Hunger was the alarm clock that finally woke him.
Ji Han opened his eyes. The darkness of the limestone cavern was absolute, save for the dying embers of the moss-stone Lin Qinghe held.
He didn't move immediately. He checked his internal state.
The violent war between the fire and the ice in his veins had ceased. In its place was a heavy, dense river of energy flowing through his meridians. It wasn't the hot, erratic "Wild Qi" of the grass, nor the freezing "Yin Qi" of the centipede.
It was grey. It was neutral. It was heavy.
[System Notification: Cultivation Stabilization Complete.][Foundation Established: The Grey Core (Incomplete).][Current Rank: Qi Condensation Level 2.]
Level 2.
He clenched his fist. The air popped—a sharp, vacuum sound. His grip strength had doubled. His skin felt tougher, like cured leather.
"You are awake," Lin Qinghe whispered.
Ji Han sat up, his joints cracking like pistol shots. He looked at her. She was huddled against the far wall, wrapped in every scrap of leather and fabric they owned. Her lips were blue.
"How long?" Ji Han asked. His voice was deep, resonating in his chest.
"Two months," she shivered. "You sat there for two months. I thought you had died."
Ji Han blinked. Two months?
He looked at his stomach. It was concave, clinging to his spine. His body had cannibalized its own fat and muscle to fuel the transformation, leaving him looking like a draugr—skeletal, pale, but terrifyingly strong.
"The sun?"
"I don't know," she rasped. "We have been sealed in the dark."
Ji Han stood up. He felt light-headed, but the Qi surged to support him. He walked to the granite slab sealing the ceiling.
He placed his hand on the stone.
Two months ago, this stone had been radiating heat like a stove. Now?
It was warm. Just warm.
"The fever has broken," Ji Han said.
He grabbed the Black Iron wedges holding the slab in place. He pulled them out. With a grunt of exertion, he shoved the heavy granite aside.
Hisssss.
Air rushed through the gap. But it wasn't the scorching blast of the Zenith. It was dry, warm air.
Ji Han pulled himself up through the hole, entering the Granite Tunnel.
He climbed the spiral ramp, moving past the notches he had carved what felt like a lifetime ago. He reached the original entrance—the trench covered by the now-petrified grass mat.
He pushed the mat aside.
Light flooded in. But it wasn't the blinding white tyranny of the Zenith.
It was gold. Deep, rich, melancholic gold.
Ji Han shielded his eyes and looked at the sky.
The violet sun was no longer overhead. It had sunk halfway to the western horizon. Long, stretched shadows painted the barren, grey landscape. The azure grass was gone, turned to ash. The ground was a cracked mosaic of baked clay.
"Time check," Ji Han whispered.
The sun was at roughly the "3 PM" position.
In the Time Dissonance, "High Noon" lasted three months. "Afternoon" would last another three.
"Month 5," Ji Han calculated. "Maybe Month 6."
He looked at the horizon. The heat was still dangerous—comparable to a severe desert summer—but it was no longer instantly lethal. The "Long Day" was ending.
And that meant something far worse was coming.
"The Long Night," Ji Han murmured.
If the Day was six months of scorching sun, the Night would be six months of absolute darkness. And in the Azure Vastness, darkness meant cold. Space-cold.
He looked back down the hole.
They had spent the summer hiding in a refrigerator to escape the oven. If they stayed in the refrigerator during the winter, they would freeze solid. The Yin Hollow generated its own cold. Without the sun heating the ground above, the temperature down there would drop to absolute zero.
"We have to move," Ji Han said, sliding back down the tunnel.
He landed in the hollow. Lin Qinghe looked up at him, her eyes hopeful.
"The sun is setting," Ji Han announced. "We have perhaps one month of 'Dusk' before the light fails completely."
"The Night..." Lin Qinghe's eyes widened. "The Yin beasts will rise."
"And the temperature will drop," Ji Han added. "We can't stay in the Hollow. It will become a tomb. And we can't stay on the surface. It will be a wasteland."
He pointed to the middle section of their home—the Granite Tunnel.
"We have to move to the middle," Ji Han planned. "We need to insulate the Granite Layer. We need to turn the tunnel into a bunker. And we need fuel."
"Fuel?"
"To burn," Ji Han said grimly. "For six months, we will need fire. We need to go to the surface and harvest everything that burns before the snow comes."
He looked at his skeletal hands.
"But first," Ji Han said, his stomach letting out a roar that echoed in the cavern, "I need to eat an entire centipede."