The whole nation is trying to survive on the cable car; I'm choosing one of three options at ea

Su Mu thought for a moment, then asked again, "Is there any progress on your leaving 7586?"

There was a few seconds of silence on the other end, then a reply came: "Still looking. We've contacted a few people who might have similar items, but either their prices are too high, or they haven't gotten their hands on the items yet. We have about fifty people here, so the resources we can gather are limited. But we're still trying to find a way, it should be soon."

"Okay," Su Mu typed. "Add me to the guild as soon as you find it. The guild name is 'Slippers.' I'll keep an eye out for it."

The other side remained silent for an even longer time this time.

After a while, Zhang Yu's message popped up, shorter than the previous ones: "Thanks. Thank you so much."

Su Mu could sense the weight behind those words.

For him, adding a group of over fifty people to the guild was just a matter of lifting a finger.

But for Zhang Yu and his group, these fifty-odd people had been ostracized on the 7586 cable line for so long and had been looking for a way out. Now, finally someone was willing to take them in.

"You're welcome." Su Mu replied with the last two words and then turned off the communicator.

He took the iron plaque in his hand and turned it over.

The back was blank, but there was a very shallow, curved indentation along the edge, resembling the mark of some kind of mechanism or latch. The iron plaque itself was incomplete; it was likely part of a larger iron wall or gate.

That intact iron wall likely contains a complete route map pointing to the exact location of the ancient city of Loulan.

He put the metal plate away, stood up, and walked to the waterbed. Lin Yuwei was lying on her side looking at the control panel when she heard his footsteps and turned around.

"What's wrong?" she asked. She had just heard the communicator vibrate several times.

"A friend gave me something." Su Mu took the metal plate out of his backpack and handed it to her. "Take a look at this."

Lin Yuwei took it and flipped through it. A system notification popped up automatically. After she finished reading the four lines, her brows slowly furrowed.

"A mirage after the rain," she murmured, "a clue to the ancient city of Loulan."

"Hmm." Su Mu sat down next to her. "What do you think?"

Lin Yuwei returned the iron plaque to him, tapping her fingers lightly on her knee: "'Mirage appears after rain' means that mirages only appear after rain. 'Ancient walls are buried deep in sand' means that the ancient city is buried under sand. 'The moon casts three shadows' probably means that the position of the moon and something else formed three shadows, which should be a specific time. 'The wind rises and Loulan returns' means that when the wind rises, the ancient city will reappear."

She paused, "But rain in the desert...you know better than I do. We've been walking through this desert for days and haven't seen a single drop of rain. Not even on nights with unusual weather."

Su Mu nodded.

The desert has a very high rate of water vapor evaporation and very low water content in the air, making the conditions for rainfall extremely demanding.

Even when there is occasional brief rainfall, it is mostly concentrated in a few specific seasons and regions.

Given the desert they are in, waiting for rain is harder than waiting for a total solar eclipse.

"Should we wait?" Lin Yuwei glanced at him.

Su Mu didn't reply. He leaned against the headboard, his mind racing. Waiting for rain was too passive; was there anything that could actively create rainfall?

Then he remembered.

He kept that thing deep inside his backpack and hadn't used it much. It was a Wind and Rain Banner he'd traded for from Lin Yuwei.

He opened his backpack and took out the small banner from the innermost crevice.

The banner was small, its dark blue silk fabric shimmering faintly under the light, embroidered with cloud and wave patterns. The system message reappeared:

【Wind and Rain Banner (Blue)】

[Type: Curious Item]

【效果：可在半径500米範围内小幅度控制天气。消耗诡石可召唤小雨（持续30分钟）、浓雾（持续20分钟）或微风（持续1小时）。冷却时间2小时。】

[Current available uses: 3/3]

[Energy replenishment method: Consume 50 Mystic Stones to restore 1 use.]

[Note: Can be used on the cable car.]

Su Mu unfolded the banner and handed it to Lin Yuwei.

Lin Yuwei glanced down at him, then looked up at him. Her expression changed from serious to blank, and from blank to an indescribable look.

"You...you have this?"

"It was exchanged from you before."

"I know it was swapped from me," Lin Yuwei said, "but how long ago was that? Have you been keeping it all this time?"

"I've been keeping it. I just haven't found a suitable time to use it."

Lin Yuwei looked at him, her lips moved as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she just shook her head.

She put the iron plaque aside, picked up the Wind and Rain Banner, examined the patterns on it carefully, and then slowly exhaled.

"You really have all sorts of treasures." Her voice wasn't loud, but there was a sense of resignation in her tone. "Before, I thought I had a lot of information and tools, and my transactions with you were fairly even. Now it seems that you're full of things I don't know about."

Su Mu found her expression somewhat amusing.

He always thought Lin Yuwei had more valuable items than he did. In every transaction, he would offer what he believed the other party needed most, while she always managed to offer something that truly impressed him.

Both sides thought the other was hiding something, but in the end, it turned out that both of them had a lot of things that the other didn't know.

"You're not bad either," he said.

Lin Yuwei glanced at him but didn't reply. However, the corner of her mouth twitched very slightly.

After a moment of silence, Lin Yuwei spoke first: "So, what are the plans for tomorrow?"

Su Mu carefully put away the Wind and Rain Banner and thought for a moment: "Let's check the intelligence first. If neither piece of intelligence is too urgent, we'll look for the trigger conditions for the mirage tomorrow. If the intelligence points to an important resource point, we'll deal with that first, and postpone the mirage."

"What if the trigger location is hard to find?"

"Then let's send the area information to the cable channel and let everyone along the cable search together," Su Mu said. "This is a shared mission; it's unrealistic for just the two of us to search the entire desert. Many hands make light work."

Lin Yuwei nodded: "That's what I was thinking too. Shall we go to sleep first?"

"Um."

The two lay down.

The waterbed was large, yet there was still that tacit distance between them.