NOVEL NEXT Chapter 122: Fuel
"In such a desolate place, can we really find oil?"
The surface temperature continued to rise, and the three of them looked somewhat sickly, weakened by the heat.
Zhou Yingting, looking at the entry beside him, noticed from his Golden Finger's side effect warning that there was an oil storage point eighty kilometers away.
"Over there, there's another barrel!"
After driving for over ten minutes, Lin Wenjue keenly spotted another large white barrel not far away.
This white barrel, if placed in the carriage, would almost fill up half of it.
But since he saw it, Zhou Yingting instructed him to load it up.
Right now there was no place to store water, but he could use his entry to conjure mineral water.
Every time he used the Refresh Entry, he could conjure up a maximum of eighty-eight varieties; next time, he'd conjure some food and change the rest to mineral water.
With the weather this hot, he estimated that they'd need water extensively moving forward.
The temperature in the cab continued to rise until Song Qingyun and Lin Wenjue moved to the rear carriage to rest, which was slightly cooler as it was further from the engine.
After resting for a moment, they took turns driving to avoid Zhou Yingting overheating alone.
Zhou Yingting saw this and didn't insist because the heat in the cab was almost unbearable.
But even in the rear carriage, they needed to keep an eye on the roadside happenings at all times to ensure no resources were missed.
When the car had traveled over eighty kilometers, and the gasoline tank was nearing empty, Zhou Yingting saw they were getting closer to the gasoline storage point and stared intently outside.
Soon, a slightly raised mound caught Zhou Yingting's attention; at first glance, it seemed unremarkable.
"Stop!"
Zhou Yingting rushed into the cab and called for Lin Wenjue to stop the car.
Lin Wenjue halted the car, sweat trickling down his face in the scorching heat, and looked at Zhou Yingting with confusion.
"There are supplies over there; wait in the car."
Zhou Yingting didn't grab the oil barrel right away; carrying it directly seemed too suspicious.
Song Qingyun followed Zhou Yingting, ready to check what supplies might be there.
"Aren't you worried he might just drive away?"
Under the blazing sun, Zhou Yingting felt as if the heat could melt him alive.
"Well, there's only water left in the car, no food or fuel to get very far. Coming down, I want to see if he can be trusted, if he's smart."
Although sympathetic to the other's plight, if betrayal happened, Song Qingyun wouldn't be lenient.
Hearing Song Qingyun's words, Zhou Yingting couldn't help but grin.
He came down so easily also because there wasn't much fuel left; with just a little gasoline, chasing him should be easy.
"Did you find any supplies here?"
Song Qingyun changed the topic, looking around at the terrain, which was a uniform ochre color, with rising heat in waves.
This place didn't look like it had supplies.
"This mound seems too abrupt; I want to see if there's something amiss."
Zhou Yingting commented casually, then led Song Qingyun to the mound. At first glance, it seemed like a mound, but once they circled behind it, it was clearly not a mound but a tanker!
It seemed to have flipped over due to careless driving.
After years of exposure to wind and sand on one side, it formed into a mound-like appearance, while half of the other side was buried, still recognizable as a tanker.
"A tanker truck, there should be oil inside!"
Seeing the tanker, Song Qingyun's heart leapt with joy.
Previously worried that the remaining fuel wouldn't last beyond a dozen kilometers, now the tanker seemed to solve the gasoline problem.
"Go tell him to bring the car over, and we'll figure out how to extract the oil."
Zhou Yingting looked at the tanker and said to Song Qingyun.
With the Golden Finger's prompt, he was certain there was gasoline inside, so he didn't bother checking and sent Song Qingyun to move the car over.
Without thinking twice, Song Qingyun nodded and ran back.
Zhou Yingting examined the tanker, noticing it was battered, yet the tank was relatively intact.
When Song Qingyun brought Lin Wenjue and the car over, the three of them gathered around the tanker, deep in thought.
"I checked, there's a bit of oil left inside; according to the markings, there should be 500 liters of gasoline."
"Our vehicle consumes 1 liter per ten kilometers, so 500 liters should travel about five thousand kilometers. However, considering future entries might increase consumption and we're unsure of the destination, 500 liters may not suffice."
Zhou Yingting explained the current situation to the two in front.
Lin Wenjue scratched his head, "I don't really understand, but no matter what, we need to extract the oil, right?"
"It needs to be extracted."
Zhou Yingting nodded, noticing that the other person seemed not to fully understand his meaning. He decided not to elaborate further; this damned weather was too hot, and he didn't want to stay outside any longer than necessary.
"Does the barrel we picked up earlier have a lid?"
The barrel for the gasoline certainly wouldn't do—too small. The large white barrel could work, though.
But the barrel needed a lid; without one, the gasoline would evaporate.
"No, the white barrel didn't have a lid when we found it."
Hearing this, Song Qingyun spread his hands helplessly.
"No lid? That's troublesome. At a temperature of twenty-eight degrees with a relative humidity of eighty-five percent, gasoline's evaporation rate is fifty-five percent. The ground temperature here must be forty or fifty degrees, right? If we store gasoline without a lid, won't it all just evaporate in no time?"
Zhou Yingting furrowed his brows, looked at the gasoline can, and sighed.
"Lend a hand and let's lift this gas can onto the car."
Without taking this gas can, there was no way to load the gasoline into the vehicle.
Luckily, they had three carriages, and by connecting the two at the back, there was just enough space to fit the car.
The gas can weighed a few tons. The three of them violently disassembled the connecting parts and then lifted the gas can into the two carriages.
As the gas can was loaded into the carriages, they became instantly packed full.
Some gasoline was extracted and refilled into the tank, and the train set off again.
Zhou Yingting sat in the driver's seat, sticking an entry onto the car while keeping an eye on the fuel consumption.
When not using the entries, this car used 1 liter to travel 10 kilometers, at a speed of 28 kilometers per hour.
After using the entries, the car consumed 1.2 liters to travel 10 kilometers, with a speed of 24 kilometers per hour.
"Our speed has dropped!"
Song Qingyun hastily pointed this out upon noticing.
"The loaded gas barrel is too heavy, of course the speed has dropped!"
Zhou Yingting responded to the comment.
At this moment, the installed entry projected a screen that appeared before them.
The entry was just installed, and immediately numerous messages scrolled past.
Beside the chatbox on the screen, there was also their ranking list.
Zhou Yingting's team was car number 44, currently ranked 81st among 183 cars.
"We're at 81st place, the speed is a bit too slow."
Lin Wenjue noticed the ranking and started to feel anxious.
Only the top ten could receive rewards.
At their current speed, reaching the top ten seemed a bit difficult.
As he was speaking, their ranking dropped once more, becoming 82nd.
It seemed their car's speed was too slow, leading to the drop in rank.
"We need to figure out a way to increase the speed. With a speed of just over twenty kilometers per hour, how can we possibly win against others?"
Song Qingyun stared anxiously at the list in front of him.
"Does anyone have gasoline? Where did you find it? Can anyone share, my car is about to run out of fuel!"
"What routes are you all on, and why is there only my car on this road? How are you all handling food? I saw wild animals before but let them go; now I'm starving. Does anyone have food, and does anyone know where we can trade?"
"Attention, in team mode, each additional person decreases speed by 10 miles. Don't let your teammates get left behind, even if the car makes it to the top ten, if you're not in the car, it won't count as a pass for you."
"I came across two forks in the road, does anyone know which way to go? I'm lost!"
Message after message scrolled through, seemingly useless information, but Zhou Yingting sharply picked up on some clues.
"When we look for supplies later, keep an eye out for any maps or similar items. We need to take them; we don't know the destination yet, and we can't afford to take the wrong path."
Zhou Yingting instructed, with both side companions quickly nodding in agreement.
Fortunately, they didn't need to worry about food for this car.
Zhou Yingting licked his lips, feeling unbearably thirsty at this point.
Thinking of this, Zhou Yingting directly conjured up some food and dozens of bottles of mineral water.
The three of them drank three bottles of mineral water, and the remaining ones were thrown into the large barrel as reserves.
Thirty kilometers ahead, there was more gasoline.
Zhou Yingting glanced at his mini-map, marking the next gasoline point.
We'd better collect more gasoline while we don't know where the destination is.
Thirty kilometers wasn't particularly far, but the train was too slow at the moment, taking over an hour to reach the location.