#500 - Chapter 500: Not much pressure
It wasn't even 10 AM.
Level 1 personnel constructing the Life Belt outdoors already felt unusually uncomfortable today.
"Ugh—what's going on today!? Why does it feel even worse than usual? My eyes are so sore."
At one construction point, a middle-aged man squinted and painfully rubbed his eyes.
He felt dryness, stinging, and tearing in his eyes.
The sun today seemed more scorching than usual?
"I feel the same way; I thought it was just me!"
"Me too!"
Soon, coworkers who overheard the middle-aged man's words chimed in.
They all noticed that each other's eyes were slightly red and tearing.
A bad feeling crept into everyone's hearts.
And that wasn't all.
"Damn it! The sun is scorching today! My arm turned red after being exposed for just a moment!"
Several people whose arms were exposed to the sunlight seemed to realize and complained, clutching their arms that had reddened after only a short time in the sun.
Someone, not believing it, reached out, and indeed felt the stinging sensation.
"Crap! It's true! The sun is so strong today!"
More and more people realized something was wrong.
Something seemed off with the sunlight; it was much harsher than usual.
The manager, hearing the commotion, came over. After understanding the situation, he quickly ran to report to the base.
In this situation, they had to report it; the lives of the outer members mattered too.
In other parts of the base, more and more people quickly realized that the sun felt more aggressive than usual.
This news quickly spread to the base management. After understanding the situation, the leaders knew it was serious and didn't dare to hide it, reporting directly to the chief.
"Hmm!?"
"You're saying the sunlight outside is more intense than usual?"
After receiving the news, Qin Jin walked out of his office. After sending Team Leader Li and the others out this morning, he had returned to his lair to work and hadn't really paid attention to the sunlight.
When he stretched his arm out and exposed it to the sunlight, his skin, which was more sensitive and powerful than ordinary people's, quickly felt a slight tingling sensation!
There was indeed a problem!
"Immediately have someone check the environmental monitoring instrument data! And have the scholars and researchers in the base help analyze what's going on!"
He quickly realized what was happening but still instructed his subordinates to use more scientific methods to observe the arrival of this disaster.
Yes!
This was a real sign that the drought was already descending!
In his previous life, he wasn't here at this time and couldn't have known the specific situation of each region, let alone that after the apocalypse, everyone had long lost the concept of dates. Being able to live one day was enough; who would pay attention to what day it was?
He only vaguely remembered that the scorching drought arrived around mid-July, but he couldn't remember the exact date.
But now he still had time to prepare.
He remembered that at the time, it slowly started with uncomfortable heat, which gradually increased until, after several days, it became unbearable, even to the point where ordinary people couldn't go outdoors.
Fortunately, he had a premonition and prepared a lot of food and water in advance, and finally managed to stay in his small home and silently survive the long-lasting drought.
"Understood! We'll take care of it right away."
Wang Yang was also by his side, and after receiving the chief's instructions, he gladly accepted and ran to execute them.
Qin Jin stood outdoors at the main base, squinting and looking up at the star above, which was no different than usual.
Perhaps, it wasn't the sun that was changing, but Blue Star.
For a moment, he didn't feel like going back to the office to work, so he simply walked around the base, planning to personally check which areas of the base needed to be strengthened.
Some time ago, he had already instructed the cadres to prepare the rooftops and exteriors of the buildings for sun protection, adding solar panels, insulation foam, and insulation bricks.
Such strong sunlight shouldn't be wasted; it could be used to run air conditioners and lights every day or stored for later use.
Some outdoor plants were also transplanted in advance, and the large trees that couldn't be transplanted were covered with materials that could block direct sunlight and maintain moisture.
The planting greenhouses and underground spaces, the two planting points for food, were thoroughly checked for any leaks, paying close attention to prevent the external high temperatures from affecting the vegetables and food crops inside.
At the same time, important equipment such as the power generation room and surveillance were not forgotten.
Even the cameras deployed outside the base were treated with sun protection and heat conduction, and power could be cut off directly to protect them in case of overheating.
Qin Jin slowly strolled through the base and soon arrived at the pond.
As the most important part of surviving the drought, he naturally came here.
Looking at the two ponds, one large and one small, already covered with plastic film and floating black balls, and the sunshade above, he nodded in satisfaction.
"Not bad."
With these common anti-evaporation measures, the water resources in the ponds wouldn't be lost too much in the hot weather, and the bottom of the ponds had been treated with cement grouting to prevent them from seeping into the ground.
He looked at the water level of the large pond. It hadn't rained for nearly two months, and with only inflow and no outflow, the water level had dropped by nearly 1/5.
On the other side, the small pond dedicated to drinking water had also dropped by about 1/10.
The water inventory was full.
Everything was still within a controllable range.
During this time, the development and construction of the base hadn't always used the water source of the headquarters. People had also been sent to drive sprinkler trucks and pumping trucks to draw water from several large rivers in Fenghe County for construction.
Otherwise, such large projects as the Life Belt and the underground first floor space of the branch base would consume a huge amount of water, which the three ponds of the headquarters couldn't support.
After inspecting the main base, he moved to the branch base.
This side was much simpler.
Because when it was built, the main important facilities were placed in the main base, and the branch base mainly built some large warehouses and functional buildings.
He focused on checking the new pond here first.
"It was too rushed at the time. Now there's only half the water left. That's a bit troublesome."
He frowned slightly, staring at the water level line that had dropped to half of the branch base's pond.
There was no way around it. It took a lot of time to build the branch base. At that time, the walls had to come first, and then other buildings and things could be built.
By the time the walls were almost finished and the pond was built, there wasn't much heavy rain anymore.
The water here was still the amount he had arranged for his team members to run back and forth to the big river every day to draw and pour in.
"Let's leave it at that for now. Saving a little should be enough to get through this drought. At most, we'll let everyone shower less and stop some water-intensive production. The main thing is to survive the drought."
Qin Jin sighed, thinking that he could only try to get people to fetch some more water and pour it into the pond during this last period, and stop when it was almost enough.
It took nearly an hour for him to finish visiting all the drought-related places in the entire Green Source Base.
After having a clear understanding of the entire base, he knew that as long as there were no emergencies, Green Source could definitely survive this drought!
Not much pressure!
(End of chapter)
