Chapter 110

Cheng Yu didn’t mention how they would leave, and Shu Fu didn’t ask further. She had doubts about whether she could even leave Wei at all. For now, what mattered most to her was helping Yao Ruoyun set up the raft and arranging the small cabin together.

The two of them hurried back to the third floor. Shu Fu, using the space and the display cabinet, made just two trips to stack all the tables and chairs from the tea house into another empty room.

Now the tea house hall was completely empty. However, with all those heavy tables and chairs moved out, it didn’t seem appropriate for others to come in and see it like this.

Shu Fu locked the door, and Yao Ruoyun took a deep breath, finally setting up the raft for the first time.

“Senior, my raft is way bigger than yours! The deck is so big, your mini raft can even fit right on it! In the future, on the water, my raft can carry your raft and drift together!”

Shu Fu: …Thanks.

Yao Ruoyun excitedly rushed into the room, looking at the empty bathroom with a big smile, “There’s really a squat toilet! Ah, my dream has come true! I won’t freeze my butt off when I go to the toilet anymore!”

Shu Fu: …Such a down-to-earth dream.

Yao Ruoyun was so excited about setting up the raft for the first time that she spent 20 minutes in the empty bathroom, most of it spent squatting next to the toilet, studying how the sewage system worked, wondering if using the raft on land would lead to awkward situations with dirt spilling all over the place…

Eventually, Shu Fu pulled her out. “Don’t worry, your raft cabin is totally high-tech. The sewage will automatically disappear after leaving the cabin.” She knew this because Chen Fa and Lu Zheng had already studied it.

Shu Fu pulled Yao Ruoyun into the living area and started taking out furniture and other items from the space. “Now, it’s time to decorate the cabin!”

“Wow, wow, wow!” Yao Ruoyun clapped excitedly.

The two of them spent two hours and finally made the once empty cabin feel like a home.

They placed Yao Ruoyun’s foldable bathtub, which she had used for bathing earlier, into the bathroom. Yao Ruoyun put on rubber gloves and scrubbed it clean, and then Shu Fu filled it with clean water, which they could use for daily cleaning.

Although Yao Ruoyun’s water filter could melt snow for filtration, it was too cold outside, and gathering snow was inconvenient. It was better to just place a water bucket in the bathroom.

In addition, they set up a wooden tripod in the bathroom with plastic basins, soap, laundry detergent, lotion, toilet paper, disinfectant, and other daily essentials.

They also placed a wooden cabinet with mirrors in the corners of two walls, where they set three thermos bottles. The mirror would come in handy for washing up, dressing, etc.

Most of these things were from nearby residents’ homes. Yao Ruoyun had remarked how useful it was to have the backpack space, since when she was with her parents and they had nothing, they managed to move with just a few items.

But now, with the raft cabin and the backpack space, everything they came across that was in decent condition seemed useful, so they stuffed it into the backpack.

Luckily, this was an apartment building, and when the residents moved to Xizhou Province, most of the furniture and items couldn’t be taken with them. Now, she could use those to furnish her little home.

The living area of the cabin was even more furnished than when Chen Fa and Lu Zheng first set up their cabin. They had found a home that seemed to belong to newlyweds, and with the help of Shu Fu’s “display cabinet,” they moved in a bed.

When they saw the bed, it was just the frame, with no mattress. Later, they realized the mattress had been taken by Cheng Yu and the others when they found one for them.

The bed was a stainless steel frame, simply designed with just the headboard, bed frame, and four bed legs—clean and neat. It was placed in the corner of the cabin, and the space under the bed was enough to store some cardboard boxes with items they didn’t use often.

The sofa, coffee table, dining table, chairs, storage cabinet, small wardrobe, curtains, desk lamps, floor lamps, and coat racks were all collected from neighboring residents’ homes. To match the style of the raft cabin, they chose mostly light-colored and natural wood furniture.

Finally, Shu Fu set up a water dispenser cabinet, and the decoration of the cabin was almost complete.

Without using any heating devices, the raft cabin, in the extremely cold disaster conditions, had a temperature difference of 20 to 30 degrees Celsius compared to the outside. Over the past few days, the temperature had risen significantly. During the day, it was usually between -20 to -25 degrees Celsius, and at night, it was around -30 degrees Celsius. The temperature difference was just about close to zero.

For the two of them, who had already adapted to the cold climate, it wasn’t particularly cold even without heaters or oil stoves.

So in the end, they brought in the beehive coal stove, the remaining beehive coal, and a few stainless steel barrels for burning firewood. The ones not in use were temporarily placed at the door of the bathroom, while the beehive coal stove they planned to use was placed in the corner near the front door. Once lit, the indoor temperature quickly rose by 8 to 10 degrees.

Even though they didn’t need large amounts of electricity, for convenience, Shu Fu still took out a generator, as well as several portable fuel cans to store in her backpack, teaching Yao Ruoyun how to use them. When needed, she could add fuel and start it herself.

During the day, the two of them stayed in Yao Ruoyun’s cabin. Now that the space was bigger and the furniture and decorations were set up, they didn’t need to keep lying on the mattress. They could snuggle on the sofa, eating braised duck feet and wings while watching dramas, or take out the oil stove to make a hot pot and drink soup while cooking meat.

In the evening, Shu Fu would set up the carbon monoxide alarm for Yao Ruoyun, then return to her raft cabin to wash up and sleep on her comfortable, familiar bed. Yao Ruoyun, now in her raft cabin, was safe from others entering, allowing her to rest peacefully on her own.

As for Shu Fu’s raft, as Yao Ruoyun had said before, it was placed directly on the deck of her raft. The two rafts were so close that a simple forward roll could bring her to the other one.

So, even though they slept separately at night, Yao Ruoyun no longer felt afraid.

During this time, Yao Ruoyun had used the treasure hunting shovel twice in the building. Once, behind a cabinet on the fourth floor, she discovered a compartment in the floor, containing a metal box with the property deed inside—clearly hidden by the owners of the house. It seemed like the previous owners had hidden it so securely, perhaps thinking they would return one day.

Yao Ruoyun now knew from Shu Fu that the world was soon to become a water world. The land they stood on would disappear in the near future, and seeing the hidden property deed now felt a bit melancholy.

They returned the deed to its hiding place, restoring the floor compartment and putting the cabinet back.

The second time was on the first floor. This time, the digging was more difficult. It was a secret door in a wardrobe, leading to what seemed like a small storage room, camouflaged as part of the wardrobe.

Inside the storage room, they found a large generator along with some fuel.

This generator was larger than the portable camping one Shu Fu had bought. Yao Ruoyun remarked that no wonder she had such a strong urge to dig on the first floor today—it was because she had found something good.

The generator was too large to carry easily on their journey, but it could fit into Yao Ruoyun’s backpack.

After returning to the cabin, Yao Ruoyun gave back Shu Fu’s generator and portable fuel cans, then happily tried out the generator she had found.

Though the generator models were different, the operation method was the same. She tried twice and quickly got it to work. Aside from being a bit louder than Shu Fu’s, there were no issues with it.

After this, even when she pulled out the treasure hunting shovel the next day, she no longer felt the urge to dig. This meant that, within the building or the surrounding area, there was nothing else hidden away.

Unless Yao Ruoyun changed locations, the treasure hunting shovel would be ineffective.

---

On the eighteenth day of the blizzard, the outdoor temperature was -18°C, with moderate snowfall.

The sound of a propeller was heard again over Wei, where snowflakes drifted down. Yao Ruoyun and Shu Fu quickly donned all their winter clothing, packed up their raft, and rushed to the balcony they had used on the fourth floor before.

They saw a large unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), much bigger than the previous drone, hovering in the sky. Suspended beneath it were supplies ready for air-drop.

“It’s a Rainbow-4! I saw one of these when I was relocating with Xun Huiming! Maximum flight time 35 hours! Maximum payload 345 kg! What’s that hanging under it? It’s huge!” Yao Ruoyun stood on tiptoe, craning her neck to look at the UAV.

Shu Fu also peered out, recognizing the direction towards the nearby gymnasium. At the southern wall of the gymnasium’s basketball court, a prominent red smoke was rising from the ground—this was the marker for the airdrop location!

Shu Fu took out binoculars and confirmed that the red smoke was indeed rising from the gym’s southern side. She remembered that there was a large entrance there that could accommodate armored vehicles, and the snow had been cleared in advance, creating a small patch of open space.

The large UAV descended to about the height of the third floor, and the large package suspended beneath it dropped with a loud thud, landing precisely in the cleared area.

The surrounding snow was too deep—about four to five meters high—so no matter how they looked, Shu Fu and Yao Ruoyun couldn’t see what was inside the snow layer.

The two of them stood for a while before returning to the small tea house.

About two hours later, they heard noise again outside. This time, the sound came not from above but from the ground on the south side of the building.

They wrapped up in their clothes once more and went out of the raft cabin, hurrying to the south window to peek through the gaps in the wooden slats.

In the once-pure white world of snow, they saw a dark green armored vehicle, moving like a beast devouring snow. Starting from the gymnasium, it crushed its way through the deeper snow layers ahead, pushing the snow with a massive snowplow attached to its front. The snow, now loosened, was expelled from the plow through a chute, forming a white arc with ice mist, which settled on the snow next to the path.

Behind the armored vehicle, a wide and clean snow path was slowly being created.

It was Cheng Yu’s armored vehicle!

In that moment, Shu Fu finally understood what was in the huge package that had been air-dropped by the Rainbow-4.

It was snowplows!

Massive snowplows designed to be attached to the front of armored vehicles!

---

The first snow path was soon completed, starting from the large entrance on the south side of the gymnasium’s basketball court. It passed through the cleared space, left the gymnasium’s main door, turned left along the main street, and extended directly to the first floor window of Shu Fu and Yao Ruoyun’s residential building.

The south-facing windows of the small tea house were nailed shut, unable to be opened. Shu Fu and Yao Ruoyun crouched down, peering through the gaps between the wooden slats to look downstairs, where they saw the dark green “beast” of an armored vehicle quietly stationed in the snow below.

After a moment, the door on the passenger side tilted upwards, and Han Lan, wearing ski goggles, stepped halfway out of the vehicle. He waved exaggeratedly toward the floor where they were.

At the same time, Shu Fu’s walkie-talkie crackled to life, and Cheng Yu’s voice came through: “The vehicle is too big to get through the narrow street, come down and find the window we cleared of snow in front of us. I’ll pass some supplies to you. Then, get ready; once we’ve cleared all the necessary snow paths, we’ll evacuate from here.”

“Evacuate from here?”

“Yes.”

“Wait for me, I’m coming down right now!” Shu Fu immediately ran back to her raft, stood under the eaves, quickly removed her homewear cotton clothes and pants, and took out her outer-layer windproof jacket and pants from her raft’s storage. Finally, she sat down to change her cotton shoes into waterproof, insulated boots.

Yao Ruoyun had also heard what Cheng Yu had just said, but she could manage going downstairs herself. The others could wait in the cabin. Before leaving, she packed up the raft cabin on the deck and reminded Yao Ruoyun to close the door properly. If anyone other than her came up, Yao Ruoyun was to quickly stow the raft.

She soon reached the first floor and found the apartment where Cheng Yu’s team had cleared the window. Since she and Yao Ruoyun had already gone door to door collecting supplies, they had pried open every locked door in the building. Now, it was just a matter of reopening the doors they had previously opened.

The window inside had also been reinforced, so Shu Fu took out a crowbar from her backpack. The crowbar had a small fork at the end, which could also be used to pull out nails.

With swift movements, she dismantled the wooden slats nailed to the window frame. Outside, she saw Cheng Yu was already using an electric tool to pry the iron mesh off the window.

It didn’t take long for all the reinforcements on both sides of the window to be cleared. Shu Fu pushed open the broken window, and Cheng Yu passed a large backpack inside. Along with it, there were two pairs of boots.

“Snow tactical boots, all lined with fleece. They’re a bit larger, but brand new. These came with the snow plows in the airdrop. Inside the backpack, there’s snow gaiters, a folding walking stick, fleece gloves, spare insoles, socks, and two sets of windproof jacket and pants, all in large sizes for snow protection. You can wear these over your winter clothing…” Cheng Yu explained one by one what was in the backpack and what each item was for.

Shu Fu was a bit surprised by how thoroughly prepared the supplies were, far beyond what she had imagined.

Actually, she already had many of these things—some from past purchases, others from materials she had collected when they were in Suicheng. These weren’t as specialized as what Cheng Yu had brought, but she could still piece together a few sets of snow gear. However, when they first met with Cheng Yu, all they had were basic supplies. Smaller items could be pulled out of their backpacks, and suitable food could be found in residents’ homes. But more specialized equipment like this was hard to come by. That was why Yao Ruoyun had been wearing her military coat when staying overnight at the gymnasium.

Now, Cheng Yu had prepared everything needed for snow trekking, solving the issue where they had supplies but couldn’t easily use them.

However, Shu Fu was also a bit concerned that she and Yao Ruoyun might take up some of their supplies, leaving them insufficient.

“Since this was an airdrop, your share has already been factored in.” Not only that, but the previous airdrops to the hotel buildings, clinic, and the building across the street also contained some snow gear, though it wasn’t as specialized and detailed as the supplies they had just received.

The supplies from earlier had been prepared by the official rescue teams, while what Shu Fu received was specifically requested by Cheng Yu.

“Although there’s a lot of stuff here, it’s all for wearing. You and Yao Ruoyun should adjust your gear. Try to leave behind the heavier and more cumbersome items. I’m sure you both have several backpacks by now. Each of you should take the one that’s most durable and waterproof, with the largest capacity. Pack the food, medicine, tools, and communication devices into it.”

“You said we’re evacuating from here, does that mean we’re leaving Wei?”

Cheng Yu nodded. “Yes, but we need to wait a bit. We have to clear all the necessary snow paths first. Wait for my signal.”

Just like last time, Shu Fu didn’t press further about why they were leaving or where they would go once they left Wei in this icy world.

The current conditions didn’t allow for exploration. She had no idea where the boundaries were or what limits she faced. Previously, when she was on the northern plateau, the barrier in the mini-map had only been broken after the appearance of a new mission.

But that disaster had been different—there were monstrous fish chasing them, and they couldn’t stay still. This time, the danger was outside, so survival was about staying inside the buildings. She originally thought she’d be stuck in Wei for the entire mission period.

She wasn’t sure if a new mission would pop up before they evacuated with Cheng Yu and his team.

What she did know was that this time, she really didn’t want to play the “ghost walls” in front of them, especially since they weren’t just familiar faces—they knew all about the abilities of the special individuals.

If she “disappeared,” she could finally relax, but what about Yao Ruoyun? Furthermore, Liu Shuang, Cheng Yu, and Han Lan not only knew what was going on with her, but they would soon realize she was the most special of them all…

After Shu Fu returned to the small tea house, still holding the supplies, she continued to ponder the situation.

This had nothing to do with whether Liu Shuang or Han Lan were awakened individuals. If she were just an ordinary ability user, they might have tried to act in their favor, but the fact that she could “disappear instantly” alone proved that she was unlike any other ability user. She really didn’t want to test people’s hearts, after all, the task of finding ability users and documenting them was originally part of their responsibilities.

Shu Fu briefly explained the situation to Yao Ruoyun and let her choose whether to follow Liu Shuang and Cheng Yu’s team or to quietly relocate with her to another place to hunker down.

Yao Ruoyun gave her a look as if to say, “Why are you even asking? There’s no need to choose.” She then said, “Senior, just tell me, where are we going to continue hiding?”

For them, it didn’t matter where they went, as long as there was enough space inside the building to set up her raft.

“Let’s wait a bit longer, wait until they confirm the evacuation time.” She mainly wanted to see if the wristband would issue a new mission like last time, closer to the right time.

She didn’t want to rush into making decisions and end up complicating things, falling into an awkward situation and doing unnecessary work.

---

On the afternoon of the nineteenth day of the heavy snowfall, the temperature outside was minus eight degrees.

“It’s warming up, and it’s warming up pretty fast. I even feel a bit hot today,” Yao Ruoyun said, standing up to extinguish the coal stove in the corner of the cabin. With the temperature like this, staying in the cabin with a heat pack was enough.

Shu Fu stepped out of the cabin and stood by the window, looking at the snow path leading out of the county, which had been cleared by an armored vehicle. She furrowed her brows and spoke, “It’s gone up by about ten degrees in the last four days, but now it’s only been one day and the temperature has risen by ten degrees. It seems like it’s warming up a bit too quickly.”

“Quick warming means the extreme weather disaster is over,” Yao Ruoyun said dismissively, moving closer. “The winter temperature here in Wei was always above zero. Now it’s minus eight, still a bit cold! Actually, the weather has been pretty good these past couple of days. The wind and snow aren’t too strong. It’s mostly cloudy, but if the weather stays like this, the current temperature is acceptable.”

The two of them stood by the window for a while and noticed a military off-road vehicle driving out of the gymnasium. It was heading in the direction of the hotel building along the snow path that had been cleared on the main street.

This snow path was not connected to the one that had been cleared leading to their building. The two paths were parallel, but there was a snow wall about five meters high separating them. Normally, people on the other path wouldn’t be able to see the other snow path, and even if they could, they wouldn’t be able to climb over the snow wall.

This must have been intentional when Cheng Yu and Han Lan first cleared the snow paths. The snow path in front of their building only led to the gymnasium, and no one else could reach their building by the other snow path. They had to go around from the gymnasium.

This essentially provided them with an extra layer of protection.

The vehicle definitely had people from their team. Were they heading to the Wei rescue station?

Though it was just one vehicle, Shu Fu inexplicably felt a sense of urgency from the vehicle, as if it was rushing somewhere.

That day, until dark, neither Shu Fu nor Yao Ruoyun saw the off-road vehicle return. Of course, it was also possible that the vehicle had already returned, but they hadn’t heard any sounds from outside the cabin.