are gone, and I’ve run out of small ones too.
I’ll have to gather some more for when the large formation is enhanced later,’ he noted.
He wasn’t going to enhance the large glow stone directly, which would take too much time.
The correct approach, he had discovered, was to first grind the small glow stones into powder and then enhance them, which was simpler and faster.
He figured that since the large glow stone needed to be powdered anyway, there was no need to carve runes on the surface; just transforming it from glow stone into large glow stone material would do.
After all, it all had to be ground down.
He might as well grind the ordinary glow stones by hand first to save on enhancement time.
After testing this several times, he found it effective, successfully reducing the time needed to enhance the glow stone powder from three days to just over two.
Exhaling, Yu Hong followed the stone steps back to the cave, started a fire, and cooked a pot of thick soup to satisfy his hunger.
Then he gazed at the completely darkening sky outside, collapsed onto his soft sleeping bag, and fell into a hazy sleep.
The bright white light could not chase away the drowsiness brought by his fatigue.
In his dreamy slumber, Yu Hong seemed to hear familiar voices echoing around him.
It felt like Chen Huiru, or perhaps Li Runshan, along with other familiar, strange voices filled with joy or sorrow.
As the voices grew more numerous and chaotic, in the end…
Bang bang bang!
Yu Hong jolted awake, hearing loud knocks at the door.
He looked toward the entrance; a ray of bright white daylight from the gap in the peephole indicated it had been daylight for a while now.
“Is Teacher Yu there?” a deep voice called from outside the door.
Yu Hong exhaled, slowly getting up and stretching his limbs.
Inside the cave, the fireplace had long since gone out, and although the lights were still on, the temperature had dropped enough to feel chilly.
‘The temperature is getting colder; I need to think of ways to keep warm during this season.
It would be a big problem if I caught a cold or fever,’ he rubbed his hands together, feeling the coldness on his body warm slightly.
He walked to the door.
Swish.
He pulled open the peephole.
A large, bald face appeared outside belonging to the butcher Xu Fan.
The grease paint on his face was washed off, revealing eyes like those of a tiger, round and glistening with a hint of brown light.
His nose seemed slightly flattened, as if it had been injured, and there was a scar at the corner of his mouth from stitching, giving him the standard aura of a horror film butcher.
No wonder he was called the butcher.
Yu Hong felt speechless and after waiting five seconds, he said, “You finally made it. I’ve been waiting a long time; you’ve kept me waiting for so long.”
“Ah, we ran into some issues. It's a long story,” Xu Fan replied with a somewhat helpless expression.
“Step back and wait outside the courtyard. Remember not to linger in the yard; it’s dangerous,” Yu Hong reminded him strictly, according to the five-second response rule.
Xu Fan acknowledged and stepped back down the stone steps, waiting at the edge of the courtyard.
Seeing that he had indeed retreated, Yu Hong quickly donned his reinforced white bear suit, picked up the repaired blue whale set, and opened the door to step outside.
He had considered just hiding inside to avoid danger, but then thought against it.
While it was acceptable for dealing with phantoms and blood tides, facing a person—especially a skilled butcher with extensive field experience—hiding in the cave would give them too many ways to trap him effortlessly.
Not to mention, with a poison gas grenade, he would struggle to deal with it.
The suit had a gas mask but the local water-vegetable-mushroom mix would definitely get contaminated.
Thus, when facing a person, it was actually safer to go out and confront them in a spacious environment.
Of course, even as he went out, he didn’t forget to take his enhanced handgun and paper and pen for writing.
(End of Chapter)