Chapter 105: Wei County

Chapter 105: Wei County

"The mission to clock in at the new service desk of the Wei County rescue station within two hours has been completed. You have gained 20% progress towards Level 5 of the life raft; an additional 15% progress bonus; and 2 spin draws. (Current progress for Level 5 life raft: 60%)."

In fact, Shu Fu had a premonition when she saw the accumulated snow outside and the ongoing blizzard.

The mission had indeed been completed. This time, both the base progress bar and the additional progress bonus were quite high, directly pushing the progress of the Level 5 life raft past the halfway mark. The mission seemed to be telling her in this way how important this simple encounter was, and that it involved more than one person.

With a little thought, Shu Fu could understand. The freezing rain had trapped the buses and people in Wei County. Even if she hadn’t come, Cheng Yu and the others would have encountered the survivors and couldn’t have ignored them. They would have definitely detoured to take people back to Wei County and would have gone back to the mountain road to rescue another group.

Such a round trip would inevitably delay their progress. Perhaps they wouldn’t have been able to reach the next rescue station town before dark.

They were driving a six-wheeled light armored transport vehicle, capable of traversing mountains and rivers, mainly for carrying people and goods, not a tracked vehicle with a front shovel. When the apocalyptic blizzard hit that night, if they were trapped in the wild, they could have been stuck by the several meters of accumulated snow or encountered other disasters caused by the blizzard on the mountain road.

At that point, whether they could survive, and how many, would be uncertain.

The accidental encounter kept Liu Shuang, Cheng Yu, and their group. No matter how bad the conditions in Wei County were now, being trapped in the wild and hiding inside a building were fundamentally different.

There weren’t many spin draws, only two, and it wasn’t a good time, so she continued to accumulate the spin draws.

The blizzard lasted for four full days. At the lowest temperature at night, the temperature near the windowsill measured -40 degrees Celsius, and the snow outside reached a thickness of over three meters, completely submerging the first floor. Looking out from the second floor, it effectively turned the second floor into the first.

Such a snow volume had long exceeded the blizzard red warning signal. If there were still a network at this time, everyone's phones would display a series of red warning icons.

Unfortunately, the network had long been cut off.

The walkie-talkies on both Shu Fu and Cheng Yu's sides were temporarily unusable due to the low temperature, and then the batteries had issues. Shortly after she replaced the batteries, the walkie-talkie shut itself off.

Even the satellite signal was affected by the weather. The message Shu Fu sent to Chen Fa was only replied to after half a day. The situation in Chamu County was the same as in Wei County, no, it should be said it was even worse.

They first had heavy rain, followed by a continuous shift to heavy freezing rain and ice pellets, and finally a seamless transition to a major blizzard. Overnight, the entire county was frozen, with lower buildings buried, many less sturdy roofs collapsed, and traffic completely blocked.

Fortunately, the house they settled in this time was relatively large and remote, with a hay storage warehouse next to it. The warehouse was large and sturdy, allowing them to directly release the life raft indoors and test the cabin's cold resistance at extremely low temperatures.

Test results showed the warehouse at -40°C and the small cabin at -20°C, equivalent to the difference between a large refrigerator and a small one.

However, by lighting a kerosene stove inside the small cabin, the temperature could be raised by another ten to twenty degrees, so Chen Fa and the other three were not suffering too much. The ones suffering were Xu Tingfeng and his group, who couldn’t enter the small cabin and had to hide indoors, bundled up like a bear, keeping the fireplace flame alive, not daring to leave for a moment.

Perhaps stimulated by this extreme cold blizzard, Yao Ruoyun's progress bar above her head suddenly filled up on the morning of the third day of the blizzard, showing a value of 90.

**

This value wasn’t as high as Chen Fa and Lu Zheng's, but Shu Fu could sense that it was also a very high threshold.

Unlike Chen Fa, who had endured numerous adventures, faced repeated attacks by strange fish, traversed cities full of ichthyosis patients at night, and walked on the edge of life and death, thus becoming mentally resolute.

She was like an innocent child, accidentally stumbling into an adult's world, instantly frightened by things beyond common sense.

When she awakened, Shu Fu was still asleep. The previous night, they had taken turns keeping watch, with Shu Fu taking the first half and Yao Ruoyun the second half. She had slept late, so she slept a bit longer.

Half-asleep, she heard someone on the adjacent mattress repeatedly muttering to themselves, eventually breaking into sobs. When she opened her eyes, she saw Yao Ruoyun squatting there, a can in front of her continuously disappearing and reappearing... reappearing and disappearing.

Shu Fu: ...

But there was no joy on Yao Ruoyun's face, only helplessness, unease, and fear, and this fear was still increasing bit by bit: "Am I not dreaming? Then am I crazy? Impossible, I still know who I am. Would a crazy person know? Then am I dead, frozen to death last night? Is this the afterlife? Why does the afterlife look the same as the living world, and I can still feel cold... Then have I traveled through time? Reincarnated? Entered a parallel world, controlled by aliens? Trapped in a game? An infinite loop!?..."

Shu Fu: ...

She looked at Yao Ruoyun's head, where the white light strip had completely stabilized, fully charged and displaying a number.

Shu Fu sighed. No wonder—it turned out Yao Ruoyun had awakened.

That said, the series of speculations Yao Ruoyun had just made were quite similar to the possibilities she, Chen Fa, and Lu Zheng had previously analyzed—things that could happen to them...

Shu Fu had planned to give Yao Ruoyun some space to adjust to her current state, but seeing her act all frantic, like she was losing it, Shu Fu had to stop her from repeatedly moving the can in and out of her backpack.

"You're not crazy. You've just awakened your special ability," Shu Fu finally said, interrupting Yao Ruoyun’s actions and murmurs.

Yao Ruoyun cautiously asked, "Senior, were you abducted by aliens too?"

"..." Shu Fu facepalmed. Early in the morning, it felt like they’d both lost their minds. She sighed, deciding to play along since she couldn’t fight it. She extended her hands, one holding a bowl of preserved egg and lean meat porridge, the other holding a cup of hot milk tea. "Which one do you want for breakfast?"

Yao Ruoyun stared at the food and drink that had magically appeared in Shu Fu’s hands, her body and pupils trembling. "Se... Senior... So you’re the alien!"

Shu Fu: ...

Half an hour later, the two were cozied up on a thick, heated blanket in the glass balcony, cross-legged and relaxed, surrounded by two efficient heaters. They had taken off their thick coats and were leaning over a low wooden table in the middle of the mattress, enjoying hot preserved egg and lean meat porridge, along with fragrant fried dough sticks and leek and egg fried dumplings.

The raft was currently placed in the cleared space on one side of the Drift Island House’s hall. Yao Ruoyun, having just awakened, was very curious about her raft. Unfortunately, her raft was too large, and when she tried to place it, a message appeared saying, "Not enough space to place." So now, they could only stay together on Shu Fu’s raft terrace.

After the glass balcony appeared on the raft terrace, the height increased significantly. Fortunately, the building’s style here leaned toward that of Xizhou Province, with higher single floors, so it just fit the height.

Yao Ruoyun’s special ability was identical to Chen Fa and Lu Zheng’s, with 20 backpack slots that could freeze time, containing four starting items: a raft, a water purifier, a fishing rod, and a shovel.

She also couldn’t enter Shu Fu’s Drift Island House, but fortunately, there was a glass balcony on the island house that others could enter.

The glass balcony lacked temperature control, disaster resistance, or exclusion features, but it was still much more reliable than most buildings. After closing the glass doors on both sides, it blocked part of the low temperature outside, and with the effect of the heated blanket and heaters, the internal temperature quickly rose, estimated to be around 13 or 14 degrees Celsius.

At this temperature, they felt cozy and could enjoy their hot meal without fear of it turning into a frozen block.

Probably because of the warming up and the warm food in their stomachs, Yao Ruoyun finally regained her senses. She listened carefully to Shu Fu’s detailed explanation and then began to seriously study her own items.

She called the shovel a "treasure-hunting shovel," and for now, it could only be used once a day. Out of curiosity, Yao Ruoyun decided to try it out directly. They wrapped themselves tightly and went down from the balcony, and then Shu Fu saw her dig out a box of unopened instant noodles from under the corner tiles on the other side of the small teahouse hall.

Shu Fu: ...

Yao Ruoyun said she had chosen the spot completely by intuition and hadn’t expected to actually dig something out. Moreover, when digging, the edges and corners of the tiles loosened after a few tries, and the shovel easily pried them open along the gaps.

The box of instant noodles was printed with the manufacturer from Xiangzhou Province, with a production date in February this year—not yet expired. It contained 48 packs, as if the owner of the house had hidden it under the tiles during the chaotic period and somehow left it behind, probably forgetting to take it when they moved.

Yao Ruoyun handed over the instant noodles with pride, insisting Shu Fu take them as a gesture of thanks, even though she knew Shu Fu likely didn’t need them.

Shu Fu had no choice but to accept.

Seeing Shu Fu accept, Yao Ruoyun smiled happily, even more pleased than when she stored the supplies in her backpack slot.

Although there were still many things unclear, Yao Ruoyun knew one thing: she and her dearest senior were in the same boat—at least not the kind of ordinary people who only dragged others down and had no special abilities.

In fact, during these months, she had occasionally stayed in places with internet. Even after meeting Xun Huiming, he would tell her some information he had seen online about "people with special abilities."

Xun Huiming was a straight man, having never seen it with his own eyes, so he didn’t believe it. He told Yao Ruoyun these things just to add some fun to the hard and difficult journey, like telling stories he had heard from others.

Yao Ruoyun indeed treated these messages as stories, like plots imagined by humans struggling and wandering through various natural disasters for a year.

Even though they were just stories, she was envious. Every time she heard them, she would think: if this were true, if there really was a raft house that could be freely controlled and outsiders couldn’t enter, she would definitely keep this secret tightly, not telling anyone, not using the raft to earn supplies. She just wanted her parents to have a safe place to rest when they were tired.

So in the early morning, when she found herself acting abnormally, when she noticed some strange memory fragments appearing in her mind, she was completely stunned, thinking it was a case of daydreaming.

She told Shu Fu that the memory fragments flashing in her mind were quite terrifying, always seeming to be in the classroom—a very oppressive learning environment, constantly doing papers and solving problems, or constantly taking exams...

These memory fragments had surfaced before, but she hadn't paid much attention to them because she had only been in college for a little over a year. She always assumed they were just memories from her high school days.

But now, looking back, both the classroom and her classmates were quite different from her three years of high school in this world.

"So, in that world, I was a high school student? Did I have family in that world? What was my name? Why can't I remember anything at all?..."

Similarly, in the following two days, like Lu Zheng and Chen Fa, she was also caught in the chaotic thoughts caused by these memory fragments. She called her parents but refrained from mentioning it over the phone.

She was well aware that they wouldn't believe her if she brought it up on the phone. They would simply think she was delirious from the cold weather. She decided to wait until the extreme weather subsided, then go to Zhicheng and meet them in person to show them the truth.

**

In the following days, Shu Fu spent most of her time with Yao Ruoyun on the glass balcony. There was electricity and heating there, and since the two of them couldn't go out and had nothing else to do, they huddled together and watched shows on a small tablet.

They watched horror and thriller shows, clutching cushions in front of their faces and shutting their eyes together during the frightening scenes.

Later, to lighten the mood, they switched to variety shows, laughing at the celebrities' efforts to be funny and complete tasks. Eventually, Yao Ruoyun dampened the mood by remarking that many of these variety shows and movies might be the celebrities' final works.

In the face of natural disasters, both ordinary people and celebrities are equally vulnerable.

Besides various ready-made hot meals, they had hotpot once, using a dual-flavor electric pot to boil a spicy beef oil broth and a mushroom broth. Yao Ruoyun didn't have a large appetite, but she was simply craving it. When she caught the scent of the boiling hotpot, tears actually dripped from the corner of her mouth.

Besides hotpot, over the past two days, she also had tofu fish stew, brown sugar boba milk tea, fried chicken wings, egg pancakes, braised pork rice, and spicy skewers.

Except for the large pork skewers that Shu Fu didn't have, she brought out all the other foods Yao Ruoyun had tearfully craved at the Sui City Library and let her eat them.

"You actually remembered all of it..." Yao Ruoyun was deeply moved, crying while eating. This time, tears genuinely streamed down from the corners of her eyes. The result of this was that Yao Ruoyun became even more attached to Shu Fu, following her even when she went to the Drift Island House kitchen to take out the trash and wash the pots.

Inside the house, it was naturally not cold, with a constant temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. Shu Fu would strip down to her base layer as soon as she entered.

Outside, without the protection of the glass balcony, even standing on the raft's deck, the temperature felt like minus twenty degrees Celsius. But she preferred to bundle up in a coat and scarf, holding a hot water bottle, shivering as she stood there chatting with Shu Fu.

She tried countless times to reach her hand under the eave, but each time she only touched a cold air barrier: "How exactly can I get into your little house? If relatives by blood can enter, what about a spouse? Senior, why don't I marry you?"

Shu Fu: ...

However, they didn't always hide in the warm balcony. After all, Yao Ruoyun now had her own space. Although the raft couldn't be taken out for the time being, her backpack slots were still empty. Coincidentally, this was a residential building with abundant daily supplies, so the two of them started from the small teahouse they were in and began collecting supplies for Yao Ruoyun.

Cups and tea sets from the cabinets outside, pots, cutting boards, and kettles from the kitchen, rocking chairs, dining tables, and stools from the neighboring rooms, a seven-tenths new thermos, clothes drying racks and hangers, a lightweight folding wardrobe, unbroken lamps and extension cords, large buckets and basins, thick clothes, pants, and shoes that looked relatively clean...

The two of them went floor by floor, scavenging. Apart from food, water, medicine, and some lightweight tools, most other things were available.

Large items that could fit into the backpack slots were directly stored, while smaller items were packed into large cardboard boxes provided by Shu Fu and then stored. Larger items that couldn't fit into the backpack slots were temporarily stored by Shu Fu, to be placed into the raft's cabin once Yao Ruoyun could take it out.

The two girls, bundled up like bears, scavenged like two hamsters, moving from one house to the next, never tiring of it.

They didn't miss the daily opportunity to use the treasure-seeking shovel. Once, they dug out a brand-new set of down jackets and pants from a headboard partition in someone's house. Another time, they dug out a whole box of salt within its expiration date from someone's kitchen.

Each time, Shu Fu was left speechless.

For four days and nights, the blizzard never stopped, and the entire Wei County fell into complete silence. The fear in Yao Ruoyun's heart was minimized by the appearance of her special ability and Shu Fu's companionship.

The only two inconveniences were going to the bathroom and personal hygiene.

Shu Fu could handle these things by going back to her house, though it was a bit cold for the few seconds it took to climb up and down the ladder. She just had to bundle up and dash through.

But Yao Ruoyun had no choice. She had to use the bathroom in the teahouse's bathroom. The solution she came up with was to keep a stainless steel bucket with an open flame or a burning honeycomb briquette stove in the teahouse's bathroom.

The stove fire could raise the indoor temperature a bit, and the closer you were, the better the effect. The toilet seat was also covered with a thick cushion, so at least she didn't have to worry about her bottom freezing when she sat down...

Bathing was out of the question, but there was plenty of hot water. She could do some simple cleaning in the glass balcony and change into clean underwear. For a girl, being able to do this during a disaster was already quite an achievement.

What moved Yao Ruoyun the most was that Shu Fu could have gone back to her cabin to sleep at night, but she deliberately stayed in the glass balcony to accompany her.

During those long, cold, and pitch-black nights, having someone by her side meant she no longer felt afraid, no matter how heavy the snowstorm or how strong the wind was outside.

**

On the morning of the fifth day, the snow finally stopped, but when the two looked out through the cracks in the wooden window, they still couldn't see any signs of life.

Especially since the window faced a large square, the view was too open, and the thick layer of snow showed no signs of human activity.

Because the snow had temporarily stopped, the previously overcast sky brightened slightly, and the outside was a blinding white. If they went out now, they would have to wear ski goggles, or their eyes would be too dazzled to open.

"Could it be... that everyone else is dead?" Yao Ruoyun hesitantly spoke up. Although she didn't like the behavior of some of the survivors, she still hoped that others could survive this unprecedented snowstorm.

This wasn't about personal preference but a shared sentiment among humans.

"No, there's still water and electricity there, as well as military and rescue teams. They have experience. As long as they stay inside buildings and keep warm, they should be fine." Of course, this "fine" was only for now. Running out of water was manageable—they could melt snow for survival. But if the power went out, unless there was a backup generator in the building, repairs would be out of the question in this weather.

After that, the snowstorm and freezing temperatures continued, and the several-meter-deep snow layer didn't melt. The survivors remained trapped indoors. Once those hiding in buildings exhausted all their food, things would get dicey.

But clearly, Shu Fu had underestimated the disaster response capabilities of some of the military personnel.

At noon, when Cheng Yu's voice crackled through the walkie-talkie, saying he was on his way to their side, Shu Fu was taken aback.