novel
| ← Ch.176 | Ch.178 → |
One could vaguely see shelves with growing plants through the glass window. Luo Xun checked and found the power supply cable and the lights flashed and lit up...
"Wow..." The members of the Otaku squad all subconsciously exclaimed their admiration.
They stood behind the glass window stunned. It was a large shelf for planting, similar to the one built at home but completely different in size and scale.
The room was huge, five or six meters tall. The roof was covered in sprinklers. At one end there was a huge piece of equipment whose role was unknown. There were also smaller pieces of machinery that were also unknown.
Luo Xun carefully looked at the crops on the shelves."Those should have withered, should we go in and see?"
"Let's try."
"Right, we are already here, it would not be bad to check."
"Yes, we should be careful though."
Yan Fei walked to the glass door and used his ability to check. He nodded - it was a glass door with an electronic lock. They felt lucky that it was mostly metal blocking their way.
*Click* The lock was opened. Luo Xun gently opened the door was met with the suffocating smell of rot and mildew...
This huge planting room had a lot of plants but with no one to care for them over two years and with the power cut... All the plants had withered, there was barely anything left intact.
"God, the smell is really..."
"Luo Xun, what are going to do now?"
"Everyone look together, there must be some ventilation equipment..."
Indeed, as Luo Xun said, there was indeed the desired stuff, the group pinched their noses, rushed in and then slammed the door on the way out. After the door closed, everyone breathed the relatively fresh air.
Tension returned - they were not sure whether the crops were all dead. If there was anything like the devil vines outside... they would not survive for long.
The fans continued to run. The team took advantage of the time to check the other basement floor. It was similar in structure but the room use was a little different. The locker room was a control room with computer and other things to monitor temperature and humidity. There was also a central computer with a hard drive for data storage throughout the building.
The other room was a laboratory, which was more complete and specialized than the one above. Maybe the one upstairs was used to teach students for practice?
The innermost area of both floors were glass doors and windows with planting racks inside. The biggest difference was that the crops were different. The withered crops were not meant for food.
The air had not been cleared from above so Luo Xun dared not open the door to release the noxious gases.
A while later, they returned and confirmed that there was nothing malicious mixed in with the crops. In relief they slowly opened the door and entered. The fan was running the entire time as they walked with careful steps.
"Be vigilant everyone! Be ready to retreat at a moment's notice!" Luo Xun ordered as Yan Fei formed a circle of metal as a shield around them.
*Poof* Luo Xun's crossbow shot into the withered crops. There was no sound other than those of the impacts. Arrow after arrow flew around the room.
"There should be no problems..." Luo Xun tested for an hour, shooting in all directions to see if there was anything dangerous.
After the two basement floors had been examined, they came to a complete conclusion.
This was a university's test agriculture building. The pieces of land were modified to experiment with crop nature. The species would be improved through experiments underground, who knew what had been done.
Of course, the crops planted here would never cause death, much less mutant varieties. According to Li Tie who opened the computer and revealed that the plants were common vegetables. The differences were with fertilizer and amount of water.
Because these things were grown indoors, they used advanced central computer controlled lighting, watering and fertilization. What would happen in a power outage? Who would need to ask?! Without water or light, these plants would have long died during the first year!
Even if the plants were scarier, what would the rate of mutation be? If there were no nutrients, nothing could be done! They were all dried out!
The two layers of planting space were about an acre each. There was equipment hanging on the rack for harvest. There were several specialized machines such as grain dryers and so on attached to the racks...
"Luo Xun, these devices are not big, shall we bring them back?" There was a gleam of excitement in Li Tie's eyes.
Since the area was not too large and underground, equipment played a large role. It happened that many of these things could be placed in their homes! Why wouldn't they be excited?
He Qiankun called out from the engine room."They have other equipment here! There's a large garage, there even seems to be a tractor!"
Xu Mei lamented, "Unfortunately we would not be able to use it..."
"Yes, but we can bring back these smaller things first." The group frowned."It's a pity that we can only drive a sled and not take too many things."
Luo Xun was silently in thought, who knew what he was pondering.
Zhang Yi saw them talking about bringing things back and sneered."I think it would be better to bring everything here instead." He turned to Luo Xun."What does our captain think?"
Everyone froze and turned to Luo Xun, who mind returned. Yes, they could bring their stuff here instead!
Luo Xun helplessly smiled and watched as the team's excitement grew."I am also thinking about this matter - rather than moving stuff back to base, it would be better to simply move out. As long as the zombies leave, we can find a way to sneak past the devil vines."
Yes, they should not forget that they were in a hurry to leave the base before the snow melted in order to find another place to live.
The people in power at base were fiercely fighting. God knew that one day it would spill over to the rest of the people. If anyone found that they were growing crops at home, they would soon become a thorn in the eyes of others.
And this experimental base actually had two large fields, all kinds of convenient equipment and the devil vines would be a line of protection."
"Luo Xun, let's move!"
"Right! There is so much space to grow things and we don't have to worry about being spotted..."
"Yeah, here even if we barbecue everyday, we don't have to worry about the smell leaking out!"
"There are so many rooms and space outside, we can put so many solar panels! Definitely enough power!"
Even the people busy in the computer room expressed their opinions.
Luo Xun lifted a hand to calm everyone down before saying, "This place is really good but there are also problems to consider. The most important points are the zombies and mutant plants outside. We just need to stay out of the vine's range but what would we do if there is a zombie horde? Especially the kind that can fly. Another problem is how to place solar panels without being discovered by satellites."
Everyone wilted. Indeed, they could think of ways to deal with the zombies and plants but satellites were out of their control. If they placed solar panels on the outside of the building and it was photographed...
The base was not completely devoid of helicopters! They were afraid to bet on the'few' that were there.
| ← Ch. 176 | Ch. 178 → |