Chapter 38: The thermometer spikes wildly, and the gates of doomsday burst open!
"Beep, beep, beep, beep—!" The shrill red alarm instantly shattered the tranquility of the bedroom.
Lin Xingwan sat up abruptly from the large bed. Even though she was prepared, looking at the numbers on the industrial-grade thermometer by the bedside, her heart couldn't help but skip a beat.
30 degrees. 35 degrees. 42 degrees! And this was at midnight!
The numbers, like a broken stopwatch, were rolling upward at a speed that was incredibly crazy and defied all laws of physics! In just three short minutes, the bright red numbers had already broken past the 50-degree mark! And they were still climbing with unstoppable momentum!
The extreme heat catastrophe had officially arrived. This gate to a living hell had finally been kicked open by the Grim Reaper.
Lin Xingwan threw off the thin silk duvet. She grabbed a black silk bathrobe draped over the sofa, draped it casually over her shoulders, and strode toward the bulletproof glass observation port.
The soundproofing inside The Fortress was excellent. But when she stood before the glass and looked down at the city below the mountain, she was still stunned by the scene before her.
It was truly a snapshot of the apocalypse. Even in the dead of night, the air was baked and distorted by the extreme heat.
Along the streets, those once lush landscape trees looked as if they had been thrown into a microwave. The leaves withered and curled rapidly under the high temperature.
"Whoosh—" Suddenly, a strange flame shot up from the crown of a withered camphor tree. There was no fire source. It was pure spontaneous combustion!
Immediately after, like dominoes, the green belts on both sides of the street caught fire one after another, with flames shooting into the sky!
"Bang!" A dull, thunderous sound came from down the mountain, causing even the bulletproof glass to tremble slightly.
Lin Xingwan narrowed her eyes and looked through the high-definition telescope. A car parked on the side of the road had its tires expand to the limit due to the high heat, causing them to burst.
"Bang, bang, bang!" This was just the beginning. As the temperature continued to soar, more and more car tires exploded one after another. The piercing sound of rubber tearing echoed through the dead silence of the night sky, like a string of eerie firecrackers.
"Boss!" Qian Duoduo's screeching, distorted voice suddenly came through the walkie-talkie. "Boss! Do you see it? The temperature is almost sixty degrees!"
"Damn it! I'm detecting fires in many parts of the city! The fire trucks can't get out at all; their tires have all exploded!" Qian Duoduo was pacing anxiously in the server room, his chubby face covered in cold sweat. Even though he was in the temperature-controlled Underground City, he felt his skin crawl as he looked at the data on the screen.
"What are you panicking about?" Lin Xingwan's voice was steady, as cold as ice.
"We are underground; the fire outside cannot reach us here."
"Keep a close eye on the temperature changes around The Fortress and the life support system; ignore everything else."
"O-okay, Boss." Qian Duoduo wiped his sweat, forcing himself to calm down.
Lin Xingwan put down the walkie-talkie and cast her gaze back outside the window. The city was in chaos. Countless people awakened from their sleep by the heat, wearing only boxers and undershirts, ran onto the streets in terror. But what awaited them was not a cool night breeze, but a high-temperature purgatory worse than a steamer.
Some people, unable to bear the heat of over sixty degrees, fainted directly onto the scorching asphalt road. Their exposed skin, upon contact with the road surface, was instantly scalded, causing flesh to tear as they let out blood-curdling screams.
"Help! I'm dying of heat!" "Turn on the AC! Why is the power out?" Screams, curses, and car alarms were all intertwined.
Lin Xingwan watched all this with cold eyes. Air conditioning? In this extreme heat, the outdoor units of civilian air conditioners would have long since burned out due to overloading. But the worst was yet to come.
Just then, in the distant city center, a dazzling blue spark suddenly erupted! The spark was astonishingly large, lighting up half the night sky, followed by a deafening explosion.
"That is... the super substation in the city center." Lin Xingwan's eyes narrowed slightly as she whispered to herself. Obviously, the extreme load and the extreme heat had completely paralyzed the substation that supplied power to half the city.
After the blue sparks, it was as if God had suddenly pulled the main switch for the city. The once brightly lit city center instantly plunged into a dead, silent darkness. Following that, the darkness spread like a tide in all directions. The East District, West District, South City... block after block, lights extinguished in large areas like candles being blown out.
In less than a minute, the entire city was completely plunged into endless darkness. Only those spontaneously combusting trees and exploding cars continued to emit a faint glow. The power was out. In this hellish heat of over sixty degrees, a power outage meant death.
Lin Xingwan turned around and walked back to the spacious and bright bedroom. Here, the temperature control system was still steadily delivering 26-degree cool air. The fully automatic generator sets and massive solar battery storage were enough to keep The Fortress as bright as day in the darkness.
She walked to the wine cabinet and poured herself a glass of soda with ice cubes. The ice cubes clinked against the glass, making a crisp "ding-dang" sound.
"The show has only just begun."
She took a sip of the ice water, feeling that refreshing coolness. Just then, the bedroom door was knocked. "Come in."
Huo Yuan pushed the door open and entered. He was wearing a black tactical vest, and there was not a trace of panic on his cold, hard face. "Wanwan, the life support system is functioning normally."
He walked to Lin Xingwan's side, his gaze falling on the glass of ice water with water droplets in her hand. "However, the situation outside is even worse than expected. The power outage just now caused all the water pumps at the water treatment plant to stop working."
Huo Yuan's tone was heavy. "In other words, from now on, this city has neither electricity nor water."
No water, no electricity, sixty-degree temperature. Lin Xingwan swirled the glass in her hand. "I know."
She looked up, gazing into Huo Yuan's deep eyes. "Therefore, tomorrow morning, we will go to harvest this city's final carnival."