Chapter 32: Blueprint for a Building Module
????The Wasteland.
??Waystation No. 16, Qiuhe Wang Clan territory.
??Zhou Mo led his n through the relentless downpour, following the coordinates marked on the Ghostskin Map. The trek felt endless, but at last, the outpost ca into view.
??A cluster of lonely wooden cabins stood in the rain, battered and desolate.
??Beyond them, a patch of farmland stretched out—and, most crucially, a Ghostfire burned.
??There was nothing else. Not a single defensive structure.
??In fact—
??Almost none of the waystations scattered across the Wasteland had any sort of fortifications.
??After all, aside from the Rainy Season, Ghostbeasts almost never attacked camps on their own. On those rare occasions they did, disaster followed—a chain reaction no wall or tower could ever hope to stop.
??“This guy’s luck is sothing else,” Zhou Mo muttered, standing at the camp’s edge. He pounded his thigh, working out the exhaustion from the long journey. Gazing at the ramshackle camp, he couldn’t help but sigh, “Not a single defensive structure, and he still managed to survive last night.”
??“He only made it because the Station Master intervened,” another man said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have lasted until today.”
??“Let’s head in. Might as well get a hot al before we move on.”
??Their own station had barely survived last night’s brutal assault—saved only by a stroke of divine luck. Yet here was a camp with no walls, no defenses—nothing but the grace of pure chance.
??“Old Chen?”
??“Old Chen!”
??Zhou Mo strode into the camp, his voice raised above the storm. His shout cut through the rain, echoing off the cabins. Normally, barging into another’s camp unannounced was a serious breach of etiquette, but right now, he couldn’t afford to care.
??If mory served, the Station Master here was called Old Chen.
??But—
??There was no response.
??“Sleeping that soundly?” Zhou Mo frowned, stepping up to the nearest cabin. He knocked a few tis, then pushed the door open, calling out, “Old Chen, you—”
??The words caught in his throat.
??His foot, poised to step inside, hung in the air.
??For a long mont, he simply stared—at the two bodies hanging from the rafters like slabs of cured at. He exhaled, his face a complex mask of emotion, and murmured, “Looks like your luck finally ran dry, Old Chen…”
??The corpses swayed gently, rocked by the wind.
??Clearly, after the Eternal Night descended, Old Chen and his n had been unable to withstand the pressure. In the end, they had chosen to take their own lives.
??Honestly—
??Zhou Mo couldn’t bla them.
??A camp without fortifications, caught in the Eternal Night of the Rainy Season, was like a splinter of driftwood in the open sea—battered by storms, surrounded by unseen terrors lurking below. The suffocating despair, the sense that dawn would never co, was enough to break even the strongest.
??No one could bear that kind of pressure.
??The sea, in daylight, was beautiful—a deep blue expanse.
??But at night, the deep sea held no beauty at all—only endless darkness, like the Eternal Night itself, leaving nothing but despair and helplessness.
??…
??After a long silence, Zhou Mo finally turned to his n. “Go check the farmland outside—see if there’s anything useful growing. Anything we can use, load it onto the cart in the corner.”
??He stepped forward to cut the bodies down, searching their pockets for anything of value.
??He stripped off their clothes, and took the hemp ropes as well.
??…
??Less than two hours remained until Eternal Night fell once more.
??Chen Fan awoke, pulling on still-damp clothes and washing up quickly with rainwater he’d collected. He stood by the wooden door, stretching, then glanced back at the fire in the hearth.
??The flas burned, but in this endless, drenching rain, the cold and damp seeped into everything.
??He’d barely slept last night—nearly freezing in the process.
??The living conditions were harsh, to say the least.
??He was alone in the cabin; everyone else was outside, busy with their own tasks.
??Stepping past the Wall, he saw Crippled Monkey working hard in the fields, burying Ghostbeast corpses.
??“Young Master!” Crippled Monkey called, jogging over, excitent shining in his eyes. “The crops are thriving. They’ll be ready for harvest by tomorrow.”
??“Good.” Chen Fan looked out at the young shoots, already half a ter tall, and smiled. “Keep at it.”
??If the timing was right, tomorrow would be the third day.
??Perfect—the crops would mature as scheduled.
??The clean, earthy scent of rain cleared his mind. He glanced down at the three Unique Treasures he’d collected the night before. Now was the ti to strengthen the camp once more—who knew what tonight would bring?
??The first Unique Treasure was a blueprint—a building schematic, thin as a cicada’s wing, reminiscent of the one for the Watchtower.
??But…
??The structure depicted on this blueprint was almost laughably simple: a single copper pipe, its outline faint, like a drainpipe. No obvious use at all.
??—
??Unique Treasure Na: Sealed Copper Pipe
??Grade: White Grade
??Effect: This Unique Treasure is a building module blueprint, compatible with all structures.
??—
??“…”
??Chen Fan crushed the blueprint in his hand. Instantly, the Eternal Night Lord Panel shimred in his mind. This ti, instead of unlocking a new building, it added a new module.
??—
??Current Constructible Buildings:
??Ghostfire, Arrow Tower, Wall, Farmland, Wooden Cabin, Sacrificial Tower, Watchtower, Beast Trap.
??Current Constructible Building Modules:
??Copper Pipe.
??—
??The module’s description was just as sparse:
??Copper Pipe: Can be incorporated into any structure. Costs 1 Ghoststone per ter to build.
??He didn’t really understand its purpose.
??But one thing was certain—truth cos from practice.
??He crushed a Ghoststone. As its milky essence stread through the air, a one-ter-long copper pipe materialized, floating before him—a spectral outline at first, infinitely adjustable. The thinnest could be as slender as a centiter; the thickest, a full ter wide.
??He settled on ten centiters.
??The mont the copper pipe’s phantom appeared, every structure in the camp transford into a white-lined blueprint, as if returning to its construction phase.
??Ghostfire, Wall, Wooden Cabin—all beca spectral wirefras.
??Yet Crippled Monkey and the others didn’t react at all. Clearly, only Chen Fan could see this.
??It was just like…
??Just like—
??He narrowed his eyes, guiding the copper pipe toward the Ghostfire. As the two blueprint phantoms touched, they rged in a flash, solidifying instantly.
??The camp returned to normal.
??The blueprints vanished.
??But the Ghostfire in the center had changed. At its base, a copper pipe was now seamlessly embedded, fused into the ground. From certain angles, he could see cold white flas streaming back and forth inside the pipe.
??“…”
??Chen Fan stood frozen, a wild idea flickering in his eyes. Could it be…?
??He didn’t hesitate.
??He spent another twenty Ghoststones, forging a twenty-ter-long copper pipe.
??As the pipe’s phantom floated in the air, the camp’s buildings once again shifted into spectral blueprints.
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