"I feel like about six nights have passed?"
Wang Mazi scratched his head. "It couldn't be longer than seven nights, right?"
"This is the eighth night."
Zhou Mo put the plank back under his rear and sighed, taking another big bite of the flatbread in his hand. "My little buddy Er'gou, who had been by my side for a long time, was killed by Pseudo-Human Ghosts just before the fifth night fell."
"On the sixth night, we encountered the Mourning Specters."
"On the seventh night, we had moved here and spent a night in the natural Eerie Fire Zone."
"On the eighth night, we spent the night in the newly excavated cave by the Station Master."
"If we can get through tonight, that'll make nine nights."
"The rainy season usually lasts about 30 days. We've already persisted through one-third of it. Even in the history of Rivernorth City, we're the first to have ever achieved this feat."
"Rivernorth City got a history??" Wang Kui raised an eyebrow.
"Tch."
Zhou Mo couldn't help but laugh at that. "Although the city has been destroyed a few times, some scraps of information have been passed down. Humans are like that. Even knowing they might not live much longer, they always want to write something down so future generations know what they encountered."
"Like how you like to keep a diary?"
"That's right."
Zhou Mo took out his diary from his chest, writing while munching on his flatbread. "A person's gotta have some hobbies, otherwise life would be too dull. And if it weren't for people like us, the recipe for crafting Eerie Fire wouldn't have spread wide either."
"What has spread widely is the complicated version."
Wang Kui glanced at Chen Fan's back inside the cave, who was building a temporary wooden hut for tonight, and whispered, "I remember the leaked Eerie Fire recipe includes many types of materials, but the Station Master has never used any of that stuff to craft it."
"It is good enough if we got any."
Zhou Mo closed his diary and stuffed it back into his chest. "For a city built in a Natural Eerie Fire Zone, those materials are easy to gather. Just the bar has been raised. After all, those people also wanted to earn some Eerie Stones from it. A more streamlined formula definitely wouldn't be easily leaked."
Right at that moment—
Chen Fan climbed onto the city wall.
He casually said to the group, "Guys, chatting?"
"Station Master."
Zhou Mo and the others sprang to their feet.
"Alright, go down and sleep. I'm on watch tonight."
"There's no heating for now, it's a bit cold."
"Wear more when sleeping, endure it for a few days. After the whole cave has been excavated, we can build basic structures."
"Understood!"
...
...
The cave quickly fell silent. Zhou Mo and the others had all fallen asleep in the temporary hut. Only Chen Fan remained sitting alone on the city wall, looking out at the rainy night.
Tonight was the ninth night since the rainy season arrived.
He knew this better than anyone.
For others, this world had always been like this since they were born. Although they didn't want to die, the environment made everyone accept death easily. He was different; he still didn't really want to die.
He wanted to strive to survive the rainy season.
If he really couldn't make it, then there was nothing to be done, though.
Today, the cave has been excavated to a depth of twenty-seven meters. With one more day of excavation tomorrow, the depth would be sufficient for the time being. More space would be opened up gradually later.
As for the "Vehicle Workshop."
He didn't plan to place it in this cave, but intended to gouge another cave in the left cliff and place the massive Vehicle Workshop there.
Time always flew by when lost in random thoughts.
Or more precisely.
It was hard for a person not to have random thoughts in such a setting.
"Thud."
A sudden sound of a heavy object falling from the cliff snapped him out of his reverie, followed by more successive thuds.
Chen Fan instantly became alert, his eyes fixed on the darkness outside the city wall.
Judging from the previous two times, the crocodile would be arriving soon.
Sure enough.
After a stick of incense's time(30 minutes), he again heard a rustling sound in the rainy night. The crocodile had returned to the pit.
He now strongly suspected that those Eerie Creatures had been forced to jump down by this crocodile. Otherwise, although most Eerie Creatures lacked intelligence, they wouldn't seek their own death. But this crocodile was clearly strong enough to bring down Eerie Creatures; why use this method for hunting?
The next moment!
The copper pipes lit up, and the watchtowers were activated.
The entire pit appeared before his eyes, as the darkness had given way to a gray fog.
He again saw the crocodile at the bottom of the cliff, carefully holding an Eerie Creature corpse in its mouth. But this time, it didn't turn tail and flee. Perhaps it was too starved.
It loosened its jaws, dropping the Eerie Creature corpse.
It turned its head to look at Chen Fan. In its lantern-sized eyes, fear and anger were mixed. Suppressing its terror, it opened its bloody maw and let out a mighty roar in the rainy night.
"ROAR!!"
It was so loud that it almost drowned out the noise of the rainy night.
It sounded quite imposing.
But...
The trembling limbs and the tail constantly thrashing and hitting the ground betrayed its inner unease. Clearly, it was putting on a fierce front to hide its fear.
He strongly suspected that if he made even the slightest move, the other party would immediately flee.
"..."
Chen Fan remained silent, easing the green lantern down at his feet, just watching quietly.
They faced off like this for several moments.
The crocodile seemed to have sensed that Chen Fan had no intention of attacking. Tentatively, it swallowed one Eerie Creature corpse whole. Seeing Chen Fan still showing no reaction, it then proceeded to gulp down all thirty-plus Eerie Creature corpses in rapid succession.
It looked up at Chen Fan once more.
Then, without turning its head, it quickly disappeared into the canyon. This time, it didn't run as fast or as noisily, but as it ran, its tail constantly swung left and right, hitting the ground.
He actually vaguely sensed a feeling of joy and happiness from that wagging tail.
As if celebrating that it could finally eat its fill tonight.
Long after the crocodile disappeared.
Chen Fan murmured in a daze, "Does it have a storage pouch in its stomach?"
Although this crocodile was unusually large, it was only a few times bigger than a normal crocodile. Its stomach absolutely couldn't hold over thirty Eerie Creature corpses...
After spending three nights with it, he had a rough understanding of this crocodile.
Most likely not an Eerie Creature. Powerful but extremely timid. And it betrayed another trait now: its stomach could hold a lot of things.
And also...
Its intelligence probably wasn't very high.
If it had been driving Eerie Creatures down from the cliff, why specifically drive them to fall into the pit? Falling from the sides of the canyon would be enough to kill them.
...
The latter half of the night remained quiet.
No anomalies.
When the darkness receded, they had successfully made it through the ninth night of the rainy season. Twenty days remained until the rainy season ended.
"Get to work!"
The sound of the Cannon Towers blasting apart a wooden hut marked the start of a new day of clearing new lands.
Today was also the last day of it.
This was the day the home base would take shape.