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, ten in total. He guessed they corresponded to the ten dormitories in the Shelter.

These might have been for emergencies, but they seemed to have gone unused.

There were also two identical ones in the kitchen, presumably for kitchen use, but they had already been smashed by the two people previously trapped here and were unusable.

He had already searched the entire bathroom before; he had noticed these buckets.

It was just that Yao Wei's car had no more space to put the buckets, so he had ignored the ones stacked in the bathroom.

And now, these ten buckets could finally be put to use.

"I have an idea."

Lu Xi'an looked at the ten buckets and suddenly said.

"What?"

Yao Wei asked.

However, Lu Xi'an replied, "No rush, we'll talk about it later."

Yao Wei: "..."

At that moment, she really wanted to point a gun at Lu Xi'an and demand he tell her immediately, but that wasn't her style. She suppressed the urge and didn't lash out.

The two brought all the buckets to the bathroom entrance, then went into the bathroom to tidy up.

They entered the cold storage room and emptied some of the boxes containing dehydrated vegetables and sausages to store the garbage.

All the kitchen garbage that should go into boxes was put into boxes, and then the two ran back and forth to the tunnel entrance, transferring the garbage there.

After all the garbage was transferred, the two also brought two shovels originally used for cooking and put them down for the time being.

The ten newly discovered iron buckets were also brought over.

A small opening was made at the exit, and Lu Xi'an attempted to operate the drone, letting it fly out to scout.

The screen on the remote control lit up, the view shaky, and it went outside.

This was Lu Xi'an's first time controlling a drone; he didn't feel entirely at ease, unable to control it as he wished.

But fortunately, they didn't need the drone to do much. It just needed to fly up high, check the situation, and confirm that no one was around.

After seeing on the remote control screen that it was still empty outside, Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei opened the hole and came out. They found a spot, dug a pit with the shovels, and buried all the garbage.

This was also no trouble for them.

Although the shriveled, rotten dehydrated vegetables took up a lot of space, they didn't occupy as much as when they were fresh.

The garbage that took up the most space was bag after bag of flour.

Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei once again demonstrated Great Strength Creates Miracles, and a deep pit was quickly dug.

They quickly transferred the garbage into the pit, then buried it, packed the soil down, and stomped on it to ensure everything was fine.

Then they scattered the excess soil and brought dry, loose soil from elsewhere to cover the wet soil, making it invisible on the surface.

After completing all this, the two went into the tunnel, took out the buckets, and went to the bank of the Jiangyu Reservoir to fetch water.

After filling all ten buckets, the two entered the tunnel and sealed the entrance.

The work outside was completely finished.

By this time, the sky outside was finally beginning to darken.

"Whoosh..."

Lu Xi'an let out a gentle sigh and said with a smile, "This day has been nerve-wracking. I wasn't this worried when I was running around everywhere before finding this Shelter."

"Mmm."

Yao Wei nodded, also feeling emotional.

But they both knew why—

Before, when they were outside, they were alone. They just needed to find things as they went along. With nothing to lose, they didn't care.

But now that they had this place, and they planned to stay for a while, if it were discovered, their "secret base" would be exposed.

When you have something to care about, you become afraid.

But fortunately, after finishing their work and returning, sealing the cave entrance meant that if no New Humans or Doggy found a weak spot from the outside, they absolutely couldn't get in, giving them a full sense of security.

At this moment, Lu Xi'an felt an ineffable sense of peace.

"Let's go."

He stuffed the drone and remote control into the backpack specifically used to carry these two items, picked up a bucket in each hand, and said.

Yao Wei also picked up two buckets.

On the way back to the Shelter, neither of them spoke.

Yao Wei wondered what Lu Xi'an planned to do with the buckets. He had filled them with water, but he still wouldn't say. She didn't know how long she would have to wait.

She probably should ask. Keeping this question bottled up was quite uncomfortable.

But why didn't I want to ask in the first place? How strange.

Lu Xi'an, meanwhile, was thinking that next time he went out to fetch water, he should probably bring Doggy along.

Unfortunately, Doggy's detection range wasn't very far. It might be useful for scouting and searching ahead of time, but it wasn't very good as a defensive radar to constantly confirm the safety of the surrounding area.

It would be great if Doggy could fly like a drone, giving a clear view of everything around.

Lu Xi'an was lost in thought when his heart suddenly skipped a beat.

He abruptly remembered the light flashing in Mechanical Dog's eyes when Luo Ping took out the drone.

Doggy's dog eyes didn't flash easily; it must have detected something.

What on the drone could have caused a reaction in Doggy?

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

Lu Xi'an felt he was being a bit fanciful.

After five trips back and forth, carrying all the water buckets, Lu Xi'an went to the innermost monitoring room.

Yao Wei didn't know what Lu Xi'an was up to, but she followed him.

In the monitoring room, Doggy was hanging itself on the electrical box, with black wires extending from its body connected to the circuit.

Lu Xi'an ordered Doggy to disconnect the wires from the circuit. The Shelter plunged back into darkness, but Doggy's two dog eyes lit up.

Lu Xi'an took the drone and remote control out of his backpack and asked, "You were in the car earlier. Which one did you react to?"

The light emitted from Mechanical Dog's eyes immediately shone on the remote control.

Then, Lu Xi'an and Yao Wei both heard a "click" sound from above Doggy's head.

The two of them glanced towards Mechanical Dog's head using the peripheral vision from its glowing eyes. They saw a cover open there, revealing a recess.

The recess had a complex structure. At the bottom were a row of metal vertical teeth, and on the sides, small dots emerged from the recess walls. It was unclear what their purpose was.

Yao Wei looked on, completely bewildered, but Lu Xi'an suddenly understood something.

He told Yao Wei and Doggy to leave the monitoring room together. They went to the outermost rest area, found Yao Wei's toolbox, opened it, and then used a screwdriver to open the drone's remote control.

The internal structure of the remote control was very simple: a chip, a circuit board, a battery compartment, and a screen made up everything.

The light from Doggy's eyes instantly shone on the chip.

With such an obvious clue, how could Lu Xi'an still hesitate?

Although the size and specifications of the chip seemed incompatible with the recess on Doggy's head, Lu Xi'an still chose to trust Doggy and carefully removed the chip from the remote control.

Fortunately, the chip was smaller than the recess, and by the looks of it, it could be inserted.

Lu Xi'an tried to insert the chip. The vertical teeth at the bottom of the recess suddenly moved, clamping the chip, and the small dots on the recess walls also moved, adhering to the chip.

"Click—"

Doggy's head closed.

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