RNP Chapter 53 The Days Are Getting Shorter
Chapter 53 The Days Are Getting Shorter
During the day, Xu Mo's life proceeded as usual. His training included stance exercises, qi cultivation, strength control, cold weapon drills, and firearm maintenance—each exercise requiring sweat and focus. He also spared a moment to keep an eye on the outside world, but for the entire day, he didn't see the group of survivors from yesterday appear in his neighborhood.
The survivors seemed to know their limits, or perhaps they were too frightened by the previous dangers to venture deeper into the town, staying only in the area near the town's entrance.
This is good, as it avoids unnecessary contact and potential conflicts, and Xu Mo is happy to have some peace and quiet.
The next morning, before the dawn had completely dispelled the chill of the night, Xu Mo was on the rooftop facing east, circulating his qi and blood to draw upon the increasingly precious "morning sun purple qi." His gaze inadvertently swept over the road leading from the town to the outside world.
He saw those familiar yet tiny figures.
The group of survivors, numbering about six or seven, seemed to be one or two fewer than when they had escaped; it was unclear whether they had gotten separated or encountered other problems. At this moment, the survivors, carrying packs and wearing homemade snowshoes, were in a loose formation, slowly making their way along the snow-covered old road towards the Jiangcheng shelter.
Their figures, set against the backdrop of the vast snowfield and the leaden sky, appeared exceptionally lonely and helpless.
As he watched them leave, Xu Mo had a guess in his mind.
"It seems they conducted a small-scale search of the town, but most likely found nothing, so they have no choice but to continue on their way," Xu Mo thought to himself.
This is not hard to understand. Qingsongling Town, marked as a "worthless area" on the map, had already been thoroughly analyzed by predecessors. The survival supplies that could be taken away were looted in the early days of the apocalypse; what could not be taken away was mostly destroyed in the chaos, the erosion of time, and the extreme cold.
When I first arrived here, I spent time searching, and in the end, I found that the most useful things were just wooden furniture and doors and windows that could be dismantled and used as firewood. Expecting such a hastily arrived and shaken team to find anything useful in the ruins was nothing short of a pipe dream.
Leaving for a large shelter where order and supplies might be available was their only option.
Xu Mo silently watched their figures disappear behind the distant snow-capped hills, his heart feeling little, as if he were witnessing the end of a brief interlude. He gently exhaled, and white mist drifted away in the cold air.
"I wish you good luck," Xu Mo said silently to himself.
In the apocalypse, everyone walks a tightrope of fate. Whether they can reach the other side of hope depends entirely on their own tenacity and a sliver of elusive luck.
Immediately, Xu Mo put those thoughts aside and focused entirely on the new day's cultivation. To him, the comings and goings of outsiders were merely occasional moving embellishments on this desolate backdrop; his core focus was always on improving his own strength.
However, the changes in the external environment cannot be ignored by Mo.
Looking up at the sky, the thick, leaden-gray clouds showed no signs of dissipating. Instead, they resembled giant, water-soaked gray cotton wool, growing thicker and lower, creating a suffocating feeling. They continued to "brew" snow, yet refused to bring it down, relentlessly devouring the already dwindling sunlight.
What weighed heavily on Xu Mo's mind was that the daytime hours were shortening at a visible rate.
A few days ago, it wasn't until after 3 PM that the sky started to get noticeably dark. But today, just after 2 PM, the light outside the window had already dimmed rapidly and irreversibly, as if the curtain of night had been drawn prematurely. By 3 PM, it was almost indistinguishable from night.
This change was too drastic and abnormal. Looking at the premature darkness outside the window, a thought, even for someone as composed as Xu Mo, uncontrollably surfaced: "At this rate, will there come a day when daylight completely disappears? And the whole world plunges into eternal night?"
This thought, like a cold, venomous snake, coiled around Xu Mo's mind. Although reason told him that this might just be an extreme climate phenomenon, witnessing the bizarre and rapid reduction in daylight hours still made it difficult to completely suppress the idea. Losing sunlight meant not only losing the opportunity to collect and refine "purple energy," but also the extinction of plants, the complete collapse of the ecosystem, and unimaginable psychological pressure and survival challenges.
"We must prepare for the worst." Xu Mo never pins his hopes on luck.
After another 48-hour countdown ended, Xu Mo immediately took action.
Pushing open the door, Xu Mo entered a warehouse filled with all sorts of emergency supplies. This time, his target was clear: lighting equipment and energy storage devices.
This time, Xu Mo collected over a dozen LED emergency lights, numerous flashlights, dozens of boxes of batteries of different models, and several high-capacity power supplies. He even found several small, low-noise fuel generators and several barrels of matching fuel, but considering the noise and exhaust issues, Xu Mo chose not to take them.
Xu Mo's most important gains were several high-power solar charging panels and their matching controllers. Although the efficiency of the solar panels would be greatly reduced in such extremely low sunlight conditions, even if they could only generate a weak current, it was better than nothing and served as an important source of supplemental energy.
Upon returning to the post-apocalyptic world, Xu Mo immediately began preparations. He placed most of the storage batteries and emergency lights inside the shelter. Then, carrying solar panels and related equipment, he carefully crossed the street and installed them on the rooftop of a relatively intact building across the street. This way, he could obtain the best possible sunlight while avoiding making them too conspicuous on his own rooftop. He connected the wiring, storing the generated electricity in the large-capacity storage batteries he had brought, to be retrieved from the shelter at night or when needed.
After doing all this, looking at the solar panels working silently under the gloomy sky, and the numerous lighting and energy storage devices stored in the shelter, Xu Mo felt a little more at ease. At least, in the foreseeable future, he wouldn't have to be completely plunged into darkness.
Within just a few days of Xu Mo completing these preparations, the speed at which the weather changed once again exceeded his expectations.
The light, which was still quite bright around 1 p.m., was now noticeably dimming. The actual daylight hours had been compressed to an unbelievably short duration.
The gloom that had enveloped the outside world beforehand was like a huge shadow, not only covering the earth but also planting a gloom in Xu Mo's heart that was hard to dispel.