Wilderness Redemption Tour

"Arthur?" John forced a smile. "If he wouldn't beat around the bush and make fun of me, I might listen to his advice."

"Okay, let's not talk about this anymore." John looked back at the barrel of explosives in the carriage and asked Lin Yan, "Can you lay out the fuse?"

Lin Yan shook his head: "No, I haven't seen it yet."

John frowned and said to himself, "Then I'll have to do it myself." Then he looked at Lin Yan and said, "You can't do delicate work, so you can only do the heavy work. I'll be responsible for the wiring, and you'll be responsible for moving these explosive barrels to the locations I specify. Is that ok?"

"No problem," Lin Yan agreed readily. Apart from anything else, he was quite confident in his own strength.

It was already six o'clock in the afternoon when the two arrived at Bucks Bridge. It was already approaching the end of dusk. Based on previous observations, Lin Yan predicted that the sky would be completely dark within half an hour. After dark, if Lin Yan and his team had not finished their work, they would have to stop the operation and wait until dawn to continue. In other words, if Lin Yan and his team wanted to complete the task today, they would only have half an hour to act.

Bucks Bridge is an all-wooden railway bridge across the Dakota River, an important hub connecting Grizzlie and New Hanover. The bridge is adjacent to Bucks Station, a station used only for freight. When Lin Yan and his team arrived here, there was no one here. Lin Yan guessed that this station was probably only put into use during the day.

After parking the car in the open space next to the station, John jumped out of the car, opened the door, pulled out a barrel of dynamite from inside, pointed to the human-powered rail car parked on the track and said, "It's too troublesome to move them barrel by barrel. Let's use that car to transport the dynamite to the bridge."

Lin Yan had seen the human-powered railcar that John was pointing at in a cartoon called "Lucky Luke" when he was a child. There was a wooden board on the four wheels, and a lever with a handle in the middle of the board. As long as the lever was shaken, the car would move along the rails.

They worked together to transfer the explosives, fuses and other detonation tools on the car to the human-powered rail car. Then they boarded the rail car, shook the lever, and steered this simple train towards the bridge.

Looking at the bridge deck which was only ten centimeters wider than the railway track, Lin Yan worriedly said, "There won't be any trains coming during this period..."

"Trains are not rabbits that can be found everywhere in the mountains." John used a somewhat strange metaphor. "Normally, there are only a few trains passing through here in a day. If we really encounter one, it means that this bridge is not destined to be destroyed."

"Are we just going to put the explosives on the bridge?" Lin Yan asked?

"No," John shook his head. "That's not very safe. There should be a ladder or stairs on the bridge that can lead to the next level. Let's look carefully and place the explosives underneath."

When the human-powered rail car was running to one-third of the bridge, Lin Yan saw a raised platform on the left side of the direction of the rail car's movement.

"I saw it. It's just ahead."

John glanced back, "That's it. Okay, let's stop here."

They both stopped what they were doing at the same time.

Leading to the lower level of the bridge is a vertical escalator placed on a protruding platform. After getting off the car, John walked to the edge of the platform and looked down. After confirming the height, he pointed at the rail car and said to Lin Yan: "Wait for me to climb down, you use the rope to let the things on the car down, and I will catch them below. When you are done, you can go down again, and I will tell you how to place these explosive barrels."

"Okay." Time was running out, so Lin Yan did what he said. He first walked to the front of the rail car and took out a lasso from the space bag. The system allowed him to master the lasso skills and also instilled some knotting skills into his brain.

The explosive barrels were not big, and the length of a lasso was just enough to tie up two barrels. After tying them up, Lin Yan took out a piece of ordinary rope and tied it to the packed explosive barrels, then carried it to the edge of the platform and pulled all the barrels down in groups of two.

This step is the most troublesome of all the steps. After all the barrels of explosives are brought down, visibility is already very low.

Going down the escalator to the lower level of the bridge, Lin Yan discovered that John had modified most of the barrels of explosives while he was packing, and had added a fuse to the barrels.

John was now modifying the last two barrels of explosives. When he heard Lin Yan coming down, he directed Lin Yan without turning his head, "Jamie, move these barrels of explosives with fuses to the main support beams of the bridge. Put one next to each main support beam. Those inclined columns are the main support beams. Hurry up, I need to connect the wires later."

Below the rails was a passage that was even narrower than the one above. Lin Yan glanced sideways and found that there was a tilted pillar like the one John mentioned at regular intervals.

When Lin Yan moved to the third barrel, John had finished the work at hand. Then, he picked up the fuse spool with the fuse wound on it and began to connect the fuses on each barrel of explosives one by one.

By the time Lin Yan had placed all the explosive barrels, John's work was coming to an end. Before it got dark, John completed the final connection work in time.

Stretching, John picked up the fuse spool and said, "Okay, now we just need to go back to the carriage, connect the fuse to the detonator, press the detonator, and then wait to enjoy a grand fireworks display."

Just as the two were preparing to return to the bridge from the escalator under the moonlight, a regular vibration accompanied by the sound of a whistle came over.

"Damn it!" John urged solemnly, "It's a train, a train is coming, let's go!"

"Ah?" Lin Yan was very confused by John's decision.

"Hurry up! The train is coming soon!" John saw that Lin Yan didn't move, so he urged him again.

"The train is coming, what does it have to do with us?" Lin Yan turned around and looked at John speechlessly.

"...That's right, we are under the railroad tracks and are safe." John was stunned for half a second before he reacted, and then he was amused by his own behavior.

"Really? Why am I so nervous?"

"That's right, I'm still wondering." Lin Yan also said with a smile: "There is only one rail car on it, so if the train hits it, it will crash. You can't run and lay the wires at the same time when you go up there now."

As they were talking, the train had already passed right above them. With a dull crash, large pieces of railcar wreckage fell from above to below the bridge.