The Last 299 Days of Humanity

Chapter 63 Wasteland
When Daji brought back the cleaned Angelica, everyone finally saw what Angelica truly looked like: although her eyes and brows exuded a spiritual aura, she was truly sallow and thin.

Daji's clothes were way too long for her, and the sleeves had to be rolled up halfway.

Without saying a word, she turned and went back into the basement.

Chang'e and her companions searched for materials everywhere and finally found some alloy plates and strips among the broken walls, which they managed to build a place that could shelter them from the wind and rain.

Apart from Daji accompanying Danggui in the basement, Yu Qing and the others all rested in the shed that had been set up that night.

It was pitch black all around, and Yu Qing didn't dare to lie down and sleep, so he put on his helmet.

In the weeds outside, something—whether snakes or rats—was rustling and moving all night. In the distance, unknown animals were howling and howling.

But Yu Qing felt much more at ease than before. In any case, he was no longer alone; he had found his kindred spirits.

If a few more people reunite at the Third Amusement Park... there is still hope for them to prosper again in the future.

Yan'er was always the most restless; before dawn, she had explored every corner of the amusement park. The next day, Yu Qing was awakened by the aroma of roasting meat. It turned out that Yan'er had caught a wild boar cub and was roasting it over the fire!

Yu Qing laughed and said, "You've finally done something right. It's a pity there's no salt, otherwise it would be even more delicious."

Yan'er said, "Salt? That's the one thing we have plenty of here. You know, I just walked around and a third of the entire park is barren, completely corroded by salt."

“I forgot. Each amusement park had stockpiled salt for five hundred years, which must have been soaked in water and flowed into the ground. Could there have been a flood here? Go down and ask the old man.”

Yan'er cut off a pig's leg, sprinkled it with salt, and carried it to the basement.

Yu Qing also cut off a piece of wild boar meat, dipped it in salt, and ate it. It had been a long time since he had eaten such natural food.

He was thinking that since this place was located above an underground river, it was possible that if the river swelled, water could overflow here. In that case, the location of the second amusement park was poorly chosen; it wasn't completely isolated from the outside world at all.

Before long, Yan'er had found out what had happened. A hole had collapsed in the northeast corner of the park, and for the past thirty years, water had been overflowing from the hole almost every year, submerging three-quarters of the park. This area was the only high ground that had not been flooded.

The flood destroyed the power facilities and food synthesis system, plunging the entire park into a survival crisis.

Some young people from the amusement park back then tried to use that hole to swim out. However, they tried many methods to get down, but they only saw people who went down alive; none of them came back alive.

At that time, the larger animals in the park, such as cows and donkeys, were all killed by the young people.

They skinned the cows and donkeys, dried them, and sewed them into several large buoys. They strung them together, put themselves inside one of the large buoys, and then hung a large stone below the buoy with a rope. One end of the rope was passed through a small hole and tied to their hand. Then they had someone push them into the hole.

They envisioned that after the buoy was pulled into the underground river by the stone, the stone would be discarded, allowing the buoy to drift downstream to the open river, where they would then find a way to get ashore and leave the Second Paradise.

These attempts went on for several years, and it's unknown whether anyone succeeded. But one year, several buoys floated out of the hole again, with two skeletons still inside. After that, no one tried that method again.

More than a decade ago, the overflowing river brought a plague to the Second Paradise, and only the old man and his granddaughter, Dang Gui, survived. Therefore, the Second Paradise was no longer worth staying at.

Yu Qing didn't want to waste any time and couldn't wait to leave.

"Yan'er, go down and have Daji ask them if Dangui and the others are willing to come with us when we plan to leave in the next couple of days... No, they absolutely must come with us!"

Chang'e asked, "My lord, have you thought of a way to leave this place?"

"I have a preliminary idea, I'll consider it more carefully."

Yao Dan said, "I know, it's the same as yesterday when we jumped off the cliff in zero-gravity backpacks. We'll go downstream, jump into the river, and then drift downstream to the tributary."

Yu Qing laughed and said, "You're just imitating others. Yesterday, when I jumped down, it was still land. I just used my hands to brace myself and stood up."

But now, putting myself in a bag and jumping into the water is a different story. The water is flowing and soft, offering no support. Wouldn't I be trapped inside, unable to move? I might suffocate or drown.

"Wow, that's really risky."

Just then, Yan'er returned and brought Yu Qing some bad news: the old man didn't want to leave, saying he was afraid of being a burden to everyone, and only wanted to take Danggui with him. But Danggui said that if Grandpa didn't leave, she wouldn't leave either. So the grandfather and granddaughter got into a fight.

Yu Qing went down to talk to the old man himself, but he still refused to leave. Even with such a difficult job, he wouldn't leave.

Yu Qing had no choice but to try a different approach. He told Daji to leave the basement and declared that she would leave on her own the next morning, leaving the grandfather and granddaughter to do as they pleased.

Sure enough, not long after Yu Qing and the others left, Dangui came up and pulled Daji away again. A little while later, Daji returned and told Yu Qing that the grandfather and granddaughter had agreed to leave together.

But Yu Qing still had more to do. He had to get everyone out of there safely. They didn't have many tools at their disposal and could only overcome the difficulties using some primitive methods and ingenious designs.

The available resources in the park were very limited, consisting only of those five trees, each about ten meters tall. He instructed Chang'e and Yaodan to cut them down at the base, remove all the branches, and keep only the trunks.

Then they were made to move all the wood to a cliff about seven or eight kilometers away from the park and set it aside for later use.

At the same time, he had Yan'er and Daji cut all of Danggui's and his grandfather's old clothes, quilts, etc. into strips of cloth and twist them into ropes.

After finishing all that, Yu Qing left Daji in the amusement park while the others went with him to the cliff edge to make tools to leave. Furong happened to be outside the amusement park with nothing to do, so he took her along to help.

The timber was dragged to a spot less than two meters from the cliff. He first had them take three tree trunks horizontally and two vertically and arrange them in a grid pattern.

They then tied all the intersecting parts tightly with ropes, making something similar to a raft. At this point, everyone understood that this was their tool for floating on the water.

But some things that happened afterward left them completely baffled.

(End of this chapter)