Chapter 295: Wind, Snow, and Furnace

There was absolutely no time to react.

Three seconds ago, when Ji Jue saw the pale storm sweeping over the distant mountains, it was already too late.

Three seconds later, the overwhelming, raging snow and wind swallowed everything, including them... Looking down from the sky, the entire world was shrouded in dancing pure white.

Yet, looking up toward the heavens from the ground, everything had fallen into a hideous, boiling darkness.

The sharp sounds of collision were incessant.

The Little Niu Ma shook violently, swaying uncontrollably, as if it had suddenly plunged into a hail of bullets; even the bulletproof glass, reinforced with alchemy, showed streaks of white.

Countless pebbles, debris, chunks of snow, or shards of ice danced in the storm, turning this darkness shrouded by the gale into an invisible meat grinder.

*Snap! *

The first thing to shatter was the searchlight mounted on the roof, and the light rack itself emitted a series of distorted groans; the light flickered and quickly dimmed.

But even if it hadn't been damaged, it would have been meaningless.

In a storm that had completely turned into a disaster, even with the lights at full power, they could only illuminate a few meters ahead. Even so, countless particles and fragments, and even snow powder, kept appearing and streaking through the range of the light—unclear, yet like the noise on a snowy screen, filling everything.

The only thing Ji Jue could do was floor the accelerator and charge forward.

*Boom! *

Amidst the roar, the Little Niu Ma jolted violently and rolled over on the spot, blown about in the storm like a tumbling gourd. It was a boulder blown by the wind that had struck the vehicle body, delivering an impact comparable to a cannonball.

Before it was completely blown away, a giant claw suddenly extended from the opening vehicle body and slammed into the frozen earth beneath, sparks flying for an instant.

It struggled to stabilize itself and continued forward.

If not for the vehicle body having been reinforced countless times, plus the composite armor mounted on it, it might have been punched through right in the middle just now.

And then, the wind, snow, and fragments pouring into the interior would have ground everything inside the cabin into shards!

Collapses and roars were incessant, and the outer armor clattered. In the low, rumbling sound, boulders or ice layers kept rolling on the ground, being lifted and blown away.

What was even worse was that the ground was shaking, one tremor stronger than the next. Ji Jue's hands gripping the steering wheel were bulging with veins. Through the perception transmitted by the Little Niu Ma, he could feel the ground shaking violently, as if... as if some giant rock were rolling toward them. But even after activating the thirty-fold perception acceleration of the ring's transcendent vision, he still couldn't see the source of the tremor.

Amidst his vigilance, he felt someone pat his shoulder.

Then, borrowing the force, she leaped up.

Like a phantom, An Ning pierced through the obstruction of the cabin, flipped over, and stood firmly on the roof of the car amidst the earth-shaking tremors and violent swaying, as if nailed down, without the slightest stagger or wavering.

She dodged the debris blown by the gale with ease. Amidst the countless whistling echoes, the moment she finished listening, Ji Jue, inside the car, seemed to see a glimmer of light flash out from the roof, instantly vanishing into the darkness.

Then, accompanied by countless giant ice shards and rocks, the roar of collapse and explosion came from within the storm.

A boulder the size of a millstone spun past the windshield and vanished into the distant darkness.

*Bang! Bang! *

Low tapping sounds came from the roof, signaling that all was well.

And as the Little Niu Ma moved forward, the gale gradually slowed, and the snow powder and fragments whistling past the lights also gradually vanished, the visibility rapidly improving, illuminating the towering ice cliff on one side of the vehicle.

*Boom! *

The front bumper, unable to brake in time, slammed into the ice layer; sparks flew, and the speeding came to an abrupt halt.

Beneath the ice cliff sheltered from the wind, cracking sounds kept coming from the mountain body. This fault line, formed for unknown reasons, had now become their shelter.

Ji Jue breathed heavily. Only now did he feel drenched in sweat.

When he looked down at the odometer, he realized that from discovering the storm until now, they had only traveled a mere two kilometers... And this was a distance that wouldn't even have taken a single tap of the accelerator before. They had twisted and turned, stopped and started, and actually walked for over ten minutes, even nearly getting lost.

If not for An Ning's premonition and guidance, he probably would have been flipped over by the storm along with the car by now.

*Thump. *

With a soft landing sound, An Ning fell back into the cabin.

Only her hat had a few more cracks, and there were fine ice shards on her exposed short hair. She was completely unharmed, as if she had just returned from a stroll.

She wasn't even panting.

"It's so cold outside, Ji Jue-ge."

An Ning grinned. Then, Ji Jue felt a chill and tremor at his neck. Two icy, temperatureless hands, still covered in ice shards, had already slipped into his clothes from the back of his collar, just like a snowball suddenly stuffed into his clothes, freezing Ji Jue until he shivered all over.

In the rearview mirror, that smiling face became even more triumphant, shamelessly trading on her favor.

She righteously demanded:

"It was so hard just now, let me warm up, okay?"

"..."

Ji Jue rolled his eyes and sighed silently.

He didn't scold her again, instead raising his body temperature slightly to make it easier for her to warm up.

This is a lifesaver, this is a lifesaver, can't get angry, absolutely can't get angry. If it's cold, it's cold, just endure it. This is for the sake of the team, hold it in, endure for the greater good, Ji Jue!

But for some reason, those frozen hands didn't feel warm for a long time, remaining completely devoid of temperature.

"Oh my, what's going on?" An Ning was shocked. "Maybe the back part isn't warm enough, let me try the front—"

*Slap! *

The mischievous hands were instantly grabbed and pulled out without mercy.

Before he could shake them off, those two originally stiff and icy hands grabbed his palms, intertwining, and quickly softened, warmth returning.

Small, soft, fair, and tinged with a faint red, they were completely different from Ji Jue's rough hands.

"Wow, as expected of the Master of Creation, so amazing, it warmed up all of a sudden!"

An Ning exclaimed, rubbing them in her hands, and after taking enough advantage, she pulled away the instant before those hands could turn into a furnace, and gave an *ehehe* smile.

"Many thanks, Ji Jue-ge!"

Thanks for what? Thanks for Ji Jue-ge warming you up, or thanks for Ji Jue-ge letting you take advantage of him?

Ji Jue rolled his eyes and sighed silently.

He couldn't possibly haggle over such trifles, could he?

Helpless.

The gale howled, and in the distance, the earth shook and the mountains swayed. The ice cliff also kept emitting cracking sounds, making one tremble with fear, not knowing when it would completely collapse.

But even if it collapsed, it wouldn't matter. Even if the entire Little Niu Ma were buried beneath it, they could dig it out again once the wind stopped.

For a moment, amidst the silence, there was suddenly a sense of peace, as if the years were quiet and good. The temperature outside the car dropped rapidly, plummeting to over seventy degrees below zero, but inside the car, after the Little Niu Ma turned off its engine, it remained warm.

No other heating was needed; as the Furnace Blood gradually opened, Ji Jue was the greatest heat source.

Even now, amidst this disaster, Ji Jue could feel countless fine specks of light descending from the storm, like hallucinations, passing through the disaster and merging into his body.

【Unquenchable Ember】!

The ember fell into the furnace, and amidst the circulation of blood, the threads of metamorphosis had never been interrupted.

With the frantic shipments from the Coast Auto Factory over the past few days, the grace of the embers became increasingly generous and dense, and even tiny specks of light formed in his blood, just like the fine sparks that rise when the embers in the furnace burn.

By now, with the completion of the Unquenchable Ember, a certain perception had become increasingly clear, as if extending to Haizhou, the source of countless embers.

It was simply a vegetable platter.

Peanuts, green beans, cucumbers, radishes, and cabbage.

Every vehicle driving on the streets or in the wilderness was silently gestating a few sparks, slowly accumulating a certain change, eventually turning into a continuous stream belonging to Ji Jue.

But compared to these, what seemed to be even more now was...

(Content omitted for brevity)

Prosthetics?!

Ji Jue was stunned for a moment, unable to understand.

Clearly, the prosthetic assistance system hadn't even officially gone into production yet, and it didn't even contain a single trace of alchemy!

It was purely an engineering product...

Yet now, in that distant Haizhou, specks of light were rising one after another, providing embers to Ji Jue with an efficiency that surpassed all the vehicles.

Even though only two or three thousand sets had been sent out so far, the feedback caused was already faintly about to surpass the output of the Coast Auto Factory.

Is this the generosity of the embers?

Ji Jue pondered, then denied it.

No, perhaps it had nothing to do with generosity or cruelty, it was just that for the Supreme Good, for the embers: the influence and changes brought about by the prosthetics were actually greater and more numerous than all the cars sold by the Coast Auto Factory!

Even though it wasn't an alchemical product at all!

It had nothing to do with alchemy, and even nothing to do with success or failure; it was just an unintentional act born of a past obsession, a project casually added to the exoskeleton production plan, the icing on the cake, which had already left Ji Jue dazzled.

Compared to those similar car models, those creations that underwent micro-innovations time and again but remained essentially unchanged, the prosthetic assistance system had set off a massive storm in a field Ji Jue hadn't anticipated.

Even if manufacturers later started to follow suit, even if this thing had no technical barriers at all, and could be replicated at will with a little time, the embers born from the influence and changes caused would, nine times out of ten, be counted toward Ji Jue.

It was simply as if he had inexplicably dug up a treasure bowl, and for a moment, even Ji Jue himself found it hard to believe.

Because this really didn't have much technical content, and it didn't even count as difficult.

It was just...

It was just that those military industrial enterprises that had mastered exoskeleton technology in the past simply didn't bother to do it.

"..."

In the moment of realization, Ji Jue was silent, not knowing what to say.

Amidst the silence, he sighed silently, smiled self-deprecatingly, and gazed at the dark, turbulent world outside the window.

Countless snowflakes, like a torrential rain, fell and piled up, almost completely burying the vehicle sheltered from the wind.

"What a big snow."

He whispered.

"Whoo—"

Cheers flashed past outside the car.

In the freezing temperature and the gale that was far from gentle, An Ning pushed a snowball that was even more exaggerated than the Little Niu Ma from not far away, ran in front of the Little Niu Ma, and excitedly displayed it:

"Look, look!"

Without her usual cunning and distance, that sweet and happy smile left Ji Jue stunned for a moment.

Then, An Ning flipped the snowball over to show him the Q-version head of Ji Jue she had sculpted on the back, only she really had no talent for drawing, and had drawn Ji Jue like a goblin, with a sharp mouth and monkey cheeks.

With a *slap*, An Ning plucked that head off the snowball and stuck it onto the window:

"A gift for you!"

... Could you please return the emotion I just felt?

Ji Jue rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Still a brat!

He closed his eyes, leaned back on the flattened car seat, and began to rest.

An Ning ran into the car to play with her phone for a while, then ran out to pick up some messy things from outside, playing happily by herself.

She didn't have the quietness she had when pretending to be Xiao An at all, but instead seemed like a child out for the first time, finding everything novel.

Not long after, the storm gradually subsided, as if returning to calm.

The entire process had only taken a little over an hour.

It was unbelievable.

What was even more unbelievable was that once the polar night began, such storms were no longer rare at all, simply as if they were sneezes, coming whenever they pleased.

And there was more than just one or two...

As the snow began to ease, Ji Jue prepared to set off.

Thanks to the storm sweeping away most of the snow, the road ahead would likely be easier to drive on. However, before they could even set off, a convoy arrived from the distance.

The lead vehicle was pure white with the warning lights of an ambulance.

In the gale that had eased slightly, the loudspeaker shouted, searching for the existence of survivors.

It was a rescue team.

They must have set off without stopping the moment the snow stopped.

It was just...

An Ning smiled, and it was completely different from her sweet smile just now, just like a hunter watching a fox putting on an act.

"Do you want to make a move, Ji Jue-ge?"

(End of chapter)