After comforting the Ghost, Wen Zhi focused on starting a fire.
Although Wen Zhi still had many questions for the Ghost, he didn’t have much time to waste.
Starting a fire with his bare hands wasn’t easy, so he had to allow plenty of time, just in case.
Besides, if Wen Zhi couldn’t start a fire before nightfall, he’d have to face the eerie Darkness again and repeatedly experience dying and coming back to life in the literal sense.
So he had to set aside the matter of the Ghost for now.
He could continue asking questions and communicating once he’d started a fire and had some free time.
If possible, Wen Zhi also planned to write in the sand to teach the Ghost how to write Chinese characters, which would make communication easier.
But that was a long-term plan, and there was no need to rush.
For now, his priority was to start a fire as soon as possible.
Fire was the key that had allowed humans to evolve into what they were.
It was the source of civilization.
It had led humanity out of ignorance, brought warmth and Light, and improved people’s diets and living conditions.
Now Wen Zhi needed to use the Light brought by Fire to drive away the Darkness of night.
Just as humanity’s ancestors had done 1.4 million years ago.
Meanwhile, as Wen Zhi focused intently on starting a fire, the Ghost fell into a strange state of awkwardness and indecision.
Once it had calmed down, the Ghost thought back to how it had acted and felt so embarrassed it wanted to die.
It had really made a fool of itself.
Breaking down and bawling just because someone said something to it…
‘How could I be that kind of person!’
Though it hadn’t fully recovered its memories, the Ghost was certain it wasn’t the fragile, sensitive, and irrational type.
‘That’s right. I’m definitely not that kind of person.’
Then there was only one explanation for what had just happened…
Actually, it hadn’t lost control of its emotions and cried.
It had only been acting to win Wen Zhi’s sympathy.
‘That’s right. It was all an act!’
And a clever act at that.
Its brilliant mind must have come up with a plan to earn Wen Zhi’s trust in a flash, then made it carry out the plan subconsciously.
It had to be.
Just look at how clever the plan was.
By simply acting pitiful and hurt, it had exploited a flaw in human nature and easily won Wen Zhi’s kindness and trust.
As for why it had only realized this now, it was probably because it had gotten a little too carried away with its emotions and hadn’t come to its senses yet…
With this perfect explanation, the Ghost successfully convinced itself—
‘—As if!’
‘Ahhhhh, I still feel like dying!’
‘Oh, I’m already dead, so never mind…’
For a moment, the Ghost wished it hadn’t regained its ability to feel emotions so completely.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been tormented by embarrassment.
Strictly speaking, the Ghost’s current body wasn’t very complex, and it couldn’t produce precise physical sensations.
But when it thought of how it had acted, it still felt a burning heat, as if the capillaries in its face had dilated too much.
In the end, the Ghost decided to play ostrich and ignore what had just happened.
Instead, it floated over to see how Wen Zhi was doing with the fire.
How should it put it?
Wen Zhi wasn’t having much luck starting a fire.
He took the Diary to the shelter he’d built the day before.
Along the way, he discovered that the Ghost couldn’t seem to stray very far from the Diary.
As soon as it moved more than 5 meters away, it teleported straight back to the Diary.
That was an interesting discovery, but it didn’t seem to be of much use.
At the crude shelter, Wen Zhi found the firewood and tinder he’d prepared the day before.
Unfortunately, the moisture from the temperature difference between day and night had ruined them.
With no other choice, he had to dry the materials again.
But while he waited for them to dry, Wen Zhi kept busy.
He put the extra rope he’d crafted earlier to use, combining it with a sturdy curved branch to make a Fire Bow.
He also adjusted and improved the entire fire-drilling process to make it more efficient and convenient.
Before long, the firewood had dried again.
Wen Zhi had also prepared a backing board and spindle for an advanced hand-drill fire-starting method.
He used a stone flake to cut a notch in the dry wood to serve as a hearth board, then placed dry tinder beneath it to catch the hot wood dust and ignite.
Now everything was ready.
All that remained was to get started.
Wen Zhi began drilling with confidence.
The Ghost watched the whole process.
Seeing Wen Zhi’s professional, fluid movements, it started to wonder whether this guy had really been a hairless ape before.
How was he so good at this?
The reason Wen Zhi was so skilled was that he’d had a similar experience before.
Once, because of a prank by some troublesome students, he’d been stranded in the mountains for several months.
Luckily, he’d run into a tough high school girl who’d run away from home.
She loved wilderness survival and had gone into the mountains to cosplay as a primitive human.
Wen Zhi had learned quite a bit from her.
To be honest, he felt a little nostalgic about that experience.
The embarrassing part was that even though he was an adult, the girl had taken care of him most of the time.
So until they were rescued, he hadn’t gained much hands-on experience.
As expected, his first attempt at starting a fire with the hand drill failed.
Calling it a failure wasn’t entirely accurate.
He’d managed to produce smoke, but he hadn’t caught the right moment to ignite the tinder and turn it into an open flame.
Wen Zhi wasn’t discouraged.
After all, failure was the mother of success.
Just as he prepared for a second attempt with renewed determination, he saw an apparition of his father.
Unlike his Mother, his father was always silent.
His appearances were less predictable than hers.
If Wen Zhi had to guess, his father tended to show up in his field of vision when he failed at something.
His father was good at remembering.
He always remembered skills or knowledge that Wen Zhi couldn’t, and offered guidance while Wen Zhi worked.
Wen Zhi paused what he was doing and decided to see how his father would do it first.
His father gestured for Wen Zhi to adjust the angle of the hearth board and tilt it slightly so the wood dust could fall out more easily.
Then he pointed at the tinder, indicating that Wen Zhi could gently move it up and down while lighting it to turn the ember into a flame.
Following his father’s instructions, Wen Zhi made a second attempt.
This time went much more smoothly.
With movements that looked almost like a prayer, the tinder quickly billowed with thick smoke.
Wen Zhi swiftly stuffed it into the dry, highly flammable leaves and wood he’d prepared, then carefully blew on it.
A small flame sprang from the dry wood.
Then, the next second, the flames roared to life!
In Wen Zhi’s field of vision, his father gazed at the burning fire before slowly turning transparent.
The fire blazed, giving off waves of heat, as well as…
—Light
Since he’d wasted quite a bit of time, it was already nearly dusk.
The orange-yellow flames were like the sun, driving away the shadows that had begun to gather as the sun set.
Flickering sparks reflected in Wen Zhi’s dark eyes, and a relieved smile spread across his face.
He’d managed to start a fire before nightfall.
The Ghost, which had watched the entire process, cautiously approached the burning flames.
Unfortunately, it didn’t feel any warmth.
The rising orange-yellow flames seemed like nothing more than an illusion.
The Ghost thought of something and moved closer to Wen Zhi, who was watching the flames happily.
Then it once again felt the living warmth radiating from Wen Zhi.
‘So my senses only work for this guy?’
It didn’t seem that strange.
Even now, everything that had changed about the Ghost was fundamentally related to Wen Zhi.
It had regained its form and emotions because of the unknown connection formed between him, the Diary, and itself.
It still couldn’t understand how it worked, though.
‘Forget it. If I can’t figure it out, I won’t think about it.’
The Ghost looked at the smile on Wen Zhi’s face.
For some reason, its own mood lifted a little, too.
Wen Zhi didn’t dwell on the joy of starting a fire for long.
He estimated how soon night would fall, then looked at the amount of firewood he’d prepared and wondered whether he should go collect more while he still had time.
The main problem was that he didn’t seem to have any suitable materials to make a torch.
If he went out carelessly and night suddenly fell like it had on the first day, he’d be worse off.
As Wen Zhi weighed his options, he happened to notice an icon resembling 💡 in the upper-left corner of his field of vision.
It hadn’t been there before.
Had the Diary unlocked some new feature?
After hesitating, Wen Zhi curiously clicked the icon.
The Diary, which Wen Zhi had hung from his waist for convenience, suddenly flew out on its own, opened, and floated in midair.
At the same time, the Crafting Menu automatically popped up in front of him.
Unlike the Synthesis screen Wen Zhi had seen at first, this Crafting Menu had changed slightly.
A new tab had appeared below the main menu, and its icon was a burning campfire.
With a slight movement of his mind, Wen Zhi opened the tab.
To his surprise, some items that had previously been blacked out and marked “Unavailable” now showed “Available to Craft.”
These craftable items included various light sources, such as torches, fire pits, and campfires, as well as a series of stone tools and some miscellaneous odds and ends.
‘—I get it. That lightbulb was a damn Eureka! Did starting a fire unlock a tech tree for me?’
Wen Zhi finally understood.
He couldn’t help laughing.
The Diary’s features and unlocks always made him feel like he was playing a game…
If the thing hadn’t been external to him and come with a Ghost, he might really have suspected that it was some kind of system.
In the end, Wen Zhi decided not to go out and gather materials yet.
He wanted to study the things the Diary had just unlocked.
But before he could start, he suddenly heard rustling from the jungle behind him.
At the strange sound, the man and the Ghost both turned around at once.
After exchanging a glance, they went on alert.
‘Could it be a wild animal?’
The Ghost wondered curiously.
Wen Zhi tensed up.
He hung the open Diary back from his waist and picked up a burning stick, ready to give anything that came over a good whack.
“Is anyone there?”
“Sorry to bother you. I saw the firelight and came over…”
Wen Zhi froze.
It was a human voice—or rather, the voice of a young girl.
And he understood what she was saying.
More importantly, he recognized the owner of the voice.
The Ghost noticed that Wen Zhi was acting strangely and looked at him in confusion.
“叮[・_・?]”
A petite but unusually nimble figure slowly emerged from behind the bushes and palm fronds, moving cautiously.
She was a girl with beautiful, tanned skin, dressed in a light tank top and shorts.
“Wei Wei?”
Wen Zhi was surprised.
The girl had been on guard, but the moment she saw Wen Zhi, her expression turned to delight.
“Teacher!”
She happily ran toward Wen Zhi, but for some reason stopped at the edge of the firelight.
She hesitated and looked at him before asking:
“Um, Teacher, can I come over?”
…
‘—What is that thing?’
Unlike Wen Zhi, who was surprised and delighted, and perhaps a little worried and anxious, the Ghost felt a wave of horror.
From its perspective, the figure emerging from the bushes wasn’t a girl at all.
It was a human-shaped shadow.
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