With his back against the earthen cliff's rocky face, he was shielded from the raging cold wind.
The howl of the wind abruptly fell by more than half, and Lu Heng's taut body finally relaxed a little.
Only now did he fully recover from the sudden upheaval that had caught him off guard. One second, he had been in the safety of the human world; the next, he had been thrown into this barren frozen wasteland. Cold, empty, desolate, without a trace of human habitation.
He raised his wrist and opened the World Channel on his wristband.
The moment the interface opened, messages flooded the screen, densely packed and chaotic, all voices of ordinary people breaking down, panicking, and lost.
"Where the hell is this? Who did this? What did they bring us here for?"
"Help! There's nothing but swamp here. One step and half my leg sinks into the mud!"
"I'm on an island! There's sea all around me, and barely any flat ground!"
"It's hot as hell here. Yellow sand fills the sky, and even breathing burns my throat!"
"Does anyone know me? Zhang Xiang, are you there? Reply as soon as you see this!"
"Stop looking for people. Focus on staying alive first. Nobody can look after anyone else right now."
Message after message flashed past his eyes.
Lu Heng watched silently, his heart gradually growing cold.
People from all over the world had been randomly dropped into completely different environments. Some had encountered water, some sand, and some hot, humid bogs.
He, meanwhile, had landed in a frozen region.
Low temperatures, biting winds, barren land-he was at a disadvantage from the very start.
He closed the World Channel, and once again, only the howling wind remained beside the cliff.
Simply hiding here and waiting to die was out of the question.
The cold would keep draining his body heat, and his stamina would dwindle until he froze stiff here. To survive, he had to take the initiative and explore, searching for resources and somewhere to settle.
Lu Heng braced himself against the ground and stood.
Even with dry grass cushioning his feet, he could still feel the bone-piercing chill of the frozen ground through his thin socks.
He slowly scouted ahead along the gentle slope of the earthen cliff.
As far as he could see, there was nothing but gray-white frozen ground, cracked earth, rotting leaves, and vast stretches of dead weeds. The entire landscape was desolate and deathly still, without any sign of life.
He walked cautiously, his gaze constantly sweeping his surroundings, not daring to overlook a single detail.
After a hundred-odd steps, a clump of withered, blackened shrubs abruptly appeared ahead.
A square wooden chest sat quietly among the tangled dead branches.
Its shape was regular, its edges sharply defined. It was clearly man-made.
An intact wooden chest suddenly appearing in this uninhabited frozen wilderness was glaringly out of place.
Lu Heng stopped short, instantly wary.
Something like this could not occur naturally in the wilderness.
Who knew what was hidden inside, or whether it concealed some danger?
Not daring to approach rashly, he bent down and picked up a hard, frozen clod of stony earth, gripping it firmly. Gathering strength in his arm, he hurled it at the wooden chest.
Thud-
A dull sound rang out.
The chest did not budge. No mechanism activated, no monster sprang out, and the surroundings remained quiet, without the slightest unusual movement.
He checked it repeatedly for several seconds, confirming that it was completely safe.
Only then did Lu Heng slowly approach and reach out to lift the lid.
A clear notification immediately appeared on his wristband.
[Survivor's starting gift: wooden chest] [Obtained: Shelter binding permission, complete set of basic clothing, non-slip cloth shoes, stone axe]
An explanation of the permission appeared alongside it.
Shelter binding permission: you may freely select any safe terrain and deposit the corresponding materials to complete binding. The bound location will become the site of your permanent private Shelter. All construction must be done manually; there is no automatic generation function.
After reading the rules, Lu Heng frowned involuntarily.
There was only one chance to bind it.
That meant he had to choose the most secure, safest location in the entire region, the one best suited to long-term survival.
Once he chose wrong, there would be no way to change it later.
He first took out the complete set of new clothes and put them straight on.
As the thick fabric wrapped around his body, it instantly blocked most of the cold wind blowing toward him, and the bone-deep chill finally eased considerably.
Next, he prepared to put on the shoes.
But he had stuffed too much dry grass into his socks earlier. It filled the shoes completely, leaving no room to get his feet inside.
Lu Heng had no choice but to take his socks off again.
He emptied out most of the dry grass, leaving only a small amount of fine grass fragments spread evenly along the soles of his socks.
The thin layer of dry grass cushioned his soles without cramping his feet, while providing a barrier against the icy soles of the shoes and barely preserving a little body heat.
Once he had adjusted everything, he put his socks back on and slipped into the cloth shoes.
His feet instantly felt firm and secure, and the bone-piercing cold diminished sharply.
He lowered his head and looked at the dead grass covering the ground around him.
Although his clothing was better now, the strong wind on the open wasteland still cut into him.
Every little bit of protection helped.
Lu Heng bent down, tore up handfuls of long, dry grass, and haphazardly wrapped it around his waist and across his front, winding it around several times in overlapping layers.
It was crude and ugly, but it did block a little of the wind.
After gathering all his supplies, he tightened his grip on the stone axe.
The rough wooden handle rested in his palm. It was his only tool for self-defense right now, and his only tool for taming the wilderness.
He looked into the distance, only now getting a clear view of the terrain he was in.
He stood within a vast, low-lying depression.
The whole region resembled an enormous, boundless shallow pit, with the ground gradually rising on all sides and higher terrain around its perimeter.
Down in the low ground, his view was severely obstructed. The distant scenery was a blur, and he could not make out the surroundings beyond at all.
Without finding a good Shelter site or getting a clear view of the terrain, he would remain passively trapped here forever.
He had to reach higher ground.
Only from high ground could he look over the entire area and judge which places were sheltered from the wind, safe, and suitable for making a home.
Lu Heng gritted his teeth and started uphill.
He remained on high alert the entire way.
He kept the stone axe in his hand, his gaze sweeping ahead, behind, and to either side, missing no stir of wind or grass.
As he walked, countless reflections involuntarily arose within him.
In his old life, he had always passively accepted everything.
Work, late nights, the assembly line, day after day-the rules always weighed upon him, and he had never had any choice at all.
He could only follow the path others had laid out, trudging numbly onward.
But things were different now.
The world had collapsed and reformed, and all the old rules were void.
Though his circumstances were brutal and danger lurked everywhere, at least his fate was in his own hands for the first time.
He no longer passively drifted with the current.
What kind of life he could make depended entirely on whether he could fight, endure, and seize every opportunity.
As these thoughts rose and fell, he climbed the gentle slope step by step.
His field of vision gradually opened up, growing wider and clearer.
The instant his view opened out, Lu Heng abruptly froze in place.
At the edge of the shadows on a distant rise, a dark figure stood silently.
It had a lean body, all four limbs on the ground, its outline distinct.
It was a dog.
It did not move, bark, or lunge at him.
It simply stood quietly in the distance, utterly motionless.
Its eyes, concealed somewhere in the shadows, seemed firmly fixed on him below the slope.
An empty wasteland, a deathly still, cold wind.
Only that unfamiliar wild creature stood facing him from afar, watching without a sound.
An icy sense of wariness instantly crept over Lu Heng's entire body.
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