Cold and Hot

Yao Wei's tone was mournful, growing more emotional by the second.

Both of them got into the car. Lu Xi'an said, "Let's hurry back to fill up with water. If we wait too long, the faucet will freeze, and no water will come out."

Yao Wei nodded, started the car, and drove back along the small road they came from. Once on the main road, they headed straight for the villa at Jiangyu Road No. 272.

The cold wind rustled the leaves, and the entire world suddenly lost its vitality.

But this was just the beginning.

Lu Xi'an, having experienced countless such weather changes, knew that if it got any colder, many leaves on the trees would freeze into fragments and scatter everywhere.

At that point, the world would seem to lose all life, and not a single living creature would be visible.

Under such extreme environmental changes, a person's will would become exceptionally depressed, making them wonder what the point of living was in such conditions. Enduring suffering day after day, wouldn't it be better to just die?

This was why Lu Xi'an constantly reminded himself to maintain a cheerful mood. As long as he was alive, hope would always come.

He thought about the half-wild boar meat still in the car's trunk. With the cold weather, it wouldn't spoil, and it would be another delicious meal when it was time to eat. Wasn't that good?

Comforting himself thus, he turned to glance at Yao Wei.

The car had no air conditioning, and the steering wheel was too cold. The weather was excessively frigid, and the engine's heater was ineffective. The woman's fingers constantly shifted to operate the car, unable to grip the wheel with all ten.

She was as cold and indifferent as ever, her expression matching the weather perfectly. He wondered how she managed her emotions.

Fog began to cover the car windows, obstructing their vision. Yao Wei had to take a rag and continuously wipe the glass, clearing away the dense mist to regain her view of the road ahead.

"I'll do it."

Lu Xi'an took the rag from Yao Wei and helped her wipe the front windshield so she could concentrate on driving.

Thus, they cooperated, heading towards Jiangyu Road.

The rag in Lu Xi'an's hand quickly became wet and cold, but he could only endure the freezing temperature as he worked.

Finally, the car arrived outside the gate of Jiangyu Road No. 272, and Yao Wei applied the brakes.

Lu Xi'an first let Doggy out of the car to scout inside. After confirming there were no issues, he and Yao Wei got out with their bottles and entered.

Several hyena corpses were missing from inside the villa, and the remaining ones were just bare bones, frozen solid.

He guessed that the hyenas must have returned.

Scavengers would also gnaw on the carcasses of their own kind when hungry.

If his guess was correct, then they didn't need to worry about returning now.

The hyenas had eaten their fill and taken the remaining carcasses, so they definitely wouldn't be back anytime soon.

The two walked to the swimming pool in the courtyard. Fortunately, the water in the pool had thawed.

Lu Xi'an had Doggy check it. The water was still fine and drinkable for them.

Yao Wei quickly took out her bottles to fill them. Lu Xi'an, however, suddenly remembered something. He came out of the bathroom and glanced at the wall.

On the wall were black-rimmed switches controlling the house's various lights. Next to the switches was a white control panel, covered in dust like the switches.

But Lu Xi'an could still see clearly that the control panel had two rows of buttons, such as power, mode, and plus/minus.

Lu Xi'an had confirmed when he was here before that this was the villa's central air conditioning controller.

Unfortunately, he had tried it, and the air conditioner was already broken.

But that wasn't important now; it wasn't what he remembered.

He quickly went upstairs to the master bedroom on the second floor. As expected, in the corner of the ceiling, he saw something wrapped in cloth. It wasn't large, long and slender with a curve.

A tube about the thickness of a baby's fist protruded from the cloth bundle, emerging from an opening in the wall and going outside.

Lu Xi'an moved the bedside table over, stepped on it, grabbed the edge of the cloth bundle, and yanked it down.

Dust billowed up, filling the air with a pungent smell.

Lu Xi'an quickly covered his nose and mouth with his hands, closed his eyes, and then opened them again to see the true form of the object beneath the cloth bundle.

A white semi-cylindrical body with a slightly open cover, revealing a sliver of the air outlet below – what else could it be but an indoor air conditioning unit?

Indeed...

But he truly hadn't expected that this villa, equipped with central air conditioning, would also have a small, independent air conditioner in the bedroom.

Before, when the temperature was suitable, he hadn't needed the air conditioner, so he hadn't paid much attention to it when inspecting the bedroom.

However, even though he hadn't looked closely, he had retained an impression of it, which was why he remembered it now.

But in such cold weather, he wondered if the air conditioner would even work...

Lu Xi'an exhaled softly and said, looking down, "Doggy, go connect the power."

The Mechanical Dog had followed Lu Xi'an upstairs. Hearing Lu Xi'an's command, it immediately turned, wobbled out of the bedroom, and went downstairs.

Lu Xi'an went to turn on the bedroom light switch. He heard a "click" that gradually faded until it disappeared. Then, after a moment's pause, the light came on.

Lu Xi'an had also found two remote controls before, in the bedside table drawer. At the time, he thought they were for the TV and didn't pay them much mind.

Now that he thought about it, one of those two must have been the air conditioner's remote control.

But it was useless anyway; the batteries in the remote control were long dead. He had tried it before.

Fortunately, the air conditioner had physical buttons on top, with switches, fan speed, airflow direction, mode, and timer buttons arranged in a row.

In his past life, he would have definitely found this a superfluous design.

Why would you need buttons for idle mode? A remote control would be enough. But now, he only felt that the designers of this world were far-sighted.

The air conditioner's power was always plugged into the socket on the wall.

Lu Xi'an confirmed this, then reached out to press the power button. He tried long-pressing, short-pressing, and pressing twice or three times in a row, but it was completely useless.

He wondered if the circuit was faulty or if the air conditioner was broken.

Lu Xi'an didn't give up. He jumped off the bedside table and ran outside the bedroom, leaning over the railing upstairs and calling out, "Doggy, come up."

But to his surprise, it was Yao Wei who came up first.

This woman had finished filling her water bottles and had refilled both hers and Lu Xi'an's. Now she was here to see what Lu Xi'an was doing.

The Mechanical Dog followed Yao Wei in, swaying. Lu Xi'an directly picked it up, stepped onto the bedside table, and asked, "Can this air conditioner plug connect?"

A gap immediately opened on Doggy's back, revealing a socket.

Lu Xi'an thought to himself that this Doggy was essentially a Power Bank, just like Yao Wei's device. He then plugged the air conditioner's plug into Doggy's back.

"Beep--"

He heard the air conditioner make a sound, and his eyes immediately lit up. He quickly pressed the buttons again, switched to heating mode, and turned the fan speed to maximum.

"Vroom vroom vroom--"

The old machine, which hadn't been used for who knows how many years, started to operate again. First, it released cool air, then the cool air turned warm, dispelling the severe cold.

Lu Xi'an immediately felt warm and comfortable. Although his nose was filled with the musty smell released by the old air conditioner, it couldn't stop the signals of enjoyment from his skin.

It actually worked!

Lu Xi'an was somewhat amazed.

He was only trying it out. In such cold weather, air conditioners in his past life were definitely useless.

The air conditioners in this world seemed much more powerful than those in his past life.

What good fortune!

"How is it?"

He turned and asked Yao Wei with a smile.

Yao Wei stared blankly at the air conditioner, not responding for a moment.

She too felt the warmth.

"Say, what if we took this air conditioner down and installed it in your car?"

Lu Xi'an suddenly had a whimsical idea and asked again.

The weather was too cold, and the car's engine heater had little effect. Even if it did, Yao Wei wouldn't want to keep the engine running to waste gasoline while resting.

Yao Wei pondered seriously for a long time, then shook her head and said, "The car can't handle it."

The car's low voltage naturally couldn't power an indoor air conditioner.

Lu Xi'an smiled slightly and patted the Mechanical Dog's head, "Don't we have Doggy?"