It snowed heavily for a day and night.

It wasn't until near noon the next day that the snowflakes gradually thinned out until they disappeared. The clouds began to dissipate, the blue sky background was pulled apart, and the long-lost sun reigned on the earth, and the sun began to shine on everything in the world again.

In the past few days, there have always been sentinels on duty in the "Waterfront City", and they will peek out from the warm nest from time to time to see how the weather changes, and then quickly retract back to keep warm.

So the protagonist gets the news of the snow stop reported by the sentry as soon as possible. Needless to say, he immediately wrapped himself in his thick plant fiber coat and drilled out of the "Waterfront City" to check the situation.

In the past few days, although there is no war, and there are not too many other things to worry about, the protagonist is not idle, he uses the materials in the material warehouse, and improves the coat by himself.

Originally, the protagonist's coat was a compacted ball of fibers similar to cotton balls, barely wrapping his body in it, which was large in size, inconvenient to put on and take off, and easy to attract wind. Now, the transformed coat is more like a blanket, with threads to bind the criss-crossing enemy fibers neatly, which can be more convenient to put on and take off, and also reduces the volume to prevent it from being blown by the wind.

After this first snowfall, there was a large amount of snow on the rough bark of the banyan tree, especially in the crevices. The snow-white snow and brown bark are intertwined, but they block the main character's steps.

His usual path, which had been a natural path in the crevices of the bark texture, was now covered with snow, and he had to wade through the snow to reach the observation point.

The observation point was a branch that stretched north, and the branch was also covered with snow like broken jade crystals, and he had to clear a small clearing from it.

Fortunately, the temperature is not too low now, and as the saying goes, "snow does not get cold, snow is cold" is still very reasonable. Because snow is actually the condensation process of water vapor from gaseous state to solid state, condensation is an exothermic process, which releases heat to increase the temperature of the air, so it does not feel cold when it snows. However, snow melting is the melting process of snow from solid to liquid state, melting is an endothermic process, absorbing heat to reduce the temperature of the air, so it will be colder when melting snow.

Looking north from afar, the north bank of the river also began to move.

The Paving Ant Barbarian Army also seems to know that the snow is over. The midday sun was warm and yellow, and countless paving ants dragged their stiffer steps to the ground, and they did not care about the snow, and directly formed on the snow, enjoying the sunbathing for the first time in several days.

Compared with the "Waterfront City" with fire and heating, the starting base of the paving ant barbarians is obviously much simpler, and the paving ants basking in the sun, whether male ants or worker ants, are not lightly frozen, and their bodies are stiff and slow when they first come out of the nest, like wooden people.

But after charging in the sun, the paving ants began to move. They did not seem to be in a hurry to use the afternoon of the day to attack, but were making some preparations.

The protagonist notices that the Paving Ant Barbarian Army begins to look for a new path and clear the snow.

Too much snow is not only a difficult obstacle for tiny ants to overcome, but it also constantly lowers the precious body temperature of ants that are close to the snow. Therefore, the Paving Ant Barbarian Army must clear a path without snowflakes before they can continue their march.

Some paving ant scouts braved the cold to climb over the snowdrifts and found a road that led to the riverbank, where the snow was relatively thin, and the road was crooked, basically on the relatively high ground of the original land, and the snow was correspondingly less.

For some areas with thick snow that cannot be cleared, there are also a large number of paver ants from the starting base to carry broken leaves, grass leaves, wood chips, bark pieces and other materials, and spread them on the snow to form a black and distinct path.

The road from the departure base to the north bank of the river was quickly built, forming a striking black line in a snow-white world, crookedly connecting the two places.

The paver ants then continued to work on the riverbank, where the river was completely frozen and there was no running water in sight.

Scouts of paver ants weave back and forth across the river to determine the water surface that is not dangerous, and then use pheromones to identify the most suitable location for the road.

Since the thickness of the snow cover on the river surface is almost the same, the road route marked by the paving ant scout is basically a straight line, extending from the end of the road on the north bank of the river directly to the small island.

Subsequently, the follow-up paving ants continued to pile up a large number of materials that could be used for paving at the designated position on the ice of the river, laying a straight line.

Probably due to a lack of building materials, the paver ants also began to dig up rocks and soil from the still bare land on the north bank of the river and carry them to the road construction site.

In just half a day, a road to "Waterfront City" was built, and even the protagonist had to be amazed.

The sun has set in the west, and it looks like there will be no war today, so is what the protagonist thinks in his heart.

Sure enough, only a small wave of paving ants came to the island where Waterfront City was located, checked the situation, and cleared a snow-free road between the stone crevices and tree roots before evacuating. And the large army of the Paving Ant Barbarian Army did not land on the island at all today.

Then, before the sun set, the black paving ant colony that could be seen everywhere on the north bank of the river swarmed back into the ground like a falling tide, leaving the world with a snow-white and a black path above this snow-white.

The protagonist knows that the preparations of the enemy army have been completed, and tomorrow will be another battle of flesh and blood.

- I'm the dividing line -

The next day, the protagonist again arrives at the observation point shortly after sunrise.

The Paving Ant Barbarian Army has begun to recharge their nests, but the protagonist's first attention is focused on the road they built yesterday - the remaining snow on the road seems to have disappeared, completely revealing the dark ground, and even the river ice has completely exposed the ice, and the ice has also sunk down to form a passage to shelter from the wind.

It dawns on the protagonist that the paving ants have such a trick: the leaves, gravel, rocks, and dirt they threw on the road yesterday are all dark in color, and these dark substances absorb the afterglow of yesterday's evening sun and this morning's morning light, and its heat is enough to melt the shallow layer of snow around them.

The protagonist doesn't know if the paver ant has this behavior based on instinct, if it is an acquired behavior, it has already involved the mastery of the essential laws of nature.