Chapter 6 Living Shelter II

  No one knew how much time had passed when Lan Chi opened his heavy eyes. His head hurt badly, as if it had been smashed by a heavy hammer. He forced himself to sit up and found that the sky outside the window was already dusk.

  The axe monster and the pickaxe monster had long finished their work and returned to the shelter. They were leaning on the door on the left and right, resting.

  The door was wide open. The cold wind outside poured in, making Lan Chi shiver. He staggered over to close the door, muttering complaints to the two tool monsters, “Don’t you even know how to close the door? Next time, remember to close it when you come back.”

  The two dull fellows moved their eyeballs slightly, clearly still not understanding what “close the door” meant.

  Lan Chi sighed and dragged his sore, weak steps toward the fireplace. He took out the fire starter he had bought earlier from the nearby shelf — a kind of dried fiber he had never seen before — and placed it on the wood inside the fireplace.

  Then he took out two flints he had bought from the dwarves and struck them together. Faint sparks fell onto the fire starter. A dark red flame quickly spread along the fiber, licking the dry wood.

  Lan Chi was staring blankly at the flame when a sudden tickling sensation came by his ear, as if something was gently swaying there, brushing against him and raising goosebumps all over his body.

  “What is that…” he muttered, turning his head sideways. He saw a slender pink tentacle suspended in midair, with an eyeball the size of a walnut at its tip.

  The eyeball was curiously staring at him, the pupil reflecting the firelight from the fireplace.

  “Ah! F**k! What the hell is that!” Lan Chi jumped in fright, scrambling backward, and with a thud slammed into the side of the fireplace.

  The little tentacle seemed startled by his reaction too. Like a frightened small fish, it shrank back into the depths of the wall coating, leaving only the wood grain there trembling slightly.

  Lan Chi clutched his wildly pounding chest and stared wide-eyed at the crack in the wall. After a long while, he blurted out, “Holy shit… this house grew an eye?”

  Not long after, the crack in the wall slowly opened, and the walnut-sized eyeball trembled as it peeked out. It did not avoid him. With an almost ingratiating expression, it extended toward Lan Chi again and met his gaze.

  “Hun…gry…”

  That childish voice imprinted directly into Lan Chi’s brain, like the murmur of a child who had just learned to speak.

  Lan Chi froze. He cautiously asked, “Are you talking?”

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  “Hun…gry…” The voice was clearer than before.

  “What do you want to eat?” Lan Chi swallowed and asked quietly.

  Seeing that the big eye did not respond, Lan Chi grabbed a mutated fruit from the table and handed it over. “Do you want to eat this?”

  The big eye stared at the wild fruit in Lan Chi’s hand. A large mouth split open beneath its eyelid. A moist pink tongue extended out, deftly curled around the fruit, and swallowed it.

  Lan Chi felt terrible all over. It was as if something deep inside him had shattered.

  He frantically comforted himself: This is biotechnology. This is living infrastructure. This is all for survival…

  “More…”

  The walnut-sized eye stared straight at the remaining fruit on the table. A large mouth split open again beneath its eyelid. The moist tongue swept across the table, and the fruit instantly disappeared without a trace.

  “Damn! I haven’t even eaten dinner yet!” Seeing his supplies vanish, Lan Chi cried out in alarm.

  Fortunately, seven or eight hours had passed since he picked the fruit in the morning. The mutated plants outside had produced another batch of ripe fruit, so he did not end up going hungry on the spot.

  The big eyeball stared eagerly at the full bucket of fruit he had just brought back. This time, Lan Chi ignored it and ate on his own.

  “More…” The childish voice sounded in his mind again.

  Lan Chi glanced sideways at it, casually placing several stones and pieces of wood on the table. “You should eat these,” he said irritably.

  “Don’t want…”

  Seeing Lan Chi ignore it, the big eyeball began rummaging through the shelves by itself.

  “Eat this…”

  It curled up the phosphor crystal Lan Chi had placed on the shelf. The big mouth inhaled, swallowing it directly.

  Lan Chi watched its actions and did not stop it. Instead, he leaned closer curiously and asked, “You eat this?”

  “Tasty…”

  The voice in his mind sounded much more excited than before.

  Lan Chi simply fed it the remaining three phosphor crystals as well. Watching that mouth chew and swallow the crystals, he casually opened the system interface to check:

  [Mutated Shelter / Writhing Wooden House]: Tier 1, Growth Progress 0.5%.

  The system description was still simple and did not provide more details.

  “Tier one…” Lan Chi stroked his chin. The shelter actually had tiers too. He opened his own status panel to compare:

  [Trial Participant: Aberration / No Class]

  [Tier: 0]

  It seemed the shelter’s level was now higher than his. If he cultivated it well, it would definitely keep him alive in the future.

  “You’ll be called Little House from now on,” Lan Chi said casually.

  “I… Little House.” The big eyeball responded blankly.

  “You like eating phosphor crystals, right?” Lan Chi looked at its foolish appearance and added, “The red crystals you just ate.”

  “Li…ke…”

  “Alright, wait here. I’ll get you some.”

  Lan Chi put all the freshly picked fruit onto the trading channel. Not long after, twenty fruits were sold, directly exchanged for forty phosphor crystals.

  He did not feel any heartache and immediately fed all the crystals to Little House.

  Little House ate happily. Its growth progress jumped bit by bit to 6%.

  Seeing it was about time, Lan Chi yawned and walked into the new bedroom.

  The bedroom had widened considerably. The originally narrow single wooden bed had become a spacious double bed, colored a deep dark red.

  The bed surface was covered with a thick tree-fiber quilt. Lan Chi reached out to touch it. The bedding was warm and soft inside, feeling just like a high-end velvet quilt.

  He kicked off his shoes and burrowed into the quilt. His tense nerves relaxed, and he soon fell into deep sleep.

  After he fell asleep, several slender tentacles silently extended from the head of the bed. They intertwined in midair, weaving into a semi-transparent cap that gently settled on Lan Chi’s forehead.

  With faint pulsations, strands of fragmented memories flowed along the tentacles into the entire house. That childish voice murmured intermittently:

  “Car…”

  “High… speed… rail…”

  “Air… plane…”

  “Other… world…”

  “Nov… el…”