Nightfall came extremely quickly, and the not-so-warm sunlight rapidly dimmed within a dozen or so minutes.
The originally thin mist slowly drifted over the treetops. The mist gathered and thickened, as though one could squeeze out a handful of water simply by reaching out.
The entire world was immersed in this mysterious mist. The Survivors scattered across every corner stopped what they were doing and returned to their Shelters, leaving only the mist silently flowing through the night.
Various unidentified roars came from the distance. The time belonging to the native creatures had arrived.
Li Qinglang carried two Boxes of seawater, walking and resting along the way. In the end, he returned to the log cabin at the very last moment before nightfall.
Da Ju ran over at once and rubbed against his trouser leg.
“Hehe, hungry, huh? I’ll find Killer Bro later and have him trade some meat for you.”
He placed the seawater in the corner of the wooden house, then took the Purified Water Pearl from the homeland spring eye and placed it into the seawater box.
Each box held approximately three liters of water. It would be Purified in about half an hour, which would be just in time for the upcoming trade frenzy.
“But I always feel like something’s missing.”
Li Qinglang thoughtfully rubbed his chin, then suddenly turned around and shouted:
“Where’s my spring water?! I stockpiled an entire daytime’s worth of spring water!!”
The 200 milliliters of spring water stockpiled last night had been used by Li Qinglang in the morning to offset the effects of the mist.
But he had not touched a single drop of the water produced afterward. The homeland spring eye only produced 300 milliliters a day, and after more than six hours of daytime, there should have been at least seventy or eighty milliliters left, no matter what.
Li Qinglang had originally planned to let it accumulate for a while longer, so that there would be 100 milliliters before midnight, exactly enough to fulfill the trade he had agreed upon with Killer Bro the previous night.
After only 0.00257 seconds had passed, Li Qinglang realized who the culprit was:
“Da Ju! Did you get greedy and secretly drink it?! Confess!”
Da Ju tilted his head. “Meow?”
“You, you, you! I treated you like my own son, and you treat me like your stepfather, huh?! Come here! Let’s see if I don’t pet all the fur off you!”
“Meow...”
Da Ju lowered his little head and walked over reluctantly.
“Oh, now you’re feeling wronged?”
Li Qinglang scooped him up, immediately giving him a furious bout of petting the cat.
He did not feel satisfied until he watched Da Ju desperately lick his disheveled fur back into place.
“Hmm, this cat is pretty good. Even after being petted this vigorously, he doesn’t shed~”
“Meow!”
“You dare protest!”
After messing up his fur again, Li Qinglang put his hands on his hips and laughed mockingly at the sky.
...
After playing around with Da Ju for a while, Li Qinglang took a homemade wooden spoon and scooped out coconut meat for dinner.
“How long do I have to endure these miserable days of not eating enough or staying warm?”
Looking at the snow-white coconut meat, he had still found it fragrant and delicious when he ate it yesterday. But he had eaten nothing except coconut meat for the past two days, to the point that even his burps smelled like coconut.
The Happy Sweet Potato had not yet been planted. Now that he had a fireplace, he had originally wanted to dig out a piece of sweet potato and roast it, but he was worried that the remainder would spoil after being cut open, so he could only continue eating coconut.
“A sweet potato shouldn’t spoil just because it’s been cut open, right?”
If he could eat a hot roasted sweet potato right now, Li Qinglang did not dare imagine how happy he would be.
But for the sake of possessing an excellent-grade staple food over the long term, he could not risk it!
To distract himself, Li Qinglang took out the Communicator and planned to browse the World Chat Channel to relieve his boredom.
First came a private message from Big Tycoon Wang Yixin:
“Big Brother! I was wrong. I’m ashamed of my attitude just now.”
“The stone was something I owed you in the first place. What’s wrong with asking for repayment?! I even grew impatient with Big Brother. I really deserve to die!”
“Anyway, this coconut is a testament to our friendship. From now on, Big Brother, just tell me whatever you need. I’ll give it all to you below market price.”
“Big Brother, why aren’t you answering me?”
“Big Brother, you didn’t die, did you?”
“Ah, I didn’t expect to feel a trace of warmth in the Mist World just now... Why is Heaven treating me this way...”
Looking at the flood of private messages, Li Qinglang felt a headache coming on.
This must have happened in the morning, when he entered the Dense Fog Zone and encountered the unknown creature.
At the time, Li Qinglang used the glowing Barbie Doll to lure away the danger before sprinting away. That large coconut would only have affected his escape speed.
Since he had promised to give Wang Yixin coconut water when collecting the debt, he might as well give him the entire thing.
He never expected it to move Wang Yixin so deeply.
“What are you wailing about? I’m alive and well. Don’t curse me.”
The reply came instantly after he sent the message:
“Damn it, Big Brother!”
“Big Brother, you’re still alive! I thought you had encountered danger and, before dying, sent me your inheritance—（large coconut）!”
Li Qinglang: “I’m not that easy to kill...”
Wang Yixin: “Big Brother, you didn’t notice the number of people displayed in the World Chat Channel, did you? It has already fallen below 7.8 billion.”
Upon hearing this, Li Qinglang was startled and immediately switched to the World Chat Channel. Every channel displayed the current number of survivors; those who had passed away could not even remain as a statistic.
Quite a few people had disappeared yesterday as well, but because the total number was so large, such a long string of digits made it difficult to gain any intuitive sense of the loss. At a glance, it was still just over eight billion.
But today was different. The first two digits had changed from 80 to 77!
In two days, more than 300 million compatriots had lost their lives. This quantity weighed heavily on Li Qinglang’s chest like a massive stone.
Li Qinglang: “Sigh, those more than 300 million people should all be the elderly and Children, right?”
Wang Yixin: “Not necessarily. From what I understand, Children under fourteen who came to the Mist Continent were all with their fathers or mothers, while the elderly’s physical condition would return to that of their prime. Even disabilities would recover.”
Li Qinglang: “Oh? Who did you hear that from?”
Wang Yixin: “The World Chat Channel. I spend my free time chatting there. Many people have said the same thing, so it probably isn’t baseless.”
Li Qinglang: “That is good news for Humans.”
Although that was what he said, things often had two sides. According to Wang Yixin, the elderly and Children had basic protection for their lives. But that also meant that the more than 300 million people who had died were all survivors capable of taking care of themselves!
They had not all starved or died of thirst inside their Shelters. More of them had encountered unknown dangers and lost their lives.
The Mist Continent was more terrifying than he had imagined!
Li Qinglang: “We still don’t have the ability to interfere in other people’s life and death. Let’s first work hard to live our own lives well.”
“Tell me what you harvested today and see what resources we can exchange.”
Wang Yixin: “Actually, after upgrading to a Level-Two Shelter and expanding my field of vision, I discovered a patch of fine grade stone over here.”
After he finished speaking, an item information was sent over:
【granite（Fine）】
Introduction: Originally normal granite underwent a transformation after becoming contaminated with too much mist, making it sturdier than ordinary granite.
Li Qinglang: “good things! Wouldn’t using it to upgrade the Shelter raise its defense by an entire level? How much did you get?”
Wang Yixin: “Hey, don’t mention it. This mountain of stone is too far from me. I carried one box over and gave up. I only got a dozen or so pieces.”
Li Qinglang: “...”
“So you only gathered this little bit of stone today, and spent the rest of your time chatting?”
Wang Yixin: “How could that be? I worked hard felling trees all day and got more than 800 wood!”
Upon hearing this, Li Qinglang was extremely envious.
Having excellent grade farming tools really made a difference. After an ordinary person spent time finding food and water, they could cut down at most 100 pieces of wood in a day, while Wang Yixin had multiplied that by eight!
This was probably because all the trees near his Shelter had already been felled, forcing him to travel farther away to cut trees.
Transporting them consumed too much time and stamina. Otherwise, Wang Yixin, who possessed excellent grade farming tools, could have cut down at least more than 1,000 pieces of wood in a day.
Li Qinglang: “I’ll exchange 500 milliliters of fine grade water source for 200 pieces of wood.”
Wang Yixin: “Uh... Big Brother, if you had said so earlier, I would have cut down more during the daytime.”
Li Qinglang: “What? You used up all 800-plus pieces of wood?”
Wang Yixin: “Yeah, only 50 pieces of wood are left. I already agreed with someone yesterday to exchange 800 pieces of wood plus one of my fine items for an item.
Big Brother, don’t worry. With this item, I can trade Fine Grade granite with you tomorrow.”
Li Qinglang: “What? Can this item turn you into Superman?”
Wang Yixin: “Not exactly, but this thing is more useful than Superman.”
【Spatial Backpack（Fine）】
Introduction: A backpack fused with space technology. However, because the technology is immature, its internal space is only 6 cubic meters.
Holy crap!
This was the space element item Li Qinglang had long yearned for. Although it was not as outrageous as the Spatial Bracelet’s 20 cubic meters, it was more than enough!
As expected of the Big Tycoon. At this stage, only Wang Yixin could have so much wood to trade away.
In the end, Li Qinglang traded 500 milliliters of purified seawater with Wang Yixin for 50 pieces of wood and 10 pieces of granite, squeezing his final stock dry.
In fact, this much fine grade water source could have been exchanged for at least twice as many supplies. The current price was entirely based on the market price of ordinary purified water.
However, Li Qinglang did not care about that. He considered it a way to strengthen their relationship. After all, it was necessary to maintain ties with such a Big Tycoon, let alone that he already had an idea that required Wang Yixin’s help...
……
“Bzzz~ Bzzz~ Bzzz~”
【Mist Continent Announcement】
Congratulations on surviving your second daytime, but the true crisis has not even begun.
The extreme cold air is drawing ever closer. The animals throughout the Mist Continent are all preparing food to withstand the harsh winter.
Starting tomorrow, the animals around the Survivors will initiate attacks on their own. The probability of creatures appearing in the Dense Fog Zone will also increase greatly.
A friendly reminder: before going outside tomorrow, prepare defensive items in advance. If possible, try your best to kill wild monsters. Treasure chests will drop after wild monsters are killed.
Wild monster treasure chests will only contain attack, defense, tool, and clothing items.
……
“In other words, starting tomorrow, obtaining resources will become much more dangerous!”
Li Qinglang could not help recalling the unknown creature that had left a palm print to the right of the Shelter.
Even now, he still had not figured out what it was.
A savage? A skeleton soldier? Or perhaps a ghost or monster?
He did not even know whether such supernatural things existed in the Mist Continent.
At least so far, the plants and animals Li Qinglang had encountered were much like those on Blue Star. At most, they were somewhat larger and had somewhat better effects.
Even Da Ju, the saber-toothed tiger, had existed on Blue Star in ancient times.
Li Qinglang’s expression turned solemn. This system announcement was different from the previous ones; it was purely meant to remind all Humans to prepare for danger in advance.
This also indirectly showed that survival would become increasingly difficult—so difficult that the System needed to proactively warn and intervene in human behavior.
All future plans had to center on stockpiling supplies!
The main priority was food, which had always been Li Qinglang’s weakness.
Even the native creatures of the Mist Continent needed to expand their range of activity and stockpile food. It was easy to imagine how terrifying the approaching extreme harsh winter would be.
Li Qinglang was ninety percent certain that when the harsh winter arrived, they would not even be able to go outside for basic necessities and would have to sit inside the Shelter, consuming its reserves!
Aside from food, there were warmth items.
At present, he had only one air-conditioned quilt and a four-pound quilt.
With so little, he could not survive even winter on Blue Star, let alone the Mist Continent.