Chapter 67 The Bird
　　Mingmei and the others had gathered a hundred people, a full one hundred people.

　　When the first snowflake fell from the sky, eight houses had already been built on this open space with everyone's concerted efforts. Each house was divided into three to four rooms, and by squeezing together, most of the people managed to move in.

　　The remaining players still lived in the cave not far away.

　　Although the cave wasn't as warm as the houses, early on, they had anticipated that the houses might not accommodate everyone before winter arrived, so several *huokang* (heated brick beds) were built in the cave.

　　Plus, the cave entrance had a wooden door, and animal hides and dry grass were piled on it for wind protection. A group of sociable players preferred to live in the cave, even making a few decks of playing cards for entertainment!

　　There was enough room in the houses for boxing and aerobics.

　　After all, it used to hold a hundred people.

　　Thinking about it that way, the few people squeezed into a room in the houses, about ten people living in one house. Now that the snow had sealed the doors and no one could go anywhere, how much space did they have to move around in the house?

　　How could it be as comfortable as the cave?

　　"Damn! How did people survive when it was this cold?"

　　Lu Xiaoyao, unable to bear the small space in the house, wrapped herself in animal skins and trotted all the way from the houses to the cave to chat with the Zhen brothers and the others. She hadn't even gotten on the *kang* yet, but immediately sat down by the fire and began complaining about the cursed weather.

　　"I just wanted to say about that apocalypse副本 (fùběn, instance dungeon), the cold is really deadly!"

　　"That's different. At least the apocalypse 副本 (fùběn, instance dungeon) had clothes to cover you. Here… ugh… sewing animal skins ourselves is really… too hard! How come so many people don't have someone who awakened a sewing skill?"

　　"What's the point of awakening that skill? To be your seamstress?"

　　Lu Xiaoyao rolled her eyes at the player who said that, but she did know that Wang Wenfei seemed to be tinkering with something recently. Mei Ruita had gotten her a lot of animal skins with thick fur.

　　Because of this, Mei Ruita almost had a fight with someone else when the animal skins were being distributed.

　　"Here, have a piece of jerky."

　　With that, Zhen Po handed Lu Xiaoyao a piece of jerky that was black, hard, and yet fragrant. Lu Xiaoyao took it, hissed, but didn't move.

　　"What's wrong?"

　　"Eating meat every day these past few days, my teeth hurt."

　　"You're asking for a beating with those words!"

　　The others laughed when they heard Lu Xiaoyao's words. Although they were the same, saying it out loud meant that those players who didn't know where they were might not have enough food to eat like they did now.

　　The players were warming themselves by the fire in the cave when suddenly there was a tearing sound outside.

　　"Hmm?"

　　Hu Ge'er, who reacted the fastest, rushed to the cave entrance with his bone knife in a gust of wind. Before he could get close to the wooden door to investigate what was going on outside, he suddenly heard a loud bang on the wooden door!

　　Hu Ge'er suspiciously tightened his grip on the bone knife and took two steps back, staring intently at the wooden door, wondering what had crashed into the cave entrance.

　　"Damn it! What's going on?"

　　The commotion startled the other players in the cave.

　　"Did a wild beast break in?"

　　"That's not right. Our cave is at the very back of the village. If there really was a wild beast, someone would have notified us!"

　　Amid the noise, in the newly built houses, Mingmei and Mu Chen were in the main room watching Wang Wenfei tinkering with the spinning wheel she had finally made to spin wool, when suddenly the not-very-transparent window darkened, and the whole room dimmed.

　　"Huh? Did it get dark?"

　　This rapid change stunned Mingmei and the others, but the others in Mu Chen's house suddenly became alert, and they got up and went back to their rooms to pick up their weapons. When they opened the door, a large clump of feathers suddenly squeezed in from outside.

　　Mingmei: ???

　　Everyone: ???

　　The front door was completely stuffed with feathers, making it impossible to see what was going on outside. Mu Chen struggled to open the light brown resin window again, but it was still a large patch of feathers.

　　Mu Chen: ??

　　What the hell is this?

　　Did the snow turn into feathers?

　　The cave.

　　"Damn it! What is this thing?!"

　　The wooden door at the entrance of the cave made continuous banging sounds. Everyone prepared their weapons, and Hu Ge'er opened the wooden door, ready to rush out and catch the other party off guard, but the door shattered!

　　A huge orange-red beak came into everyone's view.

　　"My God!"

　　Everyone retreated into the depths of the cave, and even Hu Ge'er was pulled back by someone nearby. Just by looking at the beak, they knew that the bird's size was beyond their imagination.

　　But this way, at least they weren't afraid that the bird could squeeze in.

　　Although they were comforting themselves, the thick layer of dry grass that had been wrapped around the outside of the wooden door to block the wind had disappeared, and the animal skin inside was also picked up by the bird in front of them.

　　It didn't seem to be interested in them.

　　As if they didn't look appetizing enough to be its meal.

　　After the bird's head left the cave entrance, the howling north wind and heavy snow almost froze them to death because there was no door!

　　"This bird, it's like we haven't seen it for so long."

　　"Yeah, I haven't seen it. I heard that there used to be wild beasts flying back here and big birds eating carrion. Weren't they causing trouble when we were building the houses at the beginning? Could this be one of those guys?"

　　"No, later Madison and our classmates found a chance to kill a few of those guys, plus Mu Chen and my brother led people to chase and beat them twice, and they were all beaten so badly that they tucked their tails and ran away. I'm afraid this one popped out of nowhere."

　　Lu Xiaoyao shook her head. She was sure that this thing had appeared suddenly.

　　"I'm going to the cave entrance to see what that thing looks like!"

　　Hu Ge'er, wrapped tightly in his animal skin clothes, boldly went to the cave entrance again and took a look at the heavy snow outside.

　　Just one look, and another "Wo cao!" (Damn!) expressed his horror!

　　"What's wrong, what's wrong?"

　　"What's wrong, talk!"

　　A group of people saw Hu Ge'er standing at the cave entrance, staring blankly with wide eyes, and immediately shouted anxiously.

　　"The houses are gone."

　　"What?!"

　　Hearing him say that the houses were gone, everyone was so frightened that they rushed to the cave entrance and looked in the direction of the houses—only to see a huge bird crouching on the houses they had built earlier.

　　Because the whole bird was so huge, the eight houses arranged in an inverted figure eight were completely covered.

　　For a moment, everyone suspected that the houses would all be crushed by the big fat bird's butt.

　　The fat bird didn't seem to see the situation at the cave entrance. It was still holding the dry grass and animal skins that it had just torn from the cave, and after slowly tidying them up with its mouth, it silently stuffed them under its belly in front of Hu Ge'er and the others.

　　It was completely making the place it had occupied its nest!

　　"This is freaking…"

　　Hu Ge'er was dumbfounded, and Lu Xiaoyao and the others were also dumbfounded. This situation was completely unexpected!