Inspiration

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

Lu Xi'an counted them. The buckets were stacked together, all made of iron. There were ten in total, and he guessed they corresponded to the shelter's ten dormitories.

They might have been intended for emergencies, but it seemed they had never been put to use.

There were also two identical ones in the kitchen, probably meant for kitchen use, but the two people who had once been trapped here had smashed them, rendering them unusable.

He had already searched the bathroom thoroughly before and had noticed all these buckets.

But there had been no room left in Yao Wei's car to fit them, so he hadn't bothered with the stack in the bathroom.

Now, at last, the ten buckets would come in handy.

"I have an idea."

Lu Xi'an stared at the ten buckets and spoke suddenly.

"What?"

Yao Wei asked.

But Lu Xi'an only said, "There's no rush. I'll tell you later."

Yao Wei: "..."

At that moment, she really wanted to point her gun at Lu Xi'an and demand that he tell her right away. But that wasn't her style, so she held herself back.

The two of them carried all the buckets to the bathroom entrance, then went inside to clean up.

They went into the cold-storage room and cleared out several boxes that had held dehydrated vegetables and sausages, using them to hold the trash.

They packed all the kitchen trash that would fit into the boxes, then made trip after trip to the tunnel entrance to move it there.

Once all the trash had been moved, they brought over two iron shovels that had originally been used for cooking and set them aside for the moment.

They also brought over all ten newly discovered iron buckets.

They opened a small gap at the exit and Lu Xi'an tried operating the drone, sending it outside to check.

The screen on the controller lit up. The view wobbled as it flew outside.

This was Lu Xi'an's first time operating a drone, and he didn't feel entirely comfortable with it. He couldn't control it as easily as he wanted.

Fortunately, they didn't need the drone to do much. They just had to fly it high enough to check the area and make sure no one was nearby.

After seeing on the controller's screen that there was still no one outside, Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei opened the exit and emerged. They found a spot, dug a hole with the shovels, and buried all the trash.

It wasn't a big deal for them.

The dehydrated, shriveled rotten vegetables took up quite a bit of space, but still not as much as they had when fresh.

The biggest space hogs in the trash were the many bags of flour.

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei relied on great strength to create miracles again, and soon they had dug a deep hole.

They quickly moved the trash into it, buried it, tamped down the soil, and walked over it to make sure everything was secure.

Then they scattered the excess soil, brought dry, loose earth from somewhere else, and covered the damp soil so it wouldn't show on the surface.

Once everything was done, they went into the tunnel, took the buckets outside, and filled them with water from the banks of Jiangyu Reservoir.

After filling all ten buckets, they went back into the tunnel and sealed the entrance.

That was all the work outside taken care of.

By then, it was finally getting dark outside.

"Whew..."

Lu Xi'an let out a quiet breath and said with a smile, "What a nerve-racking day. I never felt this worried when we were running around everywhere before we had this hideout."

"Mm."

Yao Wei nodded, feeling a little wistful too.

But both of them knew why.

Before, they had been on their own out in the open, just walking along and looking for supplies. With nothing to lose, they hadn't cared much.

But now they had this place, and they planned to stay for a while. If anyone found it, their "secret base" would be exposed.

Having something to care about made them afraid.

Fortunately, once they finished their work and sealed the cave behind them, no one outside could get in—not with no New Humans around and no dog sniffing out a weak spot to break through. They felt completely safe.

At that moment, Lu Xi'an felt a sense of peace he couldn't put into words.

"Let's go."

He stuffed the drone and controller into the backpack he'd brought specifically for carrying them, then picked up a bucket in each hand.

Yao Wei picked up two buckets as well.

Neither of them spoke as they headed toward the shelter.

Yao Wei wondered what Lu Xi'an was planning to do with the buckets. They'd filled them all with water, and he still hadn't said a word. She didn't know how long he'd make her wait.

Maybe she should just ask him. Keeping the question to herself was making her uncomfortable.

But why didn't she want to ask, even though nothing was stopping her? It was strange.

Lu Xi'an, meanwhile, was thinking that next time they went out to get water, perhaps they should take the dog along.

Unfortunately, the dog's detection range wasn't very far. It might be useful for scouting ahead, but it wasn't much use as a defensive radar to constantly check that the surrounding area was safe.

If only the dog could fly like the drone and get a clear view of everything around them.

As Lu Xi'an's thoughts wandered, his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

He abruptly remembered the light that had flashed in the Mechanical Dog's eyes when Luo Ping had brought out the drone.

The dog's eyes didn't light up without reason. It had to have detected something.

What on the drone could have triggered a reaction in the dog?

Maybe it could remove the drone's propellers and attach them to itself?

Lu Xi'an thought he might be getting carried away.

After making five trips to bring all the buckets back, Lu Xi'an went to the innermost monitoring room.

Yao Wei didn't know what he was up to, but she followed him anyway.

In the monitoring room, the dog was hanging from the electrical box, its black wires extending from its body and connecting to the circuitry.

Lu Xi'an told the dog to disconnect its wires from the circuitry. The shelter plunged into darkness, but the dog's eyes lit up.

Lu Xi'an took the drone and controller out of his backpack and asked, "Back in the car, which one did you react to?"

The light from the Mechanical Dog's eyes fell on the controller.

Then Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei heard a click from the top of the dog's head.

They looked up, guided by the faint light from its eyes, and saw a lid on top of its head open, revealing a slot.

The slot had a complex structure, with a row of metal teeth at the bottom and several small protrusions sticking out from its sides. They had no idea what they were for.

Yao Wei stared at it in confusion, but Lu Xi'an suddenly understood something.

He told Yao Wei to go with the dog to the other end of the monitoring room. Then, in the outermost lounge, he found Yao Wei's toolbox and opened the drone controller with a screwdriver.

The controller's internal structure was very simple: a chip, circuitry, a battery compartment, and a screen. That was all.

The light from the dog's eyes immediately fell on the chip.

With such an obvious hint, how could Lu Xi'an fail to understand?

The chip didn't seem to match the size of the slot on the dog's head, but Lu Xi'an chose to trust the dog and carefully removed the chip from the controller.

Fortunately, the chip was smaller than the slot, so it looked like it would fit.

Lu Xi'an tried putting the chip in. The metal teeth at the bottom of the slot suddenly moved and gripped it, while the small protrusions along the sides shifted and clung to the chip.

"Click—"

The lid on the dog's head closed.