A Night of Desperation

Chapter 34 – Trouble (2)

Immediately, the three left the stone house. Jenny returned with a nervous-looking Eve at the door.

Dr. Xu and Yu Hong, having exchanged candles for some Great luminous stone, also returned to rest.

Carrying their items, Yu Hong didn’t head back directly but instead made his way to the old Yu’s former residence—a small hillside cellar that looked like a burial mound.

He opened the cellar door, and immediately, the smell of mold and rotten meat rushed out.

Holding his stick, he fought off his disgust and carefully crawled inside.

About ten minutes later, he crawled out from the cellar, stinking all over, holding a black-covered notebook in his hand, and walked off.

Returning to the cave’s safe house.

Yu Hong resumed his previous routine. He exercised in the morning, went out at noon to collect firewood, find water, and dig for vegetables, then spent his afternoons studying the enhancement of the black mark with books.

Two days passed quickly.

Crack.

At noon, inside the stone house, Yu Hong snapped a dry branch in two, shortening it to a size that could fit into the fireplace, then tossed it aside and picked up another.

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the countdown on the door.

There were only a few minutes left on the timer.

‘It’s almost time. Soon, I’ll know what the effects will be after reaching the maximum enhancement,’ he thought, filled with anticipation.

Although the threat of the evil shadow had spread to the post office gathering area, as long as he wasn’t infected, with the symbol array strengthened by the black mark, he didn’t believe the Ghostly shadows and evil creatures could harm him without a trace.

The only thing he was worried about was how effective the symbol array would be against the evil shadow. This hadn’t been tested for real, so no one knew if it could withstand it.

Minutes passed quickly, and the countdown hit zero.

Hiss!

A blur covered the symbol array behind the door, but it cleared again in an instant.

The symbol array that appeared was now completely different. The originally gray-white lines of the array had been enhanced to a faint silver color.

The symbols in the array had changed too. They went from the Great luminous stone’s level to a completely new design. This new design was far more complex than the one with the Great luminous stone and included many detailed aspects of shading and depth.

‘It looks very strong. Just don’t know how it will perform in practice,’ Yu Hong thought, happily observing the array. He reached out to touch it, feeling the surface, which was incredibly smooth as though nothing had been carved.

“Not bad, not bad. Next, if I grind the Giant luminous stone into powder and make Giant luminous stone ink, would it be even stronger?” He had now roughly grasped the lower limits of the black mark’s potential.

Indeed, each object could only be enhanced once, but if the enhanced object were processed again with a large amount of personal material added, it could be enhanced once more.

The key difference was that the material added must constitute the majority of the final composition.

‘The evil shadow might be nearby. Considering the soldiers who passed by before, I need to stay alert.’

In these past few days, Yu Hong had also set up some basic warning systems around, such as fine ropes tied between trees, hidden in the grass. If someone brushed against the ropes, it would trigger a bell at the end of the rope.

The bells were found in the stone house where the old Yu had been.

Returning to his work, Yu Hong went to another corner, picked up a piece of Great luminous stone, and began to grind it. He added water and carbon.

Soon, he skillfully created a fresh batch of Great luminous stone ink.

This time, instead of carving anywhere else, he took a prepared wooden board and began to carefully draw the Giant luminous stone symbol array.

The silver array’s symbols were too complex. He observed closely but found that the varying depths required were too difficult to replicate, so he chose to use the more familiar jade-like symbols, the enhancement marks naturally found on Great luminous stone.

After about ten minutes, a brand-new wooden board symbol array, drawn with Great luminous stone ink, appeared in his hands.

He stretched out his hand, pressed it down, and began to enhance it.

And not just any enhancement, but the highest level of enhancement.

Soon, a new countdown appeared on the wooden board: “2 days, 1 hour, 04 minutes.”

Yu Hong, feeling once again completely drained, struggled to confirm the start of the enhancement process.

He planned to prepare as much as possible. If Jenny and the others failed to cultivate the meat, he might have to move food from old Yu’s cellar.

As for how strong the evil shadow was, he didn’t know, so he could only prepare in every way he could.

If it really came down to it, he planned to experiment using old Yu’s notebook.

But that was a last resort because starting from scratch would mean many failures and plenty of troublesome issues.

*

*

* *

Five days passed in the blink of an eye.

At the Post Office gathering site, Jenny’s cave.

“The high tide period is coming. We don’t have enough dried meat, Mom! Do we have any more food hidden away? I’m so hungry!” Eve slumped on the bed, flipping through a romance novel.

“We just ate not long ago,” Jenny’s voice came from the workroom. “I gave you all the dried meat, and there’s none left at home. Tomorrow, I’ll go see Dr. Xu to see if I can borrow some.”

She had given most of their food to her daughter, but it had been five days, and she still hadn’t managed to grow edible mushrooms.

Growing mushrooms was the first step in raising the lizards, but now, she didn’t even know where to start. She used to think it was easy when Old Yu grew mushrooms so quickly, but now she realized it was far slower than she thought.

“But Mom, I’m so hungry,” Eve complained. “We’ve already borrowed food from Dr. Xu once. It’s probably all gone by now.”

“Just bear with it. It will be over soon. We can make do with mushrooms and wild vegetables for now,” Jenny said helplessly.

Old Yu’s disappearance had thrown her carefully planned schedule into disarray. She had originally planned to grow food herself, but unexpectedly, Old Yu had returned. Thinking they no longer needed to grow food, she had stopped.

But now, just when they needed to replenish food, Old Yu was gone!

This had put both Jenny and Dr. Xu in a state of hunger with little food left.

“Old Yu should have some at his place, right? Why don’t we just go and take it?” Eve said disgruntled. “He’s gone now, so it’s basically free to take, right?”

“No, we can’t. What if there are black handprints there? What if they’re contagious?” Jenny was startled and quickly raised her voice. “I can help you with all sorts of problems, but this time, you have to listen to me! Absolutely do not go to Old Yu’s place. It’s too dangerous!”

Seeing her mother so adamant, Eve had no choice but to nod, signaling she wouldn’t go.

However, she squinted, lowered her head, and rubbed her hungry, shriveled stomach, feeling feverish all over. She craved meat, meat, meat.

She was becoming more and more obsessed with the food piled up in Old Yu’s place. It was said that Old Yu had stocked up on candies and drinks from the town. If she could get her hands on them, it would be so satisfying!

‘The person’s been dead for so long. The black handprints must have disappeared by now. Besides, I’ll just go in, grab something, and leave. I won’t touch the black handprints, so it should be fine!’

She wasn’t concerned.

With the high tide period fast approaching and the dried meat reserves running low, if she didn’t hurry to stock up, she might starve to death before the bugs even had a chance to bite her.

Now that the canned food her father had left was finally finished, everything depended on outside supplies. If she didn’t go out now, she would have no energy left to go out later when she got too hungry.

Eve pretended to agree, but while waiting for her mother to go out and borrow food from Dr. Xu, she quietly slipped out of the cave.

She didn’t wander off. Soon, she arrived at the stone house with the broken door, and after turning on the atomic flashlight, her face showed a bit of fear. But with her stomach growling from hunger, she hesitated briefly before making up her mind and quickly slipping inside.

Not long after, she tiptoed back out, crawling out of the basement.

Afraid her mother would find out and scold her, she had only grabbed a small packet of food from the entrance. It was a stash she had hidden for herself. She vowed not to let her mom find out, or she might get another slap.

She returned and carefully hid the food. Sure enough, her mother didn’t notice, which gave her a sense of accomplishment.

The next day, she used the excuse of going out to collect firewood to sneak back to Old Yu’s basement, light the candles inside, and look for more food. She had a delicious meal.

The same happened on the third day.

Days passed slowly, and Eve didn’t notice that with each visit to the stone house’s basement, she had ventured further inside, away from the original entrance.

After realizing nothing was wrong, her vigilance decreased. Every day, she lit candles and leisurely enjoyed eating in the basement.

Soon, the food in one of the rooms was finished, so she moved on to the next room.

As time passed, she eventually reached the bedroom where Old Yu had been attacked.

In the dim, dark corridor, candles were lit at intervals. The bright candlelight gave Eve a lot of reassurance.

After stealing food for so many days, she was now certain that there was nothing wrong with this place and no danger. Her mother and Dr. Xu had just been scaring themselves.

Humming a little tune, she approached the bedroom door, glancing at the scattered clothes on the floor and noticing the black handprint on the sleeve.

“As long as I don’t touch the black handprint, it’ll be fine. Why are they making such a big deal out of this? It’s not like anything happened,” Eve thought as she stepped over the clothes and entered the bedroom.

With the candlelight in her hand, she quickly searched the bedroom, rummaging through cabinets for food and good items.

The dark, cold basement was fully illuminated by Old Yu’s candles, showing every corner.

It wasn’t her stuff, so she didn’t care about it. These supplies that belonged to Old Yu were now being recklessly wasted by Eve.

After a quick search, she cheered when she found a piece of white chocolate in a cabinet.

“This is so good!” She stuffed it into her mouth and hummed in satisfaction.

Bang!

At that moment, a soft sound came from the bedroom door.

Eve froze, turning her head to look. She saw that the candle at the door had gone out.

Bang!

Just as she turned to look at the door, another soft sound came from beside her, and the candle in her hand went out too.

Eve hurriedly turned back but saw nothing.

She looked at the room, which was slowly darkening, and started to feel a little scared.

‘I need to go back,’ she thought nervously, stepping back two paces and quickly heading for the door.

Just as she was about to cross the pile of clothes at the door…

Whoosh!

Suddenly, two candles in the corridor went out at once.

Immediately, only two candles remained lit in the corridor.

Eve was so startled that she shivered, and her feet slipped, causing her to fall onto her bottom with a painful thud.

Thud!

She fell hard onto the floor, her butt aching from the impact.

As she hurriedly tried to get up, she suddenly froze.

Looking down, she realized she had sat right on top of Old Yu’s pile of clothes!

“No way…” She felt a chill run through her body, and her scalp went numb. She jumped up and ran toward the exit.

But she didn’t notice that on her lower back and buttocks, a clear black handprint was slowly forming.

Whoosh!

After she left, the last two candles in the corridor were suddenly blown out.

*

*

* *

The high tide period was fast approaching.

At this time, Yu Hong, Dr. Xu, and Jenny had arranged to meet up to exchange supplies.

In the safe house, Yu Hong carefully packed everything he could carry. His physical fitness had noticeably improved during these training sessions, and there was now a slight chill in his body.

This meant that he now had three strands of cool energy inside him to use.

“I hope Jenny can manage to grow some dried meat. Otherwise… I can last a while, but they won’t make it.”

After packing his things, Yu Hong opened the door, looked out at the bright sunshine, and stepped out, heading toward the Post Office gathering site.

(End of Chapter)