Chapter 27 Lou Yuncheng

Louyun City is located to the west of Suicheng, with a straight-line distance of more than 900 kilometers between it and Suicheng. The terrain is mainly mountains and hills.

The altitude of Louyun City is very different from that of Suicheng. Most of the mountains are concentrated in the west and southwest of the city, with the highest peak over 1,600 meters. The altitude of the urban area ranges from 120 meters to 350 meters. The lowest altitude is at the easternmost part of the suburban area, about 70 meters.

The average altitude of the entire Louyun city is about 220 meters. Therefore, when many cities such as Suicheng, Ningcheng, Shanyangcheng, Zhangcheng... suffered floods one by one, Louyun City has not been affected at all except for rain and humidity.

The Internet is currently disconnected, so Shu Fu has no way to go online to look up basic information about Lou Yuncheng, but these related information automatically emerges in her mind as soon as she thinks about it.

Because that was Shu Fu's hometown. As far as she could remember, the city where Shu Fu sold her house and left was Louyun City.

Shu Fu didn't think too much about why she had to check in at Louyun City. She had been trapped in Suicheng for too long and had always thought that she would stay here until she died. Now that she found a passage to the outside in this closed city, she was so happy that she couldn't contain herself.

The waterway map on the map panel is the same as the water map in the wooden house. It can be enlarged and viewed at will. The entire waterway is still light green, with dark green dot and block icons of varying sizes, which are still distributed in an irregular pattern.

She took out her tablet and opened the map of Huaguo for comparison. Sure enough, it was the same as the Suicheng water map. Those dark green ones were all taller buildings.

Judging from the winding area of ​​this waterway, other urban areas between Suicheng and Louyun City should have been flooded. She thought for a moment and wrote down a few key points of this trip in her notebook.

First, check the network along the way. Once you reach an area with network, immediately go online to check the information and make up for the lack of external information in the past month.

Second, the area that is truly flooded cannot be as winding as this waterway shows, but should be a vast ocean.

So she could try to explore the boundaries on both sides of the waterway and see if there was still an invisible barrier trapping her at the so-called waterway boundary.

Third, the straight-line distance from Suicheng to Louyuncheng is 900 kilometers, but judging from this waterway, the entire journey is about 1,200 to 1,300 kilometers. At the maximum speed of the raft of 40 kilometers per hour, it takes about 32 hours to travel the entire waterway.

It is impossible to carry out these 32 hours continuously as the raft cannot be used for that period of time, but fortunately there are tall buildings in the middle of the waterway. She can simulate the previous route from Ping'an Community to the commercial area, select several transfer points on the map, and advance in stages.

Fourth, the closer you get to Louyun City, the greater the probability of encountering other speedboats, ships, helicopters, and people along the way. The drift bottle shield cannot be saved and should be used when necessary.

In addition to one unused shield card, the other used shield card has 20 hours left, which adds up to 44 hours, which should be enough for a 32-hour journey.

After recording these points, Shu Fu's thoughts became clearer.

Comparing the journey from the point where she fell into the water back to Suicheng Ping'an Community, at least she can now set the destination through the map panel. She no longer has to stare at two maps all the time and make manual adjustments along the way.

Thinking of this, I felt a lot more relaxed even though I was about to face unfamiliar waterways and tasks.

The time for going to Louyun City was the same as the time for transferring to the temporary residence, which she set after 12 noon the next day.

On the first day of the trip, she always prepared for various accidents and set off after 12 noon. In case there was any problem with the transfer point building that night, she could continue to stay on the raft after midnight, giving her a total of 24 hours of continuous use time.

As for the remaining four hours of the day, she decided to launch the raft directly from the suite's living room, not wanting to have to return from outside in the middle of the night.

She spent the rest of the day checking maps to select transit points for her trip, packing up her temporary hotel apartment, and organizing her wristband space.

She had stayed in Suicheng alone for nearly two months. The automatic water fishing rod brought her various gains, and she had also collected a lot of useful supplies in various high-rise buildings. Now that she was going on a long journey, she naturally had to organize everything neatly so that she could take them when needed.

The manual rowing machine was placed directly into the cabin, next to the small round table and sofa in the living room.

When she used the raft at night, she turned on the power card, cleaned the dishes accumulated in the sink, took a shower, washed her hair, and did laundry. At the same time, she laid out all the equipment that needed to be charged and filled them all up.

Afterwards, she packed a backpack and put it into the bracelet space.

This time I deliberately took out an old backpack that I had used for many years. The backpack was not waterproof and had been washed several times, so it was a bit yellowed and old. I simply put an opaque folding water bottle in it, which was only half filled with water.

Two cup noodles, a small single sleeping bag, and the single moisture-proof mat, blanket and raincoat that were previously in the library supply bag.

Other small items she needs on a daily basis are placed on the shelf in the bracelet space, making it convenient to take them whenever she needs them.

In addition, she also put a set of thick cotton clothes that were worn out and a little torn from washing and hanging under the eaves outside the wooden house into the space so that she could take it easily when she arrived.

Compared to the last time she went to the library, she was obviously more cautious this time. After all, it was the early stage of the disaster and everyone started from their own homes, with similar starting equipment.

This time is different. Two months have passed since then. Floods have hit large cities and lands in Hua State. The number of people affected is staggering. Everyone is moving to areas with higher altitudes. She has been missing real-time information for a month and doesn't know what the situation is outside, so she needs to be more cautious.

Moreover, the place we are going to this time is a shelter, which sounds like it is a level lower than a refuge. It is foreseeable that the situation will not be very good.

**

That night, she spent the night in the hotel apartment and slept for eight hours. At nine o'clock in the morning, she took out the gas stove and cooked herself a pack of snail noodles, adding vegetables and braised beef slices, and also beat an egg into it.

It was impossible to eat this kind of strong-smelling food among the crowd of refugees, but after she harvested 300 packets of snail noodles that time, she gradually fell in love with this food with a unique taste, so she took the opportunity to indulge herself.

At 12 noon, the heavy rain outside turned into moderate rain. She came down from the 25th floor, stepped on the carpet on the 20th floor that was moldy due to moisture, and walked along the corridor into another emergency staircase. There is a small terrace outside the emergency staircase every two or three floors of this building, which is a smoking area.

It was because of this design that she chose this building as a mid-term shelter.

The water level had already covered the ground of the terrace. The waves outside came with the strong wind and hit the building. The open-air part of the raft was also hit by the rain and crackled. Shu Fu stepped over the raft with water stains and stepped into the eaves area of ​​the front door. The wind, rain and dampness were excluded.

Although she has long been accustomed to it, this feeling of warmth and security still makes her feel happy every time.

Shu Fu took off her raincoat and hung it next to the shoe cabinet at the door, changed her rain boots into slippers, threw the automatic water fishing rod, then went into the house, changed her thick clothes into spring and autumn sweatpants and long-sleeved sweatshirts, then walked to the function screen, changed the "parking" state to "drifting", adjusted the speed to 40, and set the direction to west.

The raft started slowly and began to drift. She walked out of the cabin, sat down on the camping chair under the eaves, called out the map panel, and took out the tablet. She compared the first transfer station building she had chosen yesterday with the waterway map again. After confirming that it was correct, she set this place as the destination.

After she selected her destination, she found a black route appeared on the water map on the map panel. The starting point of the line was the red dot where the raft was. The red dot was flashing, indicating that it was moving forward.

The other end of the line runs from east to west, bypassing the buildings above the water, passing through the entire Suicheng, heading towards the only waterway entrance connecting the city to the outside world, and then extending all the way to the dark green dot icon she set in the waterway.

At the same time, a set of data appeared in the upper right corner of the water map.

【341/8:30:53】

As the raft moved forward, the numbers at the back kept changing and decreasing. Shu Fu soon realized that the 341 at the front was the distance between the raft and the destination, which should be in kilometers, and the numbers at the back were the countdown for the drifting time.

It looks a bit like a navigation system.

This automatic route is a little shorter than she estimated yesterday. She originally expected to arrive at nine o'clock in the evening. Now looking at the situation, as long as everything goes well, she can reach the first transfer point half an hour earlier.

The raft carrying the drifting island house was sailing through the waves in the waters of Suicheng. Shu Fu did not immediately open the protective cover of the drifting bottle.

She had been in Suicheng for so long that she knew it had long since become an empty city on the water. The time of the protective shield was too precious, so she planned to wait until the raft drifted to the entrance of the waterway - that is, the invisible barrier of Suicheng that had originally trapped her before opening it.

Shu Fu sat under the eaves for a while and soon realized the convenience brought by the map panel. The raft could automatically avoid obstacles on and under the water, and now it can go to the set destination on its own. The entire raft has become a self-driving raft - or rather, it is a drifting island house that can drive automatically!

Shu Fu took out a cup of taro milk tea, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a box of jackfruit from the space, then selected a short play about rebirth and revenge from the massive resources on the tablet, and started lying down in the drifting island house.

When the raft reached the river near the original main urban area of ​​Suicheng, the automatic water fishing rod harvested the first wave of supplies of the day: several lively bass.

About 20 days ago, the automatic water fishing rod occasionally harvested some supplies that truly lived up to the name of "fishing rod", including live fish, live shrimps, live crabs...all kinds of species, and they all looked like freshwater species.

After being "disinfected" with one click, these aquatic products are still alive and look clean and healthy. However, these living things are different from other previous harvests. After all, this is not a real river or lake.

Under this vast body of water, there is all sorts of garbage, including human corpses.

However, these seafood looked very fresh, and it would be a waste to throw them away, so whenever she harvested such living things, she would put them into a specially emptied box in the space, preparing to study them later.

Now, when she goes to an area with internet access, she can check online and find out.

Just like driving a car with navigation turned on, automatic drifting after setting the destination is much faster than her manually adjusting the raft because it takes the most accurate and shortest route.

It took the raft less than three hours to reach the westernmost waterway entrance of Suicheng.

She called up the map panel again, enlarged the map, looked at the flashing red dot representing the raft, slowly left the Suicheng water map, and entered a new waterway.

This time, the surrounding scene did not show any ripple-like distortion, nor did it suddenly change. She was still sitting under the eaves in front of the wooden house, with endless ocean in all directions.

Compared to that night two months ago, the suburbs of Suicheng no longer resemble their original appearance. With a height of twenty stories and an average water depth of nearly sixty meters, the flood has already swallowed up everything here. Only in the direction of the original few small hills, part of the mountain can be seen above the water, like an isolated island in the sea, desolate and bleak.

The raft automatically moved to the middle of the waterway area on the map. Shu Fu waited for another twenty minutes, got up and went into the house, put on a life jacket directly, and then changed the drifting direction from "West" to "North" on the function panel.

Due to manual intervention, the raft temporarily deviated from the automatic route and headed towards one side of the waterway.

The waterway map on the map panel was very clear, but in reality the boundaries were invisible. Her first purpose in this attempt was to find out whether she could go to areas outside the waterway and Louyun City, the end point of the waterway, after leaving Suicheng where she was trapped.

Second, if there was also an invisible barrier blocking her in the waterway, would the raft she was on be trapped within the barrier like her, or would it be like the tour boat last time, leaving the barrier after she was "filtered" and left behind?

The raft has a recycling function, so she was not afraid of losing it. At the same time, she was also prepared to fall into the water. However, this time, she intuitively felt that the possibility of falling into the water was not high.

Soon, the raft came to the side line of the waterway, and then stopped there as if blocked by an invisible barrier.

She didn't fall into the water, and the raft didn't make it across. Just as she guessed, the waterway map was the same as the water map, and the boundary line of the map was also her barrier line.

The raft, on the other hand, assumed that it was one with her and was equally at odds.

This feeling was very similar to the time when she played games in the past, when she opened up a new map, touched the boundary of the map, and was blocked by an invisible screen.

Shu Fu took off his life jacket, changed the drifting direction back to "west", and sat down under the eaves again.

Therefore, if we follow the logic of the game, the reason why she was able to leave Suicheng this time was because the map of Louyun City was "lit up", and at the same time, the level 3 raft progress bar task was also opened.

The reason why the previous level 3 raft progress bar task did not appear was because the waterway was not open and Louyun City was not "lit up"?

So, assuming that she completes all the progress bar tasks on the level 3 raft in Louyun City and upgrades the raft to level 3, will a new map be opened again later?

Only then can she continue to go to other cities?

As Shu Fu was thinking, he subconsciously took out his notebook and wrote down his guesses one by one. The more he wrote, the more he felt that the possibility of this guess was very high.

So, in the final analysis, you still have to complete the task and upgrade the raft to level 3 as soon as possible.

**

At five o'clock in the afternoon, the number of buildings in the surrounding waters gradually increased, from one or two scattered buildings to small clusters of buildings appearing at intervals.

She activated the Drift Bottle Shield on the function screen, walked out of the roof and stretched her arms and legs a little.

This is the suburb of Zhangcheng. The occasional buildings nearby look like residential buildings, the kind of low-rise buildings built on the outskirts of the city or near highways. However, the parts of these buildings that are exposed above the water are only two or three stories high.

The southern suburbs of Zhangcheng are adjacent to Zhihu Lake and are a small town rich in aquatic products. Her second and third fishing catches of the day were obtained after she entered the suburbs of Zhangcheng. They were all shrimps and crabs, and they were quite large.

There was still no one around and there was still no network signal.

On the water, in addition to the remaining small high-rise buildings, one or two small boats can occasionally be seen. Most of these boats are small wooden fishing boats, some of which are missing part of the hull, and some have water in the bottom. They are leaning against the corners of the buildings, swaying gently with the waves in the heavy rain.

Some of the glass in the building was damaged. Looking through the dark holes, one could see cement walls that had not yet been renovated. The walls were damp and moldy, and heavy rain was still pouring in, making it impossible to live there.

If the buildings at the transfer point today were in the same situation, she would have to spend the night on the raft.

The rain continued to fall heavily. Not long after five o'clock, the sky darkened and the wind picked up. Visibility in the unlit waters became extremely low. It seemed as if the only things between heaven and earth were the dark grey waters and her on the raft.

Shu Fu turned and went into the cabin to prepare for dinner.

This kind of damp and cold weather is suitable for eating something spicy to ward off the cold. She took out the Sichuan cuisine gift package she had won in the lottery, picked and chose from the carton, and finally chose a dry-pot fish head, a portion of hand-shredded cabbage, and a portion of stir-fried pork with chili.

The gift packages of finished dishes are different from the gift packages of hot pot and barbecue. When you open them after receiving them, they have the freshness and heat that the finished dishes should have, and they can be placed in the space just right to keep them fresh.

However, this gift pack, like the hot pot and barbecue gift pack, does not come with a staple food, so she took out the chicken, mushroom and potato fried rice that she had prepared earlier. Whenever she remembered this pot of fried rice, she would take out a bowl to eat, but because she had a small appetite and ate it only a few times, she had not finished it yet.

At the dining table, there were three dishes, a meal, some drinks and a tablet. Shu Fu continued to watch the skit she was watching halfway through and began to eat dinner leisurely.

To the right of the small dining table was a large floor-to-ceiling window. She could see the slightly undulating water outside the Drifting Island House by turning her head slightly. She felt like she was on the sea.

Next to my ears, I could hear the crackling sound of heavy rain falling on the protective cover and the whistling sound of the wind in the air. The raging wind and rain outside formed a sharp contrast with the tranquility and warmth inside the wooden house.

At 8:30 in the evening, the raft passed through the urban area of ​​Zhangcheng and stopped in front of a very tall building in the western suburbs of Zhangcheng. Compared with the large area of ​​water around it, the building stood out like a crane among chickens.

Below the waters nearby is an elevator manufacturing plant, and the building in front of us is the test tower of this elevator factory, which is used to test finished elevators. The test tower is a square building with a small single-story area, but the overall height is over 100 meters.

This type of tower for testing elevators generally has construction standards that require the building to be sturdy and have one or two safety staircases. At the same time, the internal space should not be large and the structure should be very simple, so that she doesn't have to wander around in an unfamiliar dark building with no electricity late at night.

Shu Fu first controlled the raft and circled the tower. After making sure that the outer wall of the building was intact and the windows were not damaged, he moved the raft close to a window on the outer wall of the building, took out a windproof ignition spray gun and a hammer, and repeated the same trick to successfully enter the building.

The place she entered was a safety stairwell in the corner of the building. The water line was halfway up the floor below. There was no water accumulation on this floor, but it was very damp and cold inside. During the transition period, Shu Fu only wore her old thick cotton clothes over her home clothes, and rain boots on her feet. At this moment, she only felt the damp and cold air surrounding her.

She turned on the flashlight, pushed the door and walked out. The space outside was not big. There was a small square space in the middle, divided by the center line of the building. On the left were five elevator doors in a semi-U shape, three on the left, one each on the front and back left sides. In addition to the two safety stairwells on the right, there was also an antechamber connecting the safety stairs on both sides.

For Shu Fu, the safer space is this front room. Although it has three doors, they can all be closed. The internal space is small and can be quickly heated up using a kerosene stove. At the same time, there is a window against the outer wall of the building. The window is a sliding window similar to that of a business building, and the glass looks very solid.

She returned to the stairwell and walked up two more floors. The internal space structure of each floor was the same.

The damp and cold feeling on the two upper floors was not as severe, so she checked every corner of this floor with a flashlight as usual. After making sure that there was no major damage to the walls and windows, she returned to the front room and began to close the doors on the three sides of the front room one by one.

The double doors leading to the middle area can be locked directly, but the doors leading to the stairwells on both sides cannot be locked. She plans to block two large electrical appliances at the door before going to bed and lock it physically.

The raft can be used until midnight today, so she will definitely not waste it. After retreating to the corner, she took out the raft and placed it in a just-right size, with the front door of the cabin facing the window.

She changed her shoes and took off her clothes, then returned to the warm and dry wooden house. After her daily cleaning, she curled up on the soft sofa with a box of spiced cumin-flavored duck wings and continued watching TV.

After 0 o'clock, the raft was put away by her, and an unopened large refrigerator and an unopened washing machine appeared at the doors on the left and right sides and were physically locked.

Next, Shu Fu took out the kerosene stove, filled it with oil and lit it. He then took out a single-arm sofa and stretched out the sofa with his hands lifted and pulled as he knew how to do it.

Suddenly, the single-person armrest sofa that was originally 0.8 meters wide and 0.9 meters long became a single-person sofa bed about 1.9 meters long. The armrests are just located at the head and shoulder areas on both sides, so they will not fall down when sleeping at night.

She found this sofa bed in a storage room in the serviced apartment. She had used the same sofa in her apartment room before and felt that the folding sofa took up little space and was easy to open. It did not require several layers of cushions like a tent to keep out moisture and cold, so she considered whether she should bring one into the space.

Unexpectedly, I later found a brand new, unopened version of the same model in the storage room, so I happily bought it.

With the kerosene stove, the indoor temperature of around 0 degrees can quickly rise to more than ten degrees. At this temperature, you don’t need too thick bedding. You can just spread a sleeping bag on the sofa and go to sleep.

The sleeping bag and the familiar flame of the kerosene stove gave her a familiar, warm sense of security. Shu Fu set the alarm for eight o'clock the next day and slowly closed her eyes.

But this time, she did not sleep well. After all, it was a strange place, so she was more alert than usual. She seemed to hear some noise in her half-asleep state.

Bang, bang, bang, it seems like... something is hitting the door...

Smash the door!?

Shu Fu opened her eyes and woke up in an instant. The sound of the rain was indeed mixed with the clanging of metal, but it was not coming from the door, but from the window. She got out of her sleeping bag, put on her shoes, and rushed to the window in two steps.

The heavy rain outside the window was hitting the glass at an almost completely tilted angle. The sky outside was slightly brighter, and a few strands of dancing silver-white light merged into the pitch-black night in the distant east. When the silver-white light flashed, she could see the dense clouds gathering in the air and the turbulent water under the sky over there.

The originally calm waters now seemed like boiling water, with high waves, one upon another. In some places, swirling whirlpools even appeared on the water surface, as if they were being swept by an extremely fierce gale and were about to rise from the water surface.

That clanging sound was the sound of the window frames being shaken by the strong wind.

Is this - a tornado?