Thanks to the perfect teamwork between Fugui Cat and Xie Langren, the hot asphalt road was covered with a layer of "pad" in less than three minutes.
Although some suitcases are clearly made of plastic and are not heat-resistant, it is enough to allow people to walk on them briefly on that section of asphalt road.
Moreover, Song Sanchuan was the second to lead the way. He was carrying two large cloth bags in his hands as he walked. When he stepped over the "bag mat" that had been laid out, he threw down two more cloth bags next to the suitcase that was clearly starting to melt, giving the people following behind more options for their actions.
Seeing Song Sanchuan's actions, the third woman, who was arranged by Xie Tianlang to walk, carried her son on her back and let him carry an empty cloth bag. Although she was a little slow, she steadily carried her child across the sun-baked road.
The little boy, who had lost his shoes, watched intently as his mother stood on the suitcase and backpack, then filled the gap in his cloth bag with it.
One by one, the not-so-long asphalt road was soon covered with bags and some strange things that could be used as stepping stones.
A burly man even crushed the soda can in his hand with his bare hands, intending to throw it on the ground as a stepping stone.
Gou Fugui stood at the entrance of the passage watching the crowd approach. Seeing that everyone moved quickly and in an orderly manner, he finally felt relieved. Only then did he realize that he was covered in sweat and was showing signs of dehydration.
At this moment, Xie Tianlang had not yet left the train station exit. He looked at the long-haired girl who was silently squatting on the ground with her father and the middle-aged man who had fainted from the heat. In the end, he simply picked up the man by his shoulders and legs. Although he wanted to carry him on his back or lift him up, the man's front body had already suffered severe burns, so he didn't want to make his injuries worse.
The long-haired girl's eyes flashed with shock for a moment when she saw Xie Tianlang pick up her father, followed by an overwhelming sense of gratitude.
"Thanks."
She only said those two words, but Xie Tianlang could hear the seriousness in her voice.
Let's go.
The girl nodded. Although everyone was pessimistic about her father's chances of survival, he was her father! Anyone else could abandon him, but she could never give up even the slightest hope.
Even if the process is painful and her father will be disfigured in the end, she still hopes that he can persevere and survive.
As long as you're alive, as long as you're alive, that's enough.
At 8:26 a.m., the hundreds of people near the exit and those who ran out of the waiting hall finally entered the subway area, which was not yet built and only had one underground passage dug.
In addition, some train station staff who had escaped the fire and explosion saw the crowd's movements and also headed in this direction. Whether they would arrive safely depended on their luck and abilities.
The road has already been paved; there's no need for people to carry it.
At this moment, hundreds of people inside the subway station were sitting on the ground, resting and catching their breath. Although only a forward passage and ramps had been dug, and the ground was just flattened soil without any flooring, the cool air from the earth, compared to the excessively hot outside, finally allowed everyone to relax for a moment.
"My God, I've never been this hot in my life... Why is this happening? This doesn't look like a drought, is it the end of the world?" A slightly chubby young man leaned against the soil, panting, trying to cool himself down with the coolness of the soil.
"Who knows? Now I want to laugh when I think about what the experts said a week ago that it wasn't a big deal, just that the Earth was entering a warming period. Do they think I haven't studied geography? During a warming period, although global temperatures are rising, there will also be more rainfall, so it's an overall mild temperature increase."
A girl wearing glasses spoke with her eyes closed: "But during the warm season, there's no situation where the temperature rises by tens of degrees in a single day, or spring turns into a sauna."
"So what do you think happened that turned our once peaceful world into this state?"
The girl with glasses opened her eyes upon hearing this. Seeing that many people were looking at her, she pursed her lips and said, "The sudden extreme high temperature could be due to the simultaneous eruption of many volcanoes around the world, or some problem with the Earth's core."
"But at least in the past week, there haven't been any major volcanic eruptions, so the Earth's core problem is deep-seated and doesn't align with reality. Therefore..."
"So what?"
The girl with glasses subconsciously looked up at the sky, only to find that what was above her was no longer blue sky and blazing sun, but brown earth. She paused for a moment: "So... it's more likely that there's something wrong with the sun."
"It's possible that a sudden burst of solar energy directly affected Earth, which is the third planet from the Sun in its orbit."
"It's also possible that something happened in the universe that we don't know or can't monitor, causing Earth to change its original gravitational orbit and get closer to the sun."
"...Anyway, today's sudden temperature rise is almost certainly related to the sun, and humanity still hasn't figured out the reason."
And even if we eventually find out the reason, what then?
The girl with glasses leaned against the mud wall and said, "Are we capable of building some incredibly advanced technology under such high temperatures to change the Earth's orbit and the sun, or will we have Hou Yi from mythology to help us shoot down the blazing sun hanging high in the sky?"
"Wake up. The end of the world has really come. If the temperature continues to rise, it won't be long before the entire Earth and all living things on it perish."
Gou Fugui frowned slightly, unsure of what to say at this moment.
But some older people couldn't stand it: "Pah, pah, pah, young lady, don't talk nonsense. What do you mean by the end of the world or extinction? How can you just die like that?"
"Maybe the temperature won't rise any further after today or tomorrow. And don't be so pessimistic. We should always have faith in the power of the country. Human will can conquer nature."
“We old folks can die and that’s it, but you kids still have so much of your lives to live. You should at least live well.”
Then, no one spoke in the tunnel of the subway station.
Until a little girl couldn't help but call out to her mother, "Mommy, I'm so hot and thirsty, I want to drink water."
The girl's mother's face immediately showed a look of heartache and distress, because the water she brought had long been drunk by her child, and now she had not a single drop of water left for her child.
As soon as one person spoke, the others immediately felt their throats dry and burning as if they were about to burst into flames.
Of the hundreds of people present, very few had water, and they couldn't help but clutch their bottles or backpacks tightly, hardly the type to give their water to others.
"Sweetie, wait a little longer. We can go out in the afternoon when the sun isn't so strong. Then Mommy will take you to buy water! Now, just bear with it and take a nap, okay? If you fall asleep, you won't be thirsty or uncomfortable anymore."
The little girl was clearly a very sensible child; although she was very thirsty, she still obediently nodded.
Then everyone was looking forward to the recovery after 5 p.m. However, it was as if God was deliberately making things difficult for them. After enduring eight extremely unbearable hours of scorching heat, it was almost 5 p.m., which should have been the time for the temperature to drop, but almost no one in the cave felt the temperature drop.
"...It's almost five o'clock. Is it just my imagination? Why don't I feel the temperature dropping?"
"I don't have any... I'll go up and check."
An impatient person would stand up and want to go up, but Gou Fugui and Xie Tianlang had been standing at the cave entrance for more than ten minutes.
"The temperature has only dropped one degree since eight o'clock in the morning. It's 67 degrees Celsius outside now." Gou Fugui looked at his watch, then at the sky.
"The sky is overcast, but the temperature hasn't dropped."
"And there's hot air."
Gou Fugui found the scene rather absurd: "According to my common sense, after a particularly hot and humid summer, it usually rains?"
"Do you think it will rain at this temperature?"
Xie Tianlang glanced at the obviously overcast sky, but before he could answer, the man who had climbed up noticed the gloomy sky and the sultry wind. After a moment of surprise, his face suddenly lit up with joy: "It's going to rain!"
"The temperature will definitely drop once it rains! That's a good thing!"
Then he went back and shared the good news with everyone.
But Gou Fugui felt that this was probably not good news.
"I have enough storage space in my inventory to allow us to leave now, but if we leave..."
Xie Tianlang glanced at him and shook his head: "I don't know how many people have died from this heatwave. We should save them if we can. Besides, you brought most of our belongings with you. Wherever you are, that's our home."
Therefore, you can stay.
Gou Fugui looked at his family's farmhand and laughed: "Then let him stay for now."
"Although the temperature is still high, at least the sun is blocked, so we can take this opportunity to find some food or water."
He had originally planned to sneak the food and water into the subway station below, but then felt it would be too conspicuous. Now, however, was a good time to move the things.
The fire at the train station is still burning, and it's unknown whether the nearby restaurants and supermarkets have been affected.
Just then, a dozen or so people suddenly ran out of the subway tunnel. They looked at the sky, which was indeed full of dark clouds and had no sun, and shouted with joy.
"Hurry, hurry, let's head home now! The sun's gone, and the temperature will keep dropping! If it rains again, it'll be much more comfortable on the way. There's still a fire going on next door, and the air quality down here isn't good either, so let's get out of here quickly!"
Many people below shared the same idea as these dozen or so others, and were easily persuaded to leave now and walk home.
However, some people dared not act rashly and wanted to wait and see, and wait until nightfall to make a decision.
Gou Fugui also added a reminder at the exit: "The temperature hasn't completely dropped yet, and it's after a sudden heat wave. We don't know what the first rain will be like. Why don't we wait until it rains, or until the temperature drops completely tonight?"
However, impatient and arrogant people cannot listen to others' reminders. Although they did not speak ill of Gou Fugui, they still left quickly with a polite but fake smile.
Dozens of people left at once, and after another half hour, seeing that the rain had not stopped and the temperature had finally dropped a bit, even fewer people were willing to stay. Nearly half, or two or three hundred people, left.
As they walked out of the subway station exit, a faint rumble of thunder could be heard in the sky.
Some people subconsciously paused, while others quickened their pace.
5:48 PM.
A bolt of lightning, almost crimson red, ripped through the dense clouds, accompanied by a deafening roar of thunder, announcing the arrival of the first "hot rain" in Huazhou Changshi after the unusually high temperatures.
A torrential downpour descended from the sky, accompanied by a visible "fog." This "fog" from the hot rain quickly filled the entire area between heaven and earth, blurring people's vision.
When hot raindrops hit the ground, instead of cooling the scorching earth, they brought about an even more terrible chain reaction.
A piercing scream echoed from the plaza ahead.
Those were people who had just left not long ago.
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