[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: Senior, please accept it. I won't send you any more gifts after this. I got a lot of stuff today and got a little carried away. If accepting it makes things awkward for you, just treat it as a trade for ice. You can send me some when you get it.]
The other player replied to Ye Fei a little later. This time, he no longer called it an outright gift.
Ye Fei knew that advance orders like this were hardly reliable, but the designated trade would keep occupying a stall in the trading channel until it was settled. He replied with an "Okay" and completed the trade.
He put the lamb chops he had received straight into the pot to stew, setting the timer for an hour and a half. They would be ready to eat tomorrow morning.
After the trade was completed, the other player did not try to chat with Ye Fei again, and Ye Fei did not say anything either.
He really was exhausted today. He browsed the chat channel for a little while, smiled at the other players bickering, then closed it and went to sleep.
The biggest commotion in today's chat channel concerned the trouble caused by those teams from before.
Players who joined their team paid points as a martial arts training fee, then received a set of cultivation instructions.
Yet after practicing for several days, they had seen no results whatsoever.
Worse, spending every day busy with "martial arts training" left them no time to gather supplies. When their houses disappeared, they had no points to buy timber to rebuild, and many had fallen ill from the cold...
In short, almost everyone who had once shouted about how wonderful their team was had now turned to cursing it.
Their main demand was for the team to refund the Survival Points they had paid. Repayment in materials would also do...
In a world where they could not meet anyone else at all, they had traded away their points on nothing more than someone else's word. Getting those points back now was clearly impossible.
With all that squabbling, any normal discussions about hunting or building houses were quickly buried under a flood of angry complaints.
Unless someone deliberately searched for them, it was impossible to follow what the other players were talking about.
Ye Fei slept well. When he woke and opened his eyes, the little fox who had been gravely injured yesterday was already sitting beside his pillow, watching him.
"Morning!"
Ye Fei reached out and stroked Qingxue the Little Fox's head.
The little one really had put her life on the line yesterday.
But so had he. Back then, he would have died if he had not given it everything he had.
"Ying~"
Qingxue the Little Fox lowered her head and leaned toward Ye Fei's face, rubbing her furry little head against his cheek.
She had survived. This silly human must have saved her through some special means.
Seeing how deeply he had slept reminded her of yesterday.
To help her obtain that big fox's essence, this foolish human had jumped down from such a tall tree and ended up covered in wounds from the big fox's claws...
She would keep growing stronger, strong enough that this foolish human would never get hurt again.
"Good girl. Hungry, aren't you? We'll warm up breakfast before eating. We're having lamb chops today. I don't know whether you'll like them, but they should taste pretty good."
Ye Fei got out of bed and placed the little fox on his shoulder. He opened the pot to reheat the lamb chops he had stewed last night, then began his daily yard cleaning.
After sweeping away the snow in the yard, he spent 15 points on an axe and went outside to chop down a few trees.
He made three walls and a door, dug a pit in a corner behind his house, and enclosed it with the wooden walls. That would serve as his temporary toilet.
He offered the dozen or so pieces of ice dropped from chopping wood to his junior in a designated trade, asking for a piece of mutton in return. It seemed to be something the other player had plenty of.
[Grassland/0090-1144-3656: You're up so early, Senior. I've accepted the ice. Thank you!]
The other player only completed the trade more than half an hour later, then sent Ye Fei a message.
Apparently, he had just gotten up.
[Me: I get up fairly early over here. The lamb chops taste good. Thanks.]
Ye Fei sent a reply, then divided the lamb chops he had served between himself and the little fox. They soon finished their rather nice breakfast.
After eating, he still had to head out today. Whether he went hunting or found Supply Crates, anything he came across would do.
[Today's random quest: Hunt ×1. Quest progress: 0/1. Quest completion rewards: 3 Survival Points, 1 Level-One Hunting Pack.]
Today's random quest rewards were a little meager, but Ye Fei was not about to turn his nose up at them. Having something was enough.
Before heading out, however, he could finally give his inventory a proper clear-out.
He had made a six-slot storage cabinet yesterday. Since he would only be going out nearby, he left his bread and water at home, along with his wooden planks, mutton, rabbit meat, and fox meat, filling all six slots.
He checked the Blood-Replenishing Pill and Spirit-Replenishing Pill that were all he had left in his inventory, as well as the bow and arrows he carried. Of course, he also had his dismantling knife and machete.
It seemed he had quite a lot hanging off him.
He only had a few wooden arrows left. After some thought, Ye Fei bought two beast bones at the same price of two for 1 point, then made two more bundles of wooden arrows.
When he lacked points, he sold things for money; when he needed materials, he bought them back.
It was a little troublesome, but prices did not fluctuate much, so he thought it worked well enough. After all, points were the most important thing right now.
He could only carry one bundle of wooden arrows on his body. Yesterday's bundle still had three arrows left, but each bundle was separate, so he could only put the two new bundles in his inventory.
Once everything was ready, Ye Fei put rabbit meat in the pot and headed out with the little fox, healthy and lively again, perched on his shoulder.
"Ying?"
Once they reached the yard, the little fox first played for a while in the pine tree, which had already grown to Ye Fei's shoulder height. Then she jumped back onto the shoulder of Ye Fei, who was crouching beside the grassy patch.
"They've sprouted. Before long, we should have vegetables to eat."
Looking at the tiny shoots poking out of the soil, Ye Fei's smile grew much brighter.
They had finally sprouted. He just did not know whether they could really grow in this world of ice and snow.
Besides checking the sprouting vegetables, Ye Fei also went to confirm exactly what that sapling was before heading out.
[Phoenix Tree Sapling (?): Seedling stage] [Plant a Phoenix Tree, and a Phoenix will come! A Phoenix Tree, a Phoenix's nest...]
Ye Fei crouched beside the tree, looking at the Phoenix Tree Sapling whose grade was still "?" and the label that appeared after he watched it for a while longer. He had plenty of complaints, but ultimately swallowed them all.
Phoenixes and all that... getting my hopes up would only lead to disappointment...
He would just be sensible and grow it as an ornamental tree.
As for attracting a Phoenix, leaving aside whether that was even possible, he would be afraid of its fire burning down his home if one really came.
"Let's go. Time to find Supply Crates and prey."
Ye Fei picked up the little fox, settled her on his shoulder, and headed out to continue exploring the snow.
The dead trees he had chopped down nearby still had not grown back. Perhaps they really would not respawn.
Ye Fei had not gone far from his door when he spotted a Supply Crate.
It was just that this Supply Crate was a little high up.
Why was a Supply Crate at the top of a tree? Without the prompt, what kind of eyesight and viewing angle would he have needed to spot it in such an enormous dead tree?
Still, although the Supply Crate was difficult to find, its grade was correspondingly a little better. It was green quality.
The last green Supply Crate had contained an axe. Although it had been worn, it was still worth more than the other things he had found.
The axe struck the tree with a series of thunks. When the tree turned into materials, the Supply Crate fell onto the pine needles and ice he had yet to pick up.
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