Chapter Twenty-Five: The Dam

Living alone... or rather, being with one's own hands, the greatest benefit is that you can go wherever you want, with no necessity to return home at any particular time.

So Qin Luming decided to go take a look at that dam... who knows, maybe the dam was already gone. Deep within the loess mountains, the roads had long since fallen into disrepair, with broken walls and ruins visible everywhere. During the season of heavy rain, landslides would even pour down from the mountains on both sides.

The villagers who originally lived there had moved away when the dam was first built. Now, it was truly deserted. Except for fools who thought they could conquer nature, no normal person would go there.

Qin Luming wasn't going to conquer nature, nor was he an ordinary person. He bore the risks himself and acted within his capabilities, not requiring public resources for rescue if something happened. Thus, after a minute of thought, he sprinted towards the direction of the dam.

Naturally, no ride-sharing service would be willing to go to that place. After running for over an hour, Qin Luming reached the end of the road. Only some residential houses with white ceramic tiles embedded in their outer walls were scattered sparsely within a radius of several miles.

Qin Luming stood before a roadblock made of wooden planks, looked up at the mountain range ahead, bypassed it from the side, and continued forward.

The road behind the roadblock was in disrepair. Forget about vehicles, even walking required caution. If one wasn't careful and stepped into one of the many potholes and hollows, they could easily sprain their ankle. For an ordinary person, an incident like this here would mean crying out to heaven with no response and calling to earth with no avail.

Qin Luming even saw foul-smelling black droppings by the roadside, suspected to be from a large wild beast... In any place where humans had withdrawn, it wouldn't take three to five years for animals to reclaim it, let alone a place that hadn't seen human activity for twenty to thirty years.

Qin Luming climbed the mountain, and the traces of wild beasts became even more numerous. Fortunately, this area was mostly loess hills. The places with concentrated forests were at the foot of the more distant mountains and around the river channels behind the dam, which were the areas where wild beasts appeared more densely.

Qin Luming crossed two connected low hills and then climbed to the top of the highest nearby mountain. His vision suddenly opened up. In the dim twilight, the mountain range resembled a giant snake coiled across the land, dormant and silent. The dam, whose outer walls had turned earthy yellow, looked like a cleaver positioned at the snake's vital seven-inch mark.

Qin Luming began to understand why the river flow had gradually stopped and even dried up after the dam was built.

The momentum of the mountains and water were interdependent. Mountains were yang, and water was yin. The mountains were snake-shaped, and the accompanying waterways were naturally also snake-shaped.

The snake-like form of the mountains was severed at its vital seven-inch mark by the dam's horizontal cutting force, causing it to die. The snake-like form of the accompanying waterways lost the support of the mountain's momentum, naturally scattering its energy, merely lingering on, no longer possessing the surging momentum of their past interdependence.

There was no basis for it; Qin Luming was just guessing.

From afar, the dam looked truly magnificent. Qin Luming seemed to still feel the spirit of the laborers from that era, who, despite having nothing, still exuded the spirit of "daring to change the sky and the sun."

Wait... Qin Luming suddenly thought, the abandoned zinc factory and the bridge that Zhou Nan chose were places that had a glorious history, places that had accumulated momentum and popularity. This dam was also like that... but she had no interest in the unfinished buildings on the way or the ruins that were only ten to twenty years old.

Did this also indicate that these historical relics, because they had been glorious, had absorbed the soaring spirit of countless laborers and condensed an invisible magnetic field or energy body that ordinary people couldn't see?

These magnetic fields were what Zhou Nan wanted, something that could consolidate her power and resist the oppression that the laws of the world imposed on overly powerful beings... Otherwise, Qin Luming couldn't imagine what meaning she would find in taking these abandoned buildings, as there were far more valuable things in the human world than these.

Standing on the mountaintop, contemplating these perhaps unreliable thoughts, Qin Luming had no intention of getting too close to the dam. From this position, with his eyesight, he could see clearly even at night.

He remembered that he had found Gu Qing'an's phone at the zinc factory wall. Could Gu Qing'an have disappeared because he got too close to Zhou Nan's casting range?

In any case, Qin Luming suspected that Zhou Nan would take this dam. Therefore, the principle of a gentleman not standing under a dangerous wall had to be remembered. He stood far away and observed; even if the dam disappeared, it wouldn't affect him.

The dam hadn't disappeared yet, and Qin Luming couldn't be entirely sure that Zhou Nan would definitely return, but he decided to stay and observe.

Today was Friday, and there were no classes on Saturday or Sunday. If he found nothing over these three consecutive days, it wouldn't be a problem for him to return on Monday.

He just wanted to witness Zhou Nan's divine arts, a divine art that could make anything within the "concept" of an object disappear.

For example, the concept of "old zinc factory." Everything that belonged to the "old zinc factory" was stripped from its original location by this divine art, regardless of what it was.

The "steel bridge" was probably the same. The "dam" before his eyes might also be stripped from its original location in this manner.

Just imagining a dam spanning a valley with a drop of over three hundred meters being uprooted and lifted into the sky was an irresistible sight.

Qin Luming didn't want to provoke Zhou Nan, so he only observed from a distance.

Qin Luming took out his phone, grateful for the great national system's efforts to ensure electricity, water, roads, and communication signals for every citizen, even in remote mountainous areas. His phone could still get a signal here.

The signal wasn't full, but it was usable.

Qin Luming sent a message: Uncle Tian, do me a favor. I'm on the mountain near the Huangtuliang Dam. I'll send you the coordinates. Could you bring me some camping gear?

Uncle Tian: You're going camping in that ghost place? Did you bring a beautiful woman?

Qin Luming quickly replied: No, just me. I need a tent and a sleeping bag, a laptop, three days' worth of food and drinks for three people, a night enhancement monitoring device with a power supply that can last for a week, and an engineer's shovel and some camping supplies.

Uncle Tian: Alright, send me the location, and I'll have Secretary Sun arrange it.

Uncle Tian's name was Qin Xiaotian. The name didn't sound like someone who would be an uncle, but he had been called that since he was a child. There was no reason for him to change his name when he grew up.

Qin Xiaotian was in his thirties. Many men his age were wealthier than when they were young lads. If they had established a career, could arrange their own time, and had ample connections and resources to operate, they were often the ones who knew how to have fun the most... high-end polar tourism, hunting in primeval forests and tropical grasslands, climbing the peaks of the six continents, aurora photography in perpetual night, solo sailing across the Pacific, building their own aircraft for competitions, and so on. These people were the main players... The average age of such players abroad was slightly higher.

What Qin Luming needed wasn't anything difficult to obtain. For people who often engaged in outdoor activities, these were just items on a standard equipment list.

After sending the message, Qin Luming wandered around the mountaintop, looking for a place to discreetly place the equipment while still being able to monitor the dam. He couldn't go without sleep for these few days... Moreover, after he left on Monday, the monitoring equipment could last for another week. He could come back next week to retrieve the monitoring equipment and check the situation of the dam, as well as the videos recorded by the equipment.

After a while, he heard the roar of a helicopter in the distance. Qin Luming turned on his phone's flashlight and waved it to guide the helicopter that was bringing him supplies... In Qin Xiaotian's words: "What's the point of a helicopter if not for short-range clandestine flights?"