Apocalypse: Last Traveler

It was an uneventful night.

When they woke up the next day, the weather had turned cold.

But it wasn't the sudden onset of severe cold, just a slight chill, something an ordinary person could endure even in the previous world.

Without a thermometer, disregarding this temperature, Lu Xi'an felt it was at most a few degrees below zero.

He got out of the car to feel the air, then turned back and smiled at Yao Wei, saying, "Look, the weather is great. Isn't it just right to dig a shelter and build a fireplace to roast some fire? Just thinking about it feels comfortable.

"Why does it feel like the heavens want us to do something so meaningless?"

"Hmm."

Yao Wei nodded. Seeing Lu Xi'an so enthusiastic, her mood involuntarily improved a bit too.

Lu Xi'an boiled some more hot water.

For this breakfast, they didn't eat corn but instead put the remaining little wolf meat into the pot, soaked it soft, and ate it warm.

So after cooking, the wolf meat became tender and soft, easier to chew, and the water had gained a salty flavor, providing a unique taste.

After breakfast, they packed up their things and went to the Xijian River to fetch water, then started busying themselves with the day's planned tasks.

There was a wood-handled shovel in the car, taken from the shelter.

The shovel was originally intended for cooking use in the shelter, but when people were about to move in, there was a collapse, and for some unknown reason, they never got in.

So the shovel ultimately became a tool for Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei to dig pits and bury garbage.

At the time, there were two shovels, and when Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei left the shelter, they took one of them. As it was hard to store in the car, they disassembled the front part, separating the wooden handle and shovel blade.

Yao Wei took the shovel out of the car, fitted it back together, aligned the stored nails with the holes in the shovel handle and wood, and pressed them through. Then she bent the ends of the nails to secure them.

—When separating the handle and blade, it was also Yao Wei who straightened the nails.

There were two nails above and below, each inserted and bent in opposite directions to thoroughly secure the shovel and wooden handle.

After fitting the shovel, Yao Wei asked, "How do we do this?"

Lu Xi'an said, "Let's try on the cliff first, see if the soil is soft or hard. If feasible, we'll dig out a square pit. If not, let's not waste the effort and risk a collapse while digging.

"Truth be told, I've only seen this stuff in videos before, never done it myself. I can only try from memory, so we might not succeed.

"If we fail, don't blame me, okay?"

"Hmm, okay."

Yao Wei nodded in agreement, not minding Lu Xi'an's reminder.

As mentioned yesterday, they were just finding something to do for fun, so why blame Lu Xi'an?

Yao Wei also had a smaller spade, and Lu Xi'an picked it up.

They went together to the edge of the cliff to try. Shovelful by shovelful, surprisingly it worked.

The soil on the cliff was moderately soft and hard. With some attention to force, they could dig in without causing a collapse.

Both were Type A Neo-Humans, incredibly strong, making the task of digging a pit effortless.

Shovelful after shovelful, a pit gradually took shape on the wall.

This process would have been incredibly time-consuming and laborious for ordinary people in the past, but for Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei, it seemed the simplest task now.

With great power came miracles; they could manage both brute force and fine precision.

"Pay attention to the shape,"

Lu Xi'an reminded Yao Wei. They needed a square-shaped pit, to follow the subsequent steps in his memory.

Yao Wei acknowledged with a "Hmm" and nodded in agreement.

Eventually, she gradually stopped focusing on digging and instead used the spade to clear the earth, shovel after shovel, out of the pit.

Her large shovel was suitable for this task while Lu Xi'an used her small spade to refine the pit, finding it more handy.

Lu Xi'an mentioned that the excavated earth might be useful later, so Yao Wei piled it all to one side, making it convenient for future use.

As she watched the growing pile of earth and the large pit they dug together, a sudden sense of accomplishment surged within her.

She felt it wasn't too bad and thought that this was probably the point of the task.

After tidying up the pit, Lu Xi'an crouched down, digging several intersecting channels in the ground. Yao Wei, not understanding, asked Lu Xi'an, "What's this for?"

"Underfloor heating,"

Lu Xi'an said, "Once we're done, we'll get some debris from Xiaogang Village to lay over it."

"Hmm."

Yao Wei nodded. She hadn't heard the term underfloor heating before, but observing the situation and linking it to "heating," she understood that these would help warm the place.

— "A little" because she felt such things would be useless against real severe cold.

But no matter, she was quite eager to see what the final product looked like.

After finishing the pit, Lu Xi'an carved a section of the wall, hollowing out a fireplace connected to the underfloor heating channel, with a forty-five degree slot leading out of the cliff.

This was where the chimney would go.

After doing all this, they surprisingly hadn't used much time.

The Neo-Human body truly made everything simpler. Lu Xi'an thought to himself how lucky he was to be a Type A Neo-Human.

Though at times, he envied the Type B Neo-Humans' ability to recover energy by eating, and the Type D Neo-Humans' ability to become invisible.

Hmm... Not envious of Type C, always sweating with a smelly sweat odor, that's quite unbearable.

"Alright, let's go to Xiaogang Village."

After finishing these tasks, Lu Xi'an climbed out of the pit, cleaned the shovel, patted his hands, and placed it back in the car.

Yao Wei asked Lu Xi'an, "Do we still need this shovel?"

After getting a "No" from Lu Xi'an, she bent the nails straight, pulled them out, and separated the shovel from the handle before stuffing it into the car.

The two didn't walk, they drove directly to Xiaogang Village.

Lu Xi'an recalled in the videos he watched, those who had leisure and money or were specially filming videos would weave a basket to pick up slate.

But now, with a ready-made car and a material site, he didn't need to follow everything in the videos.

Upon reaching Xiaogang Village, they parked and directly searched the collapsed houses for intact bricks to pick up and stack on top of the car.

Lu Xi'an also discovered an aluminum chimney, but after decades of wind and rain, it was unusable, just a moment of false joy.

Luckily, there were enough bricks here, so he could use them to block up the chimney.

After collecting enough bricks, the two drove back again.

Naturally, they had to drive slower and steadier, considering the car roof was full of bricks; dropping them wouldn't be a waste, but if they ran out, they'd have to come back and collect more.

Later, Lu Xi'an used the water they fetched in the morning, pouring it little by little onto the dug-out earth to make mud, and after preparing it, began sealing the ground heating system, the fireplace, and chimney with bricks.

This task did take some time; neither of them knew how to do it, and could only attempt it while working, ensuring the mud was suitable, the bricks laid properly, and the joints sealed with mud.

But thankfully, both had enough patience, and the Type A Neo-Humans' control over their bodies helped in spotting details in rough work; they managed to get everything done in the end.

Lu Xi'an even had the energy to remember overlooked details from videos, leaving a gap between the fireplace and ground heating system for warm air to flow down.

But the shelter was still rudimentary, with three walls made of earth.

Initially, Lu Xi'an planned to chop some wood, shave it, and nail it to the earth walls to build walls, but considering he spent so much effort researching brick-laying, studying a new technique might waste even more time.

Moreover, there was plenty of earth left, so he opted not to research further, and called Yao Wei to make another trip to Xiaogang Village to gather more bricks.

But the bottom bricks were just laid and hadn't dried yet, wobbling underfoot, making other tasks impossible.

The two temporarily stopped working, waiting for half a day plus a night.

The next day, they checked again; at least the floor was stable to walk on, so they mixed more mud, used bricks to seal up the three walls, and covered them from the outside, leaving space for a door and window.

—— Here, they did use some wood.

When setting up doors and windows, they had to chop some wood, whittle it into boards, place them above, to lay bricks for the tops of the doors and windows.

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei felt uneasy about placing bricks on the wood, fearing the bricks would crush the board, so they made the wood quite thick, layered them on bricks, forming the tops of doors and windows.

As for the top, Lu Xi'an left some space while building walls, reached in through that space, excavated out some earth.

After finishing all this, they shaved wood boards, laid them horizontally across, and then inserted a row vertically, managing to seal the earthy ceiling.

Then, Yao Wei and Lu Xi'an jumped out of the newly built "shelter," letting out a long breath.

Both of their hands were covered in mud, but looking at the gradually forming shelter, they felt nothing but satisfaction.

Even though the shelter had no doors or windows yet.

"How is it?"

Lu Xi'an asked. He didn't deal with the doors and windows for now, still figuring out how to make them.

Perhaps they wouldn't make them at all; after all, it's just a rough structure; experiencing it like this might be good enough.

"It's great."

Yao Wei answered, "Except it's too damp inside, and a bit unsteady to walk on."

Lu Xi'an: "..."

This was indeed a problem. Today, stepping on the ground still wobbled slightly; unsure if it was due to their inadequate skill or the place wasn't completely dry.

The walls they built were also relying on precise body control to ensure they didn't damage yesterday's freshly completed "floor."

With little experience, accomplishing this much was already commendable.

Lu Xi'an pondered and said, "Let's let it dry overnight and see how it goes. Talk about it tomorrow if it doesn't work out.

"Maybe try heating it to dry the mud and see if that works? Or lay a layer of wood boards?

"If it still doesn't work, then we'll just look at it, better not stay inside."

Unexpectedly, Yao Wei gazed at the newly completed shelter and said, "But I want to try going in."

It seemed that the shelter they built also piqued Yao Wei's interest.

Lu Xi'an chuckled and said, "Alright. Let's try going in tomorrow. Even if it's uninhabitable, going in to try and sit should be fine."

"Mhm."

Yao Wei nodded, now feeling satisfied.

Lu Xi'an also felt quite satisfied, seeing Yao Wei delighted despite this rather pointless labor, he too felt a sense of fulfillment.

Really didn't expect the work to finish in just two days, and for them, the two Neo-Humans, it was indeed an activity to pass the time without expending much effort.

Pretty good.

He thought happily to himself.