After saying this, Hei Tao closed the door. When Bai Liu opened it again, he had already disappeared in the heavy snow.

...Maybe this means to compete with him fairly?

Bai Liu raised an eyebrow, closed the door, pinched his numb fingertips, put on his offensive jacket, turned around and saw Tang Er beating them.

Tang Erda also put on a thick assault suit and exhaled a puff of white air when he spoke: "--The power supply in the house is turned off. We need to turn on the insulation system for maintenance, otherwise we will all freeze to death."

"Do you know how to repair it?" Bai Liu asked.

Tang Er nodded: "I have been trained in similar extreme environments, and I can use the basic equipment, but I have to go outside to inspect it. The wind speed here is too strong, and someone needs to hold my safety rope, otherwise I will be blown away."

"I'll follow you." Mu Sicheng put on his protective clothing without hesitation.

The two men quickly tied the safety ropes around their waists, opened the door, and after struggling to move a few times in the blizzard that was so severe that the door could hardly be closed, they went outside.

Not long after, Mu Sicheng and Tang Erda came back with the safety rope. Bai Liu, who was guarding the door, immediately closed it.

In just a short while, the snow that blew in from the gap of the open door had frozen into ice and stuck to the back of the door. Mu Sicheng tried with trembling teeth to take the safety rope off the hook beside the door, but his hands were too cold and he failed several times. Later, Mu Ke helped him to get it.

"It's... so damn cold!" Mu Sicheng's feet were jumping up and down due to the cold. He breathed heavily into his hands, trying to warm himself up.

Bai Liu noticed that Mu Sicheng simply went outside, and in less than ten minutes there and back, his hands were already frozen blue and purple, and his knuckles could not bend, looking like a piece of flesh with gangrene.

It wasn't until the light bulbs in the room lit up one by one as the power was restored that Bai Liu could really see where they were.

In front of me was a very narrow, low ventilation duct, the walls of which were made of solid container shed panels, a material generally used to build temporary residences on construction sites. Bright incandescent light bulbs hung overhead, and the windows on both sides of the wall were surrounded by sealing strips. Through the half-frozen windows, I could see the howling blizzard outside.

My sight fell to the end of the ventilation duct, where a sign was nailed crookedly, which read: [Edmund South Pole Station].

Bai Liu looked at the sign for a few seconds, then he lowered his head and opened his system panel, which was filled with notifications that he had not checked yet.

[System prompt: Welcome to the game "Ice Age"]

[System prompt: Players have obtained the main game mission - Global Warming]

[Game background: One year ago, a sudden and never-ending snowstorm swept across the world from Antarctica. Along with the lowering of temperature, the shifting of ocean currents, and the thickening of clouds, various places began to freeze over...]

[…The Antarctic ice sheet seems to have become a pervasive disease that has begun to spread throughout the world. Meteorologists say that due to some force majeure, we have been forced into another ice age since the Fourth Ice Age. Unprepared humans have died in large numbers due to food shortages and extremely cold weather…]

[Afterwards, all scientific research activities in Antarctica were forced to stop, and you, an explorer who got inside information, were told that all this was related to a shady scientific research activity in Antarctica. You, who were keen on exploration, gathered your own team and, with funding from the Antarctic United Glacier Company, came to Antarctica to explore the cold secrets under the layers of ice.]

[You arrived in Antarctica by plane, but lost your way in a snowstorm. In an emergency, you found this abandoned observation post on the snow and forced your way in to escape the snowstorm.]

[——Players, please remember that you are a great explorer! Please have the courage to explore and discover, find out the truth, and make the world warm again! ]

[Current progress of the main mission: 0%]

[Player's current location: Edmond South Pole Observation and Research Station]

At this time, Mu Sicheng also finished reading the game introduction and couldn't help but complain: "What is this? Isn't the real world experiencing global warming? What the hell is entering the Ice Age?"

Liu Jiayi was completely wrapped in a thick down jacket. Compared with adults like Bai Liu, children were more sensitive to temperature. As soon as she entered the game, she found various clothes for herself and wrapped herself up like a ball.

After reading the game introduction, she frowned and reminded: "Bai Liu, the game pool simulates a league. In the game pool, our store trading system is closed and we cannot buy any items from the store. If this is the case, food and warm clothes are our first problem to solve."

"Otherwise, we won't be able to stay for a few days, and we will quit the game on our own initiative."

Bai Liu agreed with Liu Jiayi's opinion. He nodded and gave the order: "Mu Ke, go search the warehouse for food storage, Tang Erda and Mu Sicheng, go inspect the entire building and use it as our base for exploration. Jiayi and I will go to the control room to see if there is a black box or a diary recording what happened here a year ago."

"Okay, got it!"

After receiving the order, everyone dispersed. Bai Liu and Liu Jiayi began to look for the control room of the base - fortunately, the base was not particularly large, so they found it quickly.

Unfortunately, the door of the control room was open and there was a lot of snow inside, which is now slowly melting under the heating system that is being restored.

Looking at the control panel covered with frost and snow, Liu Jiayi rubbed his hands and sighed maturely: "It looks like we have to wait for Tang Er to call them over to see if the black box can be repaired."

Bai Liu half-knelt down, put on gloves, took a chisel and began to knock on the gaps in the drawer - these places were also sealed by solidified ice, and the ice had to be cleared away first in order to open the drawer.

Fortunately, the ice in these places was not thick, and Bai Liu chiseled it off in just a few strokes.

Bai Liu opened the drawer that was rattling and shaking. There was no accumulated dust in the drawer, but it was covered with a layer of condensed snow. After brushing it off, she could see some black leather notebooks stored inside.

According to Bai Liu's common sense, in horror games, this kind of notebook is usually used for the plot, which means there must be records like diaries in it.

But the moment he opened it, he froze.

Liu Jiayi, who was looking through other drawers, saw Bai Liu holding a notebook and didn't move, so she curiously leaned over and said, "This notebook looks very interesting, why don't you say anything..."

The moment Liu Jiayi saw the contents of Bai Liu's notebook, she also paused subtly.

The book is neatly written and fluent, all in printed English.

As a social animal, Bai Liu encountered a lot of English reading when making horror games, but it was relatively simple. However, reading this large, dense English research diary mixed with a lot of professional vocabulary...

Bai Liu closed the book calmly and said, "Let Mu Ke see it later. I don't understand it."

Liu Jiayi also didn’t understand: “…”

Although she knew rationally that it was normal for Bai Liu not to understand, after all, intelligence and language ability were not the same thing, why did she find it so strange...

Edmund Observatory is not very big, with a total of four floors.

The first floor is the storage area. Fuel, food, fresh water and outdoor clothing are all stored in different warehouses on this floor, wrapped in layers of plastic sheeting. Two helicopter hangars are exposed outdoors, with only a simple shed for cover.

The second floor is the living area, which has a sauna, dining room, office area, and several computers that have been there for who knows how long.

The third and fourth floors are dormitories, or living quarters. They are extremely cramped, with two bunk beds crammed into an area of ​​less than five square meters. A chilling warmth can be felt amid the crowds.

Judging from the dormitories and residences, the base can accommodate about eighty to one hundred people. Normally, the living quarters should be quite crowded, but now it is empty, yet there is an eerily lively feeling.

Liu Jiayi's eyes swept from the solidified noodles on the dining table, the half-cut and already moldy potatoes on the chopping board, to the gas switch that was turned to high heat.

"The people here must have left in a hurry," she concluded.

Bai Liu walked down from the corner of the third floor and slightly corrected Liu Jiayi's theory: "——Or rather, she was kidnapped in a hurry."

Liu Jiayi looked up.

Bai Liu shook a pair of underwear and socks in his hand and said, "I found them next to the bed in the dormitory. I don't think anyone would run outside in such cold weather without even wearing underwear and socks."

Liu Jiayi questioned: "Is it possible that these people were frightened by something and ran away without even putting on their clothes?"

"Unlikely." After checking the warehouse, Mu Ke came up from the corner stairs on the first floor. He looked at Liu Jiayi, "I just visited their exhibition hall. The personnel of Edmund Observatory are professional mountaineers, firefighters, and well-trained scientific researchers. They have won many honors and have been tested in various extreme scenes. It is difficult for ordinary situations to scare them all like this."

Mu Ke said as he glanced at the half-eaten food.

"They should know very well that running away without taking anything is no different from committing suicide."

Mu Sicheng and Tang Er came down from the rooftop on the fourth floor. They had just gone to inspect the radio tower.

Mu Sicheng's cheeks turned blue from the cold. After coming down, he found a dormitory and curled up under the quilt, then began to kick his legs and shiver wildly.

Tang Er seemed to be in better condition, but when he took off his gloves, Bai Liu saw that a piece of bloody skin was stuck to the palm of his hand. The bloody wound was exposed to the air, but not a drop of blood flowed out.

Because it was too cold, the blood coagulated.

Tang Erda noticed Bai Liu's gaze and explained, "The platform was too cold, and I couldn't adjust the tight equipment with my gloves on, so I took off my gloves and touched it—"

"——and then a piece of skin was stuck to the metal on top?" Bai Liu continued the second half of the sentence.

Liu Jiayi took out the antidote spray and sprayed it on Tang Er's palm. The wound healed slowly, but Mu Sicheng, who was freezing to death on the bed, did not get any better. He seemed to be breathing out more than breathing in.

The antidote can heal wounds, but it cannot cure the cold.

"I saw the weather thermometer outside." Tang Er shook his recovered hand, and looked up at Bai Liu solemnly, "--The temperature is more than 50 degrees below zero. We can't stay in this extreme weather for long. We will be frozen to death soon. We must quit quickly--" Game...

Mu Ke, who was reading the black leather book given to him by Bai Liu, turned pale and blue. He interrupted Tang Erda with a trembling voice: "--This Edmund Observatory studies the corpses sent by the Bureau of Heresy."

Tang Er's heart skipped a beat and he denied it without hesitation: "Impossible, the Heretic Administration's things are stipulated by conventions. They are not provided to any country for economic, military, cultural or political research. The only research purpose of the Heretic Administration can only be containment!"

"The people from District Three are here to support us. There are also five people from District One who are escorting us. They can't let anyone else study the things of the Heretic Administration!"

Mu Ke let out a long breath, and the water vapor in front of his eyes turned into a layer of frost that made it impossible to see his expression. He spoke in a very soft voice:

"What if I told you that the plane carrying the corpse heretics crashed when it reached Antarctica, and the five escorts on the plane died instantly?"

The author has something to say:

Everything in this story is just nonsense, don't take it seriously, my friends!