I build a shelter in the eternal night.

Chapter 4 "Great kindness needs no words of thanks".

Its daybreak.

The dawn breaks very quickly; the darkness recedes rapidly, and in no time, it transforms from pitch black into a colorful sunrise.

This night.

Chen Fan woke up several times. This was his first sleep since transmigrating to this world. The tension and anxiety, along with a mix of emotions and the rustling sounds in the darkness, made it difficult for him to sleep well.

The moment dawn broke, Chen Fan quickly regained consciousness. The halo had dissipated, and the entire wooden house had once again merged into the wasteland, with only the campfire still burning lonely.

And in the wilderness.

A dead, eerie creature lay quietly on the bear trap; it resembled a monkey and looked quite small.

He barely lingered, striding across the wasteland to stuff the strange creature, along with the animal trap, into the haystack behind the cabin. He planned to dissect it and extract the strange stone after the guests left, so as not to expose too much.

After one hour.

The middle-aged man in the green robe inside the house finally woke up. He walked outside unhurriedly, looked at Chen Fan standing there, waved the map in his hand, and said with a smile, "There is a site nearby with a better environment than yours. It only costs 1 Ghost Stone, but I still chose your site yesterday. Do you know why?"

Without waiting for Chen Fan's reply, he stretched and yawned on his own.

"I was moved by how hard your subordinate was trying to attract customers yesterday, but I didn't understand until I came to your station."

“This was originally an abandoned site, with very few pedestrians, or even almost none.”

"Now that it has suddenly been lit up again, you were assigned here by the family, which means you must have been quite ostracized within the family. It is very likely that the family has not provided you with any supplies. You need the Ghost Stone to maintain the Ghost Fire so that you can survive."

"I had a little bit of good intentions."

"I want to help you, just like when I was being ostracized and targeted in my family, I really hoped someone would lend me a hand."

"But I don't want to help you too much, because I didn't get any help from anyone back then, so why should you get help?"

"so--"

"I won't give you even a single extra Mystic Stone; that's not what you deserve. I can only answer one question for you. You can start asking now."

He looked at the boy in front of him with a half-smile.

He had already etched the boy's identity into his mind. Neither the boy nor his skinny subordinate were cultivators. After being targeted multiple times within their families, they were thrown into this godforsaken place to die.

This place had long been abandoned.

The "ghost fire" has been extinguished.

However, it was lit up again on the map, indicating that a "ghost fire" had been rebuilt. The cost of building a ghost fire is about 50 ghost stones. It is not necessary to spend such a large amount of money to kill an ordinary member of a family.

The young man in front of us likely has a certain background, so it's not advisable to kill him openly and risk gossip, such as being the illegitimate son of the family head.

They then adopted this approach.

A flicker of anger flashed in his eyes. He saw his past self in this boy. He wanted to help this boy as he would help his past self, but he didn't want to help too much, since no one had lent him a hand back then.

This strange dilemma made him somewhat irritable.

He could roughly guess what questions the boy would ask.

It's nothing more than figuring out how to leave this wasteland, or seeing that he's taken a kind heart, directly asking him if he could lend some strange stones, promising a great reward in the future.

If the boy asks such a meaningless question, his kindness will vanish instantly, and he will leave without looking back.

"Thank you for your guidance, senior."

Chen Fan solemnly clasped his hands in thanks and said in a deep voice, "Senior is able to traverse the wilderness alone, so you must be an extraordinary person. This is my first time stepping into the wilderness, and I would like to know what I can do to improve my survival rate in the wilderness."

"..." The middle-aged man in the green robe was silent for a while before looking at Chen Fan and suddenly laughing: "You are just like me back then, with a pent-up anger in your heart. I like that about you."

"In that case, I can tell you about it."

"If any pedestrian intends to enter the station, the rule in the wasteland is that they must first pay a 'mysterious stone' before they can enter."

"There is a kind of eerie creature called the 'False Human Ghost,' which is humanoid and possesses a certain degree of intelligence."

"You can act before the eternal night has completely descended. He will ask you if you can enter the station and say that you will have to pay for the strange stone after entering the station. You need to refuse because he cannot enter your station without your consent. This kind of strange thing is less dangerous."

“Collecting the Mysterious Stone after I entered the station last night was a mistake.”

"But you can't stop me. Your site is extremely rudimentary, with no defensive facilities whatsoever, and it can't withstand cultivators."

"On the wasteland."

“Each stationmaster’s life is tied to the ‘Strange Fire.’ No one will attack a stationmaster; once a stationmaster dies, the Strange Fire goes out. But you still need some basic offensive structures. Besides fighting the Strange creatures, you also need to solidify your position within the station.”

"as well as!"

"The Ghost Fire is not absolutely safe. Apart from extremely weak monsters, most monsters simply dislike 'Ghost Fire,' not that they are truly unable to approach. When a monster tide erupts or under special circumstances, those monsters will instantly devour this site."

"You need the 'city wall' structure to ensure absolute security."

"Based on the above two points."

"To survive long enough in this wasteland, you'll need a closed, enclosed city wall and a basic attack building. Both are quite common and simple; almost every architect can build them. The keeper of the nearby 'Jiangbei Market' is a level 2 architect; you can ask him to build them for you."

"But this kind of immovable building requires an architect to come and build it, which costs a lot of strange stones."

"As for how to obtain the Mysterious Stone, that's not something I should be concerned with."

"I've already helped you enough."

The man in the green robe suddenly shook his head and laughed, realizing he couldn't continue. He had only intended to answer one question, but the other party had asked an extremely vague one, which made him unable to resist saying a few more words.

He pulled the map out of his pocket and tossed it into Chen Fan's arms.

"This is a map of the surrounding area, which will be updated in real time with the status of every 'ghost fire' in the wasteland."

"I will pass through this wasteland again in three months."

“I will make a special trip to this station at that time. If you survive until then, I don’t mind helping you out.”

Say it.

Without pausing, the middle-aged man in the green robe walked slowly and steadily toward the low earthen slope not far away, his hands behind his back. Although his steps were extremely slow, he was actually walking very fast, giving people a strange sense of contrast.

"senior!"

Chen Fan gripped the leather map in his hand, looked at the man's departing figure, and shouted, "I won't thank you for your great kindness, but could you leave your name? I will surely repay you in the future!"

The man didn't reply, he just waved his hand without turning his head.

The figure gradually disappeared into the wasteland.

"call"

Chen Fan looked down at the leather map in his hand and murmured, "This senior is quite easygoing."

This information is very valuable and will be of great help to him!

His predecessor was so preoccupied with his suffering and resentment within his family that he didn't have any memories of these crucial pieces of information.

(End of this chapter)