Chapter 49 Chapter 49 Searching for Coal (Part 2)
When they returned to their residence, Qin Yu and the others' yurt was pitch black. It seemed that they had not returned yet. Su Qing used a flashlight to follow the path cleared by the two of them to look for them.
After walking for a while, they saw a light in the distance ahead. It was Qin Yu and the other man shoveling snow with the outdoor lights on. They had been shoveling snow all day and had cleared more than a kilometer of road with great efficiency.
Su Qing walked over and said, "Captain Qin, the temperature is too low at night, so let's leave it at that for today."
When the two heard Su Qing's words, they stopped what they were doing.
As Qingshan put away his tools, he asked, "Miss Su, how are things going over there?"
"The mine entrance has been found, but there's no electricity, and we don't know if the equipment is damaged."
"Let's go and take a look together tomorrow." Qin Yu said.
They put away their tools and quickly returned to the yurt without stopping.
The electric heater in the yurt was always on, and the stove was always burning, so the temperature in the room could be maintained at around 10 degrees Celsius. Fuguier basically stayed in his quilt all day without moving much. When he saw Su Qing coming back, he just wagged his tail perfunctorily.
Su Qing took off the mask and scarf that had been frozen stiff, hung them near the electric heater to dry, put them on new ones, gave Fuguier some food, and went next door.
After knocking on the door and hearing a sound from inside, Su Qing opened the door and walked in.
Qin Yu and Su Qing were sitting at the table drinking hot water and chatting. When they saw Su Qing come in, Qin Yu stood up and asked, "Miss Su, what's going on?"
Su Qing walked to the table and began to take out hot meals from his backpack, including a pot of nourishing mutton soup, a plate of braised beef, a plate of steamed fish, a plate of cold shredded lettuce, and then a pot of rice.
"dinner."
"Wow~ This is too rich." Qingshan couldn't help swallowing as he looked at the dishes on the table.
Qin Yu looked at the sumptuous meal on the table and didn't want to be taken care of by Su Qing again and again. "Miss Su, we have brought some food. Supplies are hard to come by in the end times. We can't keep eating your food. You can keep these for yourself."
"Captain Qin is too polite. You guys are helping me find coal, so it's normal for me to take care of our food, clothing, housing and transportation. The temperature in the room is low, so eat quickly, otherwise it will get cold."
Su Qing picked up the bowl, filled it with rice and placed it in front of the two of them. "It won't taste good if it gets cold."
Qin Yu saw that he couldn't refuse, so he could only accept it. He silently took note of it in his heart. He remembered all the care Su Qing had given them. They almost lost their lives on this trip, and they had nothing but some weapons and equipment. He thought that when he returned to the capital, he must repay Su Qing for all these.
The three of them buried their heads in eating in silence. After drinking the hot mutton soup, warmth flowed through their limbs.
The temperature in the room was not high, so they ate quickly. Working in the extremely cold weather was very hard, and they were all very hungry, so they finished all the food in a short while.
After dinner, the three of them sat around the stove, each holding a cup of hot ginger tea, and discussed their plans for tomorrow.
"I have a generator here, so there should be no problem in powering the equipment. I just don't know how to operate those things." Su Qing said.
Qin Yu thought for a moment and said, "Leave these to us. Connecting the power is easy. What's unclear now is whether the equipment can operate normally and what the situation is like underground. If the underground has collapsed after a year of the apocalypse, it will be troublesome."
"I have a drone here. You can drop it down and have a look." Su Qing said as he took out a box from his backpack, which contained a small drone.
"Hey, Miss Su, is this the one you used in the research institute?" Qingshan asked, looking at the drone in Su Qing's hand.
"Yes."
"I was so curious about this thing from the beginning. It's so advanced. If we had this in the past, our missions would have been much easier."
Seeing Qingshan was quite curious about the thing in her hand, Su Qing simply handed the box to him and said, "I'll put it here for you first. You can study it carefully."
Qingshan has always been very interested in these things. Seeing this, he was quite excited and took it and started to study it.
The few of them chatted briefly for a while and almost finalized the action plan for tomorrow. Su Qing left them a few hot water bottles and a small basket of coal that she had dug out with great effort today, then got up and returned to her yurt.
After dressing Fuguier and letting him go out to take care of his physiological problems, she took the kettle, filled it with water and placed it on the stove. After the water boiled, she took out several hot water bottles, filled them with hot water and placed them in the warm down sleeping bags under her and Fuguier's quilts.
After finishing these, she filled the stove with coal. This stuff can burn much longer than wood and charcoal, and it generates a higher temperature. She has the system to protect her body, so she is not afraid of carbon monoxide poisoning. Fuguier is even more immune to all poisons after refreshing the system.
After a quick wash with hot water and tidying up everything, Su Qing lay down on the bed and quickly fell asleep.
…
The next morning, after breakfast, they got up and set off. Before leaving, Su Qing packed up the two yurts. She thought that if there was no problem with the mine, they could go down, and it would be more convenient for them to live closer.
They soon arrived at the entrance of the mine. Su Qing took out the generator and handed it to Qin Yu. He took out the tools from his bag and began to connect the power supply of the operating box.
Qingshan took out the drone and walked deep into the mine, operating the drone to explore inside.
This left Su Qing and Fugui'er with nothing to do for a while. She walked around bored. The snow around had been cleared by Su Qing. Looking at the frozen coal exposed outside, she couldn't help feeling a little regretful.
The coal was frozen hard and very difficult to dig. She had to work very hard to dig out a little yesterday.
"If only there were a way to move this coal."
Fuguier walked beside Su Qing, tilted his head to look at Su Qing and then at the dark ground in front of him, then raised his front body and dug the ground quickly with his two claws.
"Woof! Awooo~" After digging for a while, Fuguier looked up and found that the poop shoveler didn't pay attention to him, so he opened his mouth and shouted.
Su Qing didn't pay attention to Fugui'er's actions. When he heard Fugui'er shouting, he turned around and was stunned.
The Fuguier in front of him was covered in black. A deep pit was dug under its claws, and a pile of black coal was piled around it.
Su Qing stepped forward quickly and asked excitedly, "Fuguier! Did you do this?"
Fuguier didn't say a word, but moved to the side, stretched out his claws, and moved again with a flash of cold light. The frozen hard ground was like tofu under Fuguier's claws, and soon he dug out another hole.
Su Fuguier proved everything with actions.
Su Qing took out a shovel and a large plastic bucket from her backpack and put the coal on the ground into it. When she put it in, she found that Fuguier had dug out a lot of coal in such a short time that the bucket was full. She tried to put the plastic bucket into her backpack.
No problem! This coal is available.
"Fugui'er! The arduous task of digging open-pit coal is now yours. Take whatever you can get. You're amazing! You're my idol!!! I'll give you chicken legs for dinner tonight. Eat as much as you can!"
Su Qing found a suitable place nearby, took out the yurt and put it back in place, arranged the interior, installed the heating equipment, and left water and food for Fuguier.
Walking out of the yurt, Su Qing saw Fuguier digging holes diligently. While she was arranging the yurt, seven or eight holes of varying sizes had appeared on the ground.
Seeing this, Su Qing quickly walked over to Fuguier and said, "Baby! If you feel cold and tired, just go back to the yurt and rest. We can take our time. Won't you hurt your claws by digging like that? Don't let yourself get hurt. I'm very grateful that you can help me, but you must make sure you're healthy!"
"We can get as much as we can, it doesn't matter."
"Awoo~Awoo~" Can I, the shit shoveler, do this? I want a big chicken leg! A big lamb leg! A big cow leg!
Bang bang...
There was a noise coming from the mine. Su Qing touched Fuguier's little black head, motioning it to go back to the house to warm up before coming out, and then turned and walked towards the mine.
"Captain Qin, is the power on?"
"Well, the equipment is working properly. It looks like this mine cart is usable." Qin Yu was squatting on the ground inspecting the cart. "Now we just have to wait for the results of the Qingshan survey."
While the two were waiting, Su Qing told Qin Yu about Fuguier's amazing operation, and Qin Yu was quite surprised after hearing it.
After waiting for a long time, Qingshan came back with a drone.
"I roughly estimated that this mine is about 700 meters deep. The footage sent back by the drone seems to be fine, and the tracks are intact. We have to go down and take a look for details."
"The mine car has electricity. Let's go down and take a look. Miss Su, you stay upstairs and provide support if anything happens." Qin Yu said.
"Okay, the bracelet should be able to work underground. Contact me if anything happens." Su Qing nodded.
The two of them got into the mine car. Su Qing pressed the switch, and the mine car slowly moved forward.
I don’t know how long it was before I heard a sound from inside the mine, and soon a mine cart slowly drove out.
There were many black marks on the two men's bodies and some dust on their faces. After the mine car stopped, Su Qing walked over and asked, "How is it?"
Qin Yu raised his hand and jumped out of the mine car. "Most of the equipment underground is intact, and there's still a lot of mined coal on the conveyor belt. It's just that the coal mining machine and the conveyor belt won't start. Miss Su, do you have any diesel?"
Su Qing rummaged through his backpack and took out several large barrels of diesel. "Yes, but not much. These are all I have."
"The machines below need to consume a lot of fuel to start up, so I'm afraid we won't be able to get much coal."
"Okay, since Province S is rich in mineral resources, let's just search everywhere."
Qin Yu and the other man loaded the diesel onto the mine car, and then went down into the mine. They stayed there for a long time, so long that Su Qing thought something had happened to them. Just as he was about to contact them with his bracelet, he heard another noise.
Five mine cars loaded with coal slowly drove over and stopped at the end of the track.
After going back and forth like this and loading more than twenty cars of coal, Qin Yu and his team returned in an empty mine car.
The two men jumped out of the mine car, covered in black.
"The diesel is exhausted. Everything that can be taken downstairs has been loaded onto trucks and transported up." Qin Yu pulled down the thick scarf covering his mouth and nose and said to Su Qing.
Su Qing saw that only the parts of the two people covered by clothes were still their original color, while the rest of the places were completely black, so he quickly asked them to go back to the yurt to wash and change clothes.
Including the coal dug out by Fuguier, the coal Su Qing currently stored in his backpack was enough to build a heating plant, but a large amount of coal would be needed to maintain it. They rested for a night and found the mine warehouse the next day, where they collected thousands of tons of coal.
Seeing this, Su Qing decided to go back to the base first, repair the heating plant, and then go out to look for coal.
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