“.”
Chen Fan paid no mind to Lame Monkey’s excitement. Instead, he looked at the eerie fire before him, preparing to drip blood onto it and acknowledge him as master. He lowered his head to look at his thumb, then at his little finger. After pausing for a moment, he finally put his index finger into his mouth, scraped a bit of blood from his gums, and sent it into the eerie fire.
That counted as dripping blood to claim ownership.
From this moment on.
This area had become his base as well.
It had been several days since he transmigrated here, and he was still somewhat unaccustomed to the local conditions. Not only had he not slept well, his gums had even started bleeding.
“We won’t be going back tonight.”
He dug the animal traps out of the handcart and tossed them onto the ground. As he got to work, he said, “We’ll work here tonight.”
Although he believed the eerie creatures in the darkness were definitely in a state of constant movement, and that there was no such thing as completely killing off all the eerie creatures in one area, that was still just a guess. Only practice could reveal the truth.
Tonight, he would see how things went.
This place was definitely not as safe as his main base, but normally speaking, based on experience, there should not be any particularly powerful eerie creatures on this wasteland. They would not attack the eerie fire. As for the great eerie creature that had attacked the eerie fire that night, that was simply because he had killed the young one and drawn out the old one—it had come for revenge.
“Understood!”
Lame Monkey nodded excitedly, his eyes shining brightly, and began busily setting up the animal traps outside the camp. Though Lame Monkey walked with a limp, he was actually quite efficient at work.
Strictly speaking.
In this world, there were very few people who were not efficient at work.
Those who were not efficient were all dead.
In a world where people could die at any moment, it was hard for anyone to grow pampered and spoiled.
“Huu…”
Chen Fan squatted on the wasteland and looked toward the brown, cracked barren ground in the distance. He stuck his backside out, found a comfortable posture, and squatted down on the ground to take a shit. The wind was not light today, and when it blew against the body, it even hurt a little.
The weather was gradually turning cold as well. Winter was almost here.
Before leaving, he had given the arrow towers an order: any creature entering the camp was to first be given an attack warning. If the other party refused to leave, it was to be shot dead on the spot.
He was not worried about his home being stolen.
With two level-2 arrow towers standing there, who could possibly steal his home?
After a good while.
He carefully plucked a handful of weeds from the side, and only after confirming there were no tiny fuzzy thorns did he begin wiping his backside, then washed with water as well.
The conditions were somewhat crude.
But they were still all right. Acceptable.
He did not much like wiping with grass leaves, mainly because when he was young, he had once wiped his backside with nettles, and it had left him with quite a bit of psychological trauma.
Night fell.
The instant the sun set, darkness so dense it had reached the extreme swept rapidly in from the horizon, enveloping the entire world.
Not a single trace of light could be seen.
The only light came from the eerie fire beside them.
Aside from the eerie fire, this temporarily built camp had no structures at all. It did not even have a crude wooden hut, nor even a place to shelter from the wind.
“This won’t do.”
Chen Fan curled up on the ground, his complexion faintly pale.
There were no eerie stones left in the eerie fire back at the main base. Before leaving, he had added one eerie stone to the eerie fire there. Creating the eerie fire for the new camp had consumed three eerie stones, and he had tossed in another eerie stone as fuel.
At this moment, he had only three eerie stones left in his pocket.
In all honesty.
He truly did not want to spend two eerie stones to build a wooden hut. That was far too extravagant. But for some reason, the temperature had plummeted tonight, and with the wind blowing so fiercely, if he endured it like this for an entire night, he seriously suspected he might end up hypothermic.
He could freeze to death outright.
Even if it did not reach the point of hypothermia, he would definitely fall seriously ill. If he caught a chill on the wasteland, there would be nowhere to get treated.
As for the eerie fire, it had no temperature at all. It was not a real flame, and could not bring even the slightest warmth.
Beside him, Lame Monkey, who was gripping a long spear, was also trembling uncontrollably at this moment.
Tonight was truly too cold.
“…”
Chen Fan gritted his teeth slightly. These three eerie stones were his last margin for error. The eerie fire back at the main base only had enough to burn for one night. He truly did not want to use up this last bit of margin.
Just then—
“Drip.”
A drop of icy, chilling rainwater landed on the back of his hand.
He was slightly stunned. He raised his head and looked up at the pitch-black darkness overhead, then stretched out his palm to feel it. It was raining, and it was coming down hard.
In almost the blink of an eye, the few drops of rain had turned into a pouring downpour, and it was still growing heavier.
This time.
He hesitated no longer. He immediately took out two eerie stones and tossed them into the air. The illusory image of a wooden hut formed from white lines quickly appeared in midair, then under the support of milky-white liquid, rapidly solidified and landed inside the camp.
“Lame Monkey, get inside!”
As Chen Fan ducked into the wooden hut, he shouted at Lame Monkey, who was still outside in the rain, gripping his spear tightly and staring at the hemp ropes on the ground.
He had still been hesitating before.
Wondering whether they could tough it out.
Now, there was no need to hesitate.
If it had merely been a drop in temperature and strong winds tonight, there might still have been a chance they would not become hypothermic. But with this torrential rain added on, without any place to shelter from it, the two of them would definitely freeze to death here tonight.
At this point, he could no longer worry about any margin for error.
First, he had to make sure they did not freeze to death tonight.
If…
If there were no gains at all tonight, then this attempt would end in failure.
Chen Fan stood at the entrance of the wooden hut and looked at the hemp ropes inside the camp that showed no reaction whatsoever under the torrential rain. He sighed soundlessly. He could not say his decision tonight had been wrong, after all, he was also experimenting.
It was just that his margin for error was too low.
One failure had almost completely used up all of it.
“Young Master…”
Lame Monkey stood at the side, gripping his long spear, at a complete loss. Everything that had happened tonight was entirely beyond his expectations. He wanted to do something, but could not help at all, leaving him with a deep sense of powerlessness.
“It’s fine.”
Chen Fan shook his head and said softly, “There will always be a way. At worst, tomorrow I’ll shamelessly go find Station Master Wang.”
Actually, as long as he could get to Jiangbei Market, with his low-cost eerie fire, he could quickly obtain a large sum of wealth. It was just that, at present, he did not have the ability to protect that wealth. If he went there, there was a high chance someone would forcibly keep him penned up.
Just then—
“It moved, it moved!”
Lame Monkey’s excited voice suddenly sounded by his ear. Chen Fan instinctively looked toward the sound, and saw one of the hemp ropes on the ground swinging violently. That meant the animal trap at the end of that rope had caught prey.
Chen Fan’s face lit up with great joy. Before he could even move, the remaining four hemp ropes all began swinging violently as well.
Five prey had actually stepped into the traps almost simultaneously in one breath!
“Quick!”
Chen Fan rushed into the heavy rain, his voice urgent and excited. At once, he no longer cared about being drenched. He quickly grabbed one of the hemp ropes and yanked hard, dragging an animal trap into the camp. Clamped in the trap was an eerie creature with an extremely strange appearance.
It looked like a large silkworm chrysalis.
Extremely fat, about the size of a human infant, plump and fleshy, and rather horrifying.
Its mouthparts were even more disgusting, taking up nine-tenths of its head.
He had no time to carefully examine the appearance of this eerie creature.
Lame Monkey, who had also rushed into the rain, had already raised his long spear and leapt into the air like Runtu spearing a cha.
Aimed straight at the head, one strike pierced through!
Clean and decisive!