Chapter 182: A Stirring Base
The wind was warm and dry as Liora stepped out from the house, the sunlight casting long slants through the leaves that rustled softly in the afternoon breeze.
The base had a strange stillness to it—a quiet murmur of distant voices, tools clinking, and the smell of stew thick in the air, but nothing chaotic. Still, something had changed.
The sudden earthquake from earlier had shaken more than just the ground. It had rattled nerves, stirred old fears, and fractured the thin calm the residents had painstakingly built since settling in this new base.
Liora glanced around. The house was empty. Zhou Yinuo and little Eli had already gone out, probably tending to their usual work. Everyone else had scattered across the base, busy with whatever jobs they’d taken up. No one was idle anymore.
She followed the sound of hammering and the clatter of wooden planks, drawn toward the western edge of the base.
A group of men were hard at work building a temporary warehouse, their movements precise despite the crude materials. Wood, rope, nails scavenged from who knew where—they worked like villagers from an ancient time, constructing a skeletal structure meant to last just long enough.
"Store it all before the weather changes again," Liang Zihan shouted as he secured a thick wooden beam into place.
"Just don’t let the rope snap again," Chen Wei muttered, rubbing a fresh splinter from his palm.
They were building it to store wheat grains—an abundant harvest from their last expedition. It was a lucky find, but it had left them with a problem they hadn’t yet solved.
"We can’t grind it down manually," Yang Ming complained, tossing down a half-filled sack. "Not unless we want to break our backs."
Liora moved closer, listening quietly as the conversation unfolded.