Chapter 47 "Brother? Why are you all out here?!"

Lu Xiaoyao watched as Mu Chen and Lu Gui led everyone from the house she had been staying in, rushing out of the cave. The others inside the cave were first stunned, then filled with joy.

"What's going on? Did that bird fly away?"

"No, we tore down the entire window to get out."

After Lu Gui answered, Julian hesitated to speak.

Why could he say tearing down the window so nonchalantly? Was it because it was his room, and he would be the one unlucky enough to not have a place to live afterward?

Julian was already wondering why he had chosen a north-facing room in the first place, and why that side happened to not be blocked by bird feathers this time?

He thought it would be a good idea to move back into the cave after this was all over.

But now, looking at the shattered door of the cave and the constant gusts of cold wind rushing in, Julian fell silent.

He just wrapped himself tighter in his animal skin and quietly stayed silent.

"So, what's the situation now?"

The others in the cave, seeing people coming out of the house, quickly stepped forward to ask about the situation.

"We're not sure about the others, but our house is still standing, so the quality is guaranteed... maybe it's because the big bird didn't land completely on the house... yeah, the situation should be similar for everyone else, assuming the houses are structurally sound."

After all, these houses were purely man-made, so there should be some variation, but hopefully none of them completely collapsed.

As Lu Gui said this, he remembered the moment they had snuck out from behind the house and looked up at the huge bird's back, like a mountain.

His mind had gone blank for a moment.

Such a big bird was just too outrageous.

Sitting there with its neck stretched out, its head seemed to be level with the mountaintop.

"This bird doesn't seem particularly ferocious, but once it targets something, there's no reasoning with it. We need to find a way to drive it away as soon as possible."

Zhen Hu used his natural animal instincts to analyze the fat bird's personality with Lu Gui and the others.

Julian glanced at the mess at the cave entrance and thoughtfully asked, "Did you guys provoke that big bird earlier?"

"Ah... not really. A while ago, it suddenly noticed us and 'blew' a pile of snow into our cave for some reason."

No one dared to say for sure whether Lu Xiaoyao had provoked the bird's attention, so they didn't tell Lu Gui and the others what had happened earlier.

They couldn't exactly say that Lu Xiaoyao glanced at the bird, and the bird, out of curiosity, "What are you looking at?" launched a "joking" attack on them, could they?

"Earlier... that bird did get up."

Lu Gui pondered for a moment and then confirmed that the bird must have gotten up and done something to the cave just now.

This bird was indeed a bit mischievous.

"How about a fire attack?" someone suggested. "If its feathers catch fire, the bird will feel uncomfortable and fly away, right?"

"People are still in the houses. Are you suggesting we burn the houses down with them?"

Mu Chen, hearing this suggestion, couldn't understand what the other person was thinking.

As they were talking, people from a few other houses in the distance also rushed out, apparently by climbing out the windows, though they looked even more disheveled than Mu Chen and the others.

"What happened to you guys?"

Ming Mei reached out to help a girl who had almost run into her and crashed into the wall.

Getting a closer look, Ming Mei realized it was Mu Ning, but her face was covered in soot, like she had just been through a fire. She looked like a refugee.

"Don't even mention it! Oh my god, it was just a bird!"

After Ming Mei helped her up, Mu Ning stood up and looked back at her house while answering Ming Mei's question.

"That bird's feathers blocked our chimney, and smoke started pouring into the house from under the heated kang bed. We couldn't open the door because it was blocked, and we couldn't find our way around, so we just tore down the window and ran out."

Mu Ning's group had suffered even more than Ming Mei's.

"That bird is too big! It's like a small mountain pressing down on us!"

"Tell me about it! But we still have to drive the bird away, or we really can't live like this."

At this moment, the fat bird seemed to be dozing off, not paying attention to Lu Xiaoyao and the others.

"But it's freezing cold, and it looks like it finally found a nest. Won't it be difficult to deal with?"

While everyone was talking at once, Ming Mei and Zhen Hu had been staring at the dozing fat bird for a while.

Seeing it squatting in the middle of the houses, occasionally shaking its body and trying to curl up into a ball, rubbing and grinding around, something flashed through their minds. Ming Mei didn't catch the inspiration in time.

"No, maybe... we don't need to drive it away?" Just when everyone was racking their brains for ideas, Zhen Hu gave a different answer.

"This bird is afraid of the cold." Zhen Hu then added, "Look at it now. Doesn't it look like it's trying to warm itself? It probably noticed that we're burning kangs to keep warm, so it's sitting there to absorb the heat."

"What? Is that it?"

The other players were stunned and looked over in disbelief. "Really? How warm could it be? We're burning kangs in the houses, but is it that warm outside?"

"It's naturally not as warm as inside the houses, but isn't it better than the freezing cold outside?"

Some players naturally thought further. "So, this bird's heat sensing ability is particularly good, and it realized that our area is the warmest?"

"Yeah, when the houses cool down, it'll probably move to another place." After Zhen Hu finished speaking, he still seemed a little unsure and added, "But it's hard to say whether it won't be able to find another warm place and just give up and stay here."

Everyone: "..."

Couldn't you just keep those jinxing words to yourself?

"If we're talking about warmth... I might know of a place," Mu Chen said at this moment. "But if it takes root there, Zhen Hu, are you sure it's not the kind of bird that's very aggressive, but the kind that doesn't actively cause trouble?"

"Uh..."

Zhen Hu couldn't guarantee that.

After all, it had just given them trouble for no reason.

"Does this place you found have any special significance for us?"

Mu Chen: "I found an iron mine and a salt mine."

Everyone: !!!

"There's also a natural hot spring nearby, and the surrounding temperature is relatively high. I suspect there's a volcano underneath. If it still doesn't want to leave after the houses cool down, we can try to lure it there."

As soon as Mu Chen finished speaking, salt mine and iron mine – which of those two wasn’t enough to make people's eyes light up?

"Where are these mines? Why didn't you say so earlier?!"

Some players who had awakened manufacturing-related talents immediately got excited.

"It was shortly before the snowfall. The iron ore requires high-temperature smelting, and we don't have the conditions for that yet.

The salt in the salt mine is associated with the iron ore, so the metal content is also high, and extraction will be time-consuming. I originally planned to deal with these mines after winter.

These mines are about ten kilometers north behind the mountain in front of our village."

The mountain in front of them was unusually wide. So far, none of the players had climbed over it to see the scenery behind it. No one knew when Mu Chen had gone over there and made these discoveries.

"How did you get there?"

Quietly, Ming Mei reached out and tugged on Mu Chen's little finger, asking curiously. Mu Chen had kept this a secret; she didn't know about it.

"I climbed over."

Ming Mei: "How did you climb?"

For some reason, Mu Chen's simple tone made Ming Mei sense something unusual.

"Probably rock climbing? Free climbing."

Mu Chen's candid words were not quiet, and everyone present fell silent.

There were too few handholds on the vertical rock face. Even if the rock climbing area was only twenty meters or so, it would still be very difficult!

Was he even human?