"Why Use an Ox Cleaver to Kill a Chicken?"

From the barrels of the God-Slaying Cannons, flying like arrows loosed from bowstrings toward the ghost tide suspended in midair, came cannonballs coalesced from crimson energy—a soul-stirring sight at first glance. *Boom!* A soundless explosion rang out in the air. There was no noise. Yet it felt utterly deafening. The bursting crimson shells unleashed all the power they contained. In an instant, the surrounding ghost creatures were shredded into dust, leaving only a crimson rain of blood scattering down from the sky. Immediately following that, the overflowing energy swept outward over the surrounding ghost creatures like vines of blood with incredible speed, clearing out a swath of the ghost tide almost instantaneously. This was the Heavenly Dao blessing effect of the God-Slaying Cannons—overflow damage spreading to adjacent targets. And this was merely a single shot. Seven hundred and forty max-level God-Slaying Cannons were neatly arranged along the 14.8-kilometer Rainy Season Defense Line, their barrels tilted upward at an elevation angle as they opened fire in unison. Tonight, the rainy season had arrived. A torrential downpour like gray fog shrouded all of Jiangbei, bringing endless chill. Yet— above Fan Domain, the sight of 740 max-level God-Slaying Cannons opening fire at once dispersed this chill. Interspersed among them were 148 max-level Anti-Air Cannons. The emerald pillars of light bursting in the sky like fireworks added an extra splash of vibrant color to this main melody composed of blood and gray mist, like a colorful protagonist appearing in a black-and-white film. Extraordinarily conspicuous. Extraordinarily dazzling. It was also like the strawberry on a strawberry shortcake; perhaps the strawberry itself was not especially delicious, but without it, the cake always felt a bit plain. The rainy season had arrived. The Great Ghost led his army in an assault right on schedule. Every member of Fan Domain stood frozen in place, staring blankly up at the spectacle overhead, unable to recover their senses for a long time. In this world, there were no movies, no television dramas. Most people had never witnessed any grand spectacles in their entire lives. To them, a ghost tide battering a city during the rainy season was already the grandest scene imaginable; anything larger was beyond their wildest dreams. Even storytellers did not care to tell of such things. Yet... tonight they saw it. They witnessed the grandest spectacle of their lives. Hundreds of thousands of ghost creatures, like lambs awaiting slaughter, were suspended in the sky, completely immobilized, forced to endure a baptism of artillery fire as their numbers dwindled at shocking speed. Mixed into the gray, misty downpour falling from the sky was crimson blood carrying countless chunks of minced flesh. Tonight's rain was very red, and very vivid. "I refuse to accept this!" Thick-skinned, heavily armored, and hiding in the crowd, the Great Ghost still had half his life left, though he already appeared grievously wounded and on the brink of death. His eyes filled with indignant fury as he roared, "Humans have misled me!" "What 'even a lion uses all its might when hunting a hare'—bullshit! Bullshit!" "It's all bullshit!" If— if he had remained in the rear to command... If he had not led the vanguard in person... If... There were no more ifs. If any single 'if' held true, he would still have a chance to stage a comeback. Unfortunately, he had none. The next instant— dozen upon dozen of crimson cannonballs hurtled straight toward him. The Great Ghost gave up struggling. Staring at those dozens of crimson shells, he then looked down at Chen Fan standing atop the distant city wall, his voice filled with venomous malice as he broke into frenzied, wild laughter. "You will die too! You will die too!" "When the true ghost tide arrives!" "I..." "I will wait for you below! I will await your arrival on the road to the Yellow Springs!" "We will meet again!" The voice cut off abruptly. Dozens of crimson cannonballs engulfed him completely. The colossal figure, once awe-inspiring and commanding four Ghost Kings, dissolved into a rain of blood, merging into the vast storm and mist. The rain continued to fall. A downpour like gray fog enveloped all of Jiangbei, quickly washing away every trace of blood on the ground. Scattered throughout Fan City and Nameless Mountain were stray pieces of minced meat and ghost stones covering the earth. Pies might not fall from the sky, but ghost stones certainly would. The battle was over. Ever since Chen Fan learned at the beginning of the year that a Great Ghost might attack during the rainy season, he had been preparing for it. He had spent an entire year preparing just to fend off this Great Ghost's invasion. Yet things in the world were unpredictable. He had never imagined this Great Ghost would drop from the sky leading his troops, like a surprise flanking force. It reminded him of a company of paratroopers in wartime during his past life. Standing on the wall, Chen Fan witnessed the mesmerizing rain of blood in its entirety. It was beautiful, imbued with intense aesthetic charm. That aesthetic charm stemmed mainly from the fact that he could stand here calmly. Observing in peace. Rather than fleeing in panic like he had during the last rainy season. The Rainy Season Defense Line, built at the cost of tens of millions of resources, demonstrated its terrifying might the very first time it flexed its muscles. Of course, it was also because the enemy had been quite cooperative. Otherwise, had the enemy attacked from any single flank, they would never have faced the concentrated fire of every single cannon tower at once; they would have faced only a fraction of the firepower, and the barrage would not have been nearly so fierce. Yet the enemy happened to descend straight from the sky, landing in a zone where they could not move an inch—and right in the area with the fiercest firepower along the entire Rainy Season Defense Line. It was as if they had opened the trap wide and invited themselves into the cage. Naturally, he was delighted to see it. "'Even a lion uses all its might when hunting a hare'?" "'Humans... have misled me'?" Standing atop the wall, Chen Fan repeated the Great Ghost's dying words. Without an umbrella, he simply stood on the rampart letting the pelting storm drum against his body, chuckling to himself. "Humans also have a saying: 'Why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken?'" "There's 'A good horse never turns back to graze.'" "And there's also 'A prodigal son who repents is more precious than gold.'" "There's 'A true man knows when to yield and when to stand tall.'" "And there's also 'How could a true man dwell long in subservience?'" "There's 'Rather be a shattered jade than an intact tile.'" "And there's also 'As long as the green mountains remain, one need never worry about firewood.'" "There's 'Heroes have hailed from youth since ancient times,' and there's also 'Aged ginger is spicier.'" "Did you even understand the principles before you started slinging whatever phrases you picked up?" This Great Ghost was among the most human-like ghost creatures he had encountered. Compared to other ghost creatures, his intellect had awakened far more. Although he was invading humanity, he had a decent grasp of human culture. It was just that his learning was superficial. Humans never decided what to do based on what words were spoken; rather, they chose what to say based on what they did. Deciding action purely by proverbs was a surefire recipe for defeat. If you threw all your might into everything you did, you would exhaust yourself to death even if your enemy didn't kill you. Afterward, Chen Fan turned his gaze toward the Eternal Night Lord panel deep within his soul. Before the rainy season arrived, he had acquired a blue-grade building called the Reincarnation Tower. Its effect was simple: any enemy killed by buildings within the territory's boundary would die permanently. Without the slightest possibility of revival. Before dying, the Great Ghost had said they would meet again. Chen Fan had initially thought the creature might possess some means of resurrection. However, a clear line of text was displayed on the Reincarnation Tower's panel: *Accidental factors stifled: 0.* Whenever an enemy possessing revival methods, reincarnation, or similar traits was thoroughly extinguished, a number would appear on the Reincarnation Tower to reflect its contribution. These ghost creatures had been wiped out to the last, yet no number had appeared. That meant the Great Ghost had no revival methods at all. He had merely been spouting parting threats. "'We will meet again'..." Chen Fan could not help but chuckle as he repeated the line. He suddenly grew curious about what kind of harsh parting words he would leave if he were ever on the verge of death. At the very least, he felt that line was not quite harsh enough. It sounded like self-deception. Fan Domain grew busy once more. Under the direction of their respective captains, the members of Fan Domain braved the torrential downpour to begin clearing away the severed limbs, minced meat, fallen ghost stones, and... exotic treasures. Just then— a faint thud came from the wall beneath his feet. Chen Fan turned from the edge facing Fan Domain and walked to the outer edge facing the Jiangbei Wilderness. He glanced around, seeing nothing nearby. Leaning forward and poking his head out, he finally spotted a monkey-headed ghost at the foot of the wall, hammering furiously against the stone. Noticing him now, its eyes filled with ferocity, baring its fangs and roaring at him before clawing even more frantically at the wall. However, not even a speck of dust flaked off the wall. Chen Fan silently watched the scene. He had seen this a year ago at the old campsite on the Jiangbei Wilderness. Back then, monkey-headed ghosts had invaded as well, scratching at his wall in the exact same manner. Back then, he had been deeply anxious. Because the wall truly was suffering ongoing damage. Yet now... Looking at this familiar sight, he felt a sudden pang of nostalgia for the rainy season of a year ago. An old friend had returned to visit after a year. It was just that back then, he had a Level 1 wall, whereas now he had a Level 5 wall standing a full twenty meters tall. If he didn't lean over the parapet, he wouldn't even be able to see such a tiny ghost creature. This was the first time in a rainy season that he had examined a monkey-headed ghost so attentively. Truth be told, with its sharp snout and ape-like features, its mouth took up nearly two-thirds of its face, packed with dense rows of teeth. It looked distinctly unsettling. Gradually, more and more ghost creatures surged out from the gray fog within range of the ghost fire, rushing all the way to the foot of the twenty-meter-tall wall and attacking it with their pitiful little claws. The fifty altars positioned on Nameless Mountain were completely dormant. They had not been triggered in the slightest. These altars were meant to repair the walls, but there had to be something damaged to repair first. It was like installing the most powerful graphics card just to play a 4399 web game, only to discover that the card's fans didn't even spin. It wanted to spin, but there was simply no reason for it to. The Ghost Blood Patterns on the wall did light up in a token gesture, absorbing the vast majority of the ghost blood that had spilled inside Fan Domain. Had this blood been concentrated on a mere dozen meters of wall, it would have significantly bolstered its defense. But spread across the 14.8-kilometer Rainy Season Defense Line, the amount allocated to each section was minuscule. This wave of ghost creatures was not particularly large, totaling only several hundred thousand. Of course, it was certainly larger than the numbers he had faced in past rainy seasons, but it fell far short of the ghost tides on the ancient battlefields he had seen recorded in jade slips. Those were true, sky-blotting ghost tides, where hundreds of millions of ghost creatures swept forth with tempestuous ferocity. Those were undersea ghost tides. The ghost creatures in an undersea ghost tide possessed no intelligence whatsoever; charging and slaughtering was their sheer instinctual drive. Their numbers were also vastly greater than the forces under this Great Ghost. More and more ghost creatures stepped out from the Eternal Night into the gray fog, then charged from the fog to the base of the wall, gradually surrounding the entire Jiangbei defense line, pressing close against the foot of the ramparts. Seen from above, it resembled a ring of pearly papules. "Bamboo pole ghosts, mantis ghosts, maggot ghosts..." "Quite a few old friends." Standing on the wall, Chen Fan silently looked down at the scene below. The God-Slaying Cannons did not fire. The cost of a single cannonball was by no means cheap; firing one into these scattered, straggling ghost creatures was guaranteed to be a losing proposition. Of course, killing that swarm under the Great Ghost had been a loss-making affair as well. One drawback of total firepower deterrence was that the value scavenged from the battlefield generally failed to cover the cost of the firepower spent. A bamboo pole ghost. This creature, thin as a bamboo stick, had caused him no small amount of trouble during the last rainy season. Standing just over three meters tall, it could leap over a Level 1 wall with just a slight boost from stepping on its comrades' bodies. Now, it was hopping up and down relentlessly at the base of the wall, attempting to leap over. It was rather amusing. Unfortunately, the wall stood twenty meters tall. Only a flea ghost could even attempt to leap that high—and even then, it couldn't jump too high, or the no-fly restriction would take effect. "Oh?" Chen Fan's brow arched slightly as he looked at dozens of ghost creatures holding white lanterns stepping out of the gray fog. He recognized these as well: mourning ghosts. Formidable adversaries. The lanterns in their hands could launch ranged attacks and could split. A single mourning ghost could divide up to four times, splitting into as many as sixteen mourning ghosts. It was this very type of mourning ghost that had forced him to relocate back then. Had he not ultimately slain the mourning ghost chieftain, causing all the mourning ghosts to perish alongside it, he would have died. That had been one of the greatest crises he had ever endured. The next instant— the patterns along the barrel of the God-Slaying Cannon closest to these mourning ghosts lit up slowly. A shell formed of crimson energy pierced the downpour, crashing right into the center of the mourning ghosts. *Boom! Boom!* This time there was sound. The rumble of the ground shaking echoed out. A torrent of crimson energy ricocheted in all directions like python serpents. The moment the mourning ghosts were killed, the overflowing damage surged outward rapidly, instantly vaporizing a massive swath of ghost creatures clustered at the base of the wall. Chen Fan looked down at the gruesome scene with a slightly odd expression. It was different from what he had imagined; he had envisioned the God-Slaying Cannon's overflow damage instantly clearing out the split mourning ghosts. Yet— the mourning ghosts hadn't split at all. They had turned to dust. He checked the detailed information of the Reincarnation Tower on his Eternal Night Lord panel. Sure enough, a slight change had appeared: *Accidental factors stifled: 48.* The Reincarnation Tower could actually curb splitting? Did splitting count as resurrection? *"Creatures slain by defensive structures within the camp's boundary will have their souls scattered completely, unable to be resurrected."* Chen Fan carefully read through this line in the Reincarnation Tower's detailed description. The white lantern was the true body of the mourning ghost, so each split was not actually a division, but rather resurrection after death—only producing two from one? He wasn't entirely certain whether the Reincarnation Tower countered all forms of division, or if it just happened to counter the splitting mechanism of the mourning ghosts. Regardless, he had no way to experiment further. So far, the mourning ghost was the only ghost creature he had encountered that possessed a splitting ability. A splitting ability he had once found utterly terrifying was now resolved with effortless ease. Perhaps this was what growth looked like. Standing in the torrential downpour, Chen Fan exhaled a long breath before smiling and walking down the wall, preparing to return to Nameless Mountain. Though it had been a long time since he had been caught in the rain, standing in it once more brought a sense of nostalgia. It felt like going to eat at a cheap roadside diner after achieving fame and fortune. However... the rain carried a chill. It was best not to stay drenched for too long, or one might catch a cold. Just then— deep within his soul on the Eternal Night Lord panel, a building suddenly began flashing with yellow light. Sensing something, Chen Fan halted in his tracks and looked toward the structure. The Star Observation Terrace. Fan Domain's sole wonder building, the Star Observation Terrace. This building, dormant for so long that people had almost forgotten it, began issuing warnings continuously tonight. The building's effect was: *"Can observe the movement of ghost tides across a vast region."* During the dry season, ghost tides never formed at all. Yet the rainy season had barely arrived, and already a ghost tide was forming. Moreover, for the Star Observation Terrace to issue an alert, its direction of advance was undoubtedly headed straight for Fan Domain. Sure enough, about the time it took for a stick of incense to burn, the wind came. Massive swarms of flesh worm ghosts surged through the gray fog from the Eternal Night like tidal waves, tumbling uncontrollably straight toward the wall. Flesh worm ghosts were shaped like spheres of meat. They had no limbs. The surface of each meatball was covered in several palm-sized human faces. Incapable of controlling their trajectory, they could only roll forward with the wind; where they ended up was entirely left to fate. The human faces on these meat spheres were originally cheerful. Yet as the wind blew them into the domain of the ghost fire, their expressions turned to agony. Upon realizing they were about to slam into the wall, they became even more anguished. *Crack-crack-crack!* Bursts like firecrackers sounded continuously as viscous green liquid splattered outward. This highly corrosive fluid began to erode the wall... slowly eroding... eroding with all its might... and then... its corrosiveness was diluted by the rainwater. It couldn't corrode the wall in the least. The altars remained completely untriggered throughout. The Level 5 wall simply stood tall in Jiangbei like a heavenly chasm, firmly keeping outside this flesh worm ghost tide—a horror whose appearance almost always signaled the destruction of a city. Standing atop the wall, Chen Fan looked down at the scene, quietly admiring it. Humans were always like this. They enjoyed standing in safety while observing the dangers outside. During the last rainy season, when the flesh worm ghosts attacked, he had frantically fought for survival in panic. This rainy season, the flesh worm ghosts attacked just as before, yet he could stand unmoved as a mountain atop the wall, peacefully admiring the continuously bursting fireworks. Ordinarily, flesh worm ghosts did appear during the rainy season, but it was unusual to run into them right at the start. A major reason was simply that the Rainy Season Defense Line covered a massive area. With a larger footprint, the odds of encountering them naturally increased. Ghost stone after ghost stone dropped to the ground as the flesh worm ghosts detonated. The splattered viscous green fluid was also completely absorbed by the Ghost Blood Patterns on the wall. Only the discarded skins of the flesh worm ghosts remained strewn across the ground. "What a pity." Chen Fan turned to look at the members of Fan Domain busy working within the domain. He possessed a building called the Sacrificial Tower, which he hadn't used in a long time. Sacrificing ghost creature corpses yielded various rewards. Of course, the corpses needed a certain degree of completeness. At least roughly intact. In the past, the ghost corpses he sent to the Sacrificial Tower had to be dissected first to extract all valuable materials, but that was just deboning and skinning—hardly excessive actions. By contrast, the severed limbs and shattered chunks blasted apart by the God-Slaying Cannons were far too mangled. They no longer resembled any form at all. Such corpses could not be placed into the Sacrificial Tower for sacrifice; they could only be gathered up and buried in the farmland as fertilizer. When the enemy was not exceptionally strong, the God-Slaying Cannons actually caused a net loss. A bit wasteful. The hundreds of thousands of ghost corpses blown to bits by the God-Slaying Cannons could not be used for sacrifice, and the skins left behind by the flesh worm ghosts after death did not count as corpses in the first place, making them ineligible for sacrifice as well. Chen Fan stood on the wall, looking down at the remaining ghost creatures below. Their numbers were not overwhelming. Just right... "Shao Qiu, Zhou Mo, come here." Soon, the two rode out of Fan City on Skeleton Horses, quickly arriving at the foot of the wall and ascending rapidly via the max-level hanging baskets. Indeed. He had constructed numerous max-level hanging baskets along the middle section of the wall. In truth, this was the intended use of the hanging baskets. His high-speed rail was entirely an accidental creation; under normal circumstances, they were not meant to be used that way. "Domain Lord." "Domain Lord." "Mm." Chen Fan nodded slightly and looked at the two. "Some ghost creatures have gathered at the base of the wall. Their numbers aren't too large. Have your Dark Pavilion and War Pavilion lead your people to clear them out, keeping their corpses as intact as possible." "Your identity tokens have been granted activation authority for the Rainy Season Defense Line's walls and cannon towers below." "If the situation turns critical," "you may activate the cannon towers at any time." "Understood!" The two straightened their posture and nodded in unison. Using cultivators to fight ghost creatures was normally unrealistic; a Level 2 or 3 cultivator struggled even against the lowest tier of ghost creature. The two sides were not in the same weight class. However, over the past year, the members of Fan Domain's Dark Pavilion and War Pavilion had cultivated regularly in the Spirit Accumulation Pavilion. Their overall cultivation had reached Levels 6 and 7. Facing a small number of low-level ghost creatures was well within their capabilities. Furthermore, they had a safety net. It would serve as troop training while gathering ghost corpses in the process. After arranging all this, Chen Fan walked down the wall and headed toward Nameless Mountain. *** Fan Domain, Nameless Mountain, Camp No. 1. Just like during the previous rainy season, Chen Fan sat atop the wall, reviewing his panel. The construction cost of the Reincarnation Tower was not high. Upgrading it, however, was rather difficult. *Note: Upgrading to Level 2 requires stifling 100 accidental factors.* It required no ghost stones, nor any heavenly materials and earthly treasures. It only required stifling one hundred accidental factors. Yet he felt it would be better to simply upgrade it with ghost stones; so far, he had only stifled forty-eight. As things stood, it seemed he could only complete the upgrade requirement by killing mourning ghosts. He was quite eager to see what the Reincarnation Tower's max-level effect would be, and what level a blue-grade building needed to reach to hit its maximum. Afterward, he checked the information on the other ghost fires on the panel. These ghost fires were stationed at the various outposts along the high-speed rail line. With the arrival of the rainy season, all Fan Domain personnel assigned outside had been recalled to stay within Fan Domain. Even the families of peripheral Fan Domain members had been brought into Fan Domain wherever they could be located based on the member archives. Even if they were only peripheral members, since they worked for Fan Domain, their families deserved protection. There were not that many in total anyway. Ordinary mortals could not afford voice transmission talismans. In these chaotic times, with no fixed abode and no means of communication, once families were separated by a ghost tide or met with an accident, they would never see each other again in this life. Even if relatives hadn't died, most were hopelessly scattered. Establishing a family was a concept reserved for major powers. Ordinary mortals did not establish families; they merely banded together to scrape by. A wife taken might well have had an old husband in a previous city, not formally separated but merely lost in the chaos. If that old husband ever turned up at the door one day, the three of them would simply live together. Such occurrences were not overly common, but they were by no means rare. And at this moment— none of the ghost fires positioned outside Fan Domain along the rail line had gone out. For now, the high-speed rail tracks remained safe and undamaged. But the rainy season would last an entire month. What happened later remained uncertain. The high-speed rail had halted operations for the duration of the rainy season. Sitting on the wall wrapped in a heavy coat, Chen Fan leaned back in his chair and looked out at the misty downpour beyond the cavern, admiring it. When one's state of mind changed, the scenery one saw changed along with it. In past rainy seasons, he had always wished for the rain to pass quickly. Now, he found the rain rather pleasing to look at. The onset of the Jiangbei rainy season forced Fan Domain to pause all external development for a month, entering a wartime state and sheltering behind its walls, constantly on guard against potential ghost tides. Yet— over on the New Continent, work continued in full, fervent swing. Night fell. The moment night enveloped the Eternal Night Continent, darkness fell over the New Continent as well. "What is that...?" Quehou was sitting atop the wall of New Continent Outpost No. 1 counting the ghost stones excavated that day. He glanced up instinctively and suddenly froze. The Eternal Night descended. The ghost fire inside New Continent Outpost No. 1 radiated a pale yellow glow like an eggshell, enveloping the entire settlement. Normally, looking outward at this hour revealed only pitch-black, viscous darkness, and nothing else. Yet— when he looked up instinctively, he noticed an endlessly long strip of... eerie green light in the dense darkness. It looked like an endless queue of fireflies lined up in the dark. That direction pointed straight toward the Thunderstorm Sea. Quehou's expression shifted slightly. He swiftly pulled a voice transmission talisman from his chest and reported the matter in detail. After hesitating for a moment, he added another remark: "Young Master." "The Thunderstorm Sea has begun emitting an eerie green light. I'm not sure what it is, but it doesn't look like the seal has broken; I haven't heard any massive disturbances." "This light began radiating from the Thunderstorm Sea right as the Jiangbei rainy season arrived." "I suspect there might be a connection between the two." This was his guess. Having done that, he waited patiently. After a long while, confirming there were indeed no other disturbances from the Thunderstorm Sea, it was most likely not a breach of the seal, but something else. Even so, he decided to pilot a boat at daybreak tomorrow to observe from a distance, to see if those ghost creatures were still there. The night deepened. The peripheral members of Fan Domain on the New Continent had gone to sleep early. Only a few members remained, continuously loading ghost stones onto the railcars before sending the train down the undersea tunnel toward Fan Domain. Weiwei had stayed at New Continent Outpost No. 1 today instead of returning to Fan Domain. Quehou had specially cleared out an area for the monkeys to rest and feed. Indeed. Although these monkeys did not need sleep and could replenish their stamina through food, they still needed a place to eat. More importantly, even if they didn't require rest, there was nothing to do once the Eternal Night fell; they might as well rest. Fan Domain was quite humane in this regard. What humans did when idle was hard to say, but when animals had nothing to do, they inevitably sought mates. In this area planted with trees and scattered with large boulders, many monkeys cuddled together intimately once night fell. Weiwei lay flat on the ground, watching them silently. "Time for bed." Walking down from the wall, Quehou saw Weiwei sprawled there and chuckled as he followed its gaze. "What, you feeling the urge too? Come to think of it, I don't even know your exact age. When I get back, I'll ask Zhou Mo." "To see if you're an adult yet." "If you are, I'll find a way to find you a female Heaven-Swallowing Crocodile." Lying on the ground, Weiwei looked up at Quehou, then rested its head back down, gazing at the monkeys. In its lantern-sized eyes, however, an inexplicable emotion surfaced. Quehou paused. He had never seen Weiwei look like this before. Examining the monkeys carefully, he finally noticed that Weiwei's gaze was fixed on three monkeys in particular. A male monkey, a female monkey, and a newborn infant. The two adult monkeys were shredding a braised chicken leg given out by Weiwei into strips and feeding them into the little monkey's mouth. The little monkey ate happily, grinning and chattering with every bite. A monkey's laughter sounded strange, like weeping. The two adult monkeys watched from the side, visibly overjoyed. Weiwei simply lay there, watching the scene. No one knew how long it had been watching. Quehou froze, a sudden twinge of guilt welling up inside him. He felt he had been thinking far too crudely just now. It was all Wang Mazi's fault. He had spent too much time around Wang Mazi lately, and his mind had been led astray. After a long pause, he tried to comfort the creature. "Um..." "Weiwei..." "Actually, you don't need to miss your parents too much. I've been an orphan since I was little, and my parents are probably long dead. Maybe your parents are also..." *Smack.* Quehou slapped himself across the mouth with an expressionless face. He was talking nonsense. Reorganizing his thoughts, he chose his words carefully. "At least your parents love you. They left you that Snow Lotus before they departed." "Look at the Young Master." "The Young Master's father left him a grand formation when the Young Master went to Jiangbei City for the first time during the rainy season." "Besides, your parents are following by that person's side; they definitely won't die." "Maybe in just a few years, you'll be reunited." Weiwei was, after all, childlike at heart. It had been somewhat downcast moments ago, but hearing these words, it tilted its head thoughtfully for a moment, then crawled back to its nest in high spirits. Weiwei had built a nest in this cleared area for the monkeys. Whenever it stayed here, it slept in that spot. Of course, Quehou suspected this might not be a nest, because every morning he saw the monkeys lining up to pay their respects. Weiwei probably considered this place the office of the Fan Domain Beast Pavilion. Weiwei always remembered its position as Master of the Fan Domain Beast Pavilion, commanding all exotic beasts in Fan Domain. Every time it returned to Fan Domain, the first thing it did was rub against Chen Fan, and the second was to seek out Zhao Shengping for braised dishes. In the past, it lacked confidence, only able to open its gaping maw wide and wait to be fed. Now it was far more self-assured. Upon meeting, it would spit out its Beast Pavilion Master identity token, pointing its claw tip at the token with an air of swagger, clearly treating the token as a buffet pass. By now, this Beast Pavilion Master identity token had become Weiwei's most cherished possession. Its original most prized treasure, its food bowl, had been demoted to second place. Watching Weiwei's retreating back, Quehou smacked his lips, then walked toward his own quarters. The day's tally was complete; it was time for him to sleep as well. It wasn't raining on the New Continent. He contacted Wang Mazi via voice transmission talisman. It wasn't raining where Wang Mazi was either. This indicated the New Continent had no rainy season. So far, they had been excavating on the New Continent for quite some time without encountering a single ghost creature. It remained relatively safe here. It was just that the deathly aura was too heavy. Perhaps because too many people had died here in the past, even with so many workers present—nearly all of them men full of robust yang qi—they still felt an eerie, chilling sensation in the quiet depths of the night. Time slipped away, second by second. The ghost stones and ghost bones excavated today had all been transported to Fan Domain. The Fan Domain members who had been busy late into the night had finished their work, washed up, and gone to sleep. Ghost creatures dropped ghost stones upon death, with a small probability of yielding exotic treasures. The ghost stones on the New Continent had been left untouched, meaning neither humans nor ghost creatures had visited. Since no one had visited, where were the exotic treasures? Nearly a month had passed, yet not a single exotic treasure had been found on the New Continent, not even the simplest white-grade treasure. It was as if these ghost creatures did not produce exotic treasures upon death at all. While it was not a critical issue, it remained somewhat puzzling. *** Deep in the New Continent. Aboard the flying boat suspended in midair, Wang Mazi stood alone at the edge of the vessel, gazing into the darkness ahead. This was the maximum range of the signal towers established under the Domain Lord. Beyond this point, they would lose contact with Fan Domain. They would rest aboard the flying boat for the night and set off again at dawn. Ever since he was a child, he had wondered about a question: just how vast was a continent? No one could answer that question, just as no one could tell him what the sea of stars in the sky truly looked like. And now, he finally had the chance to see with his own eyes how vast a continent could be. "Pavilion Master." His subordinate Zhang Damao walked over from behind, remarking with a sigh, "The brothers behind us can't keep up with our pace at all. We've marked several ancient battlefields over the past few days, but excavation hasn't even begun on them." "The brothers behind are still excavating those seven defense lines." Currently, most Fan Domain members were still mining ghost stones on the island and near the first defense line. "Those seven defense lines might well have been the main battlefield of this continent—the absolute frontline," Wang Mazi said in a low voice, looking into the darkness from the edge of the deck. "None of the ancient battlefields we've discovered so far match the scale of those seven defense lines, and their walls aren't as high-level either." "If it really was the frontline, mining it will naturally take some time." "The frontline?" Zhang Damao hesitated. "Then what was that thing we saw during the day?" Wang Mazi fell silent, offering no reply. According to the plan, the flying boat was supposed to conduct a grid search. But yesterday, they had spotted an enormous crater on the distant ground. Even from afar, they could tell that the crater was not a natural formation, but... blasted out by sheer force.