That's the smell of work starting.
Matt leaned out of the driver's seat, gave Su Wei a thumbs-up, and his stubble-covered face showed a kind of destructive pleasure.
Su Wei nodded in response, his gaze fixed on the bottom of the pit that had just been cleared.
There, the fresh soil steams in the morning light, like a wound on the earth, waiting to be reinforced with steel bars, poured with cement, and grow new bones.
The roar of the diesel engine went out precisely at 8 p. m.
The exhaust pipes of the two Volvo excavators were still radiating residual heat into the night sky, and the air was filled with a strong smell of engine oil and diesel fuel, mixed with the unique fishy and damp odor of the deep permafrost that had been turned over.
The beams of searchlights shone on the Emerald Lake.
The edges of the 500-square-meter pit on the ground were neat.
The dark brown topsoil, the grayish-white permafrost layer, and the bottom layer of hard soil mixed with gravel are clearly exposed to the cold air.
Matt jumped off the excavator tracks, his boots making a crisp click as they hit the hard mud.
He took off his dirty helmet, ran a handful of his sweat-soaked hair, and casually slung the helmet over Su Wei's pickup truck hood.
"Look at this verticality."
Matt pointed to the edge of the pit, his voice sounding somewhat hoarse from working in noisy environments for so long.
"I'd bet the error wouldn't exceed two centimeters even without a laser calibrator. Su Wei, you did a great job."
Su Wei stood at the edge of the pit, holding a powerful flashlight in his hand, the beam sweeping across the bottom of the pit.
The area has been leveled, and a gravel base layer will be laid tomorrow.
It's a wonderful feeling to see the lines on a drawing come to life.
Twenty-four hours ago, this was a wasteland overgrown with weeds; now, the outline of a building has been deeply imprinted on the land.
"The progress is faster than I expected."
Su Wei turned off the flashlight, took out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, shook one out, and handed it to Matt.
Can the steel reinforcement be laid tomorrow?
"As long as those bastards at the quarry deliver the materials on time."
Matt took the cigarette, took a deep drag using the lighter Su Wei offered, and the red cigarette butt flickered in and out of the darkness.
"I can get the pump trucks in to pour concrete by the day after tomorrow at the latest. Once the foundation is sealed, even if a blizzard buries the place, we can still build on top of it."
After the construction team left, Pilan Creek Valley returned to silence.
Su Wei did not return to the cabin immediately. He sat on the porch steps, with a thin layer of ice already formed at his feet.
The Cotton Candy peeked out from under the door, its snow-white fur gleaming silver in the moonlight.
The little guy seemed to confirm that the monsters that had made the loud noises were asleep before daring to approach Su Wei, nuzzling Su Wei's palm with its wet nose and letting out a soft whimper for comfort.
Su Wei held the warm little creature in her arms, her fingers unconsciously stroking its soft fur.
He looked at the enormous, deep pit.
That was the starting point of the exhibition hall, and also a bottomless gold-devouring beast.
Su Wei mentally retrieved his account balance.
Land purchases, Starlink acquisitions, fishing gear purchases, advance payments for projects, equipment leasing... that three million US dollars figure is shrinking at a visible rate.
Based on Matt's quote and the current rate of consumption, just completing the main structure of the exhibition hall will cost at least $400,000.
This doesn't even include the subsequent interior renovations, the climate control system, and those expensive custom-made windows.
The goal is to transform this place into a top-tier estate where wealthy individuals would willingly spend tens of thousands of dollars to stay for a few nights, but the current funding gap remains enormous.
Su Wei rested her chin on the Cotton Candy's forehead, and the little fox didn't struggle, but simply covered Su Wei's wrist with its fluffy tail to keep warm.
Hunting?
The uncertainty is too high.
Fish with research tags worth several thousand US dollars like yesterday, or brown bears with a bounty of one hundred thousand US dollars offered by Laurent, are all rare finds.
Relying on birch syrup?
That will have to wait until next spring.
It must be open source.
Su Wei remembered the television in Old Charlie's house that was playing " Alone," and Black, the so-called Wilderness Champion.
flow.
In this era, attention itself is a form of hard currency.
Su Wei looked down at the Cotton Candy in his arms, then looked up at the territory surrounded by snow-capped mountains.
Here you'll find world-class scenery, real polar survival challenges, a stunningly beautiful albino fox pet, and yourself with a system that empowers you to thrive in extreme environments.
This is almost a perfect video footage library.
If we can successfully develop the Alaska plantation owner brand, we can not only supplement our cash flow through video revenue and advertising monetization, but more importantly, it will serve as a showcase to potential high-end customers worldwide.
What would those wealthy individuals sitting in New York office buildings, with their vast fortunes yet yearning for the wild, think if they saw videos online of Su Wei frying black cod under the aurora borealis or tracking brown bears in a blizzard?
That was excellent advertising.
Su Wei took out his phone from his pocket, and a new entry had been added to his notes under the plan for high-end fishing and hunting guides:
[Building a self-media matrix: Equipment purchase list (GoPro/drone/full-frame camera), account positioning (polar, food, hardcore hunting, healing and fan-loving), first episode script concept.]
"Looks like we're going to become famous online, Cotton Candy."
Su Wei rubbed the fox's ears.
Cotton Candy yawned, clearly having no concept of the term "internet celebrity"; all it cared about was whether it could open another can of food called " Polar Feast."
The next morning, just as dawn was breaking.
Su Wei was awakened by a low, mechanical hum.
Matt is a workaholic; he had already directed a dump truck loaded with gravel to be dumped into the site before seven o'clock.
Su Wei quickly washed up, poured half a bowl of freeze-dried vegetables for the Cotton Candy, put on her windbreaker, and went out of the wooden house.
The morning air was bitterly cold, and every breath was filled with white mist.
Matt was standing at the edge of the deep pit, gesturing and pointing at several workers with shovels.
Seeing Su Wei approach, he took out a folded drawing from the pocket of his reflective vest.
" Su Wei, I have a question."
Matt pointed to the dirt road leading to the town highway.
"That road is now a muddy ditch. Heavy trucks have been driving on it for two days, and now the road surface is full of ruts that are half a meter deep. Last night, my tanker truck almost got stuck in it and couldn't get out."
Su Wei looked in the direction he was pointing.
That can hardly be called a road; it's just a muddy strip exposed after the grass has been crushed. If a blizzard melts the snow, that place will turn into a swamp.
"Build."
Su Wei answered very decisively.
"This was already part of the plan."
"This isn't just about filling in some stones."
Matt rubbed the ground with the sole of his boot.
"If you want a road that cars can pass through even during the spring thaw, we need to dig up the roadbed, lay geotextile, backfill with at least 30 centimeters of graded crushed stone, and build drainage ditches on both sides. That's a mile-long project."
Matt paused, then made a gesture.
"This will cost extra, and it will take at least two days off the excavator's work time."
Do it to the highest standards.
Su Wei did not hesitate at all.
" Matt, the guests I'll be hosting from now on won't be driving Ford Raptor; they'll probably be low-slung Bentley or Rolls-Royce. I don't want their cars to scrape the bottom before they even get inside."
Matt raised his thick eyebrows, a hint of surprise flashing across his face before turning into an appreciation for his benefactor's magnanimity.
"Alright. Since you're willing to spend the money, I'll build you a runway capable of handling light aircraft."
Matt drew a heavy line on the drawing.
"When those two excavators were idle, I would use them to dig the roadbed."
After resolving the road issue, Su Wei did not leave the construction site.
He found a relatively clean wooden board and spread his notebook out on it.
The skeletal processing technology unlocked by the Crafting Module gave him a completely new understanding of structure and materials.
He quickly sketched a rough outline of the core area inside the exhibition hall on the blank page of his notebook.