Chapter 154

The moment Su Jing's fingertip touched the emergency button on the solar cooling device, the built-in fan emitted a strange "whooshing" sound—

The temperature display screen in the control room suddenly turned a glaring red, with "55℃" followed by a flashing "overload" warning.

The cold air from the vents was no longer 18℃ as before; a thermometer reading showed it to be 25℃. Even the double-layered sunshade couldn't block the heat from outside. The metal frame of the prefabricated villa was scorching hot, and you could feel the burning sensation when you touched it.

"Number 3, immediately clean the dust off the solar panels. The monitoring just showed that there was a layer of scorched earth on the surface of the panels, which is affecting the heat absorption efficiency."

Number 5, take 10 kilograms of ice from the space and place it near the cooling equipment's vents to aid in cooling!

Su Jing spoke very quickly, clutching a spare cooling fan in her hand, and strode over to the equipment.

These 10 solar-powered cooling devices are the core of the solution to the extreme heat. If they stop working completely, the spirit herbs, the fawn, and she and Xiao Jin in the space will all have to suffer in the high temperature.

Robot No. 3 immediately moved to the second-floor balcony of the villa, its robotic arm extending a soft brush to carefully clean the scorched soil from the solar panels.

Those were the fragments left behind after the crimson ant corpses were dried in the sun last night. They stuck to the board like a black film. After cleaning them off, the photoelectric conversion rate display of the equipment finally rose from "20%" to "23%", and the abnormal noise of the fan was lessened.

Number 5 then retrieved 10 square ice blocks from the space transmission point and neatly arranged them next to the heat dissipation vent of the cooling equipment. The water droplets from the melting ice blocks flowed into the water storage tank along the guide channel, allowing for secondary use and preventing waste.

"Su Jing, the ice is melting so fast! It's only been 5 minutes and it's already shrunk!" Xiao Jin squatted beside the ice, its dark eyes fixed on the dripping water droplets. Its voice was filled with anxiety, and its little paws tried to push the ice back into the equipment. "Should we take out more ice? I'm afraid we won't have enough!"

"Let's leave it at that for now. We need to save the ice in the space to deal with more extreme situations. For now, just make sure the equipment keeps running."

Su Jing stopped it and was about to check the outer protective fence when three dark shadows suddenly flashed across the monitor screen—

At the edge of a forest deep in the mountains, three men carrying steel pipes and machetes were crouching low as they moved toward the villa. Their clothes were dirty and tattered, and their bare arms bore obvious sunburn marks. They were also carrying empty cloth bags, clearly heading for the villa's supplies.

"There are bad guys! They smell like they've been robbing people! And they smell blood!"

Little Jin instantly bristled, its short golden fur standing on end. Its little paws gripped Su Jing's trouser leg, its inner voice filled with alarm, "Are they trying to steal our water and spirit herbs?"

Su Jing gripped the mining blade resting beside her, its pale blue blade gleaming coldly. She stared at the thugs on the monitor: "They must have seen that we had stopped the ant swarm and thought there were a lot of supplies in the villa."

Number 3 and Number 4, switch to combat mode, set your laser guns to the 'deterrence' setting, don't kill anyone first, force them to retreat first;

Number 2, go and turn off the sprinkler systems on the perimeter. Don't waste water on these people.

The ruthless bandits clearly hadn't expected the villa to be well-defended; they thought the prefab house deep in the mountains would be easy to rob.

The scarred man at the head of the group walked up to the metal protective fence, tapped the mesh with a steel pipe, and the clanging sound carried far in the heat. He yelled at the top of his lungs, "Listen up, you people inside! Open the door and hand over your water and food right now! Otherwise, we'll smash your fence, go in, and chop you all up!"

Su Jing didn't respond, but instead directed Robot No. 3's laser gun to Scarface's feet. The pale red laser beam burned a small black dot on the ground, and the "sizzle" sound made Scarface instantly take two steps back.

Seeing this, the other two thugs raised their machetes and tried to cut through the protective netting. "Don't waste your breath on her! This net looks thin, but we can break it in a few cuts!"

"They actually dared to make a move." Su Jing sneered and went around to the side of the villa—the high temperature had made her forehead covered in sweat, and the cooling spray she had just sprayed had worn off within minutes. She gripped her mining blade tightly and stared at the thugs approaching the protective net: "If you move again, I won't just be burning my feet."

Seeing that Su Jing was alone, Scarface's eyes flashed with malice. "A woman trying to stop us? Brothers, kill her! Go in and rob her!"

He swung the steel pipe at Su Jing, who dodged to the side. The ore blade, imbued with pale blue energy, cleaved down with a "crack," splitting the steel pipe in two. The blade, still powerful, grazed Scarface's arm, leaving a deep, bone-revealing wound from which blood instantly seeped out and quickly congealed into a scab under the intense heat.

"Boss!" Upon seeing this, the other two thugs rushed over with machetes in hand. Su Jing took two steps back, and robots No. 3 and No. 4 immediately rushed out from the main entrance of the villa, aiming their laser guns at the thugs' legs. With two "sizzle" sounds, holes were burned in the trouser legs of the two thugs, and blue smoke rose from their legs. They were in so much pain that they knelt on the ground.

"If you want to take my things, you'd better be prepared to die."

Su Jing walked up to the kneeling bandit, pressing a mining blade against his neck. "Do you have any accomplices? Are there any other people in the mountains?"

The bandit trembled in pain and said intermittently, "No...no more accomplices...just the three of us...we couldn't rob anything in the city, so we came to the mountains to look for things..."

Su Jing didn't ask any more questions and ordered the robot, "Collect their weapons and throw them into the monster activity area deep in the mountains. Don't leave them here to attract ant swarms."

Number 3 and Number 4 immediately dragged the two wounded bandits away, while Number 4 picked up the steel pipe and machete from the ground and headed towards the deep mountains—where stone-patterned insects had just appeared. Letting these bandits fend for themselves was better than wasting water disposing of the corpses.

After dealing with the ruthless bandits, Su Jing returned to the control room. Just as she was about to catch her breath, her communicator started ringing incessantly.

Opening the system chat area, the screen was filled with the wails of post-apocalyptic survivors: "China-Sister Li" posted a video in which her cooling fan had stopped working, and her child was crying for water beside her. "Does anyone have any extra cooling equipment? I'll trade my last half bag of flour for it!"

The message from "US-Mark" was even more desperate: "Our protective netting has been chewed up by stone bugs. We have no weapons and can only watch the swarms enter our home! @I am the God of Wealth, please open your shop! I want to buy weapons!"

In the chat area, messages from "@IamGodofWealth" kept popping up page after page. Some people were asking for cooling sprays, some for laser guns, and others for medicinal herbs to cure sunburn.

Xiao Jin leaned closer to look, her inner voice hesitant: "Su Jing, they're in such a pitiful state, should we sell them something?"

Su Jing closed the chat interface and walked to the monitor—the stone-patterned insects in the deep mountains were still moving towards the villa. The cooling equipment had only temporarily stabilized the situation, and there might still be accomplices who had escaped the net.

She shook her head: "We can't open it now. We need to save our weapons and water to deal with the monsters and the hotter weather. We'll talk about it once things have stabilized."

As she spoke, she asked No. 5 to bring out some more ice, this time not to cool down the equipment, but to put it in the fawn enclosure in the space—the three fawns were already able to stand up, and they needed to be provided with a cool environment in the high temperature.

As the sun set, the overload warning of the cooling equipment was finally lifted, and the temperature in the operating room returned to 28°C.

Su Jing leaned back in her chair, watching the sky outside the window gradually darken. She still clutched the mining blade in her hand—the 55°C heat, the lurking bandits, the approaching stone-patterned insects—this apocalypse of extreme heat and monsters had only just reached its most unbearable moment.