Wang Chen and his group worked without pause.
Day blurred into night. Night dissolved into another day.
Blisters hardened into calluses. Muscles that once screamed in protest gradually adapted to the rhythm of labor. The scent of salt, sweat, and freshly cut timber permanently clung to the air around the shore.
Without anyone noticing, an entire month passed.
The once dense forest beside the beach had nearly vanished. Where towering trunks once stood shoulder to shoulder, now only open stretches of sand and scattered stumps remained. A handful of trees still stood upright at the forest's edge, their branches swaying calmly in the wind.
Strangely, no cultivator approached them.
Perhaps they were lucky.
Or perhaps something about them made even immortals hesitate.
By the end of that month, four ships stood assembled along the shoreline.
