Chapter 184
Luo Xun secretly rubbed his sore waist as he relayed today’s plan in the basement, work!
They were doing something simple done before at base – preparing mushroom wood.
This time they came with a lot of mushroom spores, no way, who let them plant so many mushrooms? They were growing a bunch of crops on top of a lot of wood, sawdust and so on.
When they went out, they got a lot of agricultural tools, naturally there were saws. They measured the width of the basement while the others were responsible for the wood and sawdust. He and Yan Fei went into the room and carefully examined the shelves to heighten them.
These planters were affixed to the ground and there was a variety of equipment dedicated to sowing and harvesting. It would be difficult for others to make changes but Yan Fei was someone with a metal ability.
"First study the construction of these planters and if we need to expand the planting space or add a layer, we have to do it according to the specifications of these devices."
The sower and harvester in this room were completely different from others, although it was smaller and less efficient, it could be installed in these racks. It was specially designed for this room.
Yan Fei nodded and used his ability to scan the metal to determine how to ensure that the equipment would still function properly before speaking to Luo Xun. "The structure is not difficult, similar to the ones you designed at home but more technical. The outside groove lets the devices slide across. It’s not hard to copy."
Luo Xun sighed in relief. "It’s fine to raise the shelf and add mushrooms to the bottom?"
"No problem." Yan Fei shook his head and sighed at the ceiling. "But we’ll have trouble with the sprinkler system, cannot be replaced by the ones at home..."
"There’s another way." Luo Xun laughed and looked at the interlaced metal tubes on the ceiling – there were nozzles specially designed for watering. "We can add something at the top so the water from above would flow down to each layer of crops...But it would be hard to control the amount of water, let’s go back and plan."
Since there were no problems moving the metal shelves, the two men immediately started working. The metal they brought back yesterday was piled up in the planting room. Yan Fei found a large piece in the intersection. He lifted a section and added some metal under to support it. The shelves were raised about seventy or eighty centimeters. After this, they started to make a mushroom box, like a metal drawer that could be pushed under the planters, similar in base where they grew mushrooms.
This time they would not only use wood to grow mushrooms and added sawdust. Of course wood was still used since it lasted longer than sawdust, but more mushrooms could be planted in the latter.
These metal drawers could be drawn from both the left and right sides, convenient to operate. But this time one could easily see inside the contents unlike at base where they had two layers to block prying eyes. This was their place, so it was more convenient and they did not have to worry about being seen by outsiders.
Luo Xun and team did not bring a lot of things this time, especially metal. Yan Fei had brought those two metal balls and their cars had been filled with metal. But since they thickened the tunnel and modified a planting room, when they wanted to add planting racks, they found that the metal had almost run out!
Thinking about how they still had to cover another room of planters, the second underground floor work has not started and they had use metal to construct more planting space, Luo Xun’s heart started to pound.
"We’ll go out again tomorrow. This time I’ll go with Yan Fei and two others will follow."
After a whole day, Li Tie and the others had not finished processing the pile of wood at home, so Luo Xun decided to split the teams. Since they knew where they were headed, four people would be enough to handle it.
"Should be me and Wang Duo with you." Zhang Yi waved a hand, "Anyway, my ability is no use for wood."
Li Tie stared at him with a conflicted face – yes his powers were of little use for wood, but who could match his ability to make sawdust?! Just throw a piece of wood into a small tornado, it would not be long until the wood was turned into dust!
"Okay, we’ll leave early tomorrow morning with the big truck and car. Let’s try to drag at least a box of solar panels back with metal." Luo Xun pondered and agreed with a nod.
They washed up and Luo Xun went to bed and got up early. They drove two cars again out of the underground tunnel. The goal was clear and simple, bring back lots of metal along with solar panels and any dropped trees.
Two cars drove in a line, Luo Xun drove the big truck while Wang Duo drove the smaller car.
Following the road they previously traveled, Yan Fei inspected the buried box before the two cars continued towards the solar panel factory.
"We’ll have to look for other places filled with metal since we need materials for whatever we have to build in our new base..." Luo Xun said with some helplessness.
Yan Fei comforted him. "It won’t be difficult, even if we cannot find a rich factory, we can drive through the city and find a lot. I recall there were railways, pipes and stuff nearby."
Not just Luo Xun’s team, even the southwest base would have already targeted metal rich locations.
"Yes, these things are easy to find, let’s collect as much as possible." Luo Xun once again looked helplessly towards the sky. "We also have to find if there are any glass factories nearby..."
If they wanted to build a planting space above ground, it was bound to need a lot of glass. Even if they could technically make an enclosed house, but how could they not have an windows or small embellishments?
The two cars and four people continued towards their goal through the night. There was less snow in the wilderness, mottled brown land peeked out from the snow. It was a natural transition between the seasons.
The two ate some dried food while driving. Yes, real rations, Luo Xun had prepared days before the outing, despite the greedy eating most of the rice pot!
This crispy rice was fragrant, before the end it was a snack and in the apocalypse it was a good choice for food rations.
Upon remembering that the small base had such a large planting area, they could wantonly plant a variety of crops such as soybeans to guarantee their oil for cooking purposes! They would not have to worry about not having delicious things to eat.
Just as they were about to drive near the solar panel factory, roars and bangs sounded along with slight tremors in the ground...
"Leader, what was that?" Wang Duo’s voice quavered from the walkie talkie.
Luo Xun had not answered when Zhang Yi coldly cut through. "Something is coming this way...there seems to be more than one."
"What thing? How many?" If they ran into another zombie horde...
Luo Xun’s mind was still processing and Zhang Yi had not answered before the group of people found the source of the tremors and the culprit was –
A huge grey rabbit jumped in front of them, it was the size of a truck. There was a dog a fraction of its size...why was a dog chasing a rabbit several times its size?
Luo Xun had not fully taken stock of the situation when there was a bang. The dog had pounced and the two creatures rolled and created a hole into the solar panel factory. If the pair rolled all the way over, their car would get totaled!