Sending Out Messages in Bottles

Ning Shu took the notebook, disbelief written all over her face. "Holy crap, you actually drew a map of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean from memory!"

Jiang Yao said in surprise, "Xiao Zhe, I never knew you could do that!"

Tang Xiaoguo was thoroughly unimpressed. "What's so hard about that? Just scribble something. I can do it too!"

Jiang Yao laughed. "Guo'er, you do your drawing on the bedsheets, don't you?"

Lin Qianqian examined it carefully. "The geographical positions and surrounding countries are all drawn very accurately! Lu Zhe, how did you do it?"

Of course, Lu Zhe wasn't going to tell them that he had copied it from the map provided by the system in his mind, drawing a tiger by following a cat.

"I was pretty interested in geography back in high school!"

Ning Shu thought for a moment. "This latitude should be between fifteen and thirty degrees. That's even farther south than the Philippines!"

Jiang Yao asked, "Now that we have the latitude, how do we work out the longitude?"

"Easy!" Lu Zhe drew another vertical line on the map. "Draw a line along the flight route between Pudong Airport and Kingsford Smith Airport. Where it intersects with the latitude will tell us roughly where we ended up!"

As he spoke, he drew a little circle where the two lines intersected.

Congratulations, host! You have correctly determined your approximate location. Potential Points +1!

Just as expected!

The four girls looked at it. "Where is that?"

"The Philippines are to the west, Palau and Micronesia to the east, Indonesia to the south, and the Mariana Islands to the northeast."

Jiang Yao said, "So the black box really could have fallen into the Mariana Trench!"

Ning Shu asked, "Then which country's territory are we actually in?"

Lu Zhe shook his head. "I'm not sure. We're most likely in international waters, but one thing's certain: we're definitely outside our country's jurisdiction."

The girls were utterly disappointed to hear that!

Tang Xiaoguo sighed. "No wonder the rescue uncles haven't found us. We ended up stranded outside the country!"

"Yeah! And even from the edge of this circle, we could be more than eight hundred kilometers from any country."

Tang Xiaoguo thought for a moment. "Eight hundred kilometers? That doesn't sound very far!"

Lu Zhe nodded. "Yeah, not far. Just about the distance from our capital to Seoul!"

The girls didn't have much of a feel for numbers, but the moment he mentioned place names, the sense of distance hit them!

Every little face turned deathly pale. "It's that bad?!"

"There's something else I don't understand!" Lin Qianqian thought for a moment. "Since we're in the tropics, it shouldn't be that cold even at night!"

Lu Zhe nodded. "Under normal circumstances, it shouldn't be very cold. But if we're where a cold current meets a warm current, that could happen!"

Jiang Yao asked curiously, "There are cold currents in the tropics too?"

"Of course!"

Lu Zhe nodded. "My guess is that the Kuril Cold Current flowing from north to south splits in two when it reaches the Philippines. A small branch flows here and meets the North Equatorial Warm Current, creating a large temperature difference between day and night!"

Hearing Lu Zhe's explanation, Lin Qianqian said in sudden realization, "I remember now! I read about this in World Geography. The Galápagos Islands in South America are like that. The Peru Cold Current from the south meets the Equatorial Warm Current from the north, making the temperature difference between day and night huge on those tropical islands. They have both tropical jungles and penguins!"

Jiang Yao exclaimed, "Penguins? That's way too extreme!"

Lu Zhe nodded. "Compared with the Galápagos Islands, the warm current here is stronger and the cold current weaker, so it isn't as cold. But compared with other tropical islands, the temperature difference between day and night here is still far too large."

Lu Zhe had worked out where he was stranded and received a system reward!

Yet he couldn't feel happy at all.

It was just as the girls feared!

They weren't in their homeland's territory. The national search-and-rescue teams would face complicated procedures and restrictions when entering and leaving territorial waters, greatly reducing their chances of being found!

Moreover, there were nearly a thousand islands of all sizes in this vast expanse of sea!

They didn't even know which island they were on. Even if the rescue teams had all their paperwork in order!

Could they search every single island?

Tang Xiaoguo said, her voice thick with tears, "So... we're not going to be found, are we..."

Lu Zhe reassured her, "As long as we're alive, there's hope. Don't lose heart, everyone! We can send information to the rescue teams in our own way!"

The four girls exchanged looks, all wearing utterly bewildered expressions!

Jiang Yao asked, "We all know that, but how exactly do we do it?"

"With the most primitive method!"

Lu Zhe picked up a bottle and shook it. "We'll make messages in bottles!"

"Messages in bottles?!"

The four girls exchanged looks again, realization dawning on all their faces:

"Right, we can pick up lots of discarded bottles on the beach!"

"And we have a notebook, so we can write notes and put them inside!"

"More importantly, we can draw our approximate location on them!"

"That'll improve our chances of being found!"

"What a great idea! Why didn't I think of it?"

"Xiao Zhe, you're so smart!"

Faced with the girls' praise, Lu Zhe nodded in wholehearted agreement.

The most important thing for messages in bottles was the bottles!

They had to be sturdy and seal well, so they could cross the ocean and reach land!

Since they also needed bottles to survive, and they didn't have many on hand, they ultimately freed up three relatively clean ones!

Lin Qianqian copied three versions of Lu Zhe's map, then drew an SOS marker at the approximate location of the accident!

She also wrote down their number, names, and other important information about their stranding in both Chinese and English! Once the notes were ready, Lin Qianqian handed them to Lu Zhe. "Take a look for me. Is there anything else we need to mark?"

Lu Zhe looked them over. Lin Qianqian had already recorded everything in great detail, but one important piece of information was still missing. "Qianqian, add this: today is June tenth. The sun set at six thirty last night and rose at five forty-five this morning!"

"The date and the exact times of sunrise and sunset!" Lin Qianqian nodded. "That information will help the rescue teams pinpoint our location more accurately!"

Lu Zhe nodded. "Exactly!"

Following Lu Zhe's instructions, Lin Qianqian added the sunrise and sunset times to each of the three notes!

"Then... should we throw the bottles out now?"

"The tide's coming in now. If we throw them out, they'll just wash back! We'll throw them out when the tide goes out! Of course, they might still wash back, but there's also a chance they'll enter an ocean current and drift to some corner of the world!"

Lin Qianqian nodded. "Okay, got it!"