Trouble, Part Four (Xie Qiong Kong Zhi Zhuo Xiao Alliance Leader)

Trouble, Part Four (Xie Qiong Kong Zhi Zhuo Xiao Alliance Leader)

"A man!" Doctor Xu said, twisting the door open and looking back at him.

"I take back what I said about you being a burden, and I'm grateful you saved me. But this decision of yours is truly stupid!"

She couldn't understand how someone like Yu Hong could exist in this world. He was practically the idealized, hopelessly naive sort of person. Everything he said and did was something ordinary people couldn't understand.

Now that she thought about it, Yu Hong might have some ability. Being able to build a Reinforced Wooden Door like this was indeed a skill.

But he was far too full of himself. "You'll regret this. You have no idea how difficult the High Tide Period is." Doctor Xu couldn't help sneering.

That was simply her personality.

"It's not too late to change your mind and leave with us!"

She stared at Yu Hong, finally letting a thread of deeply buried persuasion show.

"No." Yu Hong shook his head. "I prefer living alone."

"You!" Doctor Xu's expression shifted slightly. She snorted, grabbed Little Stutterer, and walked out.

"Hurry up! It just rained, so the ground will be hard to travel through. We have to leave as soon as possible! We'll stay temporarily at a patient I rescued before!"

She finally stopped paying Yu Hong any attention, forcibly pulling Little Stutterer out of the Cave. They jumped down the cliff and ran into the distance.

Little Stutterer looked back at Yu Hong as she ran.

"Yu, Hong!" she called, waving her hand with effort. "The house, things, all, give, you!"

She felt this might be the last time she ever saw him, and sadness welled up inside her.

"Thanks!" Yu Hong waved back with a smile.

He watched the two of them run farther and farther across the damp woodland, quickly shrinking until they became two tiny dots.

A sudden feeling came over him.

Perhaps Doctor Xu and Little Stutterer wouldn't come again for a long time. The sudden appearance of the giant Blood Ticks seemed to mark the beginning of an even worse external environment. If Big Hide's appearances became commonplace in the future... Yu Hong didn't continue thinking about it.

As he gazed in the direction they had gone, a deep loneliness suddenly surged through his heart.

Then, without warning, he drew a deep breath and shouted.

"Yi Yi! I'll wait for you here—I'll always be here!!"

His voice rang out loudly, echoing through the mountains and forests, carrying into the distance again and again.

The two distant dots paused slightly, then continued moving until they vanished completely from sight.

At that moment, more golden shafts of light pierced down through the gray clouds, illuminating the earth and the mountains.

Yu Hong looked in the direction the two had left, then toward White Mound Village.

"No one's left now." He exhaled.

"It's just me."

Every surviving villager living nearby would certainly make the same choice as Doctor Xu if they encountered Big Hide.

They would all seek out a larger bunker. Relying on just a few people, they could no longer block even stronger monsters.

"Maybe I'm the only person living out in the wild for dozens of kilometers around."

Yu Hong gazed at the quiet, deathly still White Mound Village. The old houses, dilapidated and covered in blotches, seemed to exude a cold and eerie aura of death.

From the Cave entrance, he could see through the woodland and barely make out the village's outline.

Yu Hong stood motionless at the entrance for a long while.

Suddenly, his pupils contracted, and the muscles throughout his body tensed slightly.

Far away, he saw a figure appear at the entrance to White Mound Village's gravel road.

It was a thin, middle-aged man wearing old gray-white clothes.

The distance was too great to make out his appearance.

All Yu Hong could see was that the man seemed to be smiling from afar, waving toward him.

He stood at the village entrance, his right hand raised and moving mechanically toward Yu Hong.

Yu Hong blinked, but in that instant, the man disappeared.

"Ghost Shadow!" he hissed through clenched teeth, his jaw aching faintly.

The frequency of Ghost Shadows appearing in broad daylight was growing higher and higher. According to what Little Stutterer had told him, it hadn't been like this before.

This wasn't normal.

And with the newly appeared giant Blood Ticks, Big Hide... "Just as the Radio said. The environment is deteriorating. Things are getting more and more troublesome."

Yu Hong slowly backed away without looking toward the village again. Instead, he searched for the Wooden Bucket he had used to collect rainwater before.

Soon, he spotted it in the grass a dozen or so meters from the Cave entrance. A large chunk was missing from it.

Fortunately, there was still half a bucket of rainwater inside.

He lifted it with effort and returned to the Cave.

Then he inspected the Wooden Door and placed his hand against the door panel.

'Repair?'

The mechanical voice of the Black Mark sounded again.

'Yes,' Yu Hong answered in his heart.

At once, a thread of blackness flowed out from the Black Mark on the back of his hand. It left his hand in an instant and sank into the Wooden Door.

Then a numerical countdown appeared, a number only Yu Hong could see.

Seeing that the repair had begun, he breathed a sigh of relief. He opened the door and let some of the outside wind blow in.

Then he began taking stock of the food and supplies stored inside the Cave.

1. One bag of Enhanced Protein Bars, ten bars in total. Enough to keep him going for ten days, if the packaging wasn't lying.

2. The dried mushrooms and Dried Vegetables Little Stutterer had given him. There was nearly a large bagful—under normal circumstances, enough to keep one person fed for quite a while and provide necessary trace elements and dietary fiber.

3. One Stinky Cotton Quilt.

4. One Radio.

5. Two round wooden stools.

6. One Stove.

7. One Broken Bucket.

8. One piece of Enhanced Glowstone.

9. One Axe and Saw Logging Set.

10. One Enhanced Candle.

Those were all the main supplies. The rest of his daily necessities were in the houses of White Mound Village.

But... Yu Hong walked to the window in the main door and looked in that direction.

Under the sunlight, the dilapidated old village was faintly visible. At every household's doors and windows, vague figures seemed to be standing.

They stood there quietly, utterly motionless.

As Yu Hong watched them, they seemed to notice something. One after another, they turned and looked back in his direction.

So many! Yu Hong's scalp prickled. He slammed the shutter shut, blocking the view through the Viewing Window.

White Mound Village had clearly changed from before. It had become even more dangerous.

It wasn't just the Blood Ticks that had changed—even the Ghost Shadows... "Before, with the sunlight this strong during the day, Ghost Shadows couldn't possibly have appeared in such numbers. Why are there so many now...?"

He couldn't understand it.

The piece of Enhanced Glowstone in his hand was the only one left. The rest had been embedded in the walls and the main door.

Right, there was also the rod! Yu Hong gripped the Steel Nail Glowstone Rod, then looked around at the Enhanced Glowstone embedded throughout the Cave. He immediately felt a little safer.

He understood Doctor Xu a little better now.

She was right.

Without the Black Mark, going to the Town Bunker was the best choice—and the only path to survival.

"By the way, I wonder if Enhanced Glowstone can be repaired and replenished after being used." Yu Hong sat on a round wooden stool and picked up a piece of Enhanced Glowstone he had used up before.

He had removed this stone from the Steel Nail Glowstone Rod.

The jade-like luster had vanished from the egg-sized White Stone, leaving it as pale as lime.

The symbols on its surface were still there, but upon closer inspection, he found that many of their lines had broken.

What had once been continuous had become disjointed.

Holding the Enhanced Glowstone, Yu Hong sat quietly, staring at the countdown digits on the main door.

He didn't dare go outside.

Something outside was clearly abnormal.

The High Tide Period would begin tomorrow, yet today had already become extraordinarily abnormal.

There were still things in White Mound Village that Little Stutterer had said she would leave for him, but he didn't dare go get them now.

It was far too dangerous. Just from that distant glance, he had seen at least twenty Ghost Shadows—and those were only the ones daring to appear beneath the daylight sun.

This was an entirely different situation from before. If those Ghost Shadows attacked, his Enhanced Glowstone couldn't possibly hold them back.

Yu Hong stared at the digits while thinking.

Fortunately, before I left, I gave Yi Yi another piece of Enhanced Glowstone and taught her the more complicated runes on it. It should be useful to her.

Hiss.

Just then, as he was thinking, the Wooden Door before him suddenly blurred.

In the blink of an eye, the damaged Reinforced Wooden Door, covered in cracks, became whole and flawless again, as though it had just been made.

All the damage, cracks, loosened screws, and everything else were reinforced and restored to their original state.

Yu Hong let out a long breath, stood up, and carefully inspected it.

After confirming that there truly was no problem, he saw that the main door had indeed returned to the state it had been in right after he first finished strengthening it.

A tremendous weight lifted from his heart.

But it still isn't enough.

At the thought of Big Hide's terrifying impact strength, a layer of gloom clouded his eyes.

After thinking it over, he picked up the Steel Nail Glowstone Rod, carefully opened the door, and stepped out of the Cave.

Outside lay a quiet, dense mountain forest.

Moisture steamed up from the rain-soaked ground, turning into a thin mist that spread through the woods and began to obscure his vision.

The hazy fog stirred strands of wariness in Yu Hong's heart.

But he had to go to the place where he had made the Wooden Door and find several long planks to make a reinforcement device.

Carrying the Steel Nail Glowstone Rod, he made as little noise as possible, climbed down the cliff, and reached a small clearing in the woods.

A few scattered stumps stood in the clearing. There were black traces left by burning fires, along with sawdust from cutting wood.

This was where he had made the Wooden Door before.

Yu Hong looked left and right. After confirming there was no danger, he quickly picked up two Thick Wooden Bars as thick as his arms.

They were leftover materials. They hadn't been used because they weren't straight enough.

But now they were perfect for making a door bolt and support pillars.

Yu Hong dragged the two logs, each over a meter long, back into the Cave.

Both Thick Wooden Bars had been soaked by the rain and were very damp.

But he ignored it completely. He didn't care whether they were wet or not. He would worry about that after surviving these few days of the High Tide Period.

He took out the saw, measured them roughly, and began cutting the wooden bars with all his strength.

Soon, after a little adjustment and some work on both ends, the two Thick Wooden Bars fit perfectly against the back of the Wooden Door at an angle, reinforcing the door's defenses.

After finishing, Yu Hong placed his hand on one of the wooden bars.

He thought about strengthening the main door's reinforcement device.

This was a test.

On the surface, it was merely a crude contraption made from two Thick Wooden Bars. If he gave it a functional name, could the Black Mark strengthen it in a targeted manner? If not, that would mean the Black Mark had subtle requirements for its strengthening targets.

If it could, then the room for maneuver would be much greater. With one hand pressed against the wooden bar, Yu Hong silently repeated the thought.

Soon.

'Strengthen the main door's reinforcement device?'

As a faint voice that only he could hear rang out, the anticipation in Yu Hong's eyes instantly turned into excitement!

He saw numbers appear on the wooden bar: 11 minutes.

'Yes!'

He answered forcefully in his heart.

It worked!! It really worked!!!

At the same time, a faint thrill rose within him.

If that's the case, then I should also be able to build a simple water-filtration tool and have it strengthened and perfected!

Furniture, all kinds of tools—as long as I give them a designated conceptual function name, perhaps...