Chapter 84: Extreme Heat 25
Lu Qingyuan was thinking about where to put the outdoor air conditioning unit that Chu Yian had brought, but they soon realized this worry was somewhat unnecessary.
On the eighteenth day of the game, during the day, the temperature suddenly soared to sixty-five degrees Celsius, a temperature that human skin could no longer tolerate. Even in the basement, it was over fifty degrees; sitting down for a moment would cause one to sweat profusely, and bottled water felt scalding hot.
The generator was running, and two electric fans whirred.
It was completely useless; the wind itself was hot.
Even by night, the outdoor temperature was still around sixty degrees, the entire land having turned into a giant oven. No one was traveling today, or perhaps those in the city simply couldn’t make it this far, having died from the heat along the way.
To be safe, they didn’t even dare to turn on the air conditioning.
Even the basement was stifling hot; the situation outside was a hundred times worse.
On the nineteenth day of the game, the temperature continued to rise!
The highest outdoor temperature reached 75 degrees Celsius! The thermometer had maxed out; stepping outside meant getting scalded.
Lu Qingyuan and Chu Yian braved the scorching outdoor heat to install the outdoor air conditioning unit. The moment the air conditioning was turned on, Chu Yian was practically pressed against the air vent.
It was so cool!
Chu Yian let out a long breath, instantly feeling like she had come back to life.
Once the air conditioning was turned on, it couldn’t be turned off again.
Thinking of the large amount of diesel they had left, Chu Yian even luxuriously lowered the air conditioning to 25 degrees Celsius. The outdoor unit roared, its fan blades at one point resembling a helicopter about to take off.
“Don’t set the temperature too low, the air conditioning won’t be able to run.”
Lu Qingyuan took the remote control and directly adjusted the temperature to thirty-five degrees Celsius.
Air conditioning cooling at thirty-five degrees Celsius?
Surprisingly, it actually felt a bit cool.
Chu Yian instantly felt like she had been temperature-PUA’d.
In the high temperatures, the air conditioning didn’t always maintain stable operation. The outdoor unit kept breaking down due to the extremely high temperatures, and the cooling was intermittent, but it seemed to be working.
Today could be said to be the most comfortable day they had experienced during the extreme heat.
Chu Yian thought she could get through the game under these circumstances, but on the last day, something went wrong—it caught fire!
Initially, they smelled burning plastic.
This smell was often present ever since the outdoor air conditioning unit was turned on. They had a total of three outdoor units; typically, a unit wouldn’t last more than half an hour, and they were almost used to it.
Lu Qingyuan was holding tools, preparing to take down the outdoor unit for repair, but as soon as he opened the basement entrance, raging flames swept over from above.
A wave of heat assailed him, and he quickly closed the basement entrance.
“It’s on fire!”
In this high temperature, it was normal for an outdoor air conditioning unit to catch fire. But looking at the raging inferno outside, it was definitely more than just the outdoor unit burning.
Besides the outdoor air conditioning unit, there were also flammable items like sofas, wardrobes, and curtains.
The explosion two days ago hadn’t ignited them, but these things were now burning today.
The gases from above were slowly invading the basement through the cracks in the basement entrance. Lu Qingyuan’s face sank as he looked down, “Quickly wet some cloth and bring it here!”
Blocking the door cracks with cloth would reduce the invasion of thick smoke.
Chu Yian moved quickly, taking out bedsheets and clothes, wetting them in the water tank, and bringing them over. Would it work?
Not at all!
The temperature above was too high; the cloth items would dry out too quickly. Moreover, someone had to hold them up constantly, and Lu Qingyuan’s palms were already scalded.
This simply couldn’t last long.
Chu Yian suddenly remembered a famous dish, Beggar’s Chicken. The whole chicken is wrapped in mud, then buried in a pit.
Fire above, chicken roasting below.
Their current situation was much like a Beggar’s Chicken.
Would they really die here in this game?
Chu Yian looked at the situation above, suddenly having this pessimistic thought. Being roasted alive, that kind of death was truly terrifying.
Soon, she pushed that thought to the back of her mind.
There were still over ten hours until the end of the game. So close to the finish line, to hell with it!
She looked at the ground beneath her feet. It was smoothly cemented and, having been cleaned daily by her recently, was extremely clean and spotless. What lay beneath this ground—
Mud!
Chu Yian thought of mud, grabbed the rake nearby, and vigorously started digging the ground.
Dig it!
She was going to dig through the ground.
Chu Yian couldn’t even hear Lu Qingyuan’s shouts at this moment; her mind was focused on just two words—dig it!
The cement in the basement was only a thin layer.
Chu Yian dug through the ground in two strokes and pulled out mud from underneath.
Add water, stir, and mix evenly.
Once done, she put it into a basin, “Teacher Lu, use this!”
Lu Qingyuan looked at the basin of mud, then at her, and praised her for the first time, “Smart.”
Unfortunately, Chu Yian didn’t hear him. After handing him the wet mud, she ran off to dig for more mud.
Since they couldn’t escape now, they could only pin their hopes on this.
One basin of wet mud wasn’t enough to block all the gaps to prevent air from escaping and carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide from coming down. She had already started to vigorously prepare mud until the basement entrance was thickly plastered with it.
The mud above had dried and solidified, and the mud below had tightly sealed the cracks.
“Enough, no more.”
The inside had completely become a sealed environment.
“From now on, reduce activity and pay attention to your breathing.”
The oxygen in the space was limited. In a 50 square meter basement, if they remained quiet, this oxygen would be enough for them to last until the fire above extinguished.
However, the bigger problem now was the high temperature.
The raging fire above had turned the basement into a steamer.
The slight temperature reduction from the air conditioning was increasing at an extremely fast rate.
Room temperature 30 degrees Celsius,
Room temperature 40 degrees Celsius,
Soon, the basement’s room temperature had exceeded fifty degrees Celsius!
The generator could still be used for now. Chu Yian plugged in the refrigerator, trying to use it to cool down.
“Don’t turn on the generator!”
Lu Qingyuan quickly stopped her.
While the refrigerator could cool, the generator required oxygen to run. The oxygen available for two people was already stretched thin; running the generator was impossible.
Moreover, the generator’s operation would also dissipate heat.
All things considered, the little bit of cold produced by the refrigerator might not even counteract the heat dissipated by the generator.
They couldn’t use anything; they had to endure the high temperature!
In a few minutes, the temperature increased by several more degrees.
The two of them were truly on the verge of being steamed alive. Chu Yian had tried cooling down with water from the water tank, but that water was also very hot. She was now sprawled on the ground, each day feeling like a year.
However, this was not the worst of it.
Chu Yian, lying on the ground, looked ahead and saw the diesel stored in red barrels in the corner. As if possessed, she asked, “Teacher Lu, will diesel spontaneously combust at excessively high temperatures?”
