Chapter 57 Mountain Tunnel - 1 The Slope is Gone...
With the slope no longer an obstacle, the three returned to the RV to rest. Anderson sat down on the camping chair and remained motionless like a grandpa.
Tang Bufan and Lu Yi looked at the empty carriage, and couldn't help but feel melancholy. They looked at each other for a moment, then smiled at each other, feeling relieved.
As long as you are alive, things will accumulate again, and new memories will appear.
"Lu Yi, come on, let's lay down some animal hides on the ground!" Tang Bufan said optimistically to Lu Yi.
Lu Yi looked at him gently and nodded.
The interior of the carriage was very cold, with frost forming in the corners, and wisps of cold air constantly seeping in through the gaps between the doors and windows. Laying down animal hides would make it much warmer.
Kai Ge continued to slowly drive the RV forward, occasionally drifting slightly as the wheels slipped on the ice. However, since they were already on the ground, there was no danger; at most, they would bump into the surrounding trees.
They had no idea how thick the snow was above them, and it was pitch black below, day and night. As for Kai, who was an AI, there was no need for rest. The sooner he could take Tang Bufan away from this mountain range, the sooner he could get some sun and electricity.
It didn't tell Tang Bufan that there was only one barrel of fuel left.
Anderson sat in a camping chair looking at a map, while Anthony projected a virtual screen into the air. They were currently located in the middle of the Greater Khingan Mountains, and it would be quite a journey to reach the Northeast Plain.
“Teacher, you sleep here. Let’s make this area a bit thicker.” Lu Yi took off his boots, squatted on the animal skin, and pointed to where the iron bed used to be.
He planned to sleep here with Tang Bufan, and Anderson would sleep in the area where the shelves used to be. The right side of the carriage would be left as an aisle, while the left side would be covered with animal hides.
Tang Bufan also took off his shoes, revealing his feet covered with three layers of socks, and lay on all fours on the flat, worn-out cotton quilt.
"Huh?" Anderson suddenly exclaimed in surprise.
The two people on the ground looked up. Anderson was looking at a webpage. He looked at Lu Yi meaningfully, waved his hand at the virtual screen in the air, and the screen turned to face him.
The above is a news article:
The Western Federation and the Western Dungeon have successfully concluded their discussions on cooperation regarding flying machine technology, and the orcs will now have their own flying machine manufacturing plant!
Lu Yi was slightly taken aback, while Anderson sat on the camping chair with a half-smile, his feet, clad in military boots, crossed over: "What kind of deal did your father make with humans to make them willing to hand over their aircraft technology?"
Orcs' technology was far behind that of humans. The first generation of orcs were all muscular male prisoners. The humans in the dungeons did not use women for experiments, nor did they use highly intelligent people. So even when the scientist later led a group of people to rebel, it only raised the level of orcs' genetic science, while other fields remained backward.
Although Tang Bufan did not fully understand this post-apocalyptic world, he knew that the aircraft mentioned in the news was not a 21st-century airplane, but the hovercraft that the man in the white coat had ridden when he came to pick him up. It had no wings and did not emit fire, and could rise and fall in all directions. It was a very advanced levitation technology.
It's said to combine geomagnetic levitation with ion levitation, but Tang Bufan doesn't know anything more about that.
Tang Bufan knelt on the mattress and turned to look at Lu Yi, noticing that Lu Yi was looking at the virtual screen with a slight frown.
But he quickly looked away and calmly continued to help Tang Bufan lay out the animal hides.
“He’s probably posed another threat to humanity.” Lu Yi’s golden-green eyes were colder than usual. “My father was that kind of person.”
The transfer of cutting-edge technology would further expand the orcs' advantage over humans, so the humans in the dungeons keep a close eye on the technology.
Anderson sat there leisurely, his tone gloating: "Hans always acts very quickly. He should be able to get the first batch of aircraft built in about six months. Do you think he'll just fly over and grab you then?"
Lu Yi frowned slightly, his voice low: "No one can take me away."
Anderson looked at Tang Bufan, a wicked smirk playing on his lips: "What if they kidnap Madam?"
Tang Bufan was stunned, and Lu Yi turned to look at him. Tang Bufan then said awkwardly, "Why are you arresting me... I should have already arrived at the East District Underground City by then."
After saying that, he solemnly repeated to Anderson, "Please call me Tang Bufan, not Madam."
"I was clearly trying to help you get used to it in advance with good intentions," Anderson said with a smile. "Madam~"
Tang Bufan was disgusted by his cloying shout and realized that there was no point in arguing with him, so he could only helplessly continue to lay out the mattress.
Since most of the meat in the refrigerator had been thrown away, Lu opened the door, crawled into the snow, picked up a frozen wild boar from nearby, and ate the frozen raw meat with Anderson.
Tang Bufan used an induction cooker to fry the meat, but without lettuce, he found the meat too greasy and only ate a little bit.
To save fuel, the three of them went to bed early so they could turn off the lights. Anderson deliberately slept in the spot where the shelf used to be, with his feet facing them, forcing Tang Bufan and Lu Yi to change their position and also turn their feet towards him.
Lu Yi still held Tang Bufan while sleeping, warming the bed for him. After the first time, he got used to holding Tang Bufan. Before Tang Bufan fell asleep, he could feel Lu Yi gently touching his body in the blanket.
Touching his cold hands, then his cold chest... Tang Bufan later realized that he was checking his own heartbeat.
It made people feel really embarrassed.
The RV slowly drove under the deep snow, and the three of them gradually fell asleep as it swayed. After an unknown amount of time, Kai suddenly made a sound in the darkness.
"Lu Yi, please come to the driver's seat."
Lu Yi immediately opened her glowing eyes, first slightly raising her body to look at Tang Bufan beside her. Seeing that the man was fast asleep with his eyes closed and long eyelashes, she couldn't help but lower her head and kiss his forehead with affection before carefully getting out of bed to keep out the cold.
When he got up, he found Anderson watching him in the dark, his silver eyes gleaming, his tall figure only an outline in the darkness.
"How could he be so sleazy, secretly kissing someone?" Anderson commented on Lu Yi with disdain.
Lu blushed and whispered to herself, "The teacher doesn't dislike me kissing him."
"But she didn't agree to be with you, did she?" Anderson sneered, walking towards the driver's seat with Lu Yi.
The alloy door, covered in a thin layer of frost, opened, and a chilly, misty draft rushed in. The temperature in the driver's cab was extremely low, so Kai had allocated almost all of the heating to the passenger compartment.
Two orcs entered the driver's seat and saw a terrain scan map projected onto the windshield, showing an arched tunnel beneath a tree-lined hillside.
“This is…” Lu Yi immediately leaned closer to the windshield to take a closer look. He ran his fingers across the frosted glass and saw the remnants of an asphalt road below the tunnel, but the surface was almost completely hidden by vegetation.
“I spotted this road remnant three hours ago. Because of the asphalt, trees can’t grow too tall, making it easy for the RV to drive along it. But now there’s a tunnel ahead,” Kai’s gentle electronic male voice said. “Anthony’s radar range is limited. I need you to get out and check if we should take this road.”
Lu Yi then turned to Anderson beside him and said, "Check if this road is on the satellite map."
Anderson raised his wrist, and Anthony projected the virtual screen into the air, telling the two in a childish voice, "Daddy~ Brother Louis~ There's no information about this tunnel on satellite maps or the internet. It's a tunnel highway from a thousand years ago~"
"Can't we determine which ancient Chinese road it is based on satellite positioning?" Anderson asked his son.
"Reporting, Dad~ The Western Federation's database doesn't contain ancient Chinese road maps from a thousand years ago! Nor does the Eastern Federation's public database~ The prediction has been removed from its historical data list~"
Due to resource scarcity and the aging of data warehouses, storage space is limited. Therefore, both orcs and dungeon humans delete some useless historical data from the database every year, such as villages and towns that have long since disappeared. If they do not have important historical significance, they will not be preserved in the database for thousands of years.
Hearing what Anthony said, Lu Yi looked back at the dark tunnel and ordered Kai Ge, "Drive to the entrance first, I'll get out and walk a bit to take a look."
Kai then restarted the RV, the engine groaning heavily. After passing through a section of road covered in thick snow, the RV followed the road tracks into a tunnel, where the snow suddenly disappeared, revealing complete darkness inside.
Kai turned on the roof spotlight, and Lu Yi and Anderson jumped out of the driver's seat one on each side.
The tunnel was very large, with two lanes in each direction and no guardrails in the middle. The tunnel lights on the roof were completely obscured by dust, and the air smelled terrible.
The two walked to the front of the RV. Lu Yi looked down at the muddy road and found many animal footprints.
“The tunnel is open.” Lu Yi made a quick judgment, sniffing the strong smell of blood in the air: “The beast tide passed through here.”
If the road is blocked, it will be covered with the carcasses of wild animals, just like the hillside they descended.
Anderson crouched down, picked up a hair from the mud with his fingers, and squinted as he added, "The Poison Man also passed through here."
Some of the poisoners still retain hair and are not completely bald, and this hair, which is over twenty centimeters long and black, is clearly theirs.
Lu Yi walked around again and saw many frozen animal carcasses. There were also streams of blood flowing like icy streams along the edge of the tunnel, emitting a foul stench. However, there were no corpses of poisonous people around.
"Is it a mutated poison person or a regular poison person?" Lu Yi asked Anderson, wondering if he could tell the difference.
“I can’t tell.” Anderson tossed the hair aside, his silver-gray eyes gazing into the dark tunnel ahead. “We’ll have to keep going to find out.”
The tunnel is much warmer than outside, so it's obvious that poisonous people are hiding inside to spend the winter.
The two orcs exchanged a glance and decided to take this route. Firstly, they were certain that the road was passable, and secondly, the tunnel ran east-west, so following it might allow them to leave the snow-covered Greater Khingan Mountains and enter the Northeast Plain.
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