Xu Jianguo slightly stepped on the brakes and turned to look at the old Taoist priest beside him. He found that his expression had also become serious. He said, "Master, we have reached the outskirts of Death Valley."
"Yeah, I feel it! This place is so fucking weird, there is no life at all!" said the old Taoist priest.
"Can it still be called Death Valley if there is life? What you said before was right. This must really be a place where lightning strikes!" Xu Jianguo said.
The old Taoist nodded without saying anything, his eyes fixed on the black forest ahead.
"Squeak!" The off-road RV stopped next to the dark woods. The two people in the car couldn't help but gasp at the scene in front of them.
Xu Jianguo rolled down the car window and immediately smelled a burnt smell from burning wood. He reached out to break off a branch, but the moment his fingers touched the black branch, the entire branch made a crisp cracking sound and then broke.
Xu Jianguo stepped on the foot brake, unbuckled his seat belt, opened the car door and jumped out. He picked up the broken branches that fell to the ground. The moment he picked up the branches, he could already confirm that these were trees that had been carbonized by high temperature. To put it bluntly, this entire forest of dozens of acres is now full of charcoal, and it is charcoal of very good quality. He didn't know how many years these charcoals have been here.
The old Taoist priest also jumped off the car, stood beside Xu Jianguo, took the charcoal in his hand and looked at it.
After a moment, the old Taoist priest said, "There are no signs of burns on these trees!"
"No burn marks? What does that mean?" Xu Jianguo asked in confusion.
"What I mean is that these carbonized woods were not burned, but were carbonized due to instantaneous high temperatures. The most likely cause is lightning strike!"
"How did you know that?"
"Idiot, have you ever seen anyone burning charcoal in an open place? What comes out of it is at most surface carbonization, or it can be simply called ash, not charcoal!" said the old Taoist priest angrily.
"Uh...you make sense!" Xu Jianguo said somewhat embarrassedly.
What the old Taoist priest said is absolutely right. Charcoal is the dark brown or black porous solid fuel left after incomplete combustion of wood or wood raw materials, or pyrolysis in an airtight environment.
It is obvious that there are no conditions to isolate the air here, so it is impossible that it is charcoal left by a fire. Even if it was a fire, it is impossible to preserve the entire tree or the entire forest so intact.
This can only be achieved with instantaneous, continuous, and absolutely high temperatures. When the instantaneous temperature reaches the critical point, the oxygen in the air will be rapidly consumed, causing a vacuum to form in a local area, thus achieving the conditions for charcoal to be isolated from the air and thermally decompose. Therefore, the old Taoist's statement is scientifically based.
Xu Jianguo and the old Taoist priest looked at each other and said nothing. After they jumped into the car, the vehicle started again and drove towards the depths of the woods.
The old Taoist priest looked ahead and did not notice the scene behind the car. He only saw that wherever the off-road RV passed, patches of black forest disappeared.
Xu Jianguo raised the corners of his mouth slightly, and drove leisurely towards the location of the red coordinates. He collected at least dozens of tons of natural charcoal along the way. He planned to wait for Funiu to wake up and then take the little girl to grill lamb skewers. He thought she would be very happy!
The vehicle drove for nearly forty minutes before reaching the edge of the black forest, and the soil on the ground had turned purple-red.
The two looked at the endless black land in front of them, and at the same time felt a strong sense of oppression and suffocation in their hearts, like fish out of water. After taking a few deep breaths involuntarily, they gradually recovered.
The old Taoist priest looked at Xu Jianguo and found that he was also looking at him. After the two nodded to each other, Xu Jianguo started the car again and drove forward.
Looking at the dark land outside the car window, Xu Jianguo felt a little uneasy in his heart. He didn't know if it was a psychological reason, but he felt that the clouds in the sky seemed to be lower than before.
Because the soil was soft, the vehicle was moving very slowly. Xu Jianguo drove for more than ten minutes and nothing unusual happened, so he couldn't help but relax a little.
However, at this moment, a dazzling white light suddenly flashed outside the car window. Xu Jianguo's heart tightened suddenly. He braked to stop the car, then stepped on the foot brake and quickly turned off the engine. Then he pressed two buttons on the center console, pushed open the door leading to the rear compartment, and dragged the old Taoist priest in.
Just as the two men arrived at the RV rest area, a loud noise was heard outside the car, followed by a blue lightning as thick as a bowl striking the black land not far from the RV, raising a wisp of white smoke. Xu Jianguo and the old Taoist priest frowned, as if facing a great enemy.
One of the two buttons that Xu Jianguo pressed before was used to control the vehicle body support column. It has independent hydraulic and power supply systems and can still be operated even if the vehicle is turned off.
Another button is used to control the lightning rod on the roof. The lightning rod is connected to the support column. Its function is to conduct current into the ground to ensure the safety of people and electrical appliances in the vehicle.
Just as the two men hid in the car, four metal hydraulic support columns extended from the chassis of the vehicle, lifting up the entire off-road RV. Four metal antennas as high as seven or eight meters also extended from the top of the car.
These functions were specially added by Xu Jianguo when purchasing the equipment to deal with lightning strikes in Death Valley. He was not sure whether this method would be useful, but it was at least an additional way to avoid lightning.
Xu Jianguo called the system in his mind and tried to enter the space again, but there was no response. He knew that the system had failed again and couldn't help but curl his lips.
"It seems that I can only rely on the car. I hope it can hold up." Xu Jianguo thought to himself.
As the first flash of lightning struck, the entire world fell into darkness. Through the car window glass, one could only see flashes of dazzling white light, which looked very much like the strobe light on a camera.
The clicking sound continued, making the two men dizzy. Xu Jianguo staggered to his feet, took out two noise-isolating earplugs and a headset from the cabinet, and after putting them on himself and the old Taoist priest, they both felt much better.
Sitting on the floor in the rest area, Xu Jianguo could clearly feel the vibration of the vehicle. The night light by the door flickered, indicating that the vehicle's voltage was unstable.
The lightning continued for more than ten minutes and there was still no sign of stopping. Xu Jianguo's nervousness did not subside at all, but became even more worried.
You have to know that lightning is penetrating. If the intensity of the current exceeds the limit that the RV's "Faraday cage" can withstand, then the lightning may penetrate the car. At that time, he and the old Taoist priest seem to have no better way out than to transform into two charred corpses.
Just as he was daydreaming, there was a sudden "pop" sound in the carriage. The light bulb of the flickering night light by the door shattered directly, and the entire carriage fell into darkness.
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