The moment Gou Fugui reached the sea surface, he was rammed into by the anxious orca brother waiting on the surface. If it weren't for the seawater behind him, which would have supported him even if he fell, this collision would have taken away a third of his health.
No wonder killer whales are called the pandas of the sea.
"Waaaaah!"
The little orca held up the colorful treasure on its big head, as if asking where it had been all this time.
Seven-Colored Fortune patted Orca's head: "I went down to take a look. It was a bit unexpected, but I still have to thank you for bringing me here."
"Waaah~"
"You'll stay here from now on, just stay put for as long as you can. Don't wander off, and if you see a group of humpback whales, don't fight them head-on. Eat plenty of food to build up your energy reserves and fat. I have to go back now."
He had been in this place with the orca for three days, and if he didn't go back home soon, the wolves would go crazy.
Moreover, he also needs to go back and think about the relationship between submarine volcanoes and the Ice Age, and he needs to do some more research.
The younger orca was really reluctant to part with its life-saving boss. In the younger orca's mind, the boss and it were the only two orcas in this sea. Shouldn't they be together?
However, in the end, the orca brother couldn't disobey his boss, mainly because the boss gave him a guarantee.
"Just stay here and lie low, I might come back in a few days."
The underwater volcanoes here must be connected to the core of the world; they will surely return.
"Don't let me come back and you get eaten."
"Waaaaah!"
That's absolutely impossible! Orcas are the most powerful creatures in the ocean!
Qi Cai Fugui laughed, patted the orca's big head twice, and then turned and left.
When we arrived, we rode an orca-branded mount; on the way back...
The wealthy tycoon, who had his own private space, simply pulled out a jet ski from it.
When there are other people around, he obviously can't openly take the jet ski out of thin air. Now that there's no one around, there's no problem at all.
The motorboat left a long white trail on the sea before disappearing into the horizon.
The ride back by jet ski was fairly smooth, except for the cold wind on the sea, which made me uncomfortable.
But after Gou Fugui switched to the exceptionally cold-resistant Great White Bear Fugui, the sea breeze, which was particularly cold due to the spread of the cold wave, had no effect on him at all.
However, the closer Gou Fugui got to the island where the survivors were gathered, the heavier his mood became.
It took him two days to return, but in those short two days, he was already able to see the huge, frozen sea glacier as soon as he looked up.
The sea surface where the motorboat was traveling had originally been covered with a thin layer of broken ice, but now it had frozen to a depth of two or three centimeters, requiring force to break through.
The whole world is frozen.
And the speed is gradually increasing.
Gou Fugui closed his eyes and sped up, rushing towards the small island where the dragon boat was located.
Meanwhile, Xie Tianlang, Song Sanchuan, Si Wuyai, and the others, having received the message, were already waiting at the edge of the island.
It was the sharp-eyed dogs who first noticed the leader's return. The cats and dogs barked in unison, but were quickly silenced by those nearby who either covered their mouths or told not to make a sound.
Gou Fugui jumped from the motorboat onto the island, and suddenly froze for a moment—
He had only been gone for five days, so why did his comrades and partners all seem to have lost weight?
Then he took a gentle sniff.
I smelled a faint scent of blood.
Gou Fugui's expression suddenly changed.
At this moment, cats and dogs had surrounded him, and Xie Tianlang also hugged him.
"Didn't we store up quite a bit of grain?"
"Why have Fei Lian and Xiao Xingxing both lost weight?"
Xie Tianlang reached out and touched his long, black hair, then took him directly onto the dragon boat.
After everyone was seated in the passenger cabin of the dragon boat, Gou Fugui learned what had happened over the past five days.
"Don't worry, we're all fine, only Xiao San and Xiao Si got hurt. But Xiao Si got ruthless and retaliated against everyone."
Grandma Lu patted Gou Fugui's hand first, offering a comforting summary.
Then Zhou Rencai spoke up: "It's still about food and energy. In the last five days, there have been at least a hundred riots of varying sizes."
"When you came back, you should have felt that the freezing of the ocean was accelerating. Now, standing on our small island, you can see the huge glaciers."
"This is around the equator. It's already one of the hottest areas on Earth."
"But now the temperature on the island has dropped to -40°C."
"At this temperature, without a heat source, even wearing a down jacket and huddled under three layers of blankets, you would still feel cold. Therefore, all survivors need materials that can be used to start a fire for warmth."
At this point in Zhou Ren's explanation, Gou Fugui already understood the reason for the riot.
"Food is no longer the most important resource. Everyone is fighting for fuel, wood, and anything that can be burned for warmth. It's all about survival."
"On the main island of Washington, all the survivors have been gathered together and a large fire has been lit for warmth. Centralized control of energy consumption is better than everyone haphazardly looting and consuming resources without a plan."
"Then the general on the main island sent Captain Zhang to ask us if we wanted to go to the main island and join everyone. In the end, Brother Xie, Master Long, and Grandma Wen all refused."
"After all, we have relatively abundant resources."
"However, because we are far from the main island and there are few of us, some people have been eyeing us. Two groups of pirates have come in the last two days, one group of Koreans and one group of Indians. Little Sakura was wandering around trying to pick up some loot, but she was scared away by Brother Xie. That's all."
"As for everyone losing weight, it's really nothing. It's just that we don't have enough energy and we don't know how much longer we can hold on, so everyone has decided to spend less time."
Zhou Ren stopped talking after that, but the worry on his face, shared by everyone else, was impossible to hide.
Gou Fugui didn't say anything more after hearing this. This was exactly the almost unsolvable development he had worried about after seeing the volcano underwater.
The entire world is frozen, and humanity has nowhere to escape.
If a way to repair the core is not found, being frozen along with the world will be the ultimate fate of humanity and all life on Earth.
Gou Fugui originally thought he might have a few more days to think things over and search further.
But now it seems that a silent apocalypse is looming from all sides, and every minute and every second is precious.
"I discovered a volcano on the seabed."
"A very, very large volcano, whose entire mountain range stretches as far as the eye can see."
After Gou Fugui said that, everyone in the cabin looked surprised.
Master Long immediately asked, "How did you get down there, kid?"
Wang Xuan adjusted his glasses and said directly, "You want to use underwater volcanoes to alleviate global freezing? That's highly unlikely."
Song Sanchuan immediately turned on his computer and used the last bit of battery power to find all the information about volcanoes and the Ice Age.
Then his gaze suddenly froze, and he pulled out a document from the Ice Age and placed it in front of everyone.
"The Ice Age of the Cryogenian Period occurred approximately 850 million to 630 million years ago. Due to extreme cold and ice, the entire Earth experienced the Snowball Earth event, with ice and snow spreading to the equator, almost exactly the same as our current situation."
"Going further back is the Huron Ice Age, 2.4 billion years ago, but the Earth's condition at that time was very different from now, so it doesn't have much reference value."
"Then there's the reason why those two ice ages ended."
Song Sanchuan's eyes lit up as he spoke:
The Cryogenian Ice Age, also known as the Precambrian period, was an era before the Cambrian explosion of life.
Although the Earth was in a terrible ice age, frozen for 30 million years, magma activity beneath the ice layer and within the earth never ceased, and in fact, during the later stages of the Ice Age, magma activity within the earth's veins became increasingly frequent and intense.
"Finally, due to the movement, compression, and splitting of Earth's tectonic plates, the magma beneath the earth's veins erupted. It is said that a massive volcano erupted for a long time, and the resulting heat and carbon dioxide triggered a huge global greenhouse effect, ultimately halting the freezing of the Ice Age."
"And after that, the global warming directly led to the Cambrian period, a time of great life explosion."
As Song Sanchuan finished speaking, he stared straight at Gou Fugui, and the others also arrived at the huge underwater volcano that Gou Fugui had mentioned seeing on the seabed.
Gou Fugui had thought of the same things as everyone else. Although their world now might not be completely comparable to the two previous ice ages, the same key point had emerged that could potentially lift the ice age and end the world, which was an opportunity that they had to seize.
"...But this is a bit of a problem. If that underwater volcano can prevent the arrival of the global ice age, then it seems that it hasn't played any role at all?"
Lu Hao scratched his head: "But didn't you say that volcano is already erupting and spewing lava?"
Hearing this, Master Long grinned and tapped the table with his pipe: "That's because the underwater volcano didn't erupt big enough."
"Didn't you hear what Fugui said? He saw a huge mountain range."
Lu Hao instantly realized a possibility and gasped.
His words became somewhat stammering: "You...you old man, you don't mean you want to detonate all the underwater volcanoes, do you...Ahahaha...How could that be...such a crazy and suicidal method..."
However, Lu Hao couldn't finish his sentence because he noticed that not only was Master Long grinning, but the wealthy quartet sitting opposite him also had their eyes shining.
Clearly, what these people were thinking were possibilities that no ordinary person would ever dare to imagine.
"The end of the Cryogenian Ice Age was due to intense magma movement and the eruption of supervolcanoes. Of course, an underwater volcano cannot change anything."
Gou Fugui lightly patted the dust off his clothes and stood up: "If we're going to have an explosion, it has to be a big one. Only after a complete upheaval can there be a new world, right?"
"But how do we trigger an eruption of the entire underwater volcanic mountain range? We'd need to place enough explosives in different areas, wouldn't we?"
Wang Xuan frowned as if he wanted to crush his glasses: "Leaving aside whether we have enough detonators, just figuring out how to place the detonator thousands of meters below the surface is almost an unsolvable problem."
"...It's not really a difficult problem."
"...It's not really a difficult problem."
The exact same words came from the mouths of an old man and a young man.
Old Man Long, with his pipe in his mouth, looked at the long-haired young man sitting opposite him and chuckled, "Your skills are almost catching up to your grandpa's."
Gou Fugui grinned and said, "I'm really not as good as you."
After all, he had the advantages and cheat codes from several worlds, but Lord Long truly became a legend on his own.
Master Long chuckled twice, pointed at Gou Fugui, and then touched the wooden planks of the boat with a hint of affection.
"Now I understand why I went bankrupt to buy it back then."
"Let's go. Since it's time, let me show you what a real 'dragon boat' is all about."
Everyone looked puzzled and somewhat surprised upon hearing what Master Long said, including Long Ming, who had grown up with Master Long.
Only Grandma Wen, after a moment of stunned silence, seemed to suddenly remember something, "Is it... a dragon?"
Grandpa Long grinned: "The real dragon is on display in the National Museum."
"My Hidden Dragon is at most a failure."
Everyone followed Master Long off the ship. Master Long instructed Long Ming to close every door and window.
It was only then that everyone realized that the doors and windows on the dragon boat actually had two layers. One layer was wooden doors and windows placed on the outside, and the other layer was a tightly fitted steel alloy.
After sealing the entire dragon boat, the Dragon Lord walked around it, finally lingering for a while on the keel at the bow before turning to look at Gou Fugui:
"Hey kid, get me a can of gasoline."
Gou Fugui paused for a moment, then turned and walked towards the motorboat, directly swapping a full tank of fuel with a full tank of gas and handing it to Master Long.
After taking the fuel tank, Master Long began pouring gasoline over the entire dragon boat.
Although the supplies on the dragon boat's deck had already been moved to the island by this time, the dragon master's obvious act of burning the boat still startled everyone.
Only Song Sanchuan, after his initial shock, reached out and tapped the keel and planks of the dragon boat before finally uttering a curse.
Click.
A pale blue flame appeared on Grandpa Long's lighter.
Then, the flame, following the lighter, drew a graceful arc in the air before falling directly onto the gasoline-soaked deck of the dragon boat.
boom--
The silent flames instantly spread to every corner of the entire wooden ship.
The towering fire not only brought warmth but also deeply shocked everyone who witnessed it.
Wen Feilian gripped his grandmother's hand tightly: "...Grandma, why did you burn the boat?"
As Grandma Wen watched the creature gradually reveal its true form amidst the burning flames, it was as if her memories were transported back to that era of war and heroes.
"For the sake of new life."
When the last embers died down, the charred wooden boat looked pitiful and battered.
However, at this moment, Grandpa Long glanced at his eldest grandson and said, "Go, kick it."
Long Ming tensed up, then took a deep breath and kicked the blackened, brittle piece of wood.
Thump!
Click.
Splash—
Beneath the charred wood fragments that had been shaken off, the submarine, gleaming with a metallic sheen, finally revealed its true form.
"My God..."
Lord Long exhaled a smoke ring: "Let me reintroduce it, Qianlong. I spent half a ship's worth of gold bars to buy the country's first batch of scientific submarines... a failed project."
"However, it has already been repaired."
Then, after waiting for decades, they were finally able to "enter the abyss from the shadows".
"A maximum diving depth of two thousand meters, is that enough to reach that underwater volcano?"
Even Gou Fugui was unable to recover from such a shocking change for a while.
He looked at the submarine, half the size but exuding an extremely sturdy metallic sheen, its gray and black surfaces blending together, and reached out to touch its icy surface, laughing.
That's enough.
There was more than he had imagined.
Although no voice of world consciousness told him or let him know that this was a crucial step in repairing the core of the world.
Master Long laughed heartily: "I knew you had a good eye. Shall we set off now?"
Gou Fugui turned his head and laughed as well.
At this moment, Captain Zhang Guoming, who had come to investigate because of the towering flames, looked at the metal submarine that had revealed its true form, and his expression was completely replaced by shock.
"Jiaolong?!"
Lord Long raised an eyebrow and glanced at him: "Look carefully, this is my Qianlong!"
Then, the shocked Captain Zhang heard words that were even more shocking and unbelievable than the transformation of an ordinary wooden boat into the Jiaolong.
He felt he couldn't process the information, so he immediately turned around and notified the Admiral.
Half an hour later, the general himself led his men to the island.
He looked at the somewhat familiar gray-black submarine, then looked at Master Long again, and suddenly remembered a legend of the "Sea Dragon King" that only the older generation knew.
That was a legendary story of helping the national navy turn defeat into victory during its most difficult time.
The general bowed deeply to Lord Long, and after listening to Gou Fugui and his men's plan to detonate the volcano, he remained silent for a long time before finally saluting the four warriors standing in front of him.
"I am truly ashamed."
"We are protecting our homeland, yet we have accomplished nothing at this most critical moment."
"This trip leaves you all with no choice but to fight to the death."
"I am speechless with shame, and can only sincerely wish you all a triumphant return."
Xie Tianlang, Song Sanchuan, and Si Wuyai returned the salute immediately. Gou Fugui was facing such a solemn and heartfelt thank you for the first time, and his emotions were mixed, but he quickly recovered and returned the salute.
"Please rest assured, we will definitely work hard and return victorious."
Over the next two days, the Washington Survivor Legion issued a notification of "Project Deep Sea Dragon" to all surviving nations and factions throughout the equatorial region.
The notice warns all survivors in the explored submarine volcanic areas at the junction of the equatorial plates to stay away from areas of active plate movement to avoid being accidentally injured.
This news caused an uproar among the many surviving powers and countries around the world.
Then came strong questioning and even condemnation.
Are the people of Washington insane? How could they possibly trigger an underwater volcano?! Isn't this like using one wolf to devour another?!
[That's impossible. While volcanic eruptions do generate a lot of heat, they also absorb a significant amount of heat once the temperature drops, making it impossible to break the global ice sheet!]
This kind of action is suicidal. Submarines are practically nonexistent nowadays, and do they even know how much energy and explosive force is needed to trigger a volcanic eruption?
Don't worry about it; it's just a ridiculous joke and delusion from the survivors of Washington State.
However, regardless of what the various forces in the equatorial region might think, in the past two days, all the survivors in Washington State have boarded cruise ships and warships and begun their journey to known safe waters far from volcanic and earthquake zones.
After all, the entire Indonesian archipelago is a volcanic island formed by tectonic plate movement, making it a veritable "land of volcanoes".
The actions of the Washington survivors have unsettled the governments and survivors in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Some people are vehemently criticizing Washington's far-fetched plan, which could potentially jeopardize their own operations.
However, many more rational people felt a mixture of unease and anticipation.
Even without Washington's Deep Sea Dragon Project, they wouldn't have survived much longer.
The whole world is frozen, and people are dying from the cold every day. When the equator is completely frozen, even those who survive will have no way to live.
In that case, why not throw everything aside and take a gamble!
Death is terrifying.
But what is more terrifying than death is to silently face it.
At least in the most dangerous moment, let out the most unwilling roar from the bottom of your heart.
Then, take action.
On the third day after the launch of Project Hidden Dragon in Washington, Malaysians, Indonesians, and other survivors on the equator who were still hoping for a better life left their homeland and seemingly safe settlements and set sail for safer waters.
At this time, in the equatorial sea, glaciers stretching from the North and South Poles can be seen with the naked eye.
It's as if the world will be completely frozen in the next day, the next hour, or the next second.
On the same day, Xie Tianlang, Gou Fugui, Song Sanchuan, and Si Wuyai boarded the Qianlong.
The other teammates had already left with the General and the others, only Long Ye and Long Ming, as the pilots of the Qianlong, had not left.
Originally, Lord Long wanted Long Ming to leave with the general and the others, but Long Ming stood firmly on the boat and wouldn't move an inch no matter how much Lord Long scolded or beat him.
"You stubborn mule!"
Long Ming looked at his old man and finally sneered, "Isn't it all because of you, you stubborn old mule?"
"Get out of my way, don't block my path to becoming a legend."
Grandpa Long kicked his grandson in the butt, and then suddenly laughed.
"Let's go! Let's go together, grandfather and grandson, and conquer mountains and seas again, to create a whole new world for them!"
Then, Gou Fugui touched the new necklace around his neck, stood on the submarine, and emitted an ultrasonic warning signal of "escape" from his throat to all the surrounding sea areas.
This is the vitality unique to marine life.
The cold sea breeze blew on his face, carrying him toward the underwater volcano.
“Fugui’er, this is the necklace that your grandmother has worn all her life. It’s not anything precious or rare, and there’s nothing special about it. It’s just that… I’ve worn it through chaotic times and witnessed countless ups and downs, right up to this day.”
"Grandma is giving this to you. You must come back safely."
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