I built a safe house in the eerie night.

Jiang Ning looked again at the strange corpses piled up at the village entrance, and the gloom in his eyes vanished, replaced by a burning intensity.

How well the defense can be maintained tonight depends on how many good items we can obtain today.

The escaped monster from last night already dropped a rare treasure. With at least a thousand corpses, even with a low drop rate, the harvest shouldn't be small.

Currently, the village only has a few bone arrow towers, and its current defense system and attack methods are still too simplistic.

Bone barricades and unbuilt reinforced wooden walls can provide a particularly strong physical defense, but the offensive end still relies entirely on arrow towers for output.

Even with a significant overall improvement, second-tier arrow towers alone become insufficient in more complex situations, such as encountering a large number of fast-moving units or unpredictable units capable of ranged attacks.

"We still need to hurry up and unlock more types of attack buildings to form a three-dimensional offense and defense to truly secure our position."

Jiang Ning was formulating a plan in his mind.

However, the opening of rare treasures and lucky bags is too random.

Tier 1 rare treasures are mainly "architectural" or "treasure" beads, both of which are further divided into many subcategories.

For example, the "Building" category is divided into: attack, defense, traps, life, tools, special, etc.

What's most urgently needed right now is, of course, a blueprint for "offensive" construction.

To unlock a specific category, you need at least 5 rare treasures of the same rank and type, which can be fused together through the interface to have a higher chance of obtaining the blueprint for that category.

"Five Tier 5 rare treasures..."

Jiang Ning rubbed his temples, feeling a headache coming on.

We haven't collected this many in the past few days, and we don't have the conditions to activate it yet.

"Then we'll just have to gamble on luck."

Jiang Ning muttered to himself helplessly.

"Even if we're really unlucky and can't unlock any new attack buildings, at least we can upgrade all the existing arrow towers to Tier 2, which will greatly increase our firepower."

"With so many corpses, surely we can carve out a few..."

Just as Jiang Ning finished muttering to himself, a clear, childlike voice rang out beside him:

"My lord, this is ginger water my mother made. She said you weren't feeling well and needed to drink this to help you recover!"

Jiang Ning turned his head and looked at Xiong Qiuqiu, who was carrying a rough pottery bowl and walking towards him with her little face upturned, with some surprise.

He looked up and saw Du Shi carrying a basket on her back, preparing to go out of the village to collect crops. When she saw Jiang Ning looking over, she bowed slightly in greeting, with a gentle smile on her face, and then turned around and quickly went to catch up with the crop-collecting team.

Jiang Ning smiled, then looked down at Xiong Qiuqiu in front of him and gently patted the little girl's head:

"Your parents are so kind; please thank them for me."

Xiong Qiuqiu laughed even harder, "Chief, you're too kind. You're the most powerful person in the world; we should be thanking you!"

Hearing the leader's childlike address, Jiang Ning wanted to laugh, but he didn't correct him.

Kids are just kids, so let them do whatever makes them happy. You can't ruin the great image you have in their eyes, can you?

He smiled as he took the ceramic bowl, which was still slightly warm to the touch.

The bowl contained simple slices of old ginger, mixed with spring water and a little bit of what might be wild vegetable roots, which had been lightly cooked as a substitute for sugar.

Lighting fires is strictly prohibited in the mountains.

This temperature was likely achieved using traditional methods employed by the villagers, such as using fire-resistant stones to conduct geothermal heat and generate heat through friction, which can be considered a small-scale heating process.

The effect may be limited, but it is still a rare token of goodwill.

Jiang Ning took a sip, and a slightly sweet and spicy ginger flavor slid down her throat, warming her from her stomach and dispelling the chill and stiffness in her body.

This was the first time he had felt the warmth and comfort of food since he came to the mountains.

Jiang Ning drank it down in a few big gulps and felt completely refreshed, even his spirits were lifted.

"It's delicious, thank you, Qiuqiu."

Jiang Ning handed the bowl back and then patted her little head.

Xiong Qiuqiu took the bowl, and before leaving, she clenched her little fist tightly and shouted to Jiang Ning:

"Go, Boss!"

"Let's cheer each other on!" Jiang Ning replied with a smile.

After drinking a bowl of ginger water, Jiang Ning felt that he was indeed feeling better.

He looked at the bustling scene in the village and pondered.

"It seems we need to develop 'living-type' architectural blueprints when we have the chance. We can't keep relying on the enemy like this forever; our nutrition and morale won't keep up. Building a village isn't just about defending against enemies; the daily lives of ordinary people are also fundamental."

He looked back at the reinforced wooden houses behind him.

"This is just the first step..."

At this moment, Yu Niu rushed back and handed Jiang Ning a grayish-white bead:

"Young master, here you go!"

Jiang Ning took it and examined it carefully.

This rare gem is no different from the ones I've seen before, nor is it a rarer pure white "treasure" bead.

After a moment's thought, he decided not to open it on the spot, but instead put it away first.

"Let's see how much we can get from this batch. If we can collect five building-related blueprints, we might be able to gamble on a targeted opening... Although it's a bit wasteful, it's better than getting building blueprints that are currently useless."

"Young Master!" Yu Niu rubbed his hands excitedly. "There seem to be quite a few corpses in the woods outside the village. Were many cowards scared away last night?"

"Yes, they are afraid too, and they are afraid of dying," Jiang Ning nodded in reply.

"Then I'll go and collect them all!"

"No rush." ​​Jiang Ning waved his hand. "Let's focus on clearing up the piles outside the village first. The drop rate for those who fled far away might not be very good. We'll deal with them one by one."

"Okay!"

Yu Niu rushed back to the pile of corpses like a gust of wind and continued to work hard.

Jiang Ning put away the bead and walked to the foot of a second-tier bone arrow tower to inspect it.

Thanks to the effective blocking of the barricades and its own powerful firepower, the five arrow towers in the village remained intact after a whole night.

Only the two outermost first-tier towers had severely damaged wooden walls and were covered in scratches. Fortunately, the main structure was still stable and could be repaired with some materials.

He then checked the arrow reserves in the arrow tower.

The three innermost Tier 2 towers, which bear the main firepower, each have only a little over a hundred ash arrows left, while the two outermost towers, with a slower rate of fire, still have about two hundred arrows left.

Last night, it was roughly estimated that nearly two thousand arrows were fired, killing over a thousand enemies.

Despite the high consumption, Jiang Ning was not worried about the subsequent ammunition supply at all, looking at the raw materials scattered all over the ground.

After all, as long as these bastards dare to come, there will be enough ammunition to be recycled.

After a brief inspection and checking the crematorium's proper functioning, Jiang Ning rolled up his sleeves and joined the team moving the corpses.

Although his body was weak and he was the backbone of the team, Jiang Ning knew the importance of leading by example.

If I, as the leader, slack off, the team's morale and efficiency will collapse sooner or later.

Therefore, one must take the lead and not slack off.

The work was indeed arduous, requiring dozens of young men to move thousands of corpses and sort out the useful gray spirits and bones.

It's both physically demanding and requires patience.

Fortunately, the sun was just as warm and pleasant as it was yesterday, and everyone was full of energy, resulting in much higher efficiency.

It wasn't until the sun was close to noon that the mountain of corpses outside the village was basically cleared and sorted out.

Piles of white bones and grayish-white Tai Sui were stacked separately.

Under Jiang Ning's instructions, the gray succulent was transported to a temporary warehouse built behind the village.

Looking at the huge pile of gray Tai Sui outside the warehouse, Jiang Ning felt a headache coming on again.

This thing is the lowest level of Tai Sui, and its uses seem to be limited.

Currently, it can only be used in crafting tools, and it can also be replaced by a more advanced black oyster. No other uses have been found yet.

"Is there any special building or device that can transform the gray Tai Sui into a more advanced black Tai Sui?"

Jiang Ning stood in front of the warehouse, lost in thought.

"It's probably not feasible at this stage. It seems we can only wait until we discover other uses for it. It's just taking up space, but we can't just throw it away. Even a small resource is still a resource, and it might be of great use in the future..."

Just as Jiang Ning was deep in thought, a sudden, alert shout came from outside the village:

"Young Master! Someone's here!!"

Before he finished speaking, Yu Niu had already rushed to Jiang Ning's side, grabbed a machete from the ground and held it horizontally in front of him, his eyes fiercely fixed on the direction outside the village.

The young people who had been taking a short rest outside the village suddenly stood up, grabbed the tools or weapons at hand, and looked nervously in the same direction outside the village, making the atmosphere suddenly tense.

Jiang Ning frowned slightly and patted Yu Niu's tense shoulder to comfort him:

"Don't panic, it's okay."

Then, he slowly walked towards the village entrance, but did not rashly leave the village area. Instead, he quickly climbed up the viewing platform.

Standing high allows for a far-reaching view, and within the territory, there are also arrow towers for protection.

At this moment, he could see two people standing on the edge of the village's territory, near the western mountains.

The leader was a short, hunched old man with a goatee, dressed in coarse gray cloth, his face showing the weariness of a long journey and deep shock.

Beside him was a girl of about sixteen or seventeen, wearing a red cotton-padded jacket that had faded a bit from washing, who was also staring wide-eyed at the village in disbelief.

To be precise, both of them were looking at the mountains of strange corpses and remains piled up inside and outside the village.

The old man and the young man were both so shocked by the sight before them, which far exceeded their expectations, that they were speechless for a moment.

Until Jiang Ning's indifferent, scrutinizing voice came from the high observation platform, clearly spreading through the silent air:

"Who has come to visit my Baiye Village?"

The hunchbacked old man seemed to wake from a dream, suddenly regaining his senses.

He took a deep breath, suppressing the turmoil in his heart, and solemnly bowed to Jiang Ning on the Observation Platform. His voice, aged yet as steady as possible, said:

"Yao Chengzhou, the garrison commander of Yaojia Village, requests an audience with Young Master Jiang. He has important matters to discuss!"