The next day, at dawn, it began to snow.
Gray clouds piled up from all directions, and with a gust of cold wind, salt-like snowflakes descended everywhere.
When it snowed, the world seemed to fall silent.
Jiang Ye stepped out, gun in hand, and surveyed the surroundings.
The scene was the same as last night, except for the scorched earth and the bodies of blood-bag kangaroos, there were no living creatures. The snowflakes were beginning to cover the blackness.
He climbed out of the tunnel and onto the wall, standing in the trench. He picked up the scorched bodies of the blood-bag kangaroos and tossed them back inside the wall.
After tossing three, he returned to the base through the tunnel and placed the scorched corpses into the trading pod.
A brief scan, and information appeared:
[Item: Scorched Blood-Bag Kangaroo Corpse]
[Item Description: What happened? Didn't control the barbecue heat well? Burnt to the point its own mother wouldn't recognize it!]
[Valuation: 800 yuan]
The blood-bag kangaroos, originally worth thousands, could only be sold for eight hundred after being burned to death.
Eight hundred was still money, so Jiang Ye decided to sell all the surrounding blood-bag kangaroo corpses.
This would not only earn him money but also ensure his safety.
With so many dead kangaroos, the smell might drift out and attract some carnivorous animals, putting him in danger.
He left the base and walked into the scorched wasteland, dragging the charred bodies.
As the heavy snow fell, Jiang Ye's hair quickly turned white, like Santa Claus.
The blood-bag kangaroo corpses were burned to varying degrees.
The most unfortunate had their heads burned off, their bodies reduced to bones wrapped in a layer of black membrane.
Next were those that were oily and crispy, their bodies stiff, flesh and bone softened, and surprisingly fragrant.
However, Jiang Ye dared not eat them; the benzo(a)pyrene levels were off the charts, and anyone who ate them would get cancer.
Occasionally, there were a few relatively intact ones, only their fur burned off, possibly having died from suffocation. Jiang Ye noticed the animals had lungs and nostrils, so they should need to breathe.
It took him the entire morning to clear all the corpses.
In total, there were 356 scorched bodies. The most valuable sold for a thousand yuan, and the least for only a hundred.
He earned a total of 249,200 yuan!
It was quite good, and Jiang Ye was satisfied.
His personal account balance rose to 610,200 yuan.
It sounded like a lot, but it was merely a fraction of the cost to upgrade the base. To reach a level nine base, he still needed nearly three million yuan!
The task was arduous.
He ate a simple lunch, after which he felt the urge to relieve himself.
He went to the toilet, lowered his pants, and sat on the warm toilet seat.
After a torrent of activity, he pressed the flush button.
A powerful jet of water sprayed onto his posterior. Jiang Ye let out a moan of pleasure, his whole body trembling.
The toilet's water pipe was connected to the bottom of the lake. The pipe's end had a heating element that melted ice into water, which was then drawn into the warm toilet cistern for insulation. The forty-thousand-yuan toilet was indeed high-class, considering all eventualities; it could still be used even in extreme cold weather.
After rinsing, Jiang Ye stood up and quickly looked down.
Every time he finished, he wanted to look, though he didn't know why. He felt uneasy if he didn't, and a glance brought him peace.
The toilet automatically flushed, cleaning itself quickly.
As Jiang Ye was about to leave, he heard a "ding" notification.
He froze for two seconds, then suddenly remembered something.
He lifted the small storage box beside him and, sure enough, found a canister and a bag of fertilizer inside!
The canister was a white metal can, about the size of a 1.5L cola bottle, with a nozzle on top that sprayed biogas with a gentle press.
The fertilizer bag was transparent plastic, containing a powder like cocoa powder. The bag also had "5kg" written on the bottom.
After using the toilet for so long, it had finally produced!
However, he couldn't use them yet, so Jiang Ye put them back into the toilet's storage box.
When spring arrived and the weather warmed up enough for farming, he could spread the fertilizer on the fields.
But Jiang Ye estimated that at his rate of defecation, he probably wouldn't produce many bags of fertilizer by then. They wouldn't be very useful.
Exiting the toilet, he walked to the wall and used a coal sack to create a ramp.
The snow was still falling. When he lifted the sack, a lot of snow fell off.
With the ramp set up, he got into the cockpit and drove the base vehicle out of the wall. He then parked and tossed the coal sacks from outside the wall back in.
The ice on the wall had completely melted. Jiang Ye planned to reinforce it when he returned that night.
He got into the vehicle, stepped on the accelerator, and drove straight ahead!
The snow on the ground had already accumulated five centimeters thick, and the vehicle's tires left clear tracks.
He opened the window and sniffed the air.
The money-making couldn't stop; he had to keep searching for ore!
He drove in the direction of the previously mined copper ore. The base vehicle quickly passed the copper ore deposit and continued its rapid advance.
The sky and earth were a vast expanse of white, giving the impression of an ice planet.
The snow fell harder, all fine, salt-like flakes, but in great numbers.
The vehicle left the depleted copper ore deposit and traveled for another half hour.
Finally, in the cold wind, he smelled it!
Jiang Ye braked.
He got out of the car and stood in the swirling snow, sniffing carefully.
It was a smell like lard, mixed with a hint of cream, generally quite pleasant.
Jiang Ye walked a few steps in each direction—north, south, east, and west—to confirm the direction. It was still ahead!
He got back in the car and pressed the accelerator.
After driving about five hundred meters, the smell began to weaken.
Jiang Ye braked and got out of the car, holding a blood grenade.
He walked around the area for a couple of circles, relying on his nose to pinpoint the densest area of ore.
He directly pulled the pin and threw the grenade!
*Boom!*
Snow and dirt erupted into the air with a muffled explosion.
After the snow powder settled, a void appeared where the explosion had occurred!
That's right, it was a void, pitch black, with no bottom in sight.
Jiang Ye cautiously approached and peered over the edge.
A massive underground cavern unfolded before his eyes!
The cavern was almost as large as a subway station, emitting a strong mineral scent. The sunlight was dim on this snowy day, so Jiang Ye could only vaguely see many pale yellow objects inside, which should be the color of the ore.
An underground cavern—this was something Jiang Ye had never expected.
He retreated forcefully and threw another blood grenade!
Following the explosion of the grenade came a rumbling sound of collapse, like an avalanche!
An area of ground half the size of a basketball court completely caved in!
Jiang Ye, terrified, kept running backward. Fortunately, the ground collapse did not catch up to him.
When the collapse stopped, he dared to approach slowly and peer down.
A cavern the size of a basketball court lay before him.
Inside the cavern were pale yellow pillars, one to two meters tall—stalagmites! As far as the eye could see, hundreds of stalagmites grew densely on the cavern floor, piercing straight towards the sky.
Jiang Ye's mouth hung open, wide enough to fit a fist.
He knew about stalagmites; in some underground caverns, water dripped from the ceiling, carrying certain substances, and gradually formed stalagmites. It was said that stalagmites only grew one centimeter taller every hundred years!
And now, the cavern was filled with stalagmites one to two meters high, meaning they had been standing here for ten to twenty thousand years!
Jiang Ye felt a sense of suffocation.
It wasn't from marveling at the vastness of time or the grandeur of nature.
Instead, he thought:
This must be worth a lot of money!