Chapter 1809 - 978: Solar Radiation, Are You Going to Betray Us?

Big Camphor Tree Base.

Under the outer wall, flames roared, burning Zombies.

In the fire, the gasoline burning off these Zombies released a foul stench.

After the rain stopped, the Zombie piles stopped growing higher; instead, as the Zombies’ sensitivity dropped, the stacked height started to decrease.

Even without using gasoline to clear these Zombies outside, as long as the sun came out, these Zombies would still retreat.

But even when the sun came out, these Zombies wouldn’t go too far, so it was better to take advantage of their current concentration and wipe out as many as possible.

The sky grew brighter and brighter; the sun was about to rise.

Everyone followed Li Yu’s instructions, wrapping themselves up tightly from head to toe.

Inside the Inner City.

Li Yu entered the underground core power room of the base.

Looking at Dong Ying and the others in the power room, he asked, "The sun is about to come out, and the whole power system is shut down. Just now you said you can put together a Magnetic Shield to restore partial power supply. How long will that take?"

Dong Ying thought for a moment and said, "Five hours. Give me five hours, and give me the corresponding materials. I can build a small Magnetic Shield."

Li Yu did a quick estimate in his head.

Right now the most urgent need for power in the base was undoubtedly the freezer storage; it held large amounts of meat and other easily perishable supplies.

The freezer was underground, with excellent insulation, and right now everything inside was frozen, with a lot of ice blocks.

As long as they didn’t open the freezer door and let warm air in, it should be able to hold out for ten hours without a problem.

"Five hours? Fine, I’ll give you five hours. Xiao Hang, you’re in charge of finding the materials Dong Ying needs." Li Yu let out a small breath of relief and said to Li Hang.

In the Big Camphor Tree Base, thanks to the long-running collection missions and the Cooperative Personnel system, the base had stockpiled all kinds of materials and items.

These things might look useless in normal times, but under special circumstances they could suddenly become extremely valuable.

For example, the cables Old Huang and the others found earlier—anything like that, as long as you brought it to Big Camphor Tree Base, you could trade it for food.

Materials for the Magnetic Shield: any soft magnetic material with high magnetic permeability—such as electromagnetic pure iron, ductile cast iron, permalloy, silicon steel, soft magnetic ferrite, and so on—could in principle be used.

They didn’t have every single one of these, but they did have a few.

Old Dong listened quietly at the side, then walked over and said softly to Dong Ying, "I’ll help you later."

Old Dong was an electrical expert; to him this was actually a relatively simple job. In his opinion, they didn’t need five hours to get it done—maybe three?

But he didn’t say that out loud, just silently backed his daughter.

For now they could only restore part of the power; covering the power demand of a single freezer room was doable, but bringing more back online would not be easy.

This magnetic storm wasn’t just targeting the power grid; it would affect all electronic equipment.

Even if you’re using a diesel generator, as long as you’re generating electricity, there will be a transformer, and under the magnetic storm the transformer will be damaged just the same.

"City Lord, then we should hurry and go make the Magnetic Shield now. The repair factory in the Outer City has workbenches and full equipment; making it there will be faster." Dong Ying said to Li Yu.

Li Yu nodded and said, "Alright, go get busy."

Li Hang then led Old Dong, He Bing, Dong Ying and the others toward the Second Outer City.

As he left, Li Hang shut down the electrical panel, then locked the basement door.

He checked the time; it was now five forty-five.

A faint red glow had appeared on the horizon, and the temperature was rapidly climbing.

Wearing hats and heat-insulating clothing, they ran toward the Outer City.

Li Yu looked at the sky and couldn’t shake a sense of unease.

Suddenly, he heard water flowing through the underground drainage pipes.

Only then did it hit him—right!

Mountain Pond Guangzha!

It had been pouring before; to keep the rainwater from overwhelming and collapsing the Mountain Pond, they had opened the drainage gate to its widest setting.

After the rain weakened, they had narrowed the gate opening quite a bit, but hadn’t fully closed it.

But now the rain had stopped, so they had to hurry and shut the gate, to keep the water in Mountain Pond from flowing out.

Even though it had just rained and there was water everywhere, the coming intense solar radiation and pronounced evaporation would dry up the surface water. When that time came, the water crisis would hit.

If they didn’t stockpile water now, it would be too late to think of solutions once they were already short.

So he called out to Li Tie and went together to close the water gate.

Very soon.

They ran to the Mountain Pond side and used their hands to crank the circular wheel, needing to use a lot of force.

In the past they could close it with the press of a button, but with the power system down, they could only rely on the most primitive human muscle.

Li Tie’s face flushed with effort, but he still couldn’t move it; Li Yu crouched down and pushed with him.

At last, the gate slowly closed. Li Yu hurried out to check the flood discharge outlet; it was completely shut, no more water flowing from Mountain Pond, and he finally let out a breath.

It had just rained, leaving a kind of stuffy feeling in the air.

Normally after a rain, the air should be cooler, but with the sun about to rise, the temperature was going up instead of down.

To protect themselves, they wrapped up tightly: hats on their heads, scarves, sunglasses, long sleeves, gloves...