The King of Black Fog

Yang Qinglan stopped speaking and directed Li Qianxia to gather fan-shaped plants and tall plants with small fragmented leaves for kindling.

"The leaves are still green, can they burn?" Li Qianxia asked as she picked them up.

"These are spreading cypresses, they contain a lot of oil in the wood, so they can burn even when wet," Yang Qinglan explained.

"Miss Yang knows so much," Li Changzhou said, flattering her.

"It's all from books."

Based on Little Radish's judgment, the three of them avoided dangerous areas and arrived at a stream surrounded by stones.

The stones around them were huge, the tallest being two meters. The three of them, plus one radish, hid between the stones, like under the arch of a stone bridge, difficult to spot from the outside.

The water from the mountain snowmelt was right by their feet, convenient for boiling water and washing.

Li Changzhou put Yang Qinglan down, built a fire pit with small stones, added some spreading cypresses, and then poured gunpowder from a bullet.

To avoid revealing their location, he didn't fire the gun.

With the "Mosquito Style Blood-sucking Gun" in his left hand and a dagger in his right, he struck hard, and sparks flew everywhere.

Just as Yang Qinglan had said, it caught fire easily, crackling as it burned.

He added more wood, and the fire gradually grew, its warmth bringing comfort.

Yang Qinglan sat on a stone, waiting for Li Qianxia to wash the boar meat and come back, not daring to move; her whole body was sore and numb, and it took a while to overcome it.

"You should take off your outer garments first, dry them and then change the inside," Li Changzhou said.

Li Qianxia took off her coat, wrung it out forcefully, and the sound of water hitting the stone crackled, showing the amount of water in it.

Yang Qinglan also took off her coat and retrieved some pork lard and skin.

The two of them carefully roasted their clothes.

Li Changzhou cut the pork lard into small pieces, placed them on the slab to let the fat slowly melt, and then sliced the boar meat thin with a dagger to cook it faster.

The clothes of the two female college students emitted puffs of white steam, and for a moment, the "bridge hole" seemed like the bathing cave of the Seven Immortals.

"Won't this expose us?" Li Qianxia looked at the white steam with some concern.

"With it here, if someone comes, we can hide two persons and launch a counter ambush," Li Changzhou said, glancing at Little Radish squatting by the fire pit, salivating over the roasting meat.

Seeing its greedy look, he laughed and said, "You eat meat too? Go drink some tree sap!"

"I'll eat, I want to eat!" Little Radish pouted, speaking in a whiny voice, with clear saliva visible on its lips.

The fire crackled, and the pork fat in the fire did the same, mixing with the woody scent of the meat, which made the three people who had climbed mountains, been rained on, and on alert the whole way even hungrier.

"It should be cooked by now," Li Changzhou said as he picked up a slice with a twig and handed it to Li Qianxia.

He then picked up another slice with a twig and handed it to Yang Qinglan.

There was one last piece on the slate; Little Radish rubbed its tiny hands on its tiny knees.

Li Changzhou picked it up with a twig and handed it to the radish.

"Don't just think about eating, stay alert, got it?"

"So tasty, so tasty!" Little Radish took small bites, blowing on the meat while chewing.

The slightly charred pork, gleaming with fat, brought immense satisfaction to their bodies.

"Brother, uh, here," Li Qianxia handed him the half-eaten grilled pork.

"You eat it, I'll grill some more," Li Changzhou continued to slice pork and even started on the liver.

He only knew the liver was nutritious although he wasn't sure exactly what it replenished, unlike pig kidneys which come with instructions.

"You don't need to worry about your brother," Yang Qinglan said indifferently, "To be soaking wet on a snowy mountain and still getting to touch my face, that's a first for me."

"Ah?" Li Qianxia ate the rest of her meat and pointed to her brother with a twig, "Li Changzhou, what's this about?"

Without waiting for her brother to explain, she pouted twice with the greasy twig in her mouth, unable to help but urge him, "Slice it thinner, grill it faster."

Yang Qinglan, having finished her piece, was still not satisfied.

Little Radish was still dealing with a slice of meat as long as its own height.

When Li Changzhou ate, he paid attention and didn't feel any effect.

[C-level Healing: After consuming food, wound healing speeds up to a certain extent]

As expected, it was only C-level; not only was eating required, but it only sped up the healing to a certain extent, and it could only heal wounds, with no effect on the side effects of "Control Dopamine."

His intelligence would have to recover over time.

According to previous experimentation, it took three hours to recover one point, or half an hour of sleep for one point.

After finishing the roasted meat, their outer garments were dry, so the two female college students changed their clothes under the bridge hole.

Li Changzhou turned his back to grill his shoes, while Li Qianxia watched him as she changed; Yang Qinglan and Li Qianxia stood back to back, forming a straight line with him.

'Sooner or later, I should exchange for Jumping Spider's 360-degree vision.' Li Changzhou took off his socks, his toes wrinkled and crumpled.

The rustling sound of changing clothes behind him had no meaning to him, as he couldn't distinguish which was Yang Qinglan and which was his sister.

If he mistook the sound of his sister changing clothes as excitement from Yang Qinglan, that would be disgusting.

Sigh, just like carrying Yang Qinglan now, although we were close, there was nothing romantic about it—there was so much clothing and water between us.

The two quickly changed clothes and felt relaxed, as if stripping off a hard shell from their bodies.

Now dressed only in their outerwear and swimsuits, they looked very cool, and there was a tantalizing sense that wearing something was more enticing than wearing nothing, prompting fanciful thoughts.

"Are you tired?" Li Changzhou asked softly after glancing at his sister.

"Hmph!" Li Qianxia turned her little face away, her ponytail flicking against Li Changzhou's face, "Whether I'm tired or not, you won't carry me anyway."

"I'll carry you on my back when we go back...", Li Changzhou said, rubbing his eyes.

Hair strands were in his eyes.

"Ah—" Li Qianxia let out a wail, "I forgot we still have to go back! I'd rather die here!"

Yang Qinglan's complexion didn't look great either.

The two of them really missed home now, missed the soft big bed, missed the hot baths.

The wilderness was really no place for a person.

Li Changzhou glanced at his sister and said calmly:

"Everyone has another self within them, a stronger, more persistent self, but it lies dormant within the body. If you treat the Value games as a Tool, it can help you awaken it and make this stronger self rise even higher."

"The premise is that your spirit is strong enough to use the Value games as tools," Yang Qinglan said while roasting the cuffs of her shirt, "You need to read, it makes your spirit strong and turns the chaos into clarity."

Li Qianxia let out another "Ah—" this time a cry of despair.

"Stop torturing me, both of you."

Once the clothes were dry, Li Qianxia used her own clothes to make a simple dress for the little radish.

Her craftsmanship was not bad, she had learned it from following her grandmother and using a sewing machine.

"What's this?" Little Radish pulled at the neckline, revealing a tiny, tiny ravine.

"Clothes, akin to your former fur," Li Qianxia explained patiently.

"Sigh." Little Radish suddenly sighed, sitting on a small stone with its small butt, hands propped on cheeks, staring thoughtfully at the flames as if pondering life.

"What's wrong?" Li Qianxia asked, puzzled as she looked at it.

"Without fur, nobody plays with me anymore, I just came of age, I haven't mated yet, sigh."

"..." Li Qianxia had no idea what to say.

Li Changzhou, while poking at the fire, laughed and said, "It's nothing, none of us here have mated either."

"Really?!" Little Radish suddenly perked up.

"But one of us is guilty of over-indulgence," Yang Qinglan said blandly. She didn't look at anyone, but her words were aimed at someone.

"Over-indulgence?"

"Cough cough, the smoke is really suffocating, oh right, Little Radish, how come we've run into you again?"

"Didn't we meet during the day?"

"I mean, how come we've run into you again in the game?"

"Oh, that's how it is, I try every day when I go to sleep, if there's no danger I come in, there was no danger today."

"How did you find us?" Li Qianxia asked curiously.

"I learned a skill to smell Qi," Little Radish shrugged its little nose.

"You should learn the Eyes of Golden Flame!" Li Qianxia was very dissatisfied.

The sun sank into the western sky.

The red glow of the sunset faded, turning the sky into a pale blue as the full moon hung high.

They had never seen such a large moon before; it seemed so close to Earth.

Li Qianxia yawned.

Walking all day soaked to the bone and having to guard against unseen enemies, she was tired.

"Let's rest," Yang Qinglan said, then instructed Li Changzhou, "You're tired today too, I'll take the first half of the night watch. With Little Radish here, there's nothing to worry about."

"Alright," Li Changzhou didn't refuse.

He needed to recover his Intelligence as quickly as possible.

"Thanks, Qing Lan," yawned Li Qianxia, stretching her tired body.

"Compared to the day, staying up at night is nothing. Go to sleep."

Occasionally, clouds would cover the moon, plunging the forest into darkness, and the firelight of the bonfire flared like a bloom in the depths of the sea.

Li Changzhou slept for two hours and awoke around 10 p.m.

Li Qianxia was hugging her steel gun, her head resting on her clothes as she slept.

The night watch, Yang Qinglan, had her arm resting on her knee, her head on her arm, and she too had fallen asleep.

Only Little Radish was still playing with stones.

Li Changzhou stirred the dying fire, adding some branches to it.

The snapping sound of the fresh branches burning woke Yang Qinglan.

"Sorry," she said, hand pressed to her forehead, trying to wake herself up.

"I have good Constitution, I'm not tired anymore. You can keep sleeping, you can't do anything with a tired body," Li Changzhou said softly.

"No need."

The two fell into silence.

After a few minutes, Yang Qinglan fell asleep again, perhaps subconsciously remembering that Li Changzhou was on watch, she didn't wake up again and her sleeping face was calm and contented, deep in slumber.

Li Changzhou wasn't lonely, he had the ghostly humanoid shadow for company, the two of them staring at each other—or they would be, if the thing's face was turned this way.

Well, there was a bigger premise—that the thing had eyes.

The dazzling flames, like the most vibrant blossoms, flourished fervently and lonesomely in the darkness.