Chapter 598: Bury the Villa Compound
Chapter 598: Bury the Villa Compound
An Ran thought to herself: she couldn’t just let the spiky fatball loose to eat the elderly, women, and children.
In this frozen world, even mutated plants struggled to survive. Apart from eating people, there was little else to feed it.
But troublemakers were only so many, and An Ran still had to control the fat spiky plant so it didn’t eat just anyone. Even a mutant plant had to stick to some basic principles.
So Hexi, being only so big, with just one fat spiky plant guarding the entire villa compound—was already more than enough.
There was no need for others to go out of their way to defend Hexi.
By now, Hexi was bustling with activity. With Zhou Zheng and his soldiers joining, Fatty had gained more strength-type ability users. But the snow kept piling higher, the ice kept thickening, and soon digging passages through the snow would no longer be possible.
The heavy snow had already buried all the villas. Driving from the bridge into Hexi, there was no sign of the compound at all. Looking out across the flat expanse, one might occasionally spot the tip of a villa roof, but it was already on the verge of being swallowed by wind and snow. Soon, even the rooftops would disappear.
Yun Tao gave Fatty an idea: stop bothering with clearing snow paths. In weather this extreme, better to just let heaven bury the entire compound.
Once buried, they could lead people to dig a few ice tunnels beneath the snow and ice layers. Living under the ice meant no wind biting at them, no icy chunks pelting them, and they could still happily visit each other.
Fatty thought Yun Tao’s words made perfect sense. So he stopped sending people out daily to clear the snow paths. Instead, he dispatched every strength-type ability user to dig tunnels. Each villa was buried under ice and snow, so they cleared out the area immediately around the villas but left the ice above intact. Beneath the snowpack, they carved out open spaces, passageways, and vent holes.
From the outside, within just a few days, the entire Hexi villa compound vanished from human sight. To enter, one had to go through a snow tunnel.
Inside, the light was dim; the deeper the snow, the darker it became. In some places it was pitch black—you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face—until you fumbled for a switch and turned on a bulb fixed to the wall.
The bulbs had been scavenged from a pile of miscellaneous supplies. Zhan Lian strung a few wires, hooked them up to the firewood-powered boilers, and laid the wiring through the tunnels. At intervals, they set up large boilers with dedicated people to burn wood for electricity, so even the tunnels were kept warm.
Because the snow grew thicker every day, each household had to take responsibility for clearing their own ventilation shafts, otherwise they’d suffocate inside the snow tunnels.
Fortunately, they now had many strength-type ability users, most already upgraded. Punching through a vent hole was easy for them, so ventilation didn’t need assigned crews—each household could handle it themselves.
As for the main entrance, it was wide enough to let a vehicle through. Though the tunnel was still cold, it wasn’t as brutal as the blizzards outside. In fact, the temperature inside was noticeably higher.
The only problem was that Fatty gave his people too much freedom. Aside from his own ability users, he let households dig tunnels however they liked. If someone wanted to visit another villa, they just dug their own passage.
So while the entrance was fairly wide, once inside the compound, the tunnels varied in size and shape, depending on who had dug them.