"Whoosh—"
Guan Tong unzipped his sleeping bag, sat up, and stretched with a big yawn.
A night had passed, and although he hadn't slept very soundly, the sleeping bag provided enough warmth, so he definitely got the rest he needed.
Squinting his eyes, he checked the snow accumulation outside. After one night, the snow around his "little camp" had increased by about ten centiters.
"If it's like this here at Mingdao Mountain, then the city probably has fifty to sixty centiters of snow after this night..."
Without further delay, Guan Tong imdiately got up, put on his cold-proof clothing, and rummaged through the food in his backpack.
Besides several large bags of compressed biscuits, there were also a few cans, several packs of instant noodles, and so freeze-dried food.
If he rationed carefully and ate half-full, he could barely survive for a month. Moreover, the previous rule [Fasting Therapy] had trained many people's ability to endure hunger. Going without food for two or three days really wasn't a big deal.
He opened a pack of freeze-dried food and ate breakfast with so biscuits, then took out the [Wordless Book] and began writing "Ascension Coins" on the second page.
He currently had 70 coins and needed 30 more to purchase the [Multi-Terrain Marching Boots]. He could only make up the difference by using the Wordless Book and consuming his Mind Power.
The first ti he did this, his Mind Power upper limit was quite low, and it took him nearly half a month to create 10 Binding Coins. But now, his Mind Power upper limit had increased significantly, so his efficiency could improve considerably.
Roughly estimating, creating 30 Binding Coins would probably take him about twenty days. Considering that in extre circumstances he could now increase his Mind Power upper limit by 1 point every seven or eight days, the overall coin creation ti might be shortened by one or two days.
It would take considerable ti, but Guan Tong could wait. This rule lasted a full month. Even if he could only buy the boots with ten days left, he could still use them for ten days, which was enough for him.
After quickly writing today's quota, Guan Tong put away the book, picked up his shovel, and went to clear the snow outside the camp. Although the camp was sheltered from snow by large rocks higher up the mountain, he still needed to clear a path outside that would allow him to pass through.
Otherwise, if he just holed up in his small camp and let the snow pile up outside, after ten to fifteen days when the chest-high snow had frozen solid, he wouldn't be able to leave the camp even if he wanted to.
Guan Tong didn't choose to clear too large an area. With just a folding shovel in hand, he couldn't manage clearing a big area anyway. What he did was extend a path about forty to fifty centiters wide outward from the camp.
He piled the shoveled snow on both sides of the path—sooner or later, both sides would be piled high with snow anyway. As for the direction the path led, naturally it was toward the road.
After the rule ended, the continuous thirty days of frozen snow wouldn't lt imdiately. When the authorities started clearing, they would definitely prioritize clearing the roads everywhere. That way, Guan Tong could wait for the road snow to lt and then follow his cleared path out from the camp.
For the next three consecutive days, Guan Tong would consu his Mind Power writing each day, then use his physical strength to clear the snow from the path he had created.
During this process, he also looked around the area to see if there was anything useful he could find. The results disappointed him—besides a patch of wild forest near Mingdao Mountain, the rest was just wasteland with nothing useful.
The wild forest did have so use though. Guan Tong cut many branches from it and brought them back. They could be used for padding things, making fires, or making wooden fences along both sides of his cleared "snow path."
After three days, the snow on both sides of the path had grown increasingly thick. It was now over forty centiters high, taller than the case of Guan Tong's desktop computer at ho.
And due to the low temperatures from continuous snowfall, frozen layers had ford within this accumulated snow. When Guan Tong tried hitting it with his shovel, it made dull thudding sounds and was very difficult to break.
This made him glad he had persisted in clearing the path every day from the very beginning. If he had delayed for a few days, he wouldn't have been able to clear it later!
"Huff..."
Having worked until evening again today, Guan Tong took a deep breath and carried his shovel back. He lit the campfire and sat on a makeshift wooden stool he'd made by wrapping branches with tape, placing his hands near the fire to warm them and relieve the numbness from working in the cold.
"The temperature keeps dropping day by day. I need to be extrely careful not to get frostbite," Guan Tong thought as he watched the flickering flas. "When the temperature drops even more in a few days, I'll try to do my work during the six hours when the [Constant Temperature Tech Underwear] is effective each day. Outside those six hours, I'll try to stay by the campfire as much as possible."
He turned his head to look into the distance, where through the snow curtain he could faintly see the hazy glow of city lights.
"Four days have passed since the rule took effect. I wonder how things are in Yunhua City..."
Even here at Mingdao Mountain where the snowfall was much lighter, the snow accumulation was already substantial. After four consecutive days of heavy blizzard in the city, the situation could only be much worse.
Even though the city had various professional equipnt, plenty of snowplows, de-icing agents, and such, could these really compete with the mighty force of nature? Guan Tong wasn't very optimistic.
Of course, if he had remained optimistic back then, he wouldn't have resolutely decided to leave the city and co to this remote place to survive alone...
"Beep—beep—"
Suddenly, while warming himself and thinking, Guan Tong jolted as he faintly heard an unnatural sound coming from the distance.
"What's that sound? A car horn?"
Guan Tong imdiately stood up and looked toward the road where the sound ca from.
His gaze pierced through the dim snow curtain, faintly making out two thick, round beams of light shooting from the distance, like vehicle headlights.
"How did they get through?" Guan Tong clearly rembered that about ten kiloters along that road was blocked by multiple vehicles involved in a chain collision accident.
Had the driver crashed through those wrecked cars? With powerful montum and the ability to drive through such thick snow, it must be a large vehicle...
Watching the approaching headlight beams, Guan Tong grew sowhat more alert.
...
Over three hundred kiloters away from Guan Tong, in Yunhua City.
The city had clearly beco a snow city.
Except for a few main arteries that had snowplows working around the clock to clear them, all other secondary roads, branch roads, and various pedestrian walkways were piled high with thick snow.
This accumulated snow was generally nearly two ters high, surpassing the height of most humans. It looked like icy snow walls standing throughout the city, creating a chilling sense of suffocation.
A driver wearing heavy winter clothes and operating a snowplow on a main road felt an inexplicable chest tightness and difficulty breathing as he looked at the high snow walls on both sides.
"This damn snow..."
He muttered, worried. Only four days had passed, with at least six more "four-day periods" to co. If these snow walls kept piling up, wouldn't they eventually completely block and bury the shops along the streets?
No, they probably already were...
"Crash!"
A sound of sothing collapsing under excessive weight ca from behind the snow wall. The driver was slightly startled but quickly cald down.
He knew it must be another shop with poor construction that had collapsed under the weight of the snow.
He had heard such sounds two or three tis since yesterday. Not just him—other snowplow drivers had also ntioned hearing snow collapsing shops and other buildings while working on the roads.
So collapsed instantly, while others made that uncomfortable, teeth-grating "creak, creak, creak" sound continuously until they passed a certain critical point, then collapsed with a crash.
"These small shops collapsing is whatever, since there's no one in them anyway. I just hope the places where people live don't collapse," the driver muttered. "If those residential places collapse, the people inside... yikes... what a tragedy."
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