Chapter 64: No Rest Beside My Pillow
Chen Fan stood in the heart of the deep pit, surveying the feverish activity unfolding around him.
The pit’s sloping walls funneled the debris—broken stones and clumps of earth—downward, channeling it out through makeshift paths. Zhou Mo and the others labored tirelessly to clear the rubble, but the sheer scale of the work was daunting.
They were stretched to their limits.
Lacking proper tools and manpower, progress was painfully slow.
At this rate...
It would take at least three more days before the Rear Base he envisioned would take shape.
They toiled for an entire day. Only as dusk approached—half an hour before nightfall—did the Gun Tower finally fall silent.
“Whew…”
Chen Fan let out a long breath, standing atop the Wall at the mouth of the cave, gazing inward. After a day of relentless bombardnt, the cavern now stretched ten ters high and thirteen ters deep—surpassing even the Wall’s height.
The entrance was narrower than the interior—a reverse funnel.
Occasionally, clods of earth still tumbled from the cave’s ceiling.
The ground was a chaotic ss.
“Station Master…”
Zhou Mo collapsed nearby, chest heaving, his voice hoarse. “We’ve just about finished outside. The rest will have to wait until tomorrow.”
With so few hands and no way to remove all the debris, they could only let earth and stone trickle through gaps in the Wall, spreading it over the ruins of the old village and smoothing it as best they could. It was all they could manage.
Inside, the cave floor remained uneven.
The Rear Base plan was ambitious.
But with only this handful of people, turning it into reality was a struggle.
Behind him, Wang Mazi, Qi Chong, and the others were doubled over and gasping for air, utterly spent. These past days had left them ragged to the bone.
“No rush. We’ll pick it up tomorrow.”
“Good work, everyone.”
Chen Fan summoned a Ghostfire, setting it at the deepest point of the cave. Into the fla, he placed the Gentle Breeze Array and the Mountain Remnant Seed—two Unique Treasures—then connected the Copper Pipes already laid through the canyon to the Ghostfire.
In the next instant—
The Gentle Breeze Array activated.
A visible, gentle wind swept through the Camp, cool and refreshing against their ankles. Walking now felt as if so unseen force propelled them forward, each step noticeably lighter.
Even atop the Wall, Chen Fan felt the breeze brush his ankles.
He paced along the Wall; his stride quickened as if he were walking on a moving walkway—each step covering twice the ground.
The array even swept away the lingering dust.
For every day the array ran, it consud one Ghoststone. The bigger the Camp, the steeper the cost.
Just then—
Crack… crack.
Thick, bone-white shafts shot out from the Ghostfire, burrowing deep into the ground, snaking rapidly through the cave walls. The once-crumbling ceiling solidified instantly—not a single pebble fell.
No more threat of collapse.
With these two Unique Treasures anchored in the Ghostfire, the Rear Base was finally taking shape.
As for Farmland, Sacrificial Towers, and the like—those would have to wait.
First, the floor had to be leveled. Besides, the current space was far too cramped for his vision of the Rear Base. A few more days of effort would be needed.
He tried once more to construct the Vehicle Workshop, the Yellow Grade building he’d recently acquired.
But instead of the usual white boundary lines, its Virtual Blueprint glowed a forbidding red.
The building’s footprint was massive—about one and a half tis the current cave’s size. There was no way it would fit inside. He could install it on the ruins of the village outside, but that clashed with his Rear Base ideal. If the base was ever attacked, the Vehicle Workshop would be the first casualty.
Still, even if the Rear Base was only in its infancy, its critical defenses were nearly complete.
“Get so rest, all of you.”
Chen Fan smiled at Crippled Monkey and the others. “I napped this afternoon. I’ll take the night watch.”
No one objected.
They trudged down from the Wall and into the makeshift Wooden House within the cave, collapsing into sleep almost at once.
They were truly exhausted.
So tired they could barely stand. In that state, there was no room for stray thoughts—only the desperate need for rest.
Before long, the sound of snoring drifted from the Wooden House.
Chen Fan stepped outside alone, gazing up at the night sky and the shadowed mountains looming all around.
The pit beneath the cliff face was vast—perfectly square, spanning several hundred ters across.
The Natural Ghostfire Zone covered only the ruined village at the center, a re fraction of the pit. Most of the area lay exposed, unprotected.
Everyone else slept soundly.
After a quick scan of the surroundings, Chen Fan resud laying Copper Pipes. He still had so of today’s free allocation remaining. Starting from the cave, he extended the pipes outward—this ti not to build roads, but to expand the Camp’s protective boundary.
Last night, a massive creature had watched him from the shadows, patient and hungry.
There was a good chance it would return tonight.
The mont he heard anything unusual, he’d activate the Copper Pipes, instantly expanding the Camp’s range and drawing the intruder into the Gun Tower’s field of fire. That was how he planned to deal with this hidden threat.
No rest beside my pillow.
But—
Copper Pipes could be up to a ter wide, and when activated, each pipe extended the Camp’s boundary by half a ter on either side—a maximum spread of two ters per line. That was sufficient for roads.
But to cover the entire pit? The amount of Copper Pipe required was staggering.
A rough estimate: two hundred thousand ters’ worth.
He only received ten thousand ters free per day, and tonight he had less than three thousand left.
So—
Like the branches of a tree, he extended the pipes from the cave entrance, fanning them out across the pit floor.
It wouldn’t cover the whole area, but it would illuminate key zones at night. If the intruder stepped into any of those zones, the Gun Tower would be ready to fire.
He also erected five Watchtowers, evenly spaced at the bottom of the pit and connected to the pipes.
When activated, each Watchtower granted a fifty-ter field of vision beyond the Camp—not attack range, just sight. But as long as he could see, he could wield the ghostly Mourning Lantern in his hand.
He needed to deal with this unknown creature before the Rear Base could truly be considered safe.
Once everything was in place—
Eternal Night descended, right on schedule.
Chen Fan sat quietly atop the Wall at the cave entrance, Mourning Lantern in hand. The Wall was set into the mountainside, so the rain couldn’t reach him. He gazed up at the looming cliffs and waited, patient and still.
He had no idea how much ti passed.
Thud, thud, thud…
A familiar sound echoed through the darkness—Ghostbeasts tumbling from the cliffs into the pit.
“It’s here.”
Chen Fan tensed. This was just like last night.
Sure enough, after several Ghostbeasts crashed down, there was a long stretch of silence—long enough for a stick of incense to burn. Then, amid the rain, he heard a soft, shuffling sound—sothing massive moving through the downpour.
One, two, three…
Chen Fan silently counted the seconds. When the ti was right, he activated the Copper Pipes.
Cold, pale fire surged from the Ghostfire in the cave, flooding into the pipes and lighting up each Watchtower in turn.
In an instant—
The pit, once swallowed by Eternal Night, blazed with light.
Golden, branch-like filants sprawled across the pit floor, and the Watchtowers’ illumination pushed back the darkness, transforming it into a thick Gray Mist.
He saw it.
Lurking in the fog was a monstrous beast, crocodilian in form, skulking at the base of the cliff. It had just seized a Ghostbeast corpse in its jaws, ready to slink away. But the sudden blaze of light startled it.
The creature spat out the corpse and, panicked, bolted for the canyon passage.
In the blink of an eye, it vanished from sight.
Its heavy, thunderous footfalls echoed endlessly through the canyon.
“…”
Chen Fan stood atop the Wall, face impassive, silent. Only now did he realize what had been watching him the night before—and how cautious the creature had been, both then and now. The sounds he’d heard had been the beast moving as quietly as it could.
But when it finally fled for its life...
The noise was deafening, reverberating through the gorge, lingering long after it had vanished.
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