"I feel like six nights have passed?"
Wang Mazi scratched his head. "Shouldn't be as long as seven nights."
"Eight nights already," Zhou Mo said, sliding the wooden plank back beneath his backside. He took another large, reflective bite of the dry flatbread in his hand. "Ergou, the little brother who followed me for so long, died in the jaws of a pseudo-human ghost just before the fifth night fell."
"On the sixth night, we ran into the mourning ghost."
"On the seventh night, we moved here and spent the night in the natural ghost fire zone."
"On the eighth night, we spent the night in the cavern newly excavated by the stationmaster."
"If we get through tonight safe and sound, that will make nine nights."
"The rainy season usually lasts about thirty days or so. We've already held out through a third of it. Looking at the entire history of Jiangbei City, we're the first to ever manage this—unprecedented and likely never to be matched."
"Jiangbei City even has a history?" Wang Kui raised an eyebrow.
"Tsk."
Hearing this, Zhou Mo couldn't help but chuckle. "Though it's been wiped out a few times, some fragmented records were passed down. That's just how humans are. Even knowing they probably won't live long, they still want to write something down so future generations know what they faced."
"Like how you enjoy keeping a diary?"
"Exactly." Zhou Mo pulled out his diary from his breast pocket and began writing while nibbling on his flatbread. "A person has to have some kind of hobby. Otherwise, living is just too dull. Besides, without people like us, the requirements for building a ghost fire would never have been passed down."
"The version passed down was the complicated one, too," Wang Kui said, glancing at Chen Fan's back inside the cavern, where he was constructing tonight's temporary wooden cabin. Wang Kui lowered his voice. "I remember the materials circulating for ghost fire creation were quite numerous, but the stationmaster didn't use any of those things when he made his."
"It's good enough that anything was passed down at all." Zhou Mo snapped his diary shut and tucked it back into his robes. "For a city built over a natural ghost fire zone, gathering those materials is easy. They just added some barriers to entry. After all, those people wanted to make some ghost stones off it. A more streamlined formula certainly wouldn't be leaked easily."
Right then—
Chen Fan climbed onto the wall.
Looking at the chatting men, he said casually, "Chatting away, are we?"
"Stationmaster."
Zhou Mo and the others scrambled to their feet.
"All right, go down and get some sleep. I'll take the night watch."
"There's no heating yet, and it's a bit cold."
"Bundle up when you sleep tonight. Bear with it for a few days. Once the cavern is fully excavated, we can start putting up basic buildings."
"Understood!"
...
"..."
The cavern soon fell quiet. Zhou Mo and the others had all gone to sleep inside the newly constructed temporary cabin, leaving Chen Fan sitting alone on the wall, gazing out into the rainy night outside the cavern.
Tonight was the ninth night since the rainy season began.
He knew the count better than anyone.
The others had perhaps been born into a world like this; while they didn't want to die, their long-term environment had made them highly accepting of death. He was different—he was rather unwilling to die.
He wanted to do everything he could to survive the rainy season.
If he truly couldn't make it, then there was nothing to be done.
Today, the cavern had been excavated to a depth of twenty-seven meters. With one more day of clearing tomorrow, the cavern's depth would be just about sufficient for their current needs; the rest could be expanded gradually later.
As for the "Vehicle Factory":
He didn't plan on housing it in this cavern. Instead, he intended to carve out another cave in the cliff face on the left and place that massive structure inside it.
Time always slipped by quickly when lost in idle thoughts.
Or rather, it was hard for anyone not to let their mind wander in an environment like this.
*Thud.*
An abrupt crashing sound of a heavy object plummeting off the cliff jolted him from his reverie, followed closely by one heavy impact after another.
Chen Fan snapped to alertness, his eyes staring intently into the darkness beyond the wall.
Going by the past two times, that crocodile would probably arrive very soon.
Sure enough.
After the time it took an incense stick to burn, he once again heard rustling sounds through the rainy night. That crocodile had returned to the deep pit in the canyon.
He now strongly suspected that the falling ghost creatures were being forced off the cliff by this crocodile. Otherwise, even though most ghost creatures lacked sapience, they wouldn't just leap off cliffs to commit suicide. Yet, given that the crocodile was clearly strong enough to hunt ghost creatures directly, why did it insist on using such a method to hunt?
The next moment!
The copper pipes lit up, and the sentry towers activated.
A clear view opened across the canyon's deep pit, gray fog replacing the pitch blackness.
At the base of the cliff, he once again spotted the crocodile cautiously holding a ghost creature's corpse in its jaws. But this time, it didn't immediately flee—perhaps because it was simply too starved to bear it.
It opened its jaws and dropped the corpse.
Turning toward Chen Fan, its lantern-sized pupils showed a mix of fear and fury. Forcing down its terror, it opened its gaping maw and roared loudly into the rainy night.
"Roar!!"
The deafening sound nearly drowned out the noise of the rain.
It sounded quite imposing.
However...
Its trembling limbs and the tail constantly lashing against the ground betrayed the unease in its heart, a picture of false bravado.
He had no doubt that if he made the slightest move, the creature would instantly flee.
"..."
Chen Fan remained silent. He slowly set down the eerie green lantern at his side and simply watched quietly.
The standoff lasted for several breaths.
As if sensing that Chen Fan had no intention of attacking, the crocodile tentatively swallowed one ghost creature's corpse whole. Seeing that Chen Fan still showed no reaction, it swept through the rest like a whirlwind, rapidly gulping down all thirty-odd corpses.
It looked up at Chen Fan once more.
Only then did it turn and vanish swiftly down the canyon path without looking back. This time, it didn't run quite as fast, nor did it cause as much commotion; as it ran, its tail swayed from side to side, thumping against the ground.
From that swaying tail, he could faintly detect an air of sheer delight.
It was as though it were celebrating finally getting to eat its fill tonight.
Long after the crocodile disappeared, Chen Fan muttered in a daze, "Does it have a spatial pouch stuffed in its stomach?"
Although the crocodile was large, it was only a few times larger than an ordinary crocodile; its stomach definitely couldn't fit thirty-odd ghost creature corpses...
After three nights of interaction, he had gained a general understanding of the beast.
Most likely not a ghost creature, immensely strong yet exceedingly timid, and now another trait: a stomach that could hold an enormous amount.
Furthermore...
Its intelligence was probably not very high.
If it was herding ghost creatures off the cliff, why did it have to drive them all the way to this deep pit? Falling from the sides of the canyon path would have been more than enough to kill them.
...
The latter half of the night remained quiet.
Nothing out of the ordinary occurred.
When the darkness receded, they had successfully endured the ninth night of the rainy season, leaving twenty days until it ended.
"Back to work!"
The sound of the wooden cabin collapsing under cannon fire marked the start of another day of clearing.
Today was also the final day of clearing ground.
Once today passed, the rudimentary foundation of the rear base would be just about finished.
Chapter 66