With curiosity about the Antarctic underground city, Charlie wade set off on the journey back to the Nordic research station.
By this time, the vehicles transporting fuel had fully transferred all the delivered oil into the storage tanks of the Japanese research station.
Wu Paulo, in a rare moment of interest, stepped out of his Wu Han Palace and stood in the central square, surveying the surroundings with a smug expression. He quietly marvelled to himself, “With such a modernised team, even in a barren place like Antarctica, they are incredibly useful. It is just a pity that the manpower is still somewhat insufficient. Compared to the hundreds of thousands in the Poqing Society, this small number of people is indeed rather meagre.”
At that moment, Kikuchi Kohei was supervising the fuel transfer. After checking the remaining quantity, he instructed the transport crew in Japanese to strictly monitor the fuel safety threshold. Once the level approached the warning line, regardless of the weather, they must immediately set out for the research vessel.
Wu Paulo watched him from a distance and waved with a smile. “Lackey, come here.”
Kikuchi Kohei hurried over at a trot, arriving with eager deference and asking respectfully, “What are your orders, True Man?”
Wu Paulo asked, “How is the exploration progressing now?”
Kikuchi Kohei replied promptly, “In reply to the True Man, the three surface exploration teams are still advancing steadily. However, as you know, the radar coverage width is limited. Our three directions form two 70-degree angles, so the farther they go, the larger the area each team must cover, and the slower the progress becomes. In the short term, it is nearly impossible to scan the entire Antarctic continent.”
He quickly added, “By the way, True Man, our helicopter aviation fuel is running very low. We can hold out for at most two more days before the helicopters will have to be grounded. So I wanted to ask whether we should stop the helicopters now and reserve the fuel for emergencies.”
Wu Paulo frowned and asked, “Aren’t large quantities of fuel being transported back every day? Why is the helicopter fuel running low?”
Kikuchi Kohei explained, “It is like this, True Man. The helicopters use specially processed aviation kerosene, which is different from the diesel used by our generators, heating equipment, and ground vehicles. The research vessel has a large reserve of diesel, since it also runs on diesel power, but the aviation fuel reserve is comparatively small. Moreover, with our continuous flights over the past few days, the consumption has indeed been very high.”
Wu Paulo grew somewhat angry and said with an imposing air, “If the helicopters stop, the search speed will drop again. Is there really no other solution?”
Kikuchi Kohei replied helplessly, “There… truly is no other way. After all, we cannot extract and refine oil here in Antarctica. The only channel for obtaining aviation kerosene is shipment from the homeland, but no ships can reach us now.”
Wu Paulo gritted his teeth and asked irritably, “Is there really no alternative in Antarctica?”
At that moment, an idea struck him, and he immediately said, “If all else fails, we can simply seize some from other research stations!”
Kikuchi Kohei responded in alarm, “That must not be done, True Man! If we rob another station now and they report it, this would become an international dispute, and the consequences would be severe.”
