Cave Refuge-Chapter 225 - 224: Unleashing the Backup Move_1

In the midst of their busy lives, the lowest outdoor temperature still rose to over a hundred degrees. At this point, whether ordinary survivors or martial artists, almost no one went above ground anymore. Everyone was earnestly staying in the underground refuge center.

The gradually rising temperature on the surface, in turn, caused an increase in the temperature within the underground refuge center.

Thankfully, apart from Ye Liuyun selling that one ton of saltpetre, those who had hoarded saltpetre due to their strange plans were unable to bear the heat and began to use their supplies to help cool the refuge center they were staying in.

It wasn’t because they were particularly selfless and wanted to help others, but rather because if they only used their supply of saltpetre to lower the temperature of their own living spaces,

other survivors living in the same refuge center would easily discover this. Everyone was in the same refuge center, with no place to run. If it reached a point where people were angered, these hoarders would not fare well.

After all, there were martial artists in the refuge center, but most of these people were not martial artists. Even if amongst them some were, they couldn’t slaughter people recklessly, especially those who were about to die from the heat, because the refuge center was controlled by the officials. Even if they didn’t cause trouble now, they feared they might pay for their actions once the temperature dropped.

It was because of Ye Liuyun’s saltpetre sale that, even though he earned a lot of money from it, many were grateful to him at this time. After all, life was much more important than money during such times.

Where Mr. Thompson and Mrs. Thompson lived was even more undisputed - almost all the family members of current leaders from the West City District Command Post, and members of the elderly group, lived there.

In addition, as Dong Tianyu had paid and gifted saltpetre to Ye Liuyun, members of the Taylor family also lived there. So, Ye Liuyun didn’t forget about them.

Even if the outside temperature was extremely high, the temperature on the second floor underground was always maintained around thirty degrees, and the highest temperature on the first floor underground did not exceed forty degrees.

When it was detected that the outdoor temperature had exceeded one hundred and twenty degrees, everyone was hoping the heat would retreat as the Cold Catastrophe had.

Unbeknownst to everyone, with the passage of time, the outdoor temperature did not drop but was continuously rising instead. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Within a few days, with the average rate of ten degrees per day, the highest temperature had risen to over one hundred and fifty degrees.

Even if saltpetre was available for cooling, the temperature in the underground refuge centers was rapidly rising.

Upon noticing this situation, the officials issued a red alert, deciding to use ground source equipment to refrigerate at any cost.

The original name of the ground source equipment is geothermal heat pump, its working principle is similar to that of air conditioning. However, air conditioning uses a compressor with the help of the outdoor temperature to cool down, while a geothermal heat pump uses a compressor with the underground temperature to cool down.

We don’t need to talk about air conditioning using outdoor air, even if we don’t understand the principle. As long as we stand at the location of the outdoor unit in summer, we can feel the hot wind blown out by the outdoor unit.

The energy conservation principle should be understood –if cold wind blows indoors, there will be hot wind blowing outdoors.

The principle of the geothermal heat pump is basically the same. If cold wind blows indoors, then hot air needs to be dissipated underground.

The consequence of this is that it will increase the temperature underground. If it is done for a long time, it could damage the underground structure. What specific consequences would occur remains unclear.

However, before the disaster struck, using the geothermal heat pump in homes would not cause this kind of harm, as the cold air is used in summer and expelled underground via the geothermal equipment. In winter, when heating is used, cold air is expelled underground – when combined over a year, it basically can maintain the stability of the underground temperature.

Although the geothermal equipment was installed when digging wells, it was never enabled.

The reason is simple, because no one knows how long the high temperature weather will last. Although after the geothermal equipment is activated for cooling, the temperature in the underground refuge center will greatly decrease.

But now everyone lives in the underground refuge center, no one knows if long-term use of geothermal equipment will lead to unknown changes underground. If problems occur, they would have nowhere to retreat.

So the officials did not start using geothermal equipment to cool down, having confirmed that most people could hold on.

However, now the temperature outside is rising sharply, and the temperature inside the underground refuge center has also risen to a level that ordinary people can hardly bear.

The officials had no choice but to consider the future, they could only face the immediate difficulties and therefore decidedly ordered all refuge centers to activate the geothermal equipment for cooling.

The reason why other refuge centers knew of the geothermal equipment but did not use it secretly lies in the high power consumption of geothermal equipment. Now, most underground refuge centers use methane ponds for power generation, which is only enough for its own lighting, and it is impossible to drive the power-consuming geothermal equipment.

Therefore, to use geothermal equipment, they must guarantee a power supply, and to do this, only the officials could intervene.

This is fundamentally why other refuge centers do not secretly use geothermal equipment although they are aware of it, while the officials haven’t made it available.

Of course, not all refuge centers have geothermal equipment, like the private sanctuary originally belonging to Ye Liuyun. Since it was connected to the subway network later on,

although they followed the trend and dug a well, it never connected to the Pengcheng power grid, and no geothermal equipment was installed. When other refuge centers started using geothermal equipment for cooling, temperatures in those late-connected private sanctuaries continued to rise.

However, after understanding this situation, the officials arranged for these survivors to live in designated subway tunnel sections.

The cold air from several nearby connecting shelters could spread to the tunnels. While the temperature wasn’t as cool as in the refuges, it was much better compared to their original places.

Those survivors living in late-connected subway networks were already like this, one can imagine the conditions of those living in private sanctuaries that were not connected to the subway network.

Survivors who controlled the sanctuaries lived quite leisurely because they had Inner Breath to adjust their body temperature, but ordinary survivors could only resist with their bodies.

They didn’t know whether these people regretted moving from the official refuge center to live in these places.

However, the survivors living in the private sanctuaries only made up a small proportion of the total population of Pengcheng City, so even if the officials knew of their plight, they chose to ignore it, pretending not to know.

After all, they had declared that private sanctuaries are autonomous, so when they encountered difficulties, the officials had the audacity to harden their hearts.