The waiting was the hardest part. In the crushing dark of the trench, time lost its shape. There was no sunrise to signal a new day, only the rhythmic rise and fall of Lin Qinghe's shallow breathing and the gnawing acid in Ji Han's stomach.
According to his internal count, six hours had passed.
"Hydration check," Ji Han whispered.
He didn't want to move. His limbs felt heavy, his muscles stiff from the lactic acid buildup of the digging. But the thirst was a physical weight, pressing behind his eyes.
He pushed the grass lid aside.
The world outside was a blinding white-gold. The violet tint of the sky was washed out by the sheer intensity of the sun, which had climbed another degree toward the zenith. The heat was no longer just hot; it was sterilizing.
Ji Han squinted at the landscape. The user's fear was realized: the azure grass was dying.
The lush blue field he had arrived in was turning into a sea of brittle, yellow straw. The "Long Day" was scorching the life out of the surface world. The stalks were bowing, their moisture evaporated by the relentless solar radiation.
"If the grass dies," Ji Han rasped, "we have nothing to chew."
He shielded his face and crawled toward the capped well. The flat stone was hot enough to burn his skin. He wrapped his hand in his sleeve and lifted it.
Drip.
A single drop of water fell from the underside of the stone into the mud cup below.
Ji Han stared. In the bottom of the narrowed hole, a small pool had gathered. It wasn't much—maybe three tablespoons—but it was clear. The condensation trap had worked. The earth had sweated, and the stone had caught it.
He carefully dipped the waterskin into the hole, sucking up the precious liquid. He recapped the well immediately.
"Efficiency," he muttered. "Low yield. Sustainable."
He scrambled back to the trench, the scorched earth burning his feet.
Inside the cool dark, he shared the water with Lin Qinghe. She drank greedily, her eyes fluttering open.
"The heat..." she whispered. "It is increasing."
"The grass is dying," Ji Han said bluntly. "The surface is becoming a desert. My food source is turning into hay."
Lin Qinghe closed her eyes, her brow furrowing in thought. "The Azure Grass is a spirit plant," she murmured. "It has survived eons in this domain. If the sun does not set for months, the plant must adapt."
"It's turning yellow."
"It is retreating," she corrected. "To survive the Fire Qi of the sun, the Wood Qi retreats to the source. The life is not gone, Ji Han. It has gone down."
Ji Han looked at the earthen wall of their trench.
"Down," he repeated.
He picked up the triangular stone. He didn't go outside. He turned to the wall of their grave and began to dig sideways.
He scraped away the topsoil. Six inches in, he hit a tangle of fibrous material.
Roots.
They weren't thin and stringy like normal grass roots. They were thick, white tubers, swollen with stored moisture and energy. While the stalks above withered to protect themselves, the plant had shoved all its nutrients underground.
Ji Han hacked a chunk of the root free. It was the size of a carrot, pale and waxy.
He sliced it open with his rusty sword. The inside was wet.
"Jackpot," Ji Han breathed.
He took a bite. It was crunchy and tasted like raw potato mixed with ginseng. It was bitter, but it was filled with water and starch.
"Eat," he ordered, handing a slice to Lin Qinghe. "It's wet. You can chew this."
She took it, nibbling the edge. "Rich in Earth Qi," she noted, a faint flush of color returning to her cheeks. "Heavy. Hard to digest. But potent."
Ji Han continued to excavate the wall. As he pulled out another cluster of roots, a clump of dirt fell away, revealing a cavity.
Something writhed in the darkness.
Ji Han recoiled, raising his stone.
It was a grub. A pale, translucent larva the size of his thumb, curled in a ball near the roots.
Ji Han stared at it. In his old life, he would have retched. In this life, he saw a protein bar.
"Meat," Ji Han said.
Lin Qinghe opened one eye. She saw the grub. She didn't look disgusted; she looked resigned. "Earth Dragon Larva. High nutritional density. Strengthens the blood."
Ji Han picked it up. It was cool and squirming.
"Raw?" he asked.
"If you cook it, you lose the moisture," she said ruthlessly.
Ji Han closed his eyes. He thought about the three loaves of bread he was saving for year seven. He thought about the seven years of starvation ahead.
He popped the grub into his mouth.
It popped like a grape. It tasted of soil and copper.
He swallowed before he could think about the texture.
[System Notification: Consumed Earth Dragon Larva.][Constitution +0.01][Satiety Restored.]
He gasped, wiping his mouth. It was vile. It was the best meal he'd had in three days.
"We don't need the surface," Ji Han said, looking at the wall of dirt with new eyes. "The food is here. The water is here. The shelter is here."
He looked at Lin Qinghe.
"We turn this trench into a tunnel," he planned. "We follow the roots. We hunt the grubs. We stay underground until the sun sets in six months."
Lin Qinghe nodded slowly. "A cultivation cave. It is... traditional."
"It's a wormhole," Ji Han corrected. "And we are the worms."
He raised his stone shovel. The surface world could burn. Down here, they would eat like kings on roots and bugs.