Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 831 - 455: Searching for the North Pole

Chapter 831: Chapter 455: Searching for the North Pole

Today, No.1 and No. 2 Coolie prepared the pancakes early, but Yan Fei was busy all morning and had school in the afternoon, so it wasn’t until the evening that he could spare the time to come over.

The pancakes were tossed into the cave, where the group of half-dead fellows inside didn’t even bother to question why such a large stack of pancakes had appeared out of nowhere. Relying on fish barely larger than sewing needles to fill one’s stomach was an extremely unreliable affair. Now that these people were starving, even if the pancakes contained poison, they would still have wanted to die on a full stomach.

These people had considered making it to shore, but moving today was obviously too late. Having gone without food for a day and a night, they no longer had the strength. A few tried tentatively to swim during the day but returned not long afterward. Even Xiaozhu-kun, who was somewhat brave at first, didn’t swim far this time before realizing he couldn’t possibly make it to shore.

In the cave, they could at least hope to catch a fish, and occasionally, a larger one would accidentally swim in. But to dive into the lake was to sign their own death warrant immediately.

Now with the pancakes, the group suddenly felt as though life held hope again. They all scrambled and fought over their share, and if they choked, they would just flop by the lakeside to drink some water, since it was all natural and unpolluted anyway.

Yan Fei didn’t have the energy to worry about them now. Let them go hungry for another couple of days.

The three whom he initially thought were the most honest attempted to escape during the noon when No.1 and No. 2 Coolie weren’t paying attention after entering the valley. Unfortunately, there was no way to climb the surrounding cliffs, so they could only struggle to climb out over the chaotic pile of stones Yan Fei had stacked to block the valley mouth. Unexpectedly, after half a day’s climb, they were hit by a few ’rocks from heaven’ and knocked down. Luckily, the jagged stones worked in their favor, and none of them suffered too badly.

Now, Yan Fei was fully leveraging Xiaohei’s flying speed, flying chaotically over the sea. It didn’t take long before he found a satisfying spot near an island with several huge rocks standing straight out of the sea, a distance away from the island, unfazed by the lashing of the waves.

The crucial part was that the tops of these giant rocks were fairly flat, which met Yan Fei’s requirements.

After noting the location, Xiaohei disappeared and reappeared, having crossed who knows how many miles, and appeared on the northern edge of the map he had already explored.

Then under a bending moon, he spread his wings and flew north.

He wanted to confirm his own speculation; it was pointless and unnecessary before, and his flying speed wasn’t as fast then. Now the conditions seemed ripe, and it just so happened that he might make use of his speculation, so off he flew to have a look.

Studying really did have its benefits. An idea he had once considered and then forgotten was brought to mind once again during this afternoon’s geography class.

Indeed, he was planning to see if the dinosaur world was like what he had learned in geography class, that by continuing northward, there would also be a North Pole...

A place isn’t only good for planting flowers and grass; every location has its use. If there really was a North Pole, it would have its purpose as well!

The thought process of people is ever-expanding. What wasn’t considered before can now become obvious. When he had to build the beef jerky factory and make that small cold storage, it cost him several tens of thousands of yuan, and even a fridge in his house in Provincial City cost a few thousand yuan. If he still couldn’t see the use of the North Pole after that, then he really would be a bit foolish—wasn’t the icy, snowy North Pole like a giant natural cold storage?

Only now could he truly claim to be ’applying what he had learned’!

As he flew, Yan Fei felt smug. Who else in the entire school could immediately apply their geographical knowledge as he did? No need to mention that he actually had a vague idea before, but it was only now that he had truly thought it through clearly.

It wasn’t really his fault. When he was just a resident of Sancha River town, he only knew about lights and telephones; he didn’t know about fridges or freezers. He had neither used nor even seen many, only gradually becoming acquainted with them later.

It’s only when one becomes used to a tool that it feels natural. When you have never used something, you don’t think in that direction. Everyone knows that food lasts longer in winter than in summer, and historically, wealthy families had ice cellars to preserve food, but ordinary families had no access or even the notion of it.

There were indeed popsicle makers in the town, but he had never gone inside to see, so not having thought of it was normal.

Having thought of it now, though, he could immediately make use of the natural ice cellar.

It wasn’t a wild guess; he was already feeling the air getting colder. After several hours of flight, Xiaohei was now seeing ice and snow on the land below.

However, there were still forests here, and astonishingly dinosaurs within them, making it unsuitable for a cold storage room.

He continued to fly, flying on and on.

Since he had already discovered the temperature change, the hope was clearly up ahead.

It was now time to think about how to establish his own cold storage. Even if there were no animals to steal his goods, he couldn’t just throw them on the ground carelessly. He needed to build a shed at least and not leave things exposed. Otherwise, if covered by ice and snow, when he wanted to eat something, he would have to dig it out for half a day, which would turn his icehouse into a source of trouble instead of help.

As for building something at the North Pole, that would be super simple. The geography textbooks mentioned it—the Eskimos, for instance, lived in ice houses. Building an ice house would definitely be easy. Just pile up some ice blocks, pour some water over them, and as long as the temperature was low enough, it would be sturdier than a brick house.

Right, he still had to test the temperature. If it was too cold, that wouldn’t do either. A location with a temperature similar to his small cold storage would be best.

The plan wasn’t fully ready yet, but the land below had already turned into a world of ice and snow, with not a hint of any other color in sight.

Is this the Arctic?

Upon reaching his destination, Yan Fei was not in a hurry to start setting up the base. He wanted to first observe the conditions around him.

White, white, everywhere was a blanket of white.

Further away, one could see the deep blue sea, where at the interface between the deep blue and white, there was a vast expanse of white and deep blue intertwined. After flying for a while longer, it became clear that this was the boundary between the ocean and the land.

The icebergs and ice floes in the sea were not fixed; they floated and moved with the current. Countless giant icebergs and floes occasionally collided with one another, and although they appeared to move slowly, at the moment of collision, ice debris would fly...

Even more astonishing was the fact that Yan Fei could see a dark shadow silently gliding beneath the surface of the sea.

Nature truly was magical. Could there possibly be dinosaurs in such a place? The shadow Yan Fei saw clearly was a huge Pliosaurus. Though flying a bit high and far away to estimate its exact size accurately, he knew from experience that it definitely wasn’t a little fellow.

It was at this moment that Yan Fei realized something.

He could actually see the Pliosaurus in the sea from such a distance; wasn’t it supposed to be midnight? Had he been flying for that long? Was it already dawn?

Startled, he instantly returned to the greenhouse. After thinking for a moment, he rummaged for his pager to check the time. After looking at the time on his pager, he found his long-unused digital watch and compared the two.

It was fine, fine; the two times were less than two hours apart, both indicating early morning.

As for the discrepancy of two hours, it was quite normal since the digital watch often needed to be synchronized with the television. Anyone who has used it knows that despite its comprehensive features, which include an alarm clock and stopwatch, you’d best not rely on its accuracy for any stretch of time—be grateful if it’s only half an hour fast.

Yan Fei felt quite lucky; he hadn’t used this digital watch in a long time, and it was only off by two hours, which seemed pretty good.

Actually, a quick glance at the sky would have sufficed, yet this fellow insisted on comparing two different times.

Right now, there was half a moon in the sky, playing peek-a-boo with him among the clouds!

With the moon just making its appearance, why not take advantage of this bright and starry moment to patrol the area?

Xiaohei, the bird, spread its wings and took to the sky, circling twice over Sancha River while recalling exactly what had just happened. It didn’t take long to find the relevant knowledge in its memory and understand what that earlier situation had been. It was actually quite simple—the geography lessons mentioned it: the Arctic summer with its phenomenon of the midnight sun, where the whole day is daylight.

Knowledge from textbooks was one thing, but back then, he had been daydreaming about finding a suitable base. Besides, he had been continuously flying, with daylight gradually brightening the sky. He hadn’t considered this at first and thought he had unwittingly flown through the night!

After patrolling the area, everything was peaceful and quiet. The occasional Native Dog roamed outside in the villages below, but there were no travelers on the night roads. Just as he was about to return and continue the search for a base site, something unusual caught his eye.

Near a village by the town, a rickety motorcycle was parked outside a house with a person sprawled on top of it.

Xiaohei landed on a nearby tree in an instant, neatly donning his clothes as he emerged. He hopped down from the tree without approaching too close, soon smelling a strong odd scent and hearing the person’s snoring...

What a waste of my time!

Yan Fei disappeared on the spot, and Xiaohei soared into the air, no longer concerned about the person.

It was a drunkard, hard to say how much he had drunk, yet miraculously, he had managed to get his motorcycle to the front door of his house. Probably, he had wanted to open the door but just couldn’t hold on any longer and ended up falling asleep on the motorcycle.

People like this weren’t rare these days. At least he had managed to get home. The drinking culture around Sancha River was problematic—it wasn’t considered a good drink unless you were drunk to the ground. Every year during the New Year when visiting relatives, it was common to find people sleeping in the snow ditches by the icy roadside.

Back in the greenhouse, he now appeared amidst the ice and snow.

It was about time to choose a site to start the construction...