N-A-A Chapter 022 is too short.
Chapter 022 is too short.
Holding a metal detector, Lu Chen walked slowly across the scorched earth, his gaze involuntarily drifting into the distance.
--Gobi.
An endless expanse of Gobi Desert, with undulating scorched earth.
Yellow sand was still flying in the air, but it wasn't enough to obscure the view.
Meanwhile, three days later, Lu Chen finally saw the sun again through the sparse flying sand.
In the City of Time, there is only light, day and night.
As for sunlight—the top of the 'endless' city walls is only bathed in a deep brown sky during the day and a dark black sky at night.
What does "unexpected gain" mean?
The wind and sand howled in his ears, and Lu Chen couldn't help but shout.
Not far away, without even raising her head, Yu also shouted, "There are many kinds~"
...
"Last time I went out of town~"
"Your hibernation pod~"
"It was an unexpected bonus for me~"
Even though they were only a few meters apart, and Yu raised her voice, Lu Chen could only hear a muffled sound.
He decided to stop asking questions and focused on slowly moving the metal detector in his hand across the scorched earth beneath his feet.
The scene was different from what Lu Chen had imagined.
The search took a full half hour.
The two maintained a consistent distance to each other, and managed to walk over a hundred meters.
Finally, Yu stopped, beckoned to Lu Chen, and returned to the pickup truck.
Then we changed direction and continued to explore.
Another ten minutes or so passed before the detector in Lu Chen's hand finally beeped.
Yu followed the sound, glanced briefly at the warning light on the detector, and then tightened the collar of her trench coat.
"Very small~"
"Dig it yourself~"
Lu Chen nodded obediently, put the detector in his hand aside, and took out an entrenching tool from behind his back.
The scorched earth is not as soft as sand.
Each time, Lu Chen had to use most of his strength to insert the entrenching tool into the ground.
After digging dozens of shovelfuls, my arms started to ache.
Lu Chen gritted his teeth and continued digging.
After digging nearly a meter deep, accompanied by the clanging sound of the entrenching tool tip striking the soil, a metallic luster finally emerged from the yellow earth.
Lu Chen stopped what he was doing, took a deep breath, and shook his sore arms.
Then he bent down and used an entrenching tool to clear the soil around the metal.
What came into view was a knee-high, T-shaped metal frame.
It has not rusted, nor has it been weathered—it is perhaps an alloy such as stainless steel.
Lu Chen picked it up and weighed it; it should weigh over ten kilograms.
"Phew~"
"It's no easier than working in a mine..."
With that thought in mind, Lu Chen's hands kept moving.
He picked up the metal frame, walked back to the car, and threw it into the back of the pickup truck.
He turned back again, still holding the metal detector, and searched the scorched earth like a mine-clearing soldier.
...
We arrived in this area around noon, around 11 a.m.
Yu was busy until 16 p.m. before calling Lu Chen back to the car to rest.
During this time, Lu Chen unearthed five or six small items, with a total weight of less than one hundred kilograms.
As for jade, besides a dozen or so small pieces, we also found a large piece.
—A steel plate approximately one meter long and wide, and three centimeters thick!
I don't know what its purpose is.
After finding the location, Yu called Lu Chen over as well, and they dug together.
They dug nearly two meters deep before finally unearthing the steel plate.
Despite being only three centimeters thick, the steel plate was so thick that even two people working together couldn't lift it!
It weighs at least 200 kilograms!
Left with no other choice, Yu could only take a chain from the car and tighten it around the steel plate.
Then, the other end of the chain was tied to the trailer hitch at the rear of the vehicle, the vehicle was started, and the steel plate was pulled out.
After a great deal of effort, the two of them managed to squeeze the steel plate into the cargo box.
After finishing all that, and tossing the metal detector into the cargo box, Yu Cai waved wearily, beckoning Lu Chen to return to the car.
I thought it was just a temporary break.
Unexpectedly, as soon as Yu got into the driver's seat, he started the pickup truck and drove away in the next instant.
"Phew~"
...
"That's too little."
"There's no need to come back to this metal zone."
"If we're really going to waste time here, we'll have to dig for six days straight to make this trip worthwhile."
Upon hearing this, Lu Chen nodded in agreement and raised his hand to pat the sand off his face and neck.
Feeling a bit better, he let out a long breath and then picked up the map to look at it again.
Previously, Lu Chen was only focused on the square representing the "City of Time" in the very center of the map, as well as the sandstorm belt surrounding the city.
I didn't notice: outside the sandstorm belt, there were a few scattered areas marked with text.
On the map, the only place marked with "city gate" is in the exact middle of the line below the square.
The black line extending downwards from outside the city gate is the asphalt road the two had previously driven on.
The only area marked "metal zone" is located outside the sandstorm zone, nearly 100 kilometers away from the paved road.
—That is, the place where Lu Chen and Yu were digging for metal over the past few hours.
As for other places...
"Materials Section;"
"A windless harbor;"
"Architectural ruins area;"
...
"Is there no second metal zone?"
The slightly puzzled question caused Yu to turn her head slightly and glance at Lu Chen.
Then he turned his head and continued looking ahead, only pointing to the map in Lu Chen's hand.
"This map."
"When I bought it, there was only the square representing the 'City of Time' with the 'City Gate' label."
"The others—sand belts, asphalt roads, metal areas, and safe harbors—were all marked after I determined their locations."
...
"A 300-kilometer radiation-free zone has been explored by scavengers for hundreds of years."
"Anything that's easy to find and get out has already been taken back."
"If you want to find good stuff, you have to go to the light radiation zone, which is 300-500 kilometers away."
"Next time, I might consider going to take a look."
After saying that, Yu stopped talking again and continued to focus on driving.
Lu Chen lowered his head thoughtfully and looked at the map in his hand again.
It's okay if you don't look at it;
Upon closer inspection, Lu Chen immediately noticed the problem.
"After leaving the city, we drove on the asphalt road for almost an hour before we finally got out of the sandstorm zone."
"Therefore, the thickness of the sandstorm belt is 40 kilometers..."
As Lu Chen muttered to himself, Yu nodded gently: "40 kilometers during the day, 60 kilometers at night."
Lu Chen's brows furrowed suddenly.
I looked at the map again.
"The thickness of the sandstorm belt is 40 kilometers, but on the map it is less than 10 centimeters."
"But the walls of the City of Time are a full 50 centimeters long..."
His words, barely concealing his shock, prompted Yu to nod again.
"That's right."
"The City of Time is 200 kilometers long and 200 kilometers wide."
"District 18 is the outermost ring of the City of Time, a square ring 2 kilometers wide and 800 kilometers in circumference."
...
"If the rumors are true, the other seventeen districts are also only 2 kilometers wide."
"The further in you go, the smaller the circumference of the square ring becomes."
"--A total of eighteen districts, which together occupy 36 kilometers of the outer edge of the City of Time."
"Zone 0 occupies the core of the City of Time, a square area 128 kilometers long and wide."
"It occupies more than a third of the area of the City of Time."