Chapter 192 - 85: Do You Want to Become Light? (Happy New Year!) (2)
The entire packaging bag is over 1.2 meters long, and more than 70 centimeters wide, bulging.
After cutting open the bag's opening, it revealed two objects stacked together, sealed in sturdy transparent plastic bags.
The surface of the two mysterious objects was coated with a paint that had a metallic sheen, mainly in dark blue, red, and silver hues, giving Chen Zhou a strangely familiar feeling.
Instead of tearing open the thin black outer packaging violently, he carefully extracted the two separate packaging bags inside, discovering a flattened box wedged in between them. On the box was drawn a pattern he had idolized countless times during his childhood—the Divine Light Stick.
"Ah? Is this meant to turn me into light?"
Already understanding the situation in his heart, Chen Zhou set the Divine Light Stick aside.
Then he looked at the smaller of the two separate packaging bags, which was exactly an Ultraman headpiece mask.
Of course, the larger packaging bag contained a full-body suit connected both top and bottom.
Although this outer packaging seemed a bit comical, upon closer inspection, the paint of the headpiece and its craftsmanship were exquisitely fine, implying that this special headpiece was costly.
Taking out the headpiece alone, one could see that the eye section of the Ultraman used a mold resembling frosted glass, grayish-white, while the forehead lamp was also made of glass rather than cheaper plastic.
Stretching his hand into the mask to probe around, he found two buttons, presumably to activate the lighting.
Estimating the size of the headpiece, after removing his large-brimmed hat and touching his tangled hair, Chen Zhou sensibly abandoned the idea of wearing it, instead attempting to press the two buttons.
After a crisp click, neither the eyes nor the forehead lamp lit up. Thinking it might not be visible due to the strong light, he covered the eyes and forehead lamp with his hand and looked again, confirming they indeed did not light up.
Puzzled, he stretched open the neck of the headpiece to look inside, only to find that the area below the back of Ultraman's head had an empty slot for installing batteries.
Without batteries, how could the light possibly illuminate?
As for the material of the headpiece, it felt very much like rubber, non-breathable and thick. The inside had a frictionless nylon layer for ease of wear, contrary to regular rubber.
Chen Zhou was once a loyal fan of Ultraman during his childhood.
On holiday afternoons, sitting in front of the old-fashioned big-headed color TV, he slowly finished watching his first tokusatsu show in life.
In the final battle, watching as the monster's darkness enveloped the world, and Ultraman turned into a statue, he cried.
When the plot advanced to the children around the world reaching out to transform into light and save Ultraman, he also reached out, wanting to lend his power to Ultraman.
At school, seeing classmates show off their Divine Light Stick toys and Ultraman masks bought by their parents, he always felt deep envy.
But at that time, his family's situation did not allow him to have the same toys as his classmates.
As he grew older, he gradually forgot about his childhood wishes, burying that childish and naive self deep in his memory.
At this moment, clutching the headpiece in his hand and glancing at the Divine Light Stick beside him, Chen Zhou felt somewhat emotional.
Sometimes he really couldn't understand why the wishes from a certain stage in his life were fulfilled in such a bizarre manner at such a place.
They say life is unpredictable, and his unpredictability was inevitably somewhat incredible.
Stretching the headpiece a bit, feeling its decent elasticity, Chen Zhou stubbornly tried to wear it on his head, with the inevitable result that it didn't fit. His big head simply couldn't fit inside.
Looking at the full-body suit, the situation was the same as the headpiece, also significantly smaller than his body size.
According to Chen Zhou's estimates, this set of costume should fit women between 173–175 cm tall or men with smaller frames and fewer muscle bulk.
He, being a stout and burly man, would have to lose at least 60 pounds to barely fit into this suit. Otherwise, it was hopeless.
"Sigh, it seems overly fat people aren't meant to become light... "
Sighing, Chen Zhou re-packed the full-body suit back into the packaging bag, contemplating how to utilize it.
Before this, he had considered using the full-body suit as a diving suit or raincoat, but the body size mismatch completely negated this idea.
No matter how elastic the full-body suit might be, it couldn't overcome such a significant size gap.
Next, he thought of a wasteful idea—to cut the entire suit into small pieces and use them as rubber material.
But looking at this exquisite suit, he was somewhat reluctant to destroy it.
Currently, there was no urgent need for rubber cloth in his work. Even if remodeling firearms required rubber, the material from cutting a phone case was sufficient, no need to ruin this suit.
"Forget it, I'll consider using it later, if there's a need. If not, I'll just leave it in the cave!
Like that statue of Wang Lingguan, even if it's useless, at least it can be exchanged for money.
Though I've dismantled the base of the copper statue, significantly reducing its value, this suit isn't immediately useful, hopefully it will stay safe until the challenge ends..."
Putting the headpiece and Divine Light Stick back into the packaging bag as they were, he temporarily placed it under the shade and put on his large-brimmed hat to shield from the sun, starting to build a new circle of wooden stone walls.
...
The sun during the dry season was intensely hot, and the temperature on the beach rose rapidly, baking the wood planks to crack and the stone bricks and lead became scorching.
Perfectly good building materials were thus structurally damaged.
While transporting wood planks, looking at some deeply cracked ones, Chen Zhou felt distressed but had no good solutions for it.
Fresh wood exposed to intense heat would naturally turn out this way.
As for quality wood that undergoes slow drying and is less prone to cracking, it was still stacked in the forest and would take another two or three years to dry out.
To prevent inferior wood from compromising the building's strength, Chen Zhou planned to differentiate between the wood planks cut in rainy and dry seasons.
Wood planks cut during the rainy season would be left in the forest to dry and be used in key parts of buildings later.
Wood planks cut during the dry season were subdivided into three grades: the finest for constructing houses, mid-grade for flooring, and the lowest for being directly cut as firewood.
...
Following his ideas, Chen Zhou sorted old wood planks while cutting trees and stacking new wooden stone walls on the beach.
Before the earthquake, he had transported a batch of stones to the beach during his free time, which proved useful now and saved a lot of time searching for stones.
...
Busy yet another day passed.
Returning to the cave under the golden afterglow of sunset, the exhausted Chen Zhou gave himself a short break, had dinner, and went to rest early.
On April 27th, before dawn, he crawled out of bed.
Having recharged overnight, he worried about affecting his reaction speed and concentration, so he skipped breakfast.
He grabbed the matchlock gun, a box of lead bullets, gunpowder and other tools, also taking a bag full of thin string and hand axe.
Unleashing Lai Fu, just before the dawn broke, he began his ruthless reckoning against the wild rabbits.
This time the field was ravaged by rabbits, losing more than one-sixth of the rice, making Chen Zhou seethe with anger.
Thus, his methods were no longer as gentle as before.
While patrolling the woodland edge, he simultaneously recovered old traps he'd set previously, set new snares under rabbit trails, and carved marks on suspected rabbit burrow tree bark using a dagger.
Upon finding moist rabbit droppings, he immediately crushed them with a stick and held it to Lai Fu's nose for memorizing and tracking the scent.
Noticing its owner's serious attitude, Lai Fu shed its playful demeanor and demonstrated the qualities expected of a hunting dog.
It tried hard to perk up its floppy ears, lowered its proud head, and brought its nose close to the ground, constantly sniffing, capturing the peculiar scent left after grass leaf digestion.
One man and one dog advanced through the forest.
With the discovery of more rabbit traces, the intricately placed traps increased.
While marking a tree, Chen Zhou suddenly heard Lai Fu's excited barking.
Thinking it caught a rabbit, Chen Zhou quickly ran over, only to find Lai Fu barking at a much fresher pile of rabbit dung rather than a rabbit, making him laugh and cry.
"You idiot, I meant for you to find the rabbit's master, not the dung itself."
Laughing, he pet Lai Fu's head, glancing around before plucking a strand of rabbit fur from the shrub's branch and putting it near Lai Fu's nose.
"Find this, understand?"
After petting Lai Fu's head, he got a firm and concise response—Woof!