Starting Off Survival With A Small Treehouse

Chapter 1297 - 664: Giant Bat Cave, The Fall

"Ah, hold on a second! Don’t go in yet!"

Li Wenxi stopped Old Yang, who was about to enter the cave.

"What’s wrong?" Old Yang, though a bit puzzled, stopped.

The flying shuttle hovered in the rugged terrain, not proceeding further.

"Hmm..."

Keke crawled out of Xu Xin’s arms and made her way to the cockpit, raising her little head to look ahead.

"...Hmm?" The little creature tilted her head.

"What’s going on up ahead?" Xu Xin asked.

"Hmm..." Keke scratched her little head with her paw, looking quite bemused.

Then, the little one turned around and crawled back, nestling into Xu Xin’s arms again.

"What’s going on? Why are both of you looking at this little panda?" Old Yang was confused, "Asking if there’s danger ahead? Are you okay?"

Well, to a normal person, the way they were acting did seem a bit inexplicable.

"No, Keke can predict danger." Li Wenxi explained, "She’s very intuitive!"

"Huh?" Old Yang pointed in disbelief at the little Keke bundled in Xu Xin’s arms, "This little guy? Predict danger?"

"Hmm?" Keke turned her little head to glance at Old Yang.

Old Yang seemed to catch a glimpse of a slight disdain in Keke’s eyes.

"This..."

"So, is there any danger, Keke?" Xu Xin asked while rubbing her ears.

"Hmm... Hmm." Keke seemed to ponder, then shook her little head.

No...?

"Then what was the reason for making us stop earlier?" Li Wenxi picked up Keke.

"Hmm! Hmm hmm hmm, hmm." Keke waved her little paw.

The little creature meant that she felt something off earlier but couldn’t quite sense it upon closer feeling.

This is really...

Xu Xin shook his head.

"Let’s move on. We should still be a bit cautious; danger might await ahead," Xu Xin said to Old Yang.

"Oh... alright." Old Yang shot an intrigued glance at Keke, then resumed controlling the flying shuttle.

"By the way, are you familiar with this area?" Li Wenxi asked Old Yang.

"Though just ahead is our comfort zone, familiar is a bit of a stretch..." Old Yang said, "The surrounding area of the support pillars spans hundreds of kilometers of rugged terrain; how could I be thoroughly familiar with it all?"

Xu Xin and Li Wenxi looked out the window.

At this moment, they seemed to be swiftly traversing a complex network of underground maze-like tunnels.

These tunnels led to various regions, sprawling everywhere, and were extremely chaotic.

However, the flying shuttle could precisely select tunnel entrances, even maintaining its speed, swiftly flying at four to five hundred kilometers an hour.

But this also made the illuminated tunnel outside seem a bit daunting.

The tunnel was actually not narrow; even the narrowest part was nearly ten meters wide, and most areas were twenty to thirty meters wide.

This is very spacious for a car, but for a flying shuttle traveling at four to five hundred kilometers an hour, it’s a bit cramped.

Xu Xin always felt that the shuttle’s propellers were close to hitting obstacles several times.

At this speed, a mistake could lead to an immediate takeoff...

"Since familiar with the terrain is out of question... are you certain this speed is okay?" Li Wenxi pulled her gaze away from the window, asking a bit apprehensively, "If we crash..."

"Don’t worry." Old Yang waved his hand, "You’re underestimating this flying shuttle; it’s designed for situations like these, just look."

Old Yang gestured for the two to look ahead.

On the cockpit’s dashboard was a very detailed...

A terrain map?

Right now, the terrain map was continuously retreating, and at the lower middle of the map was a dot representing the flying shuttle.

"The flying shuttle can detect the terrain up to two kilometers ahead in this complex terrain through sonar, radar, and other methods," Old Yang pointed at the dashboard.

"So, the autonomous flying shuttle knows the terrain two kilometers ahead, plans the route and speed in advance."

That’s how it is.

But...

"Leaving control to the automatic..." Xu Xin glanced at the thrilling scenes outside, "It just feels..."

"Yeah, trusting such a dangerous situation to autopilot feels kind of off..." Li Wenxi expressed what Xu Xin wanted to say.

"Haha, don’t worry, this is not the autopilot from a thousand years ago on Earth," Old Yang laughed, "The safety level of this autopilot is much higher than us driving ourselves, you can rest assured. I guarantee it with my five hundred-year driving experience."

Five hundred years of driving experience...

This is truly the ultimate veteran driver.

Alright, listen to the veteran.

"So given this, what do you as the driver do?" Li Wenxi blinked at Old Yang, "Just sitting here doing nothing?"

"Doing nothing? What does ’doing nothing’ mean?" Old Yang was puzzled.

"Uh... it means being lazy."

"Oh, I remember now." Old Yang paused for a moment, then laughed, "A term from a thousand years ago, this is truly an ancient expression."

"Uh..." Li Wenxi suddenly felt a bit embarrassed.

Did she just use a term that was outdated by centuries?