Chapter 205: The Gradual Recovery of the Surface

Early morning.

Farmhouse Shelter, Underground Level 8 - Outer Zone.

Inside the factory, rows of massive metal machines gradually lit up, their green operational indicators flickering to life. Soon after, the sound of conveyor belts spinning for the first time echoed through the vast space.

One by one, blocks of hardened concrete were fed into a massive crusher, where they were ground into fine powder. The processed material was then transported into a series of spherical reaction chambers.

Half an hour later, the first batch of Quick Cement spilled out from the production line, still radiating residual warmth, forming a small mound at the output station.

A waiting transport vehicle promptly shoveled the fresh material into its cargo bay. Once fully loaded, it began moving toward the nearly completed Underground Level 7, where construction robots were standing by to use the Quick Cement for casting outer walls.

At the same time, a 0.6-meter-diameter micro shield tunneling machine, hastily modified from a rock crusher by engineering robots overnight, was also being transported to Underground Level 7.

From there, it would begin excavating the first Material Transport Tunnel, which would directly connect to Qingning Shelter.

For a significant period in the future, this would be the only underground transportation route linking Farmhouse Shelter to the outside world and all its affiliated shelters.

Despite its modest size—a mere 0.6 meters in both width and height—this transport tunnel had been designed to accommodate specialized cargo trains.

Each train would be capable of carrying 5 cubic meters of cargo at speeds of 20 km/h.

If multiple trains were operated simultaneously in the tunnel, departing every three minutes, it would achieve a daily cargo throughput of 2,400 cubic meters.

For reference, if the entire transport load consisted of steel, it would equate to nearly 20,000 tons per day.

Moreover, the three-minute interval between departures was actually quite conservative. With AI precision control, the system could be fine-tuned to one-minute or even 30-second intervals.

However, increasing the departure frequency required massive storage space at the receiving shelter to accommodate multiple incoming trains at once.

For now, such extreme efficiency wasn't necessary. The current 2,000+ cubic meters per day was more than sufficient.

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Meanwhile, as Farmhouse Shelter buzzed with underground construction, the surface remained engulfed in torrential rain.

A fleet of over a thousand drones, equipped with disinfection lamps, steadily patrolled every corner of the flooded ruins and cityscape.

Their mission: the relentless eradication of Rola Virus from the surface.

Thanks to continuous efforts over the past few days, the virus concentration within a several-dozen-kilometer radius of Jianghe City had significantly decreased.

The threat level to surrounding shelters had plummeted.

At the very least, the virus was no longer as terrifyingly contagious as before—no longer capable of infecting large groups of people through mere droplets or water vapor infiltrating ventilation systems.

With the gradual adoption of disinfection lamps inside various shelters, the daily number of new infections had dropped below 1,000 cases for the first time.

Jianghe City was beginning to emerge from the shadow of the Rola Virus outbreak.

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Beneath the drone swarm, amid the raging floodwaters, a fleet of spider robots and humanoid service robots resumed operations.

They navigated unstable rafts through the currents, salvaging tens of thousands of tons of abandoned supplies from flooded underground shelters piece by piece.

All retrieved materials were then transported to a designated storage site—a previously abandoned small shelter, now repurposed as a massive warehouse.

Meanwhile, 30 larger hovercrafts continued their round-trip ferrying operations, transporting critical personnel and cargo between major shelters.

With the Quick Cement production line finally operational, the Manufacturing Center redirected most of its production capacity back to mass-producing capsule beds.

With adequate housing now available, the hovercraft fleet resumed full-speed evacuations.

By the end of the day, Jie Wei Shelter—a medium-sized shelter originally designed for a maximum of 10,000 people—would have over 630,000 critically infected patients housed within its confines.

This would officially make Jie Wei Shelter the largest shelter under Su Wu's command and the largest privately operated shelter in all of Jianghe City.

It would even surpass Scenic Garden Shelter in population.

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Beyond Jianghe City, on the other side of the vast floodplain, deep within the mountain ranges, Su Wu's small limestone and iron mines continued uninterrupted operations.

Unlike urban shelters, these remote facilities were completely unaffected by the virus outbreak.

Heavy machinery maintained full productivity, mining cement materials and iron ore at maximum efficiency.

These raw materials were then transported by a fleet of heavy-duty trucks, traversing freshly cleared mountain roads, delivering their cargo downstream.

The cement was allocated to various affiliated shelters for residential construction projects.

Although Su Wu now had access to Quick Cement, its limited raw material supply meant he still prioritized standard cement for less critical internal structures.

As for the iron ore, it was first delivered to Scenic Garden Shelter to supply thin steel sheet production lines.

Any surplus iron was then redirected to Qingning Shelter and Watchtower Base, where it was smelted into steel using existing high-temperature furnaces.

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Meanwhile, tens of automated trucks and dozens of waterproofed excavators, once instrumental in rescuing survivors from submerged shelters, were repurposed for a new mission.

They were now a scavenging fleet, resuming large-scale waste collection operations.

Unlike previous efforts that focused on extracting valuable metals from deep within rubble-covered ruins, this time, their mission was much simpler.

They targeted concrete debris from the city outskirts, transporting massive chunks of ruined infrastructure back to Farmhouse Shelter's surface facility.

There, the concrete rubble—now a primary raw material for Quick Cement production—would be crushed, disinfected, and processed in the Underground Level 8 Factory.

Once the limestone within the rubble had been fully extracted, it would be converted into Quick Cement.

The remaining separated sand and gravel, now useless waste, would be disposed of back on the surface

.

Jianghe City's landscape was changing once again—but this time, it was for the better.

(End of Chapter)