◎Happy 140th Day: Cooling Down◎
Thanks to urbanization, the buildings in most cities and even towns look similar.
It is extremely difficult to rely on buildings exposed above the water to determine their location.
Along the way, Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen basically inferred the height of the surrounding hills by the depth of the water, and then determined their own location.
Unfortunately, after being chased by the school of fish and running blindly for a long distance, they not only lost their position, but also lost their understanding of the water depth. They could only walk towards the city along the building complex, trying to find some landmark buildings.
"It's almost certain we're in downtown Ye City now." Jiang Muyun rubbed his sore eyes and pointed at a page of road books. "One of Ye City's landmark buildings, a 20-meter-tall sailboat sculpture, is opposite the triangular sculpture emerging from the water we just saw."
Ye City is just an ordinary new third-tier small city. People outside the province may not have heard of this place, let alone know what the landmark buildings here are.
Fortunately, Jiang Muyun bought a bunch of road books when he bought the map. When he set out for the capital this time, he also brought the road books of the areas he passed through, which enabled him to find Ye City.
Once the location is determined, the rest of the journey will be much easier.
"It's eight o'clock in the evening now. If we leave the city and avoid the buildings, and head northeast from the suburbs, we can leave the polluted waters at two o'clock in the afternoon the day after tomorrow at the earliest." Jiang Muyun drew a faint line on the map with a pencil.
"Of course, this is just an estimate. This assumes we don't encounter a school of fish a second time, don't encounter whirlpools or undercurrents that require a detour, and the extent of the polluted waters doesn't exceed what the survivors described."
Jiang Muyun said this without any intention of negotiating: "If something unexpected happens along the way, it might take even longer."
Before Jiang Muyun finished speaking, he saw Xiaolan swimming back quickly. The joy emanating from his body was visible to everyone from a distance.
Jiang Muyun looked at Chu Buwen. Chu Buwen looked at his watch. "Twenty-one minutes for a round trip."
Jiang Muyun nodded and recorded the time.
Chu Buwen waved his hand, and the little lazy golden tail lifted up, and a net bag full of black mutant fish was brought to Chu Buwen's eyes.
The mutant fish in the net bag had already huddled together. When they suddenly emerged from the water and saw people, they flapped their wings and bared their teeth at the humans.
Chu Buwen stretched out a wooden stick through the rope net and used the iron nail nailed on the tip of the stick to hook a piece of the rope that was used to tie the net bag.
Xiao Lan shook his tail and cooperated with Chu Buwen to take the net bag off his tail.
Captain Yu used a wooden stick and a fishing rod to poke a few fish out of the net bag, and then Chu Buwen pulled the buckle that tied the net bag through the rope net, directly trapping all the mutant fish in the net bag. He then tied the net bag filled with a bunch of mutant fish to the stern of the boat and left them to soak in the water.
This was the second bag of fish that Xiaolan brought back. Before they determined their location, Xiaolan had already brought back one bag.
This was the idea Jiang Muyun came up with to provide food for his cubs.
With Xiaolan's speed and acuity, it is not a problem for him to leave home to catch a few bags of fish, have a buffet and then come back. Jiang Muyun can also judge the distance between the fish school and them by the time Xiaolan takes to travel back and forth to the fish school each time. It is a perfect win-win situation.
The last time Xiaolan took twenty-two minutes to go back and forth, it was about the same as this time.
This is both good news and bad news.
Fortunately, the distance between the group of fish and them should not be shortened, but the bad thing is that the distance between the two has not widened either.
This means that the school of fish is likely still following them, trying to catch up.
This is also the reason why Jiang Muyun let Xiaolan go back to catch fish without any hesitation.
You are going to chase us anyway, so it doesn’t matter whether the fish hanging behind our boat are attractive to you or not.
Maybe they caught too many fish, and the fishy smell could cover up the human smell, so the fish would stop staring at them so closely.
Of course, it is also possible that they have already shaken off that group of fish, and Xiaolan has found another group of mutant fish nearby.
However, this possibility seems worse than the previous group of mutant fish still chasing them.
To know the specific situation, we have to wait for Xiaolan to make a few more trips and collect more data before we can confirm it.
Captain Yu threw the few fish he had poked out into a new net bag as bait, and then tied it to the tail of the lazy cat, letting the lazy cat swing its tail to continue looking for fish.
After Little Lazy left with his tail swung, Jiang Muyun continued to say to everyone, "Before we leave this polluted water, if anyone can't hold on any longer and needs to rest, please let us know in advance. We'll take turns resting, but besides Professor Chen and Chen Cheng, only one person can rest at a time."
As for the reason, it was naturally caused by the group of mutant fish.
After getting rid of the first school of fish they encountered, they did not encounter large-scale mutant fish along the way, but there were always scattered mutant fish that rushed towards them.
They still need someone to guard around the boat at all times and clean up the mutant fish hanging on the ropes and nets in a timely manner to prevent anyone from being accidentally injured due to carelessness.
At the same time, you must also pay attention to the surroundings to prevent more fish from approaching.
Xiaolan caught fish very quickly, and each round trip took him just over twenty minutes, leaving Jiang Muyun unsure whether to be happy or sad.
The lazy ones over there are walking around in circles, but the little white ones over here are celebrating as if it’s New Year.
Especially baldness.
No matter how much money Zhou Fei was willing to spend on it, it was difficult for it to eat anything other than insects and mushrooms. The most he could do was take it out at night and let it find prey in the wild on its own.
Especially when the bald eagle is in its second development phase, the dry season has not yet passed. Even if it is insects and mushrooms, it is difficult for the bald eagle to eat three meals a day, and it is even more difficult to catch prey.
Xiaobai was able to catch a lot of fish when Jiang Muyun and his friends went hunting because they had a white roe with excellent night vision to lead the way. Tutu, without the help of a white roe, was a bit clumsy when hunting small animals, so his life before that was comparable to Xiaolan's.
Now food is finally delivered to the door, and it is food that the owner can eat as much as he wants without going bankrupt. Isn’t it almost like the Chinese New Year?
Xiao Lan brought back a bag of fish, and Chu Buwen and Captain Yu packed all the fish and tied them to the stern of the boat, leaving a small hole. When they had nothing to do, they would hold up wooden sticks and fishing rods, stab the fish to death one by one, and bring them back to feed Tu Tu and the others.
It can also be considered as finding something to do when staying up late to prevent yourself from feeling sleepy.
By the time all the birds on the boat began to doze off contentedly, it was almost dawn.
Little Lazy ran back and forth more than ten times in one night. Later, there were too many fish and the speed at which they ate could not keep up with the speed at which Little Lazy caught them. They were afraid of sinking the boat, so they persuaded Little Lazy, who was addicted to eating buffets, to stop.
It was through the time that Xiaolan spent on going back and forth more than ten times that Jiang Muyun was certain that the school of fish was really following them.
"It's been a whole night, you're still very persistent." Jiang Muyun yawned and recorded the time Chu Buwen reported to her again.
Just now, Xiaolan ran back to have breakfast. Chu Buwen timed it again and found that it still took Xiaolan a little over 20 minutes to go back and forth.
They were on the road all night and never stopped except to refuel, but they were still unable to distance themselves from the school of fish. This was enough to prove that the school of fish had been chasing them all night, and that more and more fish were constantly joining the team while they were chasing them.
Otherwise there is no way to explain how the fish can keep up with them.
It is obvious that these mutant fish are moving very slowly in the water.
The only thing to be thankful for was that they did not experience the unfortunate situation of being blocked by a school of fish again.
This time Jiang Muyun learned his lesson. Whenever he saw Xiaobai and the others getting excited for no reason on the road, he would decisively change his direction and avoid the route they were originally going to take.
Regardless of whether the reason Xiaobai and the others were excited was because a large wave of food was coming, Jiang Muyun was willing to prepare for the worst-case scenario.
If they were blocked by the school of fish again, Xiaolan would not be able to escape. Jiang Muyun was afraid that their wooden platform would be torn apart.
Fortunately, their caution along the way was not in vain.
They neither encountered the best case scenario and walked out of the polluted waters on the afternoon of the third day as planned by Jiang Muyun, nor encountered the worst case scenario and were blocked by a school of fish again.
At two o'clock in the morning on the fourth day after entering the polluted waters, Jiang Muyun finally did not find any metallic spots when he shone the beam of light onto the water surface.
Excluding tonight, Jiang Muyun slept for less than six hours in the past three days and two nights. The only reason she could stay awake now was because she hypnotized herself.
If I slept six hours in two nights, wouldn’t that mean I only missed one night if I round it up?
After all, she is a serious college student. What's wrong with modern college students staying up all night?
Can hold on.
"Yes, have you come out yet?" Gao Liang's voice was a little floating when he spoke.
Jiang Muyun turned off the camping light hanging on the boat and used a tactical flashlight instead, scanning the surrounding area with the spotlight on. "We've made it out. To be on the safe side, let's go a little further before we rest."
Gao Liang reached out and caught a handful of raindrops on his face, forcing himself to cheer up: "No problem, I can handle it."
"The last time I was this energetic was when everyone was watching the World Cup." Gao Liang lifted the hood of his raincoat and smoothed down his frizzy hair. "It feels so good! It feels like I've gone back to the old days."
Zhou Fei, who had just woken up and slept for two hours in the kayak because he couldn't hold on any longer, opened the awning and shivered when he was hit by the water vapor.
He put on the hood of his raincoat and couldn't help laughing after hearing Gao Liang's words: "No, it's better than before. At least you don't have to get up at six o'clock tomorrow to go to work."
Jiang Muyun's actions were the opposite of Zhou Fei's. She lifted the hood of her jacket, trying to use the cold rain to sober herself up a little. "I promise, tomorrow, no, today, I'll sleep as late as I want—where's Uncle Yu?"
Uncle Yu, an elderly man with a scruffy, unshaven face from staying up late, waved his infrared telescope at Jiang Muyun from the other side of the wooden platform. "Here. Uncle Yu authoritatively confirms that there are no living people near the building you photographed."
Hearing this, Jiang Muyun turned to look at Chu Buwen who was sitting in the raft: "Where's Uncle Chu?"
"Uncle Chu has already logged off Sewing Machine Online. Only Brother Chu is here." High school student Chu Buwen refused to accept Jiang Muyun's address. "According to Brother Chu's observation, we should be in a town under Cha City right now. The town is low-lying and sparsely populated, and it's near polluted waters. It's normal to have few survivors, or even no survivors at all."
Jiang Muyun waved his hand and ignored Brother Chu completely: "High-volume steering, we can prepare to go to bed."
"Wait a minute." Uncle Yu said seriously, "Let's first confirm one thing. Who will be on the first night shift?"
Jiang Muyun and the others looked at each other in surprise when they heard this.
Originally, they had arranged the order for night shifts, with everyone taking turns in groups of two. Today you would be on the first shift, and tomorrow he would be on the first shift.
If their pattern before staying up all night was followed, it should be Jiang Muyun and Chu Buwen's turn tonight.
Generally speaking, the people on the first night shift just go to bed a little later and can get a full night's sleep, so this shift is quite popular.
But now everyone has been enduring for several days and is in a state where they almost want to fall asleep while standing.
If they were to continue to watch others sleep while they kept their eyes open for a few more hours, it would be a matter of life and death.
Jiang Muyun's mind raced, and he immediately spotted the little white ones who had been eating and drinking well these past few days. He spread his hands and gestured "please" to the little white ones, saying, "Let them guard!"
Gao Liang and Zhou Fei, who had been a little dazed just now, immediately agreed: "Right, right, right! These little guys have been eating and sleeping these days, it's time for them to do something."
The little cubs who were carried out had innocent looks on their faces. When Xiaobai saw Jiang Muyun reaching out his hand to him, he obediently moved his head closer and rubbed it twice, pretending that Jiang Muyun was touching his head.
Jiang Muyun coldly withdrew his hand. "It's no use acting like a spoiled child. Look at Xiaolan, then look at you. You ate so much fish and you expect me to keep watch for you tonight? Can you sleep?"
Xiaobai's expression changed immediately.
What it hates to hear most now is Xiaolan's name.
I'm just a bald guy, why should my sister touch my head? Why should my sister call me baby?
The furious Xiaobai immediately became energetic and even forgot the purpose of his acting coquettishly just now. He almost stood up and patted his chest with his paws to assure himself that he could keep every night shift.
Jiang Muyun was very satisfied with Xiaobai's mental state. He turned to his uncle and said, "We'll go up to the roof and observe the surroundings. If we're sure there are no survivors nearby, we'll just have Xiaobai and the others keep watch. They're definitely more sensitive to changes in animals and the natural environment than we are."
Xiaobai and the others may not be able to sense whether there are any survivors observing here with telescopes thousands of meters away, but they can definitely sense whether there are any mutant animals approaching that may pose a threat to them thousands of meters away.
After confirming that there was no one nearby, Jiang Muyun and his team did not need to force themselves to leave someone behind to keep watch.
Just a little bit.
Jiang Muyun reached out to catch a handful of cold rainwater, then said to everyone, "Uncle Yu will go upstairs to investigate the situation. Let's search the building for supplies and find something flammable to start a fire."
Jiang Muyun tilted his palm, and raindrops fell on the wooden platform, splashing out ice-crystal-like water droplets.
Jiang Muyun sighed, "It seems like the temperature is starting to drop."
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
