"I Am a 'Nightwatcher'"

Night was about to fall. The unrelenting, dreary rain showed no sign of letting up. In the damp air, Chen Fan rested both hands against the parapet, gazing out toward the horizon. He had been young once too. He could completely understand the boy's actions. Yet understanding was one thing. As a leader, he still had to nip such matters in the bud to prevent future trouble, not to mention that Qi Chong was watching how he would handle it. When a leader gives orders to his subordinates, the subordinates will in fact throw difficult problems back, observing how the leader handles them to decide their own conduct in the days ahead. What kind of leader you are determines what kind of subordinates you have. It was just like... In his past life, when a new teacher came to class, some students would always make a scene on purpose to test the teacher's tolerance, thereby deciding how to behave in that class going forward. Kill? Scold? Punish? "..." Only after a long silence did Chen Fan make up his mind. He then turned his gaze toward the altar in the corner of the camp. It came from a building blueprint he had obtained a few days ago, which he had already constructed and placed inside the walls. It possessed healing properties. He had tested it on the torn skin between Zhou Mo's thumb and forefinger; the results were quite good, and it consumed very few ghost stones. The principle was using the energy within ghost stones to heal wounds. "Ghost stones" truly seemed almost all-powerful, capable of doing anything. It would be dark soon. He wondered if a ghost tide would come tonight. A thought had suddenly struck him earlier: if he connected the altar to the wall with "copper pipes," could the wall be repaired by the altar? If so, the wall's defensive strength would increase significantly. Right then— A clamor arose outside the camp. Zhou Mo had returned, pedaling that crude tricycle. Quehou went over to conduct the routine inspection. Once he cleared the check, Zhou Mo brought Wang Mazi's subordinate into the camp to report to Chen Fan. ... Inside the rain shelter atop the wall. "Stationmaster." Zhou Mo seemed thrilled. "With the tricycle you built, Stationmaster, I made it to several outposts today that were unreachable before! I brought back heaps of supplies, plus 578 ghost stones!" "..." Chen Fan turned his head toward the tricycle outside the wall. A flatbed cart was hitched behind it with ropes, piled high with all sorts of supplies. For the camp, this truly was a bountiful harvest. "In less than an hour, Eternal Night will descend. "You cut the timing far too close. "Don't delay out there so long in the future. Prioritize your safety." "Understood!" Zhou Mo grinned broadly. The stationmaster's concern warmed him. Every architect had their own Dao protector. As everyone knew, architects were relatively frail physically; when venturing outside, they often required a Dao protector to accompany them. If a battle occurred, they had to stall until the architect could construct a building. To become an architect's Dao protector was an honor. For someone who had loved practicing martial arts since childhood and dreamed of becoming a prominent figure, he liked this career path very much. "Good work. Go down and rest; leave tonight to us. "By the way." Chen Fan looked at Wang Mazi's subordinate standing behind Zhou Mo. "Stay behind for a moment. I'd like to have a word with you." ... Night approached. The people in the camp grew busy, making ample preparations for tonight's ghost creature invasion. During the day, Wang Mazi and Wang Kui had shouldered hoes and dug a trench around the camp, designed specifically to deal with flesh worm ghosts. When flesh worm ghosts fell into the trench, they would detonate and die. Though this shallow trench was virtually useless in the face of a massive flesh worm ghost tide, even the slightest effect might allow them to hold out until the wind shifted. Miracles always existed. It was just that many people couldn't hold out until the miracle appeared. "What is your name?" Standing on the wall, Chen Fan smiled as he looked at the boy standing in the rain, his tone quite gentle. He was not old. Around eighteen or nineteen, looking rather youthful. Usually taciturn and speaking very little, he was the youngest in the camp. A male with feminine features. Such looks were considered exquisite among men, making one easily prone to ending up in a brothel as a male prostitute. He was a head shorter than Chen Fan, with slender limbs. "What is your name?" "Da Yu." "And your surname?" "I have none." The boy lowered his head in unease. "I used to live in a mountain village by the sea, surviving on fishing. My father was a fisherman. He hoped to catch big fish every day, so he gave me this name. "My father had no surname either. He was an orphan from birth and had no idea what his own father's surname was. "My father said that if I made something of myself later, I could choose a surname I liked to pass down. If I amounted to nothing, this name would be fine—a humble pet name lets you live longer." "A fisherman?" Chen Fan looked out into the rainy night. "The sea to the north of the wasteland?" "Yes, yes." "Who built your ghost fire?" "It was a natural ghost fire zone. There weren't many ghost creatures there, and steep cliffs surrounded it on all four sides. The village was built at the bottom of the ravine in the middle. Under normal circumstances, we only had to haul stones to block the sole exit, and we could pass the rainy season in safety." "So you didn't want to follow in your father's footsteps, and left the village to see the world?" "No." The boy shook his head, looking dejected. "During one rainy season, countless ghost creatures flew down from the steep cliffs on all four sides into the village. The village fell, and I escaped." "..." Chen Fan looked at the boy with a calm expression. He wasn't lamenting the boy's life; he was merely curious how the boy had survived under such circumstances. But right now, the boy seemed triggered into trauma, his body trembling continuously, his eyes flooded with intense terror and agony. He was on the verge of an emotional collapse. Fear was a contagious emotion. Merely looking into those eyes, Chen Fan felt a faint chill running down his spine. The other day, when the flesh worm ghost tide assaulted the walls and the female ghost attacked, this boy hadn't shown this kind of terror—only fluster and unease. There weren't many people in the camp. Though he hadn't known the boy's name before, whenever a major event occurred in the camp, he would observe everyone to see their truest nature; under such circumstances, it was often very difficult to pretend. That was precisely why he hadn't immediately dragged the boy out to make an example of him. Because according to his observations, this boy was not someone foolishly selfish. He had guessed a little of the truth, but he said no more about it. "It is safe here." Chen Fan placed a hand on the boy's head, ruffling the rain-soaked hair that clung messily together, and said with a smile, "What's in the past is in the past. A person has to look forward. This is your new home now. As long as we work together, we'll certainly get through the rainy season and build a camp of our own. "All right. "Go back and rest. Night is falling. Tomorrow, you still have to go out on missions with your Brother Zhou Mo." The boy's emotions gradually stabilized a little, but still somewhat dazed, he turned and walked down the wall. Yet just as he stepped onto the stone stairs, the boy suddenly turned back toward Chen Fan. "Stationmaster, my father said those words too. That a person has to look forward. "But why must people always look forward?" "Because the future will be better." "Yet who can know for sure that the future will be better? What if it's an even greater tragedy?" "..." Chen Fan stayed silent for a while, then chuckled softly as he looked at the boy whose face was somewhat blurred in the rainy night. He could tell that the boy's mental state was off, as if he were wrestling with something. This was no time for preaching reason. Preaching reason could never clear things up anyway, nor was it necessarily right. The boy froze where he stood, as if never expecting the stationmaster to speak so coarsely. After quite a while, he suddenly burst into a wet chuckle, tears shimmering in his eyes. "Stationmaster, aren't you going to kill me?" "Why would I kill you?" Chen Fan smiled calmly, his fingers that had been stroking the rain-slicked bluestone of the parapet coming to a slow stop. "I overheard your conversation with Qi Chong. He told you I hoarded ghost stones. I thought you would kill me." "..." Lightning ripped through the rainy night. Darkness surged like a tidal wave, sweeping rapidly from the horizon. In that instant of lightning, he caught sight of the tearful smile in the boy's eyes—deathly pale and filled with despair. "How did you know?" Chen Fan said softly. "I can look backward. "And I can only look backward. "I am not an ordinary cultivator. I am a 'Nightwatcher'." Another bolt of lightning flashed just before darkness enveloped everything completely. The boy shook his head. Black hair cascaded down like a waterfall, shimmering with starlight. His voice turned fragile at this moment, his reddened eyes glistening with tears, radiating an inexplicable air of sorrow. Like a wounded stray puppy, he made one instinctively want to step forward and pat his head. Looking up at Chen Fan, he squeezed out a smile that made one's heart ache.