The wind and snow seemed to be intensifying again, making everyone's work even more difficult.
Almost every hour, the surrounding environment changes. There used to be a small house not far away, but after a day of heavy snow, the house has disappeared without a trace, leaving only a small snow mound.
Lu Yuan was almost completely buried in the snowdrift, with his grandparents, Xiao Shan, and parents pulling him up from behind. Now everyone was divided into groups, clearing the snow path from several directions.
Unfortunately, the snow was accumulating too quickly. If you stopped what you were doing, the path you had just cleared would be completely covered up in no time.
"This won't do, Lu Yuan. At this rate, we'll never finish digging a road!"
Zhou Tong shook the snow off his body.
Lu Yuan put down the shovel in his hand and fell into deep thought as he looked at the snow layer that was two stories high.
"Was our initial plan flawed?"
"What do you mean?" Zhou Tong looked at Lu Yuan with some surprise.
"If we don't clear all the snow, but instead tunnel through from below, wouldn't the speed be significantly reduced?"
Zhou Tong was taken aback, then casually frowned: "We've considered this before, but the snow layer is like pork belly, layer upon layer. If we dig out the bottom layer, the top layer of snow might bury the bottom layer! We can't take that risk!"
Lu Yuan nodded, but then shook his head: "No, this kind of thing has happened before when we were digging tunnels! But we can learn from how others overcame landslides in the mountains!"
Thinking of this, Lu Yuan suddenly became excited and shouted loudly to the people working nearby, "Stop! Stop!"
Hearing Lu Yuan's words, everyone looked at each other, somewhat confused as to why Lu Yuan wanted them to stop. However, everyone was already exhausted, and upon hearing him call to stop, they all put down their tools and gathered around.
"Do we have anyone here who has worked on an engineering team? Preferably someone who has worked for the railway sector!"
The group exchanged glances and began searching for people they recognized.
After a short while, someone finally raised their hand.
"I used to work for the railway!"
"I used to be a railway worker!"
"I'm from the surveying department, is that okay?"
"..."
Several people raised their hands and explained their previous work departments.
Lu Yuan nodded: "Okay, all of you come over here! The rest of you go back and rest for a bit. Xiao Shan, you and Mom go and prepare the food! We'll make some hot soup later, let's eat first!"
Xiao Shan glanced at Lu Yuan with slight surprise: "Dinner's served so early?"
"Hmm! I've got an idea. Let's have a meeting to discuss it! That's all for today's work! We'll continue tomorrow!"
After explaining the situation, Lu Yuan led several key deputy team leaders and team members who had worked in the railway department to the tent.
Lu Yuan took out the few remaining filter cigarettes he had. He really regretted not buying more reusable cigarette holders. At that time, he didn't have much of a smoking habit, but since arriving in District 5, his smoking habit had started to increase. However, he didn't have many cigarettes left, so he could only take them out in critical moments.
After handing out cigarettes, Lu Yuan sat down and looked at everyone.
"How does everyone feel about the progress of this work lately?" Lu Yuan asked a seemingly pointless question first.
Everyone answered in unison, "Not very good."
Lu Yuan nodded and continued, "The main obstacle to our work right now is this damn heavy snow! When I came here, I observed that basically no group could advance fifty meters in one go. Even if they did, the road they had just cleared was covered by snow again!"
After taking a deep drag on his cigarette, Lu Yuan continued, "So, we need to change our approach. Since we can't level this blizzard, we'll dig a tunnel underneath, just like laying a railway through a mountain!"
Zhou Tong didn't speak because Lu Yuan had only told him about this once, and everyone else had been busy working, so they were all a little surprised after hearing Lu Yuan's words.
After taking a few puffs of his cigarette, Du Heng silently put it down and said, "Didn't we test this before? The snow is quite thick, but it's too thin. If we were to dig a tunnel underneath, it might collapse!"
The others nodded in agreement.
"That's right, it's too dangerous. There are ice layers and snow layers inside, and the weights are different. It doesn't take much effort to carve it out, but the safety cannot be guaranteed!"
"Yes, the snow layer mixed with ice is quite heavy. If we start digging rashly, it could cause the entire tunnel to collapse!"
"We don't have much time left. If there's a landslide, we'll have to start all over again, which is too much trouble!"
"..."
Everyone expressed their opinions, and the general consensus was that they disagreed with digging the tunnel, but they were unable to solve the key problem.
Finally, the entire conference room fell silent. No one was optimistic about digging the tunnel. After all, someone had just died, and now they were going to take another risk, so everyone was quite resistant to the idea.
Seeing that the work was not progressing smoothly, Lu Yuan was also at a loss as to what to do next.
Thick smoke billowed from the tent, and cigarette butts littered the ground. Everyone kept their heads down, not daring to look Lu Yuan in the eye.
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