Uncle Liu! It's Me, Shao Qiu—I'm Fucking Back!

Soon, soft snoring sounded in the room. Chen Fan slept deeply. He even dreamed, something he had not done in a long time. He was not a man who dreamed often. He dreamed that, two and a half years later, the Jiangbei Defense Line was utterly shattered by a ghost tide that surged up from the seabed. Jiangbei fell. Countless living beings died because of it, and Fan Domain was the first to be destroyed. Before he died, he saw Da Yu self-detonate. Cold flames burst open within the ghost tide and cleared every ghost creature from a vast stretch of ground. But very soon that blank region was filled again by the endless ghost tide. He stared at all of it, powerless and unable to accept it. There were no moves left. Just as he was about to be swallowed by the ghost tide, a draft of cold air drifted over. Chen Fan jolted awake. He walked out of the room and stood on the wall of Cave No. 1, looking at the darkness that had already receded and the sun hanging halfway up the sky. He had slept straight through to midmorning. "Pah, pah, pah." "Dreams and reality are opposites." He muttered it under his breath. Last night's dream had been too inauspicious. With the Four-Year Pact gradually drawing near, he had grown somewhat tense. This was not a game, where one failure still let you start over. Fail to clear it in a single life, and the chance was gone for good. Judging by the ghost tides he had experienced in the ancient battlefield, a defense line he built with level-five walls could, in the main, hold, so long as his stockpiled ghost-stone ammunition was not exhausted. But... no one knew whether, after so many years, this ghost tide had grown stronger. After all, even Defense Line No. 7, with its walls uniformly level six, had been breached in this rainy season and had very nearly fallen for good. He had to prepare more thoroughly. It still was not thorough enough. After washing up and hastily eating breakfast, Chen Fan went to the Port and once more took up the day's work of completing the Jiangbei Defense Line. Perhaps, though he had dreamed a nightmare last night, the tension of these past days had been more or less spent inside the dream. His spirits today were quite good. He did not even feel weary. He cheerfully greeted the Fan Domain members he passed, and only then stood on the wall of the Jiangbei Defense Line, gazing out at the sea and calculating. He had been away for more than three months. In those three months and more, he had laid high-speed rail tracks running through the Guanxi Plain and the Guandong Plain, and had finished building all the signal towers as well. And in those three months, the mining on the New Continent had not stopped. The high-speed rail tracks did not consume many ghost stones. Fan Domain's warehouses had now risen to thirty. Every warehouse was packed full. Fan Domain's ghost-stone reserves now stood at 940 million ghost stones. A rather staggering number. On the one hand Chen Fan was still fairly pleased. On the other, he was somewhat worried. The ghost stones on the New Continent would be mined out one day. Even now there were many surveyed ancient battlefields he had not yet gone to mine, but on the day the mining was finished, if Fan Domain had no other channel of income, it would not even be able to sustain the ghost stones the cannon towers burned when they fired along the defense line. On the strength of the Four Lands of Jiangbei and the Two Lands of Guanxi alone, all those powers put together did not have many ghost stones either. Before the New Continent was mined out, he had to find a new channel of income. Defense Line No. 7. Ninety-seven kilometers long. To build a defense line like that would take at least over one billion ghost stones, and that was still the most conservative estimate. He did not know exactly how much more the Eternal Night Hall spent on building walls than he did, but it certainly had not been a small sum. And that did not even count daily maintenance, or what the cannon towers consumed in use. The Jiangbei Defense Line ran 170 kilometers from end to end. 170,000 meters. According to his plan, a max-level God-Slaying Cannon every twenty meters meant 8,500 to be placed, consuming 321 million ghost stones in all. Of course, in practice he did not need to spend that many. After all, the Rainy Season Defense Line had been incorporated into the Jiangbei Defense Line, and when the Rainy Season Defense Line was built it too had a max-level God-Slaying Cannon every twenty meters. Seven hundred and forty had already been built. He only needed to build 7,760 more God-Slaying Cannons, and only needed to spend another 290 million ghost stones. The God-Slaying Cannon was, in fact, an extremely cost-effective cannon tower. Upgrading it consumed no heavenly material or earthly treasure at all. It took only ghost stones. Raising one God-Slaying Cannon to max level cost a mere 37,800 ghost stones. It could already threaten a Ghost King. Under the damage-overflow effect of the Heavenly Dao Blessing, its power against "mobs" was enormous as well. But. There was no getting around how long the Jiangbei Defense Line was. A full 170 kilometers had to be set with defenses, and the number of God-Slaying Cannons required rose sharply with it. Yesterday he had only built a little. To finish the whole thing, a great many logistics buildings still had to be filled in. However. Today he did not intend to ride the Skeleton Horse along the wall, building as he ran. He had thought of a new method. An easier one. After the time it takes one incense stick to burn, Chen Fan stood on the deck of the flying boat. The flying boat hovered in the air, several dozen meters above the ground. Looking down, he could just see the wall directly ahead. His Jiangbei Defense Line was thirty meters high. The next moment! All 170 kilometers of the Jiangbei Defense Line suddenly let out a rumbling roar at once, rose from the earth, and, like one enormous snake from the game Snake, began to creep slowly forward. It kept passing before him. And he took the chance, following the points the Logistics Pavilion had already marked, to build one after another a series of logistics and wall-defense structures: God-Slaying Cannons, Anti-Air Cannons, Soul-Devouring Sculptures, ghost fire, copper pipes. He no longer had to move himself. The wall moved on its own. "This is much easier." Chen Fan held his luzhu, munching as he looked down at the slowly moving wall, and grinned. Sure enough, it was easier when he did not have to move. On the slowly moving wall below, where the top had been bare, several buildings drawn in white lines abruptly appeared as it passed beneath the flying boat, then quickly solidified and settled onto the wall. The originally bare wall suddenly bristled with killing intent. According to his plan, the God-Slaying Cannons would be the main wall-defense buildings in the next great battle, built at great cost, one every twenty meters. The Anti-Air Cannons cost the same as the God-Slaying Cannons, but their priority was not especially high. He built one every hundred meters. The numbers were very precise. But his eyes were not a measuring stick. It was hard to judge exactly how far twenty meters was. So in the days he was away, the Logistics Pavilion had specially surveyed the Jiangbei Defense Line and marked a good many points. Red dots were where God-Slaying Cannons were to be built, one every twenty meters. Green dots were where Anti-Air Cannons were to be built, one every hundred meters. Black dots, at the foot of the wall, were where Soul-Devouring Sculptures were to be built, one every hundred meters. Yellow dots, also at the foot of the wall, were for building ghost fire. The ghost fires, once built, were not lit. They were linked through copper pipes, and would ignite in an instant when the Jiangbei Defense Line was activated, to grant the Jiangbei Defense Line its range. The Logistics Pavilion had already marked every point perfectly. He only had to build according to the marks. The proportions were perfect. This method was a good deal more efficient. Just then, Shao Qiu, who had walked to a point beneath the flying boat, suddenly leapt into the air. His toes tapped lightly several times in midair. He rose straight up from level ground, landed steadily on the flying boat, and strode up to Chen Fan. He glanced at the buildings continuously taking shape on the wall below and said, hesitating, "Domain Lord, you sent for me?" The Domain Lord had called him here. Clearly there was something. But the Domain Lord was building just now, and for a moment he did not know whether he ought to interrupt. "Mm." Chen Fan gave a slight nod and, still building, said offhandedly, "You've been at Defense Line No. 7 for half a year now. Tell me about Defense Line No. 7. Everything you've learned, tell me all of it." Shao Qiu's expression turned solemn. He drew a little notebook from his robes, looked down and checked it quickly, and only then began to report. "On this trip, I uncovered a good deal of information." "Defense Line No. 7 is not the front line of the Eternal Night Continent. It is a secondary defense line in the rear of the Eternal Night Continent." "The ghost tide it faces cannot compare to the front, but it is already the largest ghost tide I have seen in my life. Even outside the rainy season, the ordinary ghost tide blots out the sky." "Tens of millions of ghost creatures, once night falls, come up onto land out of the seawater and attack the defense line, fearing neither life nor death." "Defense Line No. 7 runs ninety-seven kilometers from end to end." "The common cannon tower is a green-grade tower called the Sword-Rain Cannon Tower. Raising it to max level consumes no heavenly material or earthly treasure. One can be built for 100,000 ghost stones." "One is placed every ten meters." "It is an area-attack cannon tower, used mainly against ghost tides of enormous numbers." "Besides that, there is a Dark Tower, a yellow-grade wall-defense building, one every kilometer, used against the great ghost creatures in the ghost tide. Single-target attacks, enormous in power, and equally enormous in consumption." "The rest includes quite a few Anti-Air Cannons and the like." "On a vast stretch of open ground outside Defense Line No. 7, they have planted ghost eggplants on a large scale. This is a special ghost plant. Once mature, a touch can set off a tremendous explosion. They take a year to mature, and they cannot be moved. Once ripe, they automatically poke their heads up." "After the rainy season ends, Defense Line No. 7 sends people to sow ghost eggplant seeds on a large scale outside the wall. By the time the next year's rainy season is about to arrive, they have just matured, and these ghost eggplants meet the first great wave of the rainy-season ghost tide." "As for Defense Line No. 7's ghost stones, they come mainly from three sources." "The first." "Killing ghost creatures. The ghost stones gained from killing ghost creatures outside the rainy season can sometimes fully cover that day's defense-line expenses, and the surplus can be saved up to meet the next rainy season." "The second." "Support from the Eternal Night Hall. Only, the Eternal Night Hall rarely supports them with ghost stones directly. For example, before this rainy season, quite a few powers on the Guandong Plain refused to send ghost stones to Defense Line No. 7." "The Eternal Night Hall temporarily transferred one person from a nearby region. He took a flying boat to the Guandong Plain and forcibly confiscated the ghost-stone reserves of every power on the Guandong Plain." "And this, in turn, led to—" "When Defense Line No. 7 was breached during the rainy season, the various powers of the Guandong Plain had almost no power to resist. The cannon towers on their walls had not even fired for long before they fell silent, the ghost stones exhausted." "Of course, even if their ghost stones had been plentiful, it would have been useless. Once a seabed ghost tide breaks a defense line and comes onto land, walls of ordinary strength simply cannot hold." "The third." "Support from the various powers. The ghost stones gained from this source are also the fewest." Chen Fan nodded slightly. After a pause, he frowned faintly. "Do you know about how many ghost stones Defense Line No. 7 consumes in a day?" "The specifics of that, I don't know. I couldn't get access to it." Shao Qiu thought. "But Defense Line No. 7 has no copper pipes. The ghost stones the cannon towers consume have to be filled by hand." "I watched what one cannon tower consumed." "One Sword-Rain Cannon Tower uses about seven hundred ghost stones in a day." "Defense Line No. 7 has 9,700 Sword-Rain Cannon Towers in all. If every Sword-Rain Cannon Tower on the line were activated, the ghost stones consumed in a day would be about 6.8 million." "Add the other sorts of consumption." "The ghost stones consumed in a day come to roughly 6.8 million to 8 million." "But—" "Outside the rainy season, the ghost tide is not so numerous, and it does not strike the whole defense line at once. It is rare for every cannon tower to be activated. So generally speaking, the consumption ought to be a little lower." "Outside the rainy season, Defense Line No. 7's daily consumption is about four million ghost stones." "In the rainy season, Defense Line No. 7's daily consumption rises to about ten million ghost stones, or even more." "After all—" "There are more ghost creatures in a rainy-season ghost tide. Whether it is repairing the walls or mending the cannon towers, all of it consumes a great many ghost stones. And most of the ghost stones come from what drops when ghost creatures are killed." Chen Fan was silent and did not speak. Four million ghost stones a day outside the rainy season was indeed no small sum. Over a month, that was 120 million ghost stones. Add the rainy season's 300 million. Defense Line No. 7's consumption for a full year was around 1.62 billion ghost stones. This was an utterly staggering number. Fan Domain had the New Continent at its back, yet all the ghost stones accumulated over three months still fell far short of this figure. A defense line was not finished the moment it was built. His Jiangbei Defense Line was the same. Enough ghost stones had to be kept in reserve for the consumption of cannon towers and the other buildings. Defense Line No. 7 sat on the coastline of the Guandong Plain. Like a machine that devoured gold. Every year it needed to consume 1.62 billion ghost stones. And what those 1.62 billion ghost stones bought was that the Guanxi Plain and the lands beyond it had not, for nearly a hundred years, suffered the strike of a seabed ghost tide—those large-scale ghost tides numbering in the tens of millions. After a long pause, only then did he speak again. "How much do you know about the Eternal Night Hall?" "Mm." Shao Qiu lowered his head and thought carefully before he spoke. "This power is the largest 'organization' on the Eternal Night Continent. It isn't a power. Any power willing to put in effort for the Eternal Night Continent can join this power." "After joining, there is no monthly wage, and no reward either." "But contributions are required." "Contributions toward guarding the Eternal Night Continent. Rather than call it an organization, it would be better to say it is every power on the Eternal Night Continent joining hands and gathering together to guard the Eternal Night Continent." "Those with ghost stones give ghost stones." "Those with people give people." "Those with nothing go and lay some basic buildings, such as message stations, to keep up communications between the regions." "A power that doesn't even have a single architect in it goes to the powers that still haven't joined the Eternal Night Hall and demands ghost stones." "And the person in overall charge of Defense Line No. 7 has never even met the Hall Master of the Eternal Night Hall, nor has he ever been to the heartland of the Eternal Night Continent. He is a Guandong man, born and bred." "He was originally the lord of a power." "Later that power was destroyed and the original person in charge died. He took up the post in the crisis and became the person in overall charge, responsible for the overall dispatch of Defense Line No. 7." "And—" "Before the last rainy season, because the ghost stones accumulated that year were not enough, Defense Line No. 7 sent to the Eternal Night Hall for support. The Eternal Night Hall refused at first. Later it answered, saying it had done its utmost to allocate one hundred million ghost stones to be shipped to the Guandong Plain." "But—" "Halfway there, a traitor leaked the intelligence. The Ghost Clan received the news and, at any cost, forcibly broke through a secondary defense line. When this batch of ghost stones passed the Qiuming Basin, they intercepted it." "The flying boat was sunk." "The Eternal Night Hall told Defense Line No. 7 of this, and made it clear that for the time being they had no spare ghost stones with which to support Defense Line No. 7. They hoped Defense Line No. 7 could hold out as best it could." Chen Fan suddenly stopped the building work in his hands. The wall that had been slowly moving beneath the flying boat stopped as well. His brow furrowed, and he turned his head toward Shao Qiu. "What did you just say... a traitor?" He did not understand. If two powers went to war, a traitor was perfectly normal. But how could there be a traitor in a war between ghost creatures and humans? Would humans actually choose to go over to the ghost creatures? "Mm." Shao Qiu nodded. "A major reason the fighting on the Eternal Night Continent's front line is so extremely dire this time is that, with this descent of Eternal Night, quite a few ghost creatures have awakened a measure of intelligence. They've learned to use stratagems." "Very hard to deal with." "Feints, all-out assaults, and the like have left the front line bitterly deadlocked." "At the same time, nearly everyone, including the people of the Eternal Night Hall, is clear that the Eternal Night Continent most likely cannot survive this time. But they are still exerting all their strength to hold the line. Even if they cannot hold out, they cannot let the ghost tide come ashore so easily. And so long as they persist, a miracle will come in the end." "And some ghost creatures infiltrate the Eternal Night Hall by all sorts of means, promising that any humans willing to go over to them now will, when the Ghost Clan has completely occupied the Eternal Night Continent, be given a region to live in—these humans who know to bend with the times." "When a person has no way out, they fight desperately. But the moment there is a little way out, even if that way out looks somewhat faint, it becomes easy to succumb." "Inside the Eternal Night Hall—" "Traitors are not few." "The Ghost Clan of the front line cannot come to the Guandong Plain, restricted by the rules. But they urgently hope the Guandong Plain will fall. That way the Eternal Night Continent will be unable to guard both head and tail, and will fall into utter disarray." "The pressure on the front line would lessen by a great deal." "So when they learned the Eternal Night Hall was sending ghost stones to support the Guandong Plain, they spared no cost to assault a secondary defense line and block those ghost stones from arriving, even though the price they paid far exceeded those one hundred million ghost stones." "As far as I know—" "Both the Ghost Clan and the Eternal Night Hall have learned of the vacancy on the Jiangbei Defense Line. The Ghost Clan is constantly inquiring after news of when the Eternal Night Hall will go to Jiangbei to set defenses." "They mean to play the same trick again." "They want the ghost tide at Jiangbei to make landfall at Jiangbei, go south all the way into the Guanxi Plain, then, striking from within and without, take Defense Line No. 7, and then go east all the way into the heartland of the Eternal Night Continent." Chen Fan was silent for a long time. He knew the fighting on the Eternal Night front was urgent. He had not thought it had become urgent to this degree. From the look of things, the front line could still hold. By contrast, the Jiangbei Defense Line and Defense Line No. 7 had become what mattered most of all. If these two defense lines were breached, the whole Eternal Night Continent, this colossus, might very well come apart in an instant because of it. A crab's rot does not begin at the moment of death. The Eternal Night Continent was the same. Even if they forced themselves to cut their losses and sever the tail to live, abandoning a great stretch of territory to defend what remained, it would certainly be even harder. "So the main reason Defense Line No. 7 nearly fell in the rainy season this time was that there weren't enough ghost stones?" "Yes." Shao Qiu let out a long sigh. "Last year, Defense Line No. 7 did not accumulate very many ghost stones. The number they can set aside each year is not fixed. It all depends on luck." "Before the rainy season arrived, they received word that the Eternal Night Hall could not send support." "So they placed their hopes on the Guanxi Plain, hoping the powers of the Guanxi Plain would lend a hand. Defense Line No. 7 knew perfectly well that the powers of the Guanxi Plain did not have many ghost stones either, not enough to sustain the running of a defense line. Even so, they sent a plea for help, clinging to a slim chance." "Only a scant few dozen powers answered." "Most powers chose to ignore it." "Among them there was even a power called the Hentian Sect that sent only a single ghost stone. Of the few dozen powers that chose to answer, the one that contributed the most was the Immortal Slaughter Holy Land." "They sent five million ghost stones." "In total, 7.78 million ghost stones were collected. Though it was a drop in the bucket, it truly let Defense Line No. 7 on the Guandong Plain hold for one more day in the rainy season. It was exactly that extra day." "That let Defense Line No. 7 wait until the Nightwatcher sent by the Eternal Night Hall arrived, along with seven Heavenly Master-level architects and a great quantity of ghost stones." "The Nightwatcher activated himself and cleared out most of the ghost creatures that had broken into the Guandong Plain. After they held until dawn, these seven Heavenly Master-level architects began rapidly repairing the defense line and clearing out the ghost creatures remaining on the Guandong Plain." "Only then did they make it through the rainy season again." "It's just—" "The ghost tide's incursion had already left fewer than three in ten of the Guandong Plain's people alive. If the Eternal Night Hall had not come in time, the ghost tide would have charged into the Guanxi Plain, even into the heartland of the Eternal Night Continent." "The power of a Nightwatcher's activation is not that great." Chen Fan shook his head. "That was a Nightwatcher one step short of Martial Saint cultivation." A level-ten cultivator was a Martial King, a level-twenty cultivator a Martial Emperor, and a level-thirty cultivator a Martial Saint. "But the information I have is that Nightwatchers cannot cultivate." "Ordinarily, that is so." Shao Qiu nodded. "Nightwatchers truly cannot cultivate. But the Eternal Night Hall has a special method that can forcibly raise a Nightwatcher's cultivation, and thereby increase the power after activation. Only, the body cannot bear this kind of activation." "Once activated, it is no longer a shortening of one's lifespan, but the perishing of both body and soul." "The Eternal Night Hall did send people in the end. Only, to keep traitors from leaking the plan, they used a group of people they absolutely trusted and took another transport route, which delayed them for a time." "If not for the ghost-stone support from the Guanxi Plain, then when the Eternal Night Hall's people reached the Guandong Plain, what they would have seen would not have been a damaged Defense Line No. 7, but a Defense Line No. 7 razed utterly flat, and a Guandong Plain already sunk into chaos." "But—" "According to the news that came from the Eternal Night Hall—" "Those seven Heavenly Masters did not return safely to the Eternal Night Hall. They died in the heartland of the Eternal Night Continent. The wounds were not made by ghost creatures. They were... fatal wounds, daggers through the neck." "Some people believed the Ghost Clan's offer of amnesty." "And sent in their pledges of allegiance." "This year, the ghost stones Defense Line No. 7 has accumulated still are not really enough. They have already contacted the Eternal Night Hall again. Only this time, the answer from the Eternal Night Hall is that they will do their best to prepare what they can, but it is plain the hope is already very slim." Shao Qiu's report was finished. After he finished reporting, he stood behind Chen Fan and did not say a word. All the information he had reported carried, as far as possible, no feeling of his own. He did not say that he had made many friends on Defense Line No. 7. Nor did he say that if he had not joined Fan Domain first, and had gone to the Guandong Plain first instead, he might have died on Defense Line No. 7 like those people. Especially when he had watched several friends he had only just made die in the impact of the ghost tide. That desire for revenge had made him utterly unwilling to flee. If he was to die, he would die on Defense Line No. 7. The air of that place infected a person's feelings all too easily, and it also made him, from the bottom of his heart, loathe those traitors. If not for the traitors, the Eternal Night Continent would not be in such difficulty, and neither would Defense Line No. 7. The wall began to move slowly again. Chen Fan also went back to building one structure after another, only he too was silent, and did not speak for a long time. One master, one subordinate. The two of them said nothing, standing quietly on the flying boat. After a long while, only then did Chen Fan say softly, "I will send aid to Defense Line No. 7. You will go in person. Do not tell Defense Line No. 7 that the aid comes from Fan Domain of Jiangbei." "Say it is aid given by an unnamed power." "If you can—" "Do your best to have Defense Line No. 7 not report this matter to the Eternal Night Hall either." Shao Qiu was slightly stunned. Only then did his expression turn solemn, and he answered, "Yes!" He knew the situation Fan Domain now faced was also extremely difficult. The seabed ghost tide at Jiangbei was about to make landfall, and Fan Domain had not received so much as a single ghost stone of support from the Eternal Night Hall. "Ninety-seven kilometers, end to end." Chen Fan murmured, "That is 97,000 meters. If a Soul-Devouring Sculpture is placed every hundred meters, it will take about 970 Soul-Devouring Sculptures." "One Soul-Devouring Sculpture costs 2,600 ghost stones." "In total that comes to—" "Around 2.5 million ghost stones." Before the rainy season, Fan Domain's first gift of aid to Defense Line No. 7 would be 970 Soul-Devouring Sculptures. Each Soul-Devouring Sculpture could reduce the ammunition consumption of every cannon tower within its range by forty percent. The help to Defense Line No. 7 would be enormous. Originally the rainy season required ten million ghost stones a day. With the Soul-Devouring Sculptures, it would probably only need six million. He could not give too many ghost stones. He did not have enough ghost stones for his own use. But he also could not watch Defense Line No. 7 fall before his eyes. Besides the Soul-Devouring Sculptures, he could also send Defense Line No. 7 a batch of copper pipes, altars, and God-Slaying Cannons. That could greatly raise the wall's defense and its firepower. Only, the copper pipes could not be shipped there by high-speed rail. He would need to go to Defense Line No. 7 in person to build them. This he was still considering. Before he had enough strength to protect himself, he was unwilling to have too deep a tie with the Eternal Night Hall. No one knew whether some traitor might leak his information to the Ghost Clan. Unless— Anonymity. A false identity. That was a way. Though it could not be hidden for long, hiding it a little was still hiding it a little, and every bit of time he could buy for Fan Domain to grow was a bit of time. Fan Domain is far too short on time. If only the war could be paused. Pause it for a while. Let him build up for fifty years. Then he would have nothing left to fear. After a long while, the wall stopped moving. Chen Fan stopped the building work in his hands and turned his head toward Shao Qiu. "How do Defense Line No. 7 and the Eternal Night Hall keep in contact?" "They say it's a Mother-and-Child Stone." "An exotic treasure of extremely high grade. It can communicate across vast distances. The Four Lands of Jiangbei and the Two Lands of Guanxi lie on the edge of the Eternal Night Continent. This region has not had enough message stations built." "Is there a power on the Guanxi Plain that can contact the Eternal Night Hall?" "No." "Understood." Chen Fan looked up at the sky, then smiled. "When I told you to leave back then, I saw you hesitate. Made a few friends on Defense Line No. 7?" "Mm." Shao Qiu looked a little embarrassed, his gaze drifting. "When I had you leave without a word, was there any resentment in your heart?" "I wouldn't dare." "Wouldn't dare just means there was." Chen Fan paused, then gazed far out over the sea and said softly, "The front-line defenses of the New Continent were nothing but level-ten walls, uniform from end to end. And what of it? The New Continent was slaughtered clean." "I want to live." "I want to bring every person in Fan Domain through alive, endure the Eternal Night, and see the moment the sun rises." "Before that, we must be cautious enough." "An armored soldier going to the aid of a beggar mad with hunger—that is bestowing a kindness." "An unruly child going to the aid of a beggar mad with hunger—that is staking his life." "If you have one piece of bread you can give away, it means you have more bread." "One piece of bread will not fill a belly." "Fan Domain is still too weak. Showing ourselves too early before the Eternal Night Hall and the Ghost Clan is nothing good for us." "It is already early in the seventh month." "There isn't long now until this year's rainy season descends. No one can say whether the rainy season on the Guandong Plain might come early. Sending a little aid ahead of time will let Defense Line No. 7 set its mind somewhat at ease, and let Defense Line No. 7 save a few more ghost stones." "Today I will build a batch of Soul-Devouring Sculptures. You will lead the team. Tomorrow they go to Defense Line No. 7 by high-speed rail." "Yes!" Shao Qiu nodded heavily, somewhat excited, and accepted. After Shao Qiu left, Chen Fan stood at the edge of the flying boat's deck and stretched comfortably. Today's plan for building the Jiangbei Defense Line would stop for the time being. First he would build one thousand Soul-Devouring Sculptures to send to Defense Line No. 7. The extra thirty were surplus, left for Defense Line No. 7 as spares. This was the first time he had come into contact with so much information about the Eternal Night Hall. After learning of this power, he suddenly felt considerably more at ease. At least there was a great power rushing about on every side for the sake of the Eternal Night Continent. It gave him the feeling that he was not fighting alone. He had teammates too. At least— From the news he had so far, this was an organization not much driven by personal gain. The organization's only task was to guard every defense line as well as it could, and there were many people willing, of their own accord, to give their lives for it. Based on the news he had so far, several of the Eternal Night Hall's difficulties were things he could find ways to solve. For instance... he could dig an underground high-speed rail tunnel between the core regions, so that supplies, architects, and the rest could arrive safely and return safely, and would not be intercepted by ghost creatures. And the speed would not be much slower than a flying boat. Weiwei alone definitely would not be enough. But if he could enter into deep cooperation with the Eternal Night Hall, he believed that having the Eternal Night Hall help him find a batch of Sky-Swallowing Crocodiles ought not to be too difficult a matter either. "Get through the ghost tide two and a half years from now first..." He leaned over the edge of the flying boat, looking out at the surging sea. He had never seen a seabed ghost tide make landfall with his own eyes, and he did not know whether he could hold. The next day. Eternal Night Calendar, year 380, the seventh day of the seventh month. Shao Qiu led a team onto the high-speed rail bound for the Guandong Plain. The cars had not been capped with energy shields. Instead, each car held two Soul-Devouring Sculptures. The Domain Lord had built a gigantic high-speed rail with fully more than five hundred cars. Each car held two Soul-Devouring Sculptures. Near midday, this high-speed rail slowly rolled out of Fan Domain. It followed the tracks south all the way through Jiangnan and reached the Guanxi Plain. Under the curious eyes of a crowd of powers, it continued south, heading for the Guandong Plain. This was the first time a Fan Domain high-speed rail had gone out with no Fan Domain banner. The Guandong Plain and the Guanxi Plain were both plains of enormous size. Especially with so few merchant caravans coming and going. The exchange of news between the two places was nearly nothing. On the Guanxi Plain, everyone already knew of Fan Domain. On the Guandong Plain, hardly anyone did. As night drew near, the quiet Defense Line No. 7 gradually grew busy. Eternal Night was about to descend. They had to start preparing. And that middle-aged man who had lost both legs, as usual, got his meal while leaning on his crutches, walked to a nearby table, and prepared to eat. After the meal he meant to go sleep. There was nothing for him at night. During the day he was in charge of recruiting. Once night fell, Defense Line No. 7 was no place he could help. This time he had drawn only a single serving. Uncle Liu, meal in hand, looked at the utterly empty seat before him and could not help turning his head on instinct. He felt as if that fellow were standing at his back, grinning and greeting him as usual. But behind him the crowd came and went. That fellow's figure alone was absent. Coming back to himself, he could not help shaking his head and smiling. As if mocking himself, he picked up his bowl and chopsticks and began to eat. He was a great deal older than that fellow, but in this place, friendships across generations were normal. When he looked at that fellow, it was like seeing himself when he was young. Fearless, brave, confident. The same as he himself had been in his youth. But smarter than he had been then. If he had run back in those years, he would not have lost both his legs. Just then, the crowd around him suddenly grew noisy. Uncle Liu paused, set down his bowl and chopsticks, and on instinct looked up toward the defense line ahead. Had the ghost tide come attacking before night had even fallen? But soon he found that the gazes around him were directed behind him. He turned to look. A long dragon was racing at great speed across the Guandong Plain, heading toward their group, its whistle blowing without cease. "Toot, toot, toot!!!" The piercing sound drove off the gray fog. It brought a thread of life to Defense Line No. 7, which had been somewhat stifling. This was a change Defense Line No. 7 had not seen in months. Talk rose all around his ears. "What's that? How come I've never seen it?" "Could it be support from the Eternal Night Hall?" "Has the aid we were waiting for finally come? Does that mean we have a chance of getting through this rainy season?" Uncle Liu did not speak. Only, his eyes instantly reddened. Leaning on his crutches, he stood as straight as he could, looked toward that long dragon, and laughed, scolding through the laugh, his voice unsteady. "This damn brat." At the foremost car of the long dragon, that fellow had his body stuck out. Grinning as usual, he looked toward him, waving and roaring. "Uncle Liu!!" "Uncle Liu! It's me, Shao Qiu—I'm fucking back!" The Fan Domain high-speed rail stopped roughly a kilometer from Defense Line No. 7. This was the end of the tracks. Quite a few members of Defense Line No. 7 crowded over. Uncle Liu swung his crutches hard, doing his best to charge at the very front. "Uncle Liu." Shao Qiu jumped down from the high-speed rail, looked at Uncle Liu, and grinned. "Haven't seen you in a few days. Miss me? Leaving without a word back then didn't make you too angry, old man, did it?" "I'm a rather old-fashioned man. Once I've acknowledged a master, I have to listen to what that master says." "When I was at the most down-and-out moment of my life, it was my master who took me in." "My master learned of Defense Line No. 7's situation." "And specially sent me to deliver aid." "Here." He pointed at the long row of rail cars behind him, packed with sculptures. "Soul-Devouring Sculptures. They can cut a cannon tower's ammunition consumption by forty percent. This batch of Soul-Devouring Sculptures is enough to cover the whole of Defense Line No. 7." His voice fell. The members of Defense Line No. 7 all around froze where they stood, their eyes full of shock. Only after a long moment did they react. In their excitement they kept hitting one another. Their mouths opened and closed, wanting to say something, yet not one word would come out. They could only slap the people beside them with all their strength. A forty-percent cut in ammunition consumption. It was not ghost stones sent as aid. But it far surpassed ghost stones. It meant an untold number of ghost stones would be saved. It meant they might be able to live through this rainy season. "Hurry... hurry..." Uncle Liu's lips had gone white. His whole body trembled with excitement as he looked at the person beside him and urged them on in a rush. "Hurry, hurry and find Elder Seven, hurry!" He had meant to say something else, but once he heard what these Soul-Devouring Sculptures could do, he could spare a thought for nothing else. Elder Seven was the person in overall charge of Defense Line No. 7. This was not a name. It was a code name. Anyone who became the person in overall charge of Defense Line No. 7 would be called Elder Seven. "No need to look. I'm here." The crowd parted. A white-haired old man, two or three people following behind him, came quickly on a Skeleton Horse. As he drew near the crowd he swung nimbly down from the horse, and only then, his eyes slightly red, looked toward Shao Qiu and said hoarsely, "Can they truly cut a cannon tower's ammunition consumption by forty percent?" "Not a shred of falsehood." Shao Qiu's expression was earnest. "How many are there?" "One thousand. Enough to cover the whole of Defense Line No. 7." "Are you gentlemen aid sent by the Eternal Night Hall?" "No." Shao Qiu shook his head. "It is aid sent by my master. But because of a certain special circumstance, my master is unwilling to reveal the name of his power, and he also hopes that you, Elder Seven, can keep this aid hidden from the Eternal Night Hall. Just say you picked it up out in the wild." "Of course, of course, of course." This white-haired old man's lips kept trembling. Tears glinted in his eyes as he looked at the Soul-Devouring Sculptures lined up neat and even through those several hundred cars, and he said, his voice shaking, "No matter which power you come from, this is a kindness that every member of Defense Line No. 7, from the highest to the lowest, has taken upon themselves." "It's only—" "We can do no more than hold Defense Line No. 7. We can be of no help to you. Repaying this kindness will be truly hard." "Holding Defense Line No. 7 is the greatest kindness to us, and the greatest kindness to the Four Lands of Jiangbei and the Two Lands of Guanxi." Elder Seven was briefly stunned, then suddenly choked up. He drew a deep breath, settled his feelings, and only then squeezed out a smile. "Come, this way, please. I'll have a banquet prepared at once." "No need for a banquet." Shao Qiu shook his head and pointed at the sky overhead, which was gradually going dark. "It'll be dark soon. Better to set the Soul-Devouring Sculptures in place quickly first. The sooner they're set, the sooner we save a few ghost stones." "Elder Seven, what do you say?" "We'll do as you say!"