Suddenly, the three of them left the stone house. Jenny took the nervous Aifu at the door back with her.
Doctor Xu and Yu Hong exchanged some candles for Large Pyroxene Stone and also went back to rest and repair.
Carrying things with him, Yu Hong didn't go straight back but first arrived at Old Yu's former residence—a cellar that looked like a small earthen mound.
He pulled open the cellar door, and immediately a musty smell and the stench of rotting meat wafted out.
Holding his stick and barely holding back his nausea, he carefully crawled inside.
About ten or so minutes later, he emerged from the cellar, reeking, with a black-covered notebook in his hand and strode away.
He returned to the safe house in the cave.
Yu Hong had returned to his regular rhythm of living. Exercising in the morning, going out to gather wood, find water, and dig for vegetables at noon, and in the afternoon, enhancing his reading with studies of the Black Mark.
In the blink of an eye, two days had passed.
Click.
At noon inside the stone house, Yu Hong broke a dry twig into two pieces, shortening it to fit easily into the fireplace, then tossed it aside and continued with the next one.
Suddenly, the corner of his eye caught the countdown timer behind the main door.
The numbers there were now down to the last few minutes.
"It's coming... Soon, I'll know what the effect will be after enhancing to the limit...." His heart swelled with anticipation.
Although the threat of the Evil Shadow had already reached the post office gathering places, as long as he wasn't infected and with the talisman array enhanced by the Black Mark on his side, he didn't believe that shadow and Evil Shadow would be able to harm him without making a sound.
The only thing he was somewhat worried about was how much effect the talisman array would have on Evil Shadow. Without a real test, no one knew if it could withstand the pressure.
The few minutes quickly came to an end, and the countdown numbers abruptly dropped to zero.
Hiss!
A blur shrouded the talisman array behind the door, but it cleared in an instant.
The talisman array that reappeared was now completely transformed; its originally gray-white lines had turned a faint silver after enhancement.
The runes of the talisman array had changed from the previous Large Pyroxene Stone level to a new and far more complex pattern, filled with many detailed gradations of depth.
"It looks very effective... Just don't know how it will work for real." Yu Hong looked at the talisman array with some joy, reached out to touch it, and felt its surface was unnaturally smooth, as if nothing had been carved on it.
"Not bad, not bad.... Now, if I grind the Large Pyroxene Stone into powder and make it into luminous stone graphite, would the effect be even stronger?" He now had a rough grasp of the lower limits of the Black Mark.
Indeed, each object could only be enhanced once, but if an enhanced object was processed further and adding a lot of one's own things into it, then it could be enhanced again.
The difference lay in the majority of one's own contributions to the mix.
"It just so happens that the Evil Shadow might be nearby, and with those soldiers that came before, I must be careful at all times."
These past few days, Yu Hong had also set up some simple alarms around, such as threads tied between trees, hidden in the grass, completely invisible if one didn't look closely and slowly. But as soon as the threads were touched, they would instantly trigger the bells they were connected to.
The bells were found in Old Yu's stone house but were now being used as alarm lines.
Snapping back to reality, Yu Hong went over to another corner, took a Large Pyroxene Stone, and started grinding it into powder, and mixed it with water and carbon.
Soon, with skilled hands, he finished making a new batch of Large Pyroxene Stone graphite.
This time, instead of engraving elsewhere, he picked up a prepared wooden board and meticulously started drawing the Great Luminous Stone Array.
The complexity of the silver talisman array runes was too great, and he had to carefully observe and even take into account the variations in depth. He couldn't learn it just yet.
So instead, he chose the jade-like runes he was increasingly proficient in, which were the enhancement runes that came with the quality of the Large Pyroxene Stone.
Quickly, within ten or so minutes, a new wooden board talisman array drawn with Large Pyroxene Stone graphite had taken shape under his hands.
Following that, he stretched out his hand and pressed down, starting the enhancement.
And it wasn't just any enhancement, but one that aimed for the maximum limit.
Before long, a new countdown appeared on the board: "2 days 1 hour 04 minutes."
Yu Hong also appeared completely drained, making the difficult decision to start the enhancement process.
He planned to make as many preparations as possible. If Jenny and the others failed to successfully breed the meat, he would have got to likely move food from Old Yu's cellar.
As for how strong Evil Shadow actually was, he wasn't clear, so he could only do the best he could.
If it really came down to it, he would try to fumble through by himself with Old Yu's notebook.
But that was the last resort, as starting from scratch would surely lead to many failures and run into numerous problems.
*
*
*
In the blink of an eye, another five days had passed.
In the post office gathering place, in Jenny's cave.
"The increase period is coming... we're running out of dried meat... Mom, is there any hidden food left? I'm so hungry!" Aifu slumped on her bed, flipping through a romance novel.
"Didn't you just eat?" Jenny's voice came from the workroom. "I gave you all the dried meat, and we have none left at home; I'll go see Doctor Xu tomorrow to see if I can borrow some."
She had already given most of the food to her daughter, but after five days, she still had not managed to grow edible mushrooms.
Growing mushrooms was the first step in breeding lizards, but now, she didn't even know where to begin. She had seen Old Yu sprout mushrooms so easily and quickly before and thought it would be simple, but now it seemed... too slow...
"But Mom, I'm really hungry..." Aifu complained, "You've already borrowed from Doctor Xu before, he surely has none left."
"Endure it for now; we're almost there. Let's just make do with mushrooms and wild vegetables for now," Jenny said helplessly.
Old Yu's disappearance had left her, who had planned everything so well, in a difficult situation. She had planned to breed her own food, but she hadn't expected Old Yu to return midway, so she thought she didn't need to worry about food and stopped her efforts.
And now, just when it was time to resupply food, Old Yu was gone!
This had left Jenny and Doctor Xu in a state of hunger due to the lack of food.
"There should be some at Old Yu's house, right? Why don't we just go take it?" Aifu said discontentedly. "He's gone anyway, so doesn't that mean we can take it as we please?"
"No, what if we get infected with the Black Handprint?" Jenny was startled and sharply retorted. "I can deal with any trouble for you usually, but this time you must listen to me! You must, must, must not go to Old Yu's place, it's very dangerous!!"
Seeing her mother so determined, Aifu could only nod to show that she definitely wouldn't go.
However, her eyes were darting about, and as she lowered her head and touched her shrunken, hungry belly, it felt like her whole body was burning with a fever, craving meat, meat, meat.
Deep down, she became increasingly preoccupied with the thought of all the food stored at old Yu's place. Rumor had it that old Yu even had candies and drinks that were brought in from the town. If she could get her hands on those, it would be so awesome!
"People have been dead for so long now, that 'Black Mark' must have faded away already. Besides, I'm just going in to grab some stuff before leaving; I'm not touching any 'Black Mark', there surely won't be a problem!"
She scoffed at the idea internally.
As the high-risk period was quickly approaching, the reserves of dried meat at home were running low. Without quickly stockpiling some, she might not perish from the bugs but could very well starve herself to death.
Now that the supplies and canned goods left by her old man at home were finally finished, everything had to be replenished from the outside. If she didn't go out now, she would lose the strength to do so when hunger struck.
While Aifu paid lip service, she sneaked out of the burrow the moment her mother left to borrow food from Doctor Xu.
She didn't wander around unnecessarily and soon arrived at the stone house with the smashed door. Then, turning on her atomic lamp flashlight, with a hint of fear on her face but driven by her unbearable hunger, she hesitated briefly before finally taking the plunge and dashing inside.
Before long, she crept out, carefully making her exit from the basement.
Fearing that her mother would discover and scold her, she only managed to take a small package of snacks from the door. These were snacks she had hidden for herself, resolutely deciding she must not let her mother find out, or else she might face a beating.
After returning, Aifu carefully hid the snacks. Sure enough, her mother didn't notice, which gave her a great sense of accomplishment.
The next day, she made excuses to go out and collect firewood, but instead she went to old Yu's basement, lit the candles there, rummaged for food, and indulged in a good meal.
The third day was the same...
As time slowly passed by, Aifu failed to notice that with her constant entering and exiting of the stone house's basement, the place where she went inside had gradually moved further in from the initial basement entrance.
With no incidents occurring, her vigilance slowly decreased, and day by day, she carefreely lit candles in the basement, feasting to her heart's content.
Soon, after wiping out a room's supply of dried meat, she moved on to opening the next room.
As more time passed, eventually, she arrived at the bedroom where old Yu had been attacked before.
In the pitch-black hallway, candles were lit at intervals, offering Aifu substantial reassurance.
After secretly feasting for so many days, she was utterly convinced that there was nothing wrong with the place, no danger at all. Her mother and Doctor Xu were just scaring themselves.
Humming a little tune, she approached old Yu's bedroom door and observed the scattered clothes on the floor, also noting the Black Mark on the sleeve.
"As long as I don't touch the Black Mark, it's all good, right? They make it sound so scary, but see, there's nothing wrong?" Aifu stepped over the clothes and into the bedroom.
Using the light from the candle in her hand, she quickly searched the bedroom, looking for food and nice things.
The dark and chilly basement was completely lit up by old Yu's candles, illuminating every corner.
It really did seem that people don't treasure what's not theirs, as Aifu was now wastefully enjoying these supplies that originally belonged to old Yu.
After a thorough search, she soon let out a cheer, finding a piece of white chocolate in a cabinet.
"This is tasty!" she popped it into her mouth, humming with satisfaction.
Snap.
At that moment, a soft sound came from the bedroom doorway.
Aifu froze, turning her head to look carefully. She noticed that one of the candles at the room's entrance had gone out.
Snap.
As she turned to look at the doorway, there was a small sound beside her, and, to her surprise, the candle in her hand also went out.
Aifu hurriedly turned back, but saw nothing.
Looking around at the room that was gradually darkening, she started to feel afraid.
'I need to get back...' She took two nervous steps backward, rushing towards the door.
And just as she was about to step over the pile of clothes at the door,
Whoosh!
Suddenly, two candles at the corridor's entrance were blown out.
Now, only two candles remained alight in the hallway.
Aifu was so startled that she shivered, her foot slipped, and she fell backward, landing on her butt.
Thud!
She sat down hard on the ground, her buttock aching from the impact.
As she hurriedly tried to stand up, suddenly, her whole body stiffened.
Looking down,
she was sitting right on top of old Yu's pile of clothes!
"No... can't be...!?" she felt a chill and her scalp tingled as she got up and ran out.
However, she completely failed to notice that a clear Black Handprint was slowly forming on her lower back.
Whoosh!
After she left, the last two candles in the corridor were instantly snuffed out.
***
***
***
Before long, it was almost time for the high-risk period to start again.
At this time, Yu Hong and Doctor Xu, along with Jenny, agreed to meet and trade supplies.
Inside the safe house, Yu Hong meticulously prepared to bring everything he could. Having trained for some time, he had clearly improved his physical condition and now had an extra strand of cool qi inside his body.
That meant he now had three strands of cool qi to utilize.
"I hope Jenny can manage to secure the dried meat; otherwise... I can hold out for a while, but they surely won't make it."
After packing his things, Yu Hong opened the door, gazed at the bright sunshine outside, and strode out, heading toward the post office's gathering place.