321: Chapter 321: Lonely as Snow (Fourth Update) 321: Chapter 321: Lonely as Snow (Fourth Update) “Dad, my trial is over now, right?” Zhang Fan asked.
At this moment, the thing he wanted to do most was to take a piece of ice from the warehouse and stuff it into his mouth.
These sixty-five days, he had been missing the warehouse full of ice blocks terribly.
Just thinking about it made him feel cool all over.
Seeing Zhang Fan’s now wheat-colored face, Zhang Dongyang couldn’t help but smile broadly.
Zhang Fan’s performance could be described as perfect.
“It’s over, but this is worse than our previous situation.
There’s still a seven-day journey, and it won’t be any easier than before,” Zhang Dongyang’s eyes flickered with a hint of worry.
Without sleeping bags, without hammocks, this was more dangerous than lacking water and food.
Desert pit vipers, poisonous scorpions, these were all deadly.
Hearing his dad’s voice, Zhang Fan beamed and struck a victorious pose.
Then he stealthily took an ice cube from the warehouse and slipped it into his mouth.
The moment the ice cube entered his mouth, Zhang Fan shuddered all over.
The heat on his body was instantly expelled, leaving only a bone-deep chill.
Zhang Fan really wanted to let his dad taste the coolness of the ice cubes but knew that if he did, his dad would certainly think he was an alien.
However, Zhang Fan promptly took the canteen out of his backpack and stealthily put a few ice cubes into it.
Two minutes later, Zhang Fan tossed the canteen to his dad.
“Dad, take a break, have some water.” Seeing his dad’s cracked lips, Zhang Fan felt a pang of distress.
With seven days to go, even one drop of water should be conserved,” Zhang Dongyang said as he grabbed the canteen and stuffed it into his backpack.
Watching this scene, Zhang Fan almost cried.
Please, water’s nothing, I still have a warehouse full of it, six cubic meters of it, and a warehouse filled with ice blocks, too.
Immediately, Zhang Fan took off his backpack, picked up the 10-liter canteen, unscrewed the cap, threw in more than ten ice cubes, and then dipped his finger in.
Water flowed from his fingers into the canteen, filling the previously empty canteen quickly.
“Dad, I still have a large canteen here,” said Zhang Fan as he tightened the cap and, carrying the canteen, walked over to his dad and unscrewed the canteen in front of him.
“See?” Zhang Fan said, pointing to the canteen.
A gleam shone in Zhang Dongyang’s eyes.
He looked up at Zhang Fan in disbelief, “How could you possibly have another canteen of water?”
He knew that in his own backpack, there were only two 3L canteens with water, and over these past two months, he drank only sparingly when at his limit.
Without water, one wouldn’t last more than three days in the desert.
“Heh heh, I’ve been saving up.
This canteen should be enough to get us out of the desert,” Zhang Fan said with a proud smile.
Zhang Dongyang nodded, then hugged the canteen and took a sip.
However, when the water entered his mouth, Zhang Dongyang almost spat it out.
How could it be ice cold?
After swallowing one mouthful, Zhang Dongyang skeptically took another sip.
Ice cold, still ice cold!
Those couple of sips of icy water seemed to nourish his whole body, relaxing him completely.
Watching his dad’s astonished expression, Zhang Fan chuckled and then took the canteen to drink a mouthful himself.
He screwed the cap back on and threw it into his backpack.
Watching Zhang Fan drinking water, the people of Varidas swallowed hard.
They were thirsty too, but they had only 20 liters of water, which meant merely one liter per person on average.
That was nowhere near enough.
The group licked their lips and slowly stood up.
While we still have the strength, let’s hurry,” Varidas said.
Zhang Dongyang led the way in front, while Zhang Fan, all by himself, used his phone to occasionally take a photo, looking extremely cheerful.
Seeing Zhang Fan’s demeanor, the eyes of Varidas’s group nearly popped out.
Damn it, the guy had been trekking for sixty-five days and still had such energy?
Are all people from Huaxia this twisted?
Varidas looked at the other Huaxia members of his team with suspicion, then shook his head.
Seeing his teammates wilt like frostbitten eggplants, he seriously doubted whether these people were really from Huaxia.
Why is there such a huge gap between people?
As darkness fell, Varidas and his group became visibly tense.
Night time was when desert serpents and scorpions were most active.
And now, they had nothing at all.
However, at this moment, Zhang Fan opened his backpack and reached inside, hastily pulling out a power bank and a USB lamp from his storage.
When the light turned on, everyone was shocked.
“Where did you get this thing?” Zhang Dongyang exclaimed, not recalling he ever bought such an item!
“Oh, I bought a few while you were shopping,” Zhang Fan chuckled, making up an excuse on the spot.
Immediately, Varidas and his group also gathered around.
They definitely didn’t want to stay in a dark corner; if they were bitten by a desert viper or scorpion, they’d surely meet their maker.
“Let’s take turns keeping watch tonight,” Zhang Dongyang said.
The situation was better than expected, really.
At night, as long as they had light, everything would be manageable.
“No, no, no, you guys sleep, we’ll take care of the watch,” Varidas quickly said.
Joking aside, Zhang Fan and Zhang Dongyang were their primary protectees.
They couldn’t possibly allow them to keep watch, especially when the light was Zhang Fan’s, which now literally meant survival.
“Alright!” Knowing their identities, Zhang Dongyang lay down and fell asleep as soon as he closed his eyes.
Meanwhile, four other teams slept through the night.
The next day, just as dawn was breaking, Varidas switched off the USB lamp and clutched it in his hand like a treasure.
Around them lay ten desert vipers and eight scorpions, all dismembered.
At the same time, Varidas felt a chill down his spine.
If it weren’t for the power bank and lamp, it was hard to imagine how many from this group lying on the ground would have survived.
Watching Zhang Fan, who awaited the sunrise with his phone in hand, Varidas found it hard to comprehend how this guy could still be so full of energy.
Varidas kicked his teammates awake, one by one, taking advantage of the coolness of the early morning as they set off again.
By noon, with the fierce sun beating down and temperatures nearing forty-five degrees Celsius, their scant water supplies were rapidly depleting.
On the third day, the twenty liters of water Varidas’s group had were all used up.
Zhang Fan felt quite helpless; he couldn’t exactly go and refill Varidas and his group’s water bottles.
Anyone would suspect he was cheating.
On the fourth day, without water, the pace of Varidas’s group slowed to a crawl.
And three of them had already collapsed.
“Boss, I can’t go on,” one of them said weakly as he collapsed on the ground, gasping for air.
“Even if you can’t, you have to walk,” Varidas roared.
But, with no water, what could he do?
Zhang Fan watched this scene, shook his head, and tossed over a 3-liter water bottle.
“I’ll go look for a water source,” Zhang Fan stood up and said.
Zhang Dongyang frowned, too.
As a soldier, he couldn’t just stand by and watch.
“I should go,” he said.
“Dad, let’s split up and search,” Zhang Fan suggested.
“Okay, whether you find water or not, come back in two hours,” Zhang Dongyang instructed.
“Got it, Dad, hand me your empty water bottles,” Zhang Fan said, also packing Varidas and his team’s water bottles into his backpack.
Looking for water sources, looking for shit.
In this seemingly endless desert, the chances of finding water were about the same as winning a five million prize.
After crossing two small hills, Zhang Fan opened the bottle, inserted his finger, and in a short time, all the water bottles were filled.
“I’ll head back in four hours,” Zhang Fan decided and pulled out a bag of sunflower seeds from his storage, started cracking them as he sat on the ground, occasionally taking out a piece of ice to suck on, shivering from the cold.
“Sigh, if only there were two more people to play Fight the Landlord,” he lamented as he took a deck of cards from his storage, his boredom was palpable.
Loneliness is as desolate as snow!