Chapter 60 - 53: The Days Grow Shorter

Chapter 60: Chapter 53: The Days Grow Shorter

During the day, Xu Mo’s life proceeded in a structured manner. Pile Training, Qi Collection, Power Control, Cold Weapon Training, firearm maintenance—every training session was steeped in sweat and concentration. He also kept a part of his mind on the lookout for any movement outside, but throughout the entire day, he never saw any sign of yesterday’s group of survivors in his neighborhood.

The group of survivors seemed to know their limits. Or perhaps, the previous dangers had scared them witless, so they only operated in the area near the town’s entrance and didn’t venture any deeper.

This was for the best. It prevented unnecessary contact and potential conflicts, and Xu Mo was happy to be left in peace.

The next morning, as the dawn light had yet to fully dispel the night’s chill, Xu Mo was on his rooftop facing east. While circulating his qi and blood to draw in that increasingly precious wisp of "Rising Sun Purple Qi," his gaze inadvertently swept over the road leading out of town.

He saw those familiar yet tiny figures.

It was the group of survivors. There were about six or seven of them, seemingly one or two fewer than when they had fled into the town. It was unclear if they had gotten separated or if something else had happened. The survivors were now shouldering their packs and wearing homemade snowshoes. They formed a loose line, trudging slowly along the snow-covered old highway in the direction of the Jiang City Shelter.

Silhouetted against the vast, snowy plains and the lead-gray sky, their figures looked exceptionally lonely and helpless.

Watching them leave, a guess formed in Xu Mo’s mind.

’Looks like they did some small-scale scavenging in town, but they most likely came up empty-handed. That’s why they had no choice but to get back on the road,’ Xu Mo mused.

It wasn’t hard to understand. Cyan Pine Ridge Town was marked as a "Valueless Area" on the map and had long since been combed over countless times by those who came before, like running a fine-toothed comb through hair. Any portable survival supplies had been snatched up early in the apocalypse. What couldn’t be taken was mostly destroyed by chaos, the ravages of time, and the extreme cold.

When he had first arrived, he too had spent time searching. In the end, the most useful things he found were just wooden furniture, doors, and windows that could be broken down for firewood. Expecting a small, terrified team that had hastily fled into town to find anything useful in the ruins was nothing short of a fantasy.

Leaving and heading for a large shelter where order and supplies might exist was their only option.

Xu Mo silently watched their backs disappear behind a distant snowdrift. He felt no great stir of emotion, merely the sense of watching a brief interlude come to a close. He let out a soft breath, the white mist of it curling and dispersing into the cold air.

’Good luck,’ Xu Mo said silently to himself.

In the apocalypse, everyone was walking a tightrope of fate. Whether they could reach the shores of hope depended entirely on their own tenacity and a sliver of ethereal luck.

He then pushed these thoughts aside, immersing himself completely in the new day’s training. The coming and going of outsiders was, to him, nothing more than the occasional moving speck on a dead, silent backdrop. His focus would always be on increasing his own power.

However, the changes in the external environment were not something Xu Mo could completely ignore. Looking up at the sky, the thick, lead-gray clouds showed no signs of dispersing. Instead, they were like enormous gray cotton balls saturated with water, growing thicker and pressing lower, creating a breathless, suffocating feeling. They continued to "brew," yet stubbornly refused to release a heavy snowfall, merely devouring what little light remained, which was already diminishing by the day.

What weighed most heavily on Xu Mo’s mind was that the daylight hours were shrinking at a visible rate.

A few days ago, the sky wouldn’t darken noticeably until after three in the afternoon. Today, however, it was just past two, and the light outside was already fading rapidly and irreversibly, as if the curtain of night had been drawn early. By three o’clock, it was nearly as dark as night.

The change was too drastic and abnormal. Staring at the premature gloom outside his window, a thought that made even someone with Xu Mo’s current temperament feel a flicker of dread surfaced uncontrollably: ’At this rate, will there come a day when the daylight disappears completely? Will the entire world fall into an Eternal Night?’

The idea coiled around Xu Mo’s heart like a cold, venomous snake. Although reason told him this was likely just an extreme weather phenomenon, witnessing the daylight hours decrease so bizarrely and rapidly made the thought difficult to suppress. Losing the sun meant more than just losing the opportunity to collect "Purple Qi." It signified the death of plants, the complete collapse of the ecosystem, and unimaginable psychological pressure and survival challenges.

’I must prepare for the worst.’ Xu Mo never relied on luck.

When the next forty-eight-hour countdown ended, Xu Mo immediately sprang into action.

Pushing open a door, Xu Mo entered a warehouse piled high with all sorts of emergency supplies. This time, his objective was clear: lighting equipment and energy storage devices.

This time, Xu Mo collected a dozen or so LED emergency lights, a good number of flashlights, dozens of boxes of various types of batteries, and several high-capacity power banks. He even found a few small, quiet gas generators and several barrels of matching fuel, but considering the noise and exhaust fumes, Xu Mo chose not to take them.

But Xu Mo’s most important find was several high-power solar panels and their matching controllers. Although the panels’ efficiency would be greatly reduced in weather with such an extreme lack of sunlight, even a weak current was better than nothing. It was an important supplementary energy source.

After returning to the apocalyptic world, Xu Mo immediately began setting things up. He placed most of the storage batteries and emergency lights inside his shelter. Then, carrying the solar panels and related equipment, he cautiously crossed the street and installed them on the rooftop of a relatively intact building opposite his own. This way, he could get the best possible sunlight while avoiding making his own roof too conspicuous. He connected the wiring, stored the generated electricity in the high-capacity storage batteries he’d brought, and would retrieve them for use in his shelter at night or as needed.

Having done all this, Xu Mo looked at the solar panels working silently under the gloomy sky and the numerous lighting and energy storage devices stockpiled in his shelter, and his heart finally settled a bit. At least for the foreseeable future, he wouldn’t be plunged into complete darkness.

And yet, in the few short days it took Xu Mo to complete these preparations, the speed at which the sky changed once again exceeded his expectations.

The light, which had been reasonably bright past one in the afternoon, was now also beginning to fade noticeably. The true daylight hours had been compressed to an unbelievably short period.

The premature gloom blanketing the world outside was like a giant shadow, not only shrouding the earth but also casting a dark, persistent pall over Xu Mo’s heart.