With slightly trembling fingers, he flipped open the album, revealing yellowed old photographs.
Most of these old photos were of Chen Xin’s parents when they were young, since later on, when Chen Xin went to college and digital cameras became popular, keeping photographs had gone out of fashion.
Gently stroking these photos, looking at his once high-spirited, handsome parents and himself as just a little kid, more tears streamed down Chen Xin’s face.
Everything in the photos had long become memories, and even the places where these photos were taken no longer exist, becoming hard to trace. He had grown to the age his parents were in the photos, while his parents were already covered with white hair, their looks aged.
The greatest regret and sorrow in life is nothing more than when you want to care for your parents but they are no longer around.
Fortunately, Chen Xin still had the chance to see his parents again, as long as he could cross the thousands of miles blocking his path.
Wiping away the tears on his face, he looked through the old photos and, looking at his parents in them, Chen Xin bit his lip and firmly decided to go back to his hometown to find his parents.
Tearing a piece of paper from his notebook, he wrote down the four characters "I want to go home," and after sticking a family portrait on the paper, Chen Xin placed it in the most noticeable spot in the living room.
With a determined goal, looking at the parents in the photo, the sadness in Chen Xin’s eyes had vanished, leaving only resolve.
Certainly, wanting to travel the 600 kilometers distance now, crossing four provinces to go back home to bring his parents back, is not an easy task.
However, it doesn’t mean there’s no way to think of. Even though traveling 1,200 kilometers round trip, nearly 3,000 miles in total, even in pre-disaster times, would take a day and a night to drive and at least eight to nine hours by train, it doesn’t mean that the current situation is completely devoid of transportation options.
According to the information Chen Xin heard from Qin Lan, despite the severe impact on the national railway and highway networks, the railway mainlines connecting the provinces are still currently operational.
This city, as the northern gateway of Xiang Province, is an important land and water transportation hub connecting Xiang Province and Hubei Province. Even in the current situation, a train loaded with supplies travels from Hubei Province every week to provide supplies for this city as well as the neighboring provincial capital of Xiang Province and surrounding counties.
Although the traffic situation between Hubei Province and Anhui Province is unknown, there might still be functional rail lines between the two, given that the railway between Xiang Province and Hubei Province is operational.
If Chen Xin was merely returning home to bring someone back, without considering systematic constraints, finding a way to get on a train heading to Hubei Province would be his best and only choice.
As for traveling by car on the highway... Not to mention whether the highways are clear, merely driving more than six hundred kilometers in subzero weather and back is a perilous task.
Any carelessness could be fatal, leading to a wrecked car and loss of life.
Plus, whether cars can even pass smoothly on this route is an unknown, not to mention the pitch-black visibility outside that makes it impossible to see one’s own hand.
Even if Chen Xin opts for the road, he would need to transform his car into an all-terrain vehicle using the system’s capabilities before considering choosing the road route.
Although roads are hard to travel, if Chen Xin wants to successfully return home to fetch his parents, he probably indeed can only choose the road route.
Under the current circumstances and environment, it’s obvious that the railway can’t provide passenger services, and in the post-apocalyptic setting, ordinary people can barely find time to escape to shelters, so who would take the train for long-distance travel?
Therefore, even if Chen Xin could get train tickets through Qin Lan or the special police team, he most likely wouldn’t choose to travel by train and instead would drive on the road back to his hometown.
The SUV currently in his garage certainly wouldn’t make the trip back home, even before the disaster. Even with a full tank of gas, starting from this city, he would definitely need to refuel once on the way to reach home.
Under the current circumstances, there are no operating gas stations along the road. It’s not feasible to carry oil in barrels and pour it into the fuel tank along the way, right?
In such a scenario, besides a full gas tank, Chen Xin would need to carry enough oil to fill up two more tanks to ensure his car makes the trip there and back.
Thus, to drive back, Chen Xin must upgrade his car, either by enlarging the gas tank or switching to another power source.
Enlarging the gas tank is one potential solution, although carrying more oil would increase the car’s payload, the more water brought requires more flour added, more flour needs more water, and it truly is one way to tackle the issue.
Switching to another power source, in this case, means using the system to upgrade to a long-lasting energy source, like a nuclear battery.
A nuclear battery isn’t something only found in science fiction. Its formal name should be a radioactive isotope battery, and as far back as 2012, a nuclear battery capable of operating for fourteen years was installed in the Federation’s Mars rover Curiosity.
This technology is also gaining widespread application in the aerospace field.
Chen Xin thinks if he could install such a nuclear battery in his car, it should be enough for him to travel from this city back to his hometown and return.
The Curiosity rover weighs 3893kg; since the nuclear battery can power it and has a lifespan of up to fourteen years, powering a car obviously wouldn’t be an issue.
Yet, humans have yet to truly apply this thing to cars, and the reason... the total investment in the Curiosity rover project was $2.6 billion.
Of course, for someone with a system like Chen Xin, he’s only concerned about how many survival points it would cost to upgrade his car to nuclear power.
Though his longing for his parents is intensely strong, Chen Xin has no intention to set off immediately.
Currently, his shelter conditions are not perfect. Bringing his parents back means having no place for them to stay, and the shelter isn’t capable of supporting the consumption of three individuals. He must at least perform an overall upgrade of the shelter, making it habitable for more people with the ability to produce more food, before considering bringing his parents back.
While he can manage his life sufficiently on his own now, bringing his parents back would triple the consumption compared to when Chen Xin is alone.
If he doesn’t properly prepare, bringing his parents back would only worsen his own living conditions, letting them endure hardship alongside him.
Hence, despite his firm resolve to bring his parents back, Chen Xin has decided to first complete all necessary preparations before proceeding with the plan to bring his parents back.
Writing these notes on the paper with the family portrait, Chen Xin looked at this family portrait, stroked it, further solidifying his determination to bring his parents back.