No Place Could Be More Perfect

"Heh heh..." Chen Fan felt none of the heartache of seeing his camp destroyed. Standing where he was, he could not stop grinning. It suddenly dawned on him that he had completely misjudged ghost creatures. They were actually wonderful folk. They had ghost stones in their heads, their blood could water flowers, their corpses served as fertilizer and sacrificial offerings, their stripped skin and bones yielded ghost materials, and every now and then, they even dropped exotic treasures. Wasn't every scrap of them a prize? They weren't monsters at all—they were walking heavenly treasures. It was only during the rampage of the rainy season that they would attack ghost fires like this; outside of it, they rarely did. The only slight regret was that the lives of this swarm of mourning ghosts were tied to their chieftains. At the time, plenty had not yet charged into the camp or had a chance to split. When the chieftains died, all those outside the camp perished before they could duplicate. What a shame. "Young Master, are you..." Beside him, Quehou looked at his master in bewilderment. The camp had been flourishing more with each passing day, but the young master's mental state seemed to be deteriorating just as quickly. The camp they had poured so much blood and sweat into building had been reduced to rubble by ghost creatures, forcing them to relocate, so why was he smiling so happily? "I'm fine." Chen Fan turned to Quehou with a grin. "Go tell everyone to finish packing up and get ready to move out. Load the remaining thirteen corpses of the mourning ghost chieftains and twenty ordinary ghost creature corpses onto the carts. We're taking them all." ... Two hours later. Four freshly crafted tricycles stood neatly lined up outside the camp, each towing several handcarts behind it. The carts were piled high with the camp's salvaged resources. Food, clothing, several large captured chests, crops rescued from the farmland, and everything else they could carry had essentially been packed. They resembled four crude trains idling on the wasteland, ready to depart at a moment's notice. The tricycle that had once carried the arrow fort had been destroyed by the mourning ghosts the night before. "Farewell," Chen Fan said, standing on the barren earth and looking back at the camp with lingering sentiment. "Chen Family Outpost No. 37." This was where his dream had begun. To be precise, it was the very first place he had laid eyes on after transmigrating. Places like Jiangbei City existed only in borrowed memories; this camp alone was where he had lived in the flesh. As he prepared to depart, he could not help feeling a pang of reluctance. Before leaving, he had patched every breach in the perimeter walls, ensuring they were completely seamless. Atop the walls remained two Level 4 arrow forts and four Level 2 arrow towers. He had also left one hundred ghost stones inside the camp's ghost fire to keep the arrow towers operational and prevent the flame from going out. A Level 4 ghost fire was valuable, but the loss was acceptable. The real hitch was that it had undergone a qualitative change along one of its upgrade paths: — [3: Qualitatively changed. Crafting cost for all structures within the camp reduced by 1 ghost stone per build. This effect can be used 10,000 times daily and is only active during the rainy season (Rare).] — This benefit could not be carried along. Yet the upgrade path was of immense help to him, and he certainly could not abandon it. As long as he kept the ghost fire burning, he could still utilize the effect, provided he was within the camp's boundary. Once he established roots in their rear sanctuary, he would need to return as soon as possible and lay copper pipes connecting that outpost to their new base, ensuring he could make regular use of it even from afar. This would become his first unmanned outpost. It was fortunate they were leaving early. Otherwise, the larger their foundation grew, the harder it would be to relocate. Staying in a place vulnerable to attack from all four sides offered no real security. "Phew..." Exhaling a long breath of stale air, Chen Fan let the cold rain beat against his shoulders. He climbed onto one of the tricycles, took hold of the operating levers with both hands, and gazed into the heavy mist ahead with the ghost-skin map in hand. A surge of bold ambition welled up within him. Waving his hand, he chuckled. "Move out! To our new home!" "Right away!" Standing behind Chen Fan, Quehou saw that his young master was in high spirits and grinned broadly as he swiftly triggered the ground spikes. The battered tricycle slowly began to move, rolling steadily into the depths of the mist. Weighed down by heavy loads, the convoy could not move fast. The four tricycles advanced side by side like long serpents. The leaden gray curtain of rain washed over the camp behind them, turning it into a hazy ink wash painting. The familiar arrow tower blurred into a dim silhouette amidst the rain and fog, looking like an old friend bowing in farewell. The outlines of the convoy gradually melted into the misty drizzle. Through the rain, Zhou Mo's voice carried over, laced with excitement and high hopes for the future. "Stationmaster!" "Now that we're moving to a new home, shouldn't we give it a name? Chen Family Outpost No. 37 sounds like it belongs to the Chen family, not like your own territory!" "Fair point. What name do you think works?" "How about Chen Family Outpost No. 1?" "Isn't that still the Chen family?" That was Wang Kui's annoyed bark. "Listen to yourself! Isn't the stationmaster surnamed Chen? Even if it's the Chen family, so what? Can't the stationmaster start his own clan? Won't the Wasteland Chen family be far more formidable than the Jiangbei Chen family?" "True enough. Is it too late for me to change my surname? I think Chen Kui sounds much better than Wang Kui." "Then call me Chen Mazi!" "I'm Chen Mo!" The voices gradually faded into the distance, leaving only the patter of raindrops falling on the wasteland. This once bustling camp, along with their attachments to the past and hopes for the future, dissolved together into the boundless dampness and silence of heaven and earth. In the end, only the rain remained. ... After an entire day of travel, with merely a single stick of incense before Eternal Night fell, the convoy finally reached Da Yu's former village—the natural ghost fire zone that did not appear on any ghost-skin map. By now, they were at the northernmost edge of the wasteland, neighboring the vast sea. "..." Holding the eerie green lantern, Chen Fan hopped down from the tricycle. An hour was certainly not enough to construct a full camp; they could only throw up the most basic structures. Their safety tonight would depend mainly on the green lantern in his hand. When he had first arrived in this world, lacking any means of transport, he had built tricycles by hand. They offered zero comfort and had no shock absorption whatsoever; after this bumpy trek, he felt as if his bones were about to rattle apart. Fortunately, he would soon have proper military vehicles and would no longer need to cobble tricycles together from scratch. Standing in the rain, he looked toward the village gradually being engulfed by nightfall. Involuntarily taking a deep breath, a flicker of awe passed through his eyes. This was an utterly magnificent wonder of nature. He had seen mountain villages before; back during his travels in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan in his past life, the breathtaking sight of endless peaks rolling one after another had left an indelible impression. Yet this place was different. Strictly speaking, there was only one towering mountain here, not four. At the very center of its highest point, the creator seemed to have gouged out a massive well with a colossal axe, and the village sat at the very bottom of this deep basin. The mountain walls enclosing the village were not slopes; they were sheer, nearly vertical precipices rising straight from the earth. The rock faces were so smooth they looked polished, taking on a cold, steely gray hue in the rain. Directly ahead of him lay a remarkably narrow gorge running from outside the mountain straight into the village. Calling it narrow was only by comparison with the mountain itself; to the naked eye, it was easily thirty to fifty meters wide. Looking down through the gorge, one could faintly make out the derelict houses of the village nestled at the bottom, framed by the sheer cliffs. The area of the village far exceeded the width of the gorge. If one had to describe its shape precisely, it was like a three-dimensional basin recessed into the rock. Faintly audible above the rain was the sound of ocean waves crashing against the gravel shore. The gorge opened directly onto the sea. The entire mountain rested with its back against the wasteland. When they arrived at the mountain, they had circled around its base before finally reaching this entrance facing the open ocean. ... Chen Fan smiled. This would make an utterly flawless base. No place could be more perfect than this. "Keep going!" The convoy pressed onward toward the village behind the gorge. The passage stretched a full kilometer in length, perfectly straight without the slightest curve. On a bright, sunny day, looking up from here would reveal a pristine thread of sky.