The next morning, Zhu Jue woke up from his sleep. Thirteen or four hours had passed since he fell asleep. It was a very long sleep.
The climate in winter is particularly suitable for deep sleep. In the underground stone crevices, the temperature is much higher than the outside in the wild, but it is much lower than the temperature of an ant nest with a fire for heating. Wrapping in a cloak, the internal temperature is cold and the external temperature is just right. A comfortable environment to sleep in.
Zhu Jue's eyes were bleary-eyed. His eyes were a little confused when he just got up, but he soon regained his half-chaotic and half-clear eyes and began to pack his luggage in an orderly manner.
The fire next to it had been completely extinguished, leaving only cold embers on the ground, which were dark and even blown away by the wind. There were also some ashes on Zhu Jue's cloak.
The snail shell rolled far away. Zhu Jue glanced at the motionless rat women nearby who had regrouped, and didn't care about what happened last night.
Zhu Jue didn't plan to start a fire early in the morning. The number of ant glue balls he brought to make fire was limited, so he didn't plan to waste it easily, and he didn't want to bother collecting firewood.
So he could only eat some dry food in the morning. The dry food was carried by him last night. It was dry and hard without being frozen, so it was not difficult to eat. Moreover, there is precious salt in the pickled dried meat, which is almost his only source of salt in the wild. Without salt, Zhu Jue's strength will decrease.
After eating another "water drop" to quench his thirst, Zhu Jue felt no longer hungry and was ready to go on his way. This meal in the morning is very important. Unless there are special circumstances, Zhu Jue will have to wait until the evening to eat his next meal today. This meal and last night's big meal will provide him with energy for activities throughout the day.
After packing his luggage, putting on his cloak again and tying it with a rope, Zhu Jue climbed back onto the ground.
The sun was bright in the sky, but there were a lot more clouds than yesterday. Some clouds even gathered into large pieces, completely covering the pale sun from time to time. The wind was also a bit strong. Zhu Jue retracted his antennae and noticed that the weather was unusual today.
Zhu Jue's back was bulging, and from a distance it didn't look like an ant, but like a snail moving forward. This weight is nothing to Zhu Jue. Even the resistance caused by the wind blowing on the backpack is no match for Zhu Jue's strength. There is no need to enter the "God descends to earth" state, Zhu Jue can also move forward quickly on the ground as fast as flying.
The wind was getting stronger, and there was another northerly wind, bringing with it a biting chill. It seemed that the next cold wave was imminent, so Zhu Jue had to hurry up.
Traveling on the road is boring. After eliminating the threat caused by low temperature, there is no danger in the outdoors in winter, especially there is no danger from other creatures.
Walking from the east of the sun to the west of the sun, Zhu Jue was sure that he had passed through the northern boundary of the area controlled by the Northern Expeditionary Army of the Civilized Ant Tribe Alliance. It was not far further, maybe only half a day's journey. That will be his destination.
In the tentacles, the signal reflected from the sky became stronger and stronger, like a firefly in the dark night, guiding Zhu Jue forward.
But now, he must pause again.
It is now about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and the sun has not set yet, but it has been completely covered by clouds. This thick and wide cloud layer is like wrapping Zhu Jue's cloak last night, firmly covering the sun. It's not yet night, but the outdoor temperature has dropped sharply. Ice crystals are growing in the clouds in the sky and in the dark corners of the ground. Deadly threats from nature are gathering quickly, just like the blizzard in the dark clouds is gathering.
Zhu Jue realized that he could no longer move forward. A storm was coming, and he had to find a shelter as soon as possible to escape this natural disaster.
But unfortunately, Zhu Jue searched eagerly nearby for half an hour, but could not find any natural shelter like the stone crevice yesterday or the tree hole the day before yesterday. Some of the simple shelters I occasionally found were filled with insects that had been frozen to death before, as if to explain why they couldn't stay here.
The wind is gradually increasing, scattered snowflakes have fallen, and a huge snowstorm is about to come.
Zhu Jue gave up looking for a suitable shelter and instead looked for a slope facing the sun and started digging hard, hoping to build a small underground nest by himself.
He was strong and fast, digging as efficiently as the snowflakes intensified.
By the time Zhu Jue dug a tunnel that sloped downward and about one decimeter deep into the ground, the roaring north had intensified enough to tear apart the rolled up dry branches.
Zhu Jue originally planned to expand a small nest room here, then collect some fuel, light a warm fire, and escape the storm comfortably.
But now that the weather is deteriorating too quickly, he obviously can no longer risk going out to collect fuel, so there is no need to expand the nest.
Zhu Jue simply lay down at the end of the passage and blocked the passage diagonally above with his luggage, leaving only a small opening for ventilation that continuously let in cold wind. Zhu Jue wrapped his cloak around himself and used his own body temperature to slowly heat up the nest, making the shelter warmer.
In this shallow nest, the temperature of the surrounding soil is also dropping. Fortunately, it is much slower than the temperature outside, and it is relatively comfortable.
Zhu Jue ate a piece of dried fly maggot meat, sucked in a "water droplet", blocked the ventilation opening a little smaller, and fell asleep shivering.
Outside the shelter, the cold wind howled, snowflakes flew down like white butterflies, the earth was quickly covered with a layer of silver, and the lonely world became even more dead.
The outside temperature quickly dropped to a full minus 20 degrees, and the temperature inside Zhu Jue's shelter was only 2-3 degrees above zero. But inside Zhu Jue's cloak, a relatively safe temperature was still maintained.
After a whole day of trekking and the strenuous labor of building the shelter, Zhu Jue fell into a deep sleep, recovering strength and repairing damaged muscles in his sleep. At the same time, Ye relaxed some of the suppression and defenses in his consciousness. .
In the second half of the night, Zhu Jue suddenly opened his cloak. In the darkness, his compound eyes were shining, and he looked at the unfamiliar environment around him in a daze. Then he held his head and painfully searched his brain for all the memories of the past few days. Want to know what happened.
Zhu Jue's body suddenly stood up, and the cold air in the room made him shiver all over. The consciousness that he finally regained consciousness faded again, and another consciousness that had been controlling his body strongly in the past few days reawakened.
Then, as if everything had never happened, Zhu Jue returned to "normal" and put on his cloak again and continued to lie down and rest, but he was not as vigilant as before.
And the consciousness that had just awakened and was quickly suppressed was once again firmly locked in the deepest part of the soul, completely losing its autonomy, but it never dissipated...
