ignition.
The old ignition coil was sluggish for half a second before the engine finally roared to life.
The passive feedback from [ Mechanical Repair LV3 ] has arrived.
The spark plug gap is too large, resulting in an ignition delay of approximately twelve milliseconds in the third cylinder.
This Suoluode can only last another two thousand miles before it needs a complete electrical overhaul.
Su Wei shifted the car into Drive, turned the steering wheel with one hand, and drove the car out of the parking lot.
The phone screen lights up.
A UPS logistics notification popped up in the notification bar.
[You have a package that has arrived at the UPS pickup point in Kodiak Town, package number: 1Z-9A7-XXX-XXXX. Please collect it within seven business days using the pickup code.]
Su Wei tapped the steering wheel with his right thumb.
Turn onto the main street and drive towards the UPS branch with the brown sign in the southwest corner of town.
Chapter 231 Two Kilometers on Paper
The UPS branch sign swayed briefly in the setting sun.
The wind blew the snow off the top of the sign and onto the rubber mat at the entrance.
Su Wei pushed open the glass door and gave the pickup code to the young man wearing a woolen hat behind the counter.
The bearded guy from last time wasn't here; looks like he's taking a break today.
The young man glanced at the screen, then turned and walked into the warehouse compartment.
Thirty seconds later, he came out carrying a flat cardboard box in both hands.
The box wasn't big, about 40 centimeters by 30 centimeters, and it was wrapped in two layers of bubble wrap with a red "Fragile" label on the outside.
Sender address: Anchorage.
The sender's name was listed as Emily.
Su Wei signed the delivery slip, tucked the package under her arm, and pushed open the door to step into the cold wind.
The heater in the Suoluode mobility scooter was unreliable, and the air it blew out smelled of burnt rubber.
Su Wei placed the package on the passenger seat without opening it.
The return journey was more difficult than the way there.
The snowplows on the county road hadn't passed by yet, and the fresh snow was crushed into a grayish-brown icy mess by passing vehicles.
Suoluode's rear wheels slipped twice in the corner.
The passive feedback from [ Mechanical Repair LV3 ] continued to come in, and the shift shock of the transmission was two milliseconds larger than in the morning.
This car won't last much longer.
But it's okay, the Raptor will be fully modified soon.
Two and a half hours later, the cabin in the Emerald Lake territory appeared at the end of the windshield.
Su Wei turned off the engine, carried the package, stepped through the snow on the porch, and opened the wooden door.
The temperature inside the room was stable at 23 degrees Celsius, and half of the birchwood in the fireplace was still burning.
The buff from [ Homestead Shelter) ] worked silently, and the stiffness remaining in my muscles began to subside.
Cotton Candy bounced off the wool blanket in front of the fireplace, its four paws sliding on the wooden floor, and rushed to his feet.
The white fur ball nuzzled against his calves and whimpered twice.
Su Wei bent down and scooped it up with one hand.
The little fox immediately tucked into my arms, rubbing its pink nose against the zipper of my windbreaker.
"Wait a minute."
He put the Cotton Candy on the sofa, then turned and walked towards the long table against the wall in the living room.
The desktop has been cleared.
Su Wei rummaged through the storage room and found a roll of plastic film. He tore off a large sheet and spread it on the table, then used books and cups to weigh down the four corners.
Then he took out a pair of white cotton gloves from the drawer; they were the leftovers from when he was processing the stag antlers.
After doing all that, he went back to the entrance and picked up the package.
He drew the KA-BAR 1217 from his waist, the blade slicing along the seam of the packing tape.
Peel off the bubble wrap and open the cardboard box.
Inside, there was another vacuum-sealed bag, the opening of which was sealed with a heat-sealing strip, and two packets of silica gel desiccant were stuffed next to it.
Emily is indeed meticulous; this book is quite old and can't tolerate even the slightest bit of dampness.
Su Wei used the tip of his knife to pry open the sealed bag.
A damp, musty smell filled my nostrils.
This isn't the stench of rotting paper, but rather the smell of old paper that has been trapped in a confined space for decades.
The decaying wood pulp fibers, mixed with the acidic residue from oxidized ink.
The book was taken out and placed on a plastic film.
Handbook of Subsurface Geological Exploration of the Southwest Plate of Kodiak Island.
The cover was made of dark green stiff cardboard, and the edges were worn down.
A small piece is missing from the bottom left corner, revealing the yellowed cardboard base underneath.
The cover features the old-fashioned logo of the State of Alaska Geological Survey in the center, with the publication date of 1962 below the eagle wings.
A faded purplish-red stamp was placed in the upper right corner: Internal Document – Limited Distribution.
Su Wei put on white gloves, pinched the edge of the cover with his thumb and forefinger, and carefully opened it.
The first page is the table of contents.
The font is printed on an oil-based screen; some strokes are blurred, but it is still generally legible.
The book is divided into seven chapters, covering an overview of plate tectonics, borehole layout schemes, core records, mineralization zone markings, and appendix maps.
The paper feels dry and brittle, with broken fibers at the edges.
When it was turned over, small fragments fell onto the plastic film.
Su Wei turned the pages very slowly, pausing on each page for five to eight seconds, his gaze sweeping from the top left corner to the bottom right corner.
The first eighty pages contain a standard regional geological description, such as the gneiss basement, Quaternary glacial deposits, and the distribution of volcanic clastic rocks.
This information can be found in the state geological bureau's public database; it's worthless.
But starting from page ninety, things changed.
A hand-drawn cross-sectional diagram appeared.
The core samples are drawn with pencil lines and dense markings, and each borehole core column diagram is accompanied by a handwritten percentage of mineral composition.
These data have never been digitized or entered into any public geological database.
Sixty years ago, geological engineers used pencils and protractors to draw the subsurface structure of the entire southwestern Kodiak Island Plate, stroke by stroke.
Su Wei turned the pages even more slowly.
Page 120, 130.
Fault zones begin to appear on the cross-sectional view.
The dotted line drawn in red pencil extends along the projection of the ridgeline of the Pillar Mountain, and is marked with the words "F-3 Fault ".
Page 142.
Su Wei's fingers stopped.
The entire page is filled with a large-scale floor plan.
The title bar in the upper right corner of the image reads: K-42-X Borehole planar location and columnar core record.
K-42.
AK-KOD-0042.
The latter half of the plot number completely overlaps with this borehole number.
Su Wei's back was pressed against the chair, his spine straight.
The coordinates of the borehole locations marked on the map use the old latitude and longitude format from the 1960s.
He needs a change.
Su Wei converted the old coordinates in the manual to the modern WGS-84 format on the computer and then overlaid them with the mineralization zone location points he recorded when scanning the bottom of the infrastructure pit.
The two sets of data overlap on the screen.
The deviation is less than fifteen meters.
The borehole drilled sixty years ago was less than fifteen meters east-northeast of his infrastructure pit.