Inside the Mountain Cave Safe House.
The morning sunlight faintly seeped through the Viewing Window's shutter.
Yu Hong leaned against the fireplace wall and slowly woke from his hazy dream.
His brows were tightly furrowed. He tilted his neck and felt some numbness in his back. His cervical spine was stiff, so he had probably been pressing on it.
Opening his eyes, he immediately looked at Doctor Xu, who was lying on the sleeping bag.
She was sleeping soundly, and her complexion looked much better than yesterday's.
"Doctor Xu? Doctor Xu?" he called several times.
Doctor Xu slowly moved her eyelids. Her legs trembled, and she suddenly opened her eyes, wariness flashing across her face.
"I'm still alive?"
"Looks like it." Yu Hong replied, "Yesterday, I thought you were paralyzed. Luckily, lying down for one night helped you recover."
Doctor Xu propped herself up, her cracked lips moving.
"It's an old problem. It tends to flare up after strenuous exercise. It was just a little more serious than usual yesterday."
"That's what you call a little more serious?" Yu Hong was speechless.
"Is it morning now? How are things outside?" Doctor Xu asked solemnly. "Do we have any water? Give me some."
"I don't know. I haven't gone outside yet. It looks like there's no movement now." Yu Hong got up and poured her some cold water.
Watching her take tiny sips, he couldn't help asking more.
"I'll be honest. With the level of danger outside—with Evil Shadows, Ghost Shadows, and monsters coming in turns—you didn't have that many Large Glowstones. How exactly did you survive? When I wasn't here, you didn't even have Large Glowstones, did you? How did you withstand it?"
"There weren't any Evil Shadows nearby before." Doctor Xu exhaled. "Just call me Xu Ruoying. You saved me, and we've been through hardship together."
"Fine." Yu Hong didn't care about that. He merely stared at her, waiting for the answer to his earlier question. He had wanted to ask this for a long time, but had never found the opportunity.
"Actually..." Xu Ruoying looked helpless. "Before this, we rarely, very rarely, confronted Ghost Shadows and the like head-on."
"Then what did you do? Don't tell me you could just hide from them?" Yu Hong asked in surprise.
"Why couldn't we?" Xu Ruoying countered. "Didn't Little Stutterer tell you? About the way to hide?"
"No." Yu Hong shook his head.
Suddenly, a scene flashed through his mind, and a thoughtful look appeared on his face.
"Wait. I think I've figured something out. Is it that you use Glowstones to surround a small space, hide inside it, and then you can avoid detection?"
He remembered that Little Stutterer also had such a sealed space. It was only large enough for a child to squeeze into, though, and adults couldn't enter at all.
"That's it." Xu Ruoying nodded. "As long as you embed Glowstones in the surrounding walls and reach a certain density, they can hide your presence. At a critical moment, you can duck inside, and neither Ghost Shadows nor Evil Shadows will be able to find you."
"What about the Blood Tide and Black Worms?"
"There's no way around those. You can only withstand them head-on." Xu Ruoying shook her head.
Yu Hong nodded. At last, he understood how the others had survived in such a dangerous environment.
He had wondered about it. From beginning to end, how many Glowstones and Large Glowstones had he consumed fighting Ghost Shadows and Evil Shadows? Yet look at Xu Ruoying, then look at Jenny from before. Even the Mailman had nowhere near that many Large Glowstones, but all of them had lived safely for so long.
This had puzzled him. "Wait!" Xu Ruoying suddenly froze. She stared intently at Yu Hong, disbelief filling her eyes.
"Could it be that you never hid before? You fought Ghost Shadows and Evil Shadows head-on the entire time?!"
"..." Yu Hong couldn't answer. If he had known about this trick earlier, he never would have wasted so many Large Glowstones! "Good heavens..." Xu Ruoying was speechless. This was the first time she had encountered someone like him. If he hadn't been able to make Large Glowstones, he wouldn't even have known how he died.
For a while, the two stared at each other, neither knowing what to say. They could only sit facing one another in mutual silence.
After a while, Xu Ruoying couldn't sit still anymore. She glanced at the sunlight outside the door.
"I have to go back. My medicine still needs to be taken out and dried, or it'll spoil."
"Let's go outside and take a look together." Yu Hong also stood up and walked to the Wooden Door with the fully restored Silver Symbol Array.
Swish.
He pulled open the Viewing Window's shutter and looked outside. Then he opened another shutter beside the Viewing Window, revealing the high-strength glass through which he could see outside.
This allowed light to pass through both sections of the door, letting the sunlight outside shine in as fully as possible.
The entire cave immediately brightened. Golden rays reflected off the fireplace before striking the opposite wall, dazzling faintly.
Yu Hong stood by the window and looked outside.
Everything outside was quiet. The dark-green woods were empty, with only the bloodstains Jenny had left in the clearing standing out starkly.
The rustling leaves sounded like surging waves, one after another.
"There's no movement. Be careful." The Silver Symbol Array inside Yu Hong's Anti-Stab Suit had also fully replenished. This gave him somewhat more confidence.
Creak.
The Wooden Door slowly opened.
The two of them walked out one after another.
"Looks like it's safe." Xu Ruoying spoke in a low voice. "I have to get back immediately. This is the safest time."
"Stay safe." Yu Hong nodded. He knew Doctor Xu's temperament. She wasn't just tough-talking; she was tough through and through. Anyone who could survive alone in this environment was no pushover.
"Count this as me owing you one!" Xu Ruoying called over her shoulder, quickly hopping down the stone steps and jogging toward the Post Office settlement.
Her figure gradually vanished into the woods and soon disappeared completely.
Yu Hong watched her until he could no longer see her at all. Only then did he close the door, hop down the stone steps, and arrive at the grass where Jenny had lain.
He crouched down and carefully examined the grass beside the bloodstains. Before long, he found two deformed copper bullets.
He reached out and picked them up, sighed, then turned and returned to the Mountain Cave Safe House.
After closing the door, he saw that all the symbol arrays had fully replenished.
He pressed a finger against one of the bullets.
Enhance bullet. Direction: restore normal condition.
Integrity insufficient.
The Black Mark's feedback made Yu Hong's brows crease slightly.
He tried another direction.
Enhance bullet. Direction: increase durability.
This time, a black line flashed. It seemed to have worked.
A tiny countdown appeared on the bullet's surface.
13 minutes.
He exhaled, set the bullet down, then took out the Pistol from before and placed it beside the bullet.
All he could do now was wait and see whether the bullet could be restored to its original state.
Recalling what Xu Ruoying had said earlier, he realized that using Glowstones to build a completely enclosed space could hide him from Ghost Shadows and Evil Shadows. "Right, I also forgot to show Xu Ruoying that research manual." His gaze flicked over the plastic bag on the ground.
"I'll have to wait until next time. Also, if a sealed space made from Glowstones can hide from Ghost Shadows, then the symbol arrays are made from Glowstone powder, so they should have a similar effect. I can cover the entire Safe House cave with symbol arrays."
Once he had the thought, he acted on it. He quickly took out the Large Glowstone ink and drew Large Glowstone symbol arrays on every blank and empty spot—the walls, floor, ceiling, and door.
Not long after, the bullet enhancement was complete.
He returned to the Pistol and bullets, crouched down, and picked up the bullet.
The bullet that had been twisted and deformed earlier had returned to normal. Its surface had changed from copper-colored to silver-black, as if even its material had been completely replaced.
Yu Hong tried inserting it into the magazine.
Click.
The bullet jammed. "The size is wrong. It's a little too big." He took it out and examined it carefully, discovering that the enhanced bullet had grown a full circle larger.
"Looks like it won't work." He set down the Pistol and bullets and threw them all into a corner.
He ate a protein bar, drank a cup of water, and stuffed some dried mushrooms into his mouth. That settled breakfast.
Next came enhancing the symbol arrays in the empty spaces one by one. As long as the entire area was covered, they should be able to produce the concealment effect Xu Ruoying had described.
The enhancement continued until noon, but only half was finished. Fortunately, no Evil Shadows appeared outside again.
This steadied Yu Hong's nerves considerably.
He thought for a moment, then left the Safe House fully armed and headed toward the Post Office.
This encounter with the Evil Shadow had made him deeply understand the value of information. If he had known from the start that Glowstones could build a hidden chamber, he wouldn't have needed to expend so many Large Glowstones and symbol arrays fighting Ghost Shadows and Evil Shadows.
Therefore, to obtain more information, he decided to discuss the arrangements for what came next with the new Mailman.
Lao Yu was dead, and Jenny and her daughter were dead as well. Someone had to take charge of raising mushrooms and producing meat, or everyone would starve to death. The Mailman had dared to come alone to the wasteland near White Mound Village, so he definitely had something that allowed him to survive independently.
Therefore, going to find him was absolutely the right choice.
Along the way, Yu Hong remained fully focused, constantly watching the movements around him, afraid that the Evil Shadow or Withered Woman might suddenly emerge and surround him.
Soon, he arrived at the place where Eve had fallen earlier.
"Where are the clothes?"
His brows furrowed. He couldn't see Eve's clothes on the grass where they had been before.
Eve's clothes had carried the Black Handprint, and he had even weighed them down with a stone. The wind alone couldn't possibly have blown them away.
But now... Yu Hong's gaze swept repeatedly across the grass, yet he still couldn't find Eve's clothes anywhere.
With no other option, he quickened his pace toward the Post Office Stone House.
A few minutes later, he stood before the Stone House and knocked on the Wooden Fence outside.
Bang, bang, bang! After a while, a faint sound came from inside the Stone House.
A tall, powerfully built man in a dark-green tank top opened the door and walked out. It was Li Runshan, the new Mailman.
"A living person?"
He asked warily from a distance.
"I'm Yu Hong. I live nearby. We met before." Yu Hong replied. "Did you see the set of clothes with the Black Handprint on the grass earlier?"
"I burned them together." Li Runshan pointed to a pile of black ashes on the right. "Luckily, I had Hidden Mist. And luckily, you didn't come yesterday. Otherwise, if the Evil Shadow had seen you during the burning, you would have died for sure."
Yu Hong didn't know what Hidden Mist was, but when he saw the metal buckle from Eve's belt among the black ashes, he knew Li Runshan wasn't lying. The clothes had indeed been burned.
His gaze returned to the new Mailman before him. He was just about to speak.
"Dad, can I come out now?" A clear, delicate girl's voice came from inside the Stone House.
"Stay inside for now. I'm talking to someone. Help me keep an eye on the lid, and don't let them push their way out." Li Runshan turned his head and shouted his instructions.
After replying, he turned his gaze back to Yu Hong.
"What is it? Do you want to buy something, send a letter, or mail an item? The price is negotiable."
"..." Yu Hong was speechless. Looking past him, he saw a furry little head poking out beside the Stone House's window.
It belonged to a little girl, at most eleven or twelve years old. Her hair was tied into braids, and her fair, chubby cheeks made it look like she carried no small amount of extra flesh.
"How about it? Want to buy something? I heard you have Glowstone Marrow here, and I can purchase it. Whatever you buy will be a great deal!" Li Runshan continued standing there with a smile.
Before you continue