Chapter 89

In her memory, right up until the day she found the drifting bottle, until the night she went to bed, Xiaogui had been completely fine. There had been no massive tsunami, no half of the land submerged. And she had never stood on an award stage, let alone given an acceptance speech.

If Lu Zheng and Chen Fa’s memory fragments weren’t wrong, then it meant her own memory was flawed.

She… was missing memories too!?

The realization froze Shu Fu in place. It was as if a deafening noise had exploded beside her ear, sending a ringing shock through her eardrums, plunging her into a nightmare.

The fourth bug… was herself?

No—if she followed the sequence, this bug had already existed from the moment she awakened in Suicheng. She had been caught inside the situation the whole time, completely unaware of the bug’s existence!

She herself was actually the first bug!

Yet, while this revelation hit her like a tidal wave, to Chen Fa, it was just another normal occurrence.

“You probably just haven’t found the memory fragments related to it yet. Based on Lu Zheng’s description, you were likely a public figure in that world. I might have even seen you before… or maybe not, depending on whether we moved in different circles,” Chen Fa reasoned, a thought process that made sense for Lu Zheng.

To this day, they still referred to their original world as “that world” because they lacked enough information to determine where they truly belonged. Shu Fu didn’t correct them. With their memory fragments incomplete, defining it for them herself could create misunderstandings.

After all, their circumstances were different. She couldn’t be completely certain about their origins, so she hadn’t revealed too much information that might influence them.

But among the three of them, only she knew—her memory had always been whole. Her life had been complete from the moment she could remember. So how could there be missing memory fragments that she had yet to recover?

---

The next day, it rained steadily. The wind wasn’t strong, and there was no hail. Compared to yesterday’s storm, it was much calmer—one of the better weather days in recent times.

When Lu Ce got in the car, he couldn’t hold back his tears. But thinking he was already grown up, he didn’t want anyone to see him cry. So, as he sobbed, he tilted his face up toward the rain, letting the raindrops mix with his tears so no one could tell he was crying.

The night before, Shu Fu had given Chen Fa a kerosene stove and ten special fuel canisters, instructing her to keep the stove in the raft cabin and store the fuel in her backpack.

She had actually wanted to give it to her earlier when they discussed cold-weather supplies, but Chen Fa had refused, saying she had collected enough dry firewood and had two iron barrels in the cabin for heating in case of extreme cold.

But that was nowhere near as convenient as a kerosene stove—especially since the stove could be covered and used for cooking as well. Seeing Chen Fa refuse, Shu Fu had no choice but to pull out another stove, saying she had bought two from the start and didn’t really need this one since her cabin was well-insulated.

“If you really didn’t need it, you wouldn’t have bought two,” Chen Fa immediately saw through her reasoning.

“Just take it—it’s my birthday gift to you.” This was the excuse Shu Fu had prepared in advance, in case Chen Fa still resisted.

Chen Fa had already given Shu Fu a gift the day before at noon—a small safety talisman tucked inside a mint-green scented pouch. Shu Fu had no idea where she had managed to find such a thing in this apocalyptic world.

The pouch was thin and small, and with the talisman inside, it was still very lightweight. It had no extra embellishments, just a black leather cord long enough to wear around the neck, keeping the talisman close to the body.

Chen Fa had personally fastened it for her, reminding her to wear it at all times for protection.

Now, Shu Fu was using the gift excuse to get her to accept the kerosene stove.

“To be honest, I have a bad feeling about this winter…” Though extreme cold hadn’t been part of the outline she had written, natural disasters in this world were unpredictable. She had no way of knowing what other catastrophes might strike this planet.

Besides the stove, she also forced ten bags of 20-pound rice onto Chen Fa. These were from her stockpile in Suicheng—she had originally stored 20 bags but had only used two so far, and even those had been used to make fried rice in advance.

Since she always stocked up on meals, she tended to pack rice along with them. But because her storage space also contained various noodles, steamed buns, and bread, she rarely ate rice. She had even won two extra 50-pound bags of rice in a lottery, so even after giving Chen Fa ten bags, she still had plenty left.

This rice was her backup supply for Chen Fa. Chen Fa always insisted that food could be found in the safe cities, but now that nearly half of BircCountry H’s land was flooded, those safe cities were bound to be overcrowded. Skyrocketing prices were one thing—but what if there wasn’t even food available for purchase?

With these ten bags of rice, even if things became truly desperate, at least they could survive on plain rice for a while longer.

She hoped that by the next time they met, they would all still be alive and well.

Fortunately, they now had satellite phones, so they wouldn’t lose contact like before.

---

Lu Zheng shoved the rain-soaked Lu Ce into the back seat of the jeep, then walked around the car and stopped in front of Shu Fu. Gently, he held her arm, pulling up the sleeve of her raincoat slightly, before tying a light blue woven bracelet around her wrist.

“What’s this?” Shu Fu lowered her head to look. The bracelet had a delicate pattern—it was quite pretty, though the weaving was slightly uneven. “Did you make this?”

“Yeah, I made it,” he said, his gaze lowered as he carefully fastened the knot. “It was my first time making one, so I wasn’t very skilled. It took me a few days. I actually wanted to give it to you yesterday.”

“The knots here are ‘peace knots.’ They’re meant to bring you safety.”

“You actually believe in that?” Shu Fu looked at his slender fingers and tried to imagine him sitting under a lamp, focused on weaving the bracelet. The image was almost too strange to picture…

He lifted his eyes to look at her.

“I’ll wear it! I’ll definitely wear it!” Shu Fu blurted out. “A charm for safety—I’ll treasure it!” She lowered her gaze again to examine the bracelet on her wrist.

Now her left wrist had a bracelet, her right wrist had the peace-knot bracelet, and around her neck, she wore a sachet with a safety charm inside. She looked like she was fully equipped with protective talismans—left green dragon, right white tiger, old ox at the waist, dragon head on the chest—wait, no! Shu Fu shook her head, trying to clear the ridiculous thought.

Lu Zheng pulled down the sleeve of her raincoat again but didn’t let go immediately. “And one more thing—don’t push yourself too hard. Don’t think you’re a burden to us. If you ever need help, call me… call us immediately. Chen Fa once said that compared to us, you’re more like a downward-compatible administrator. And an administrator should act like one. So when you need something, don’t hesitate. Use me properly.”

Shu Fu was amused by the words “use me” and nodded at him. “Alright, if I need anything, I’ll call you. I’ll make sure to ‘use’ you properly. So, until we meet again, you have to stay alive too.”

Lu Zheng smiled. Before parting, he wanted to leave her with a smile, not a heavy heart.

Shu Fu saw him off and turned to hug Chen Fa and Chen Yuezhen. In the nearby pickup truck, others waved at her through the window—Xu Tingfeng and the others. She wasn’t sure if they would ever meet again.

Leaving without saying goodbye was painful, but facing a farewell head-on was just as heartbreaking.

Shu Fu returned to the raft, took off her raincoat, and stood under the eaves, watching as the jeep and pickup truck disappeared into the mountains.

Now that her companions were gone, the vast lake was once again empty, leaving only her raft. Silence returned between heaven and earth.

Her bracelet was equally silent. She had been on this lake for over a month, yet the final task for upgrading to Level 4 hadn’t arrived. But at least the cabin on the slope had been repaired. During the four hours each day when she couldn’t use the raft, she could take shelter there from the rain and avoid overusing her time-extension cards.

She realized now that the three consecutive draws she made, which awarded her a one-week raft extension card, had actually been incredibly useful. Clearly, nothing from the prize wheel was ever truly worthless.

Even though a night had passed, she was still shaken by the information from Lu Zheng’s memory fragments.

It was so overwhelming that, for the first time ever, she had trouble sleeping. She woke up before five in the morning, lying in bed with her mind unusually alert, unable to go back to sleep.

As the night passed, her thoughts became clearer.

There were two possible explanations for what was happening.

First, they all came from the same world but from different points in time. If the people entering this world had different pre-arrival timelines, then Chen Fa and Lu Zheng’s timelines might be later than hers, allowing them to know things that hadn’t happened yet in her timeline.

The second possibility was far more terrifying—that the problem lay with her. That she had actually lost an entire segment of her memory, not just scattered fragments. From her perspective, her timeline in the original world was complete. Until yesterday, she had never even doubted that anything was missing from her memory.

If this second guess were true, it meant that a whole chunk of her past had been cleanly cut away. The missing period could have lasted months, or even a year or two… maybe even longer.

To verify which of these two theories was correct, she needed to meet more awakened individuals and analyze their memory fragments to piece together the truth.

Simply put, she had to wait for the Level 5 raft progress to begin.

And so, she had come full circle. But quests couldn’t be rushed. At least in the process of upgrading to Level 4, she had found companions and gained some understanding of the situation. She wasn’t completely lost anymore.

Shu Fu stood under the eaves for a while before opening the raft’s protective shield. Wearing slippers, she stepped out the back door and climbed up to the rooftop terrace.

The shield kept the rain perfectly at bay. Stretching her arms towards the lake, she grabbed a mop and started drying the accumulated rainwater on the terrace. She wrung the water out over the lake before setting up a single-seater sofa and a small table covered with a red-and-white checkered tablecloth.

Today, she planned to have a Chinese breakfast.

She spent at least ten minutes each day organizing the shelves in her inventory, moving already-opened or half-eaten food to the far-left compartments while leaving space for newly packed meals in the back.

Not only did she still have food stored from Lou Yuncheng, but she also had plenty of supplies from when she stocked up in Suicheng’s food markets, supermarkets, and restaurants. She still had an abundance of raw fish and meat.

So, faced with the fully stocked shelves in her inventory, she began making her breakfast selection.

A steaming hot bowl of spicy pepper soup, a serving of crab roe soup dumplings, a tea egg, and a crispy fried dough stick.

There were only four dumplings in a serving, and the pepper soup portion wasn’t large either. It was just the right amount for her to finish everything.

Raindrops fell on the protective shield, their sound greatly muted, reduced to a fine white noise. Shu Fu took out her tablet and resumed watching a variety show she had been following intermittently for a long time. She had finally reached the third season, but there were still seven more to go—at this rate, she figured she could watch all the way until her raft was upgraded to level 5.

The laughter and chatter from the show eased the melancholy of parting. By the time she finished breakfast, both her heart and body were fully immersed in her mission-free, laid-back lifestyle.

She would sleep in naturally in the mornings—if she woke up early, she’d have breakfast and then lunch later; if she woke up late, she’d simply have a brunch-style meal with a more elaborate spread.

In the afternoons, if she felt drowsy, she’d play soothing music and take a nap on the cushion by the floor-to-ceiling window, on the sofa, or even outside under the eaves or on the rooftop terrace in a foldable lounge chair, with the protective shield keeping the rain at bay.

She often spent her afternoons listening to music or watching dramas while working in the small kitchen—washing, chopping, and marinating fresh vegetables, poultry, and river fish. She would then portion everything into storage bags and place them in her spatial storage for easy future cooking.

Sometimes, she’d prepare large batches of food, like braised pork belly, lamb spine stew, or curry chicken with potatoes, and store them while still hot in her space. That way, she could simply scoop out a portion whenever she wanted a meal.

After dinner, she usually exercised—rowing for half an hour or practicing the combat moves Han Lan and Chen Yuezhen had taught her.

Most nights, she went to bed around eleven, though she occasionally stayed up late binge-watching dramas or getting engrossed in novels. She had plenty of time, so she allowed herself these small indulgences.

Each day was as leisurely as before, but with subtle changes. Now that she, Chen Fa, and Lu Ze all had satellite phones, they messaged each other daily to check in.

These messages weren’t like WeChat—there were no voice messages or video calls. They could send pictures, but the transmission was slow, and the images were compressed into blurry pixels, rendering them useless. So they mainly communicated through text, and replies weren’t expected to be immediate. After all, none of them could guarantee instant responses.

More than just a means of communication, their messages became a kind of shared diary—small glimpses into each other’s lives, a way to reassure one another that they were still alive.

Shu Fu: Made a big pot of seafood boil today. Tastes pretty good. Saved a portion for each of you.

Chen Fa: Walked 120 kilometers today, with over 80 kilometers spent detouring—another landslide on the mountain road. When I got too tired, I took out some milk tea, and suddenly, I felt like I could go another 120 kilometers.

Lu Zheng: Finally reached the first rescue station. It’s small, but for those fleeing south, just arriving here feels like finding hope.

Shu Fu: Haven’t weighed myself in ages—turns out I’ve gained four pounds…

Chen Fa: No other survivors nearby today. Set up my raft house. It’s pouring outside, but inside, Grandma and I are having hot porridge with century eggs and shredded pork, along with some spicy beef slices.

Lu Ce: Fa-fa made a huge pot of snail rice noodles for breakfast today. Xu Jiechu, that idiot, was so moved he said he wanted to marry into the Chen family—figured that might earn him a spot in Fa-fa’s raft house. His big brother promptly beat him up, hahaha! Fa-fa, keeping it cool, told him, ‘The noodles are yours, but if you want to marry in, it’s the Shu family, not the Chen family.’ But that idiot Xu Jiechu wouldn’t give up—he even suggested a schedule: Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with the Chens, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays with the Shus, and Sundays off… Hahaha! His brother beat him up again, HAHAHA!

Lu Zheng: Heavy rain today. Found a place to stay for the night, so Xu Tingfeng and the others won’t have to sleep in the truck. Are you doing okay on your own?

…

Even in text, it was obvious that Lu Ce was a chatterbox.

Besides refurbishing the hillside cabin, she had also installed a fireplace in the living room. While the lake’s water level hadn’t yet reached it, she spent four hours there daily whenever she stowed her raft.

When the weather was decent, she put on a raincoat and boots to walk over. But once the lake rose and the wetlands expanded, her boots would get caked in mud on the way. She had to change shoes before entering the cabin, or she’d track mud everywhere. And when she returned to the raft, she’d have to clean her boots.

If the weather was bad, she activated her personal shield and sprinted there as fast as possible.

But the weather was only getting worse. Torrential downpours had become the norm, causing the lake to rise rapidly.

Small streams had begun forming between the mountain ridges, cascading down the slopes like miniature waterfalls, all converging into the lake. Even the snowy peaks in the distance had almost lost their white caps—some of these streams were likely fed by melting snow.

On the eleventh day after Chen Fa and Lu Zheng left, she picked up a new announcement from the military academy’s refugee shelter via radio.

It was a call for all survivors within range of the signal.

After months of effort, waves of civilians had been escorted south with abundant airdropped supplies. Now, only the last few groups remained, preparing for evacuation. The military personnel stationed there would also be withdrawing with them.

If any survivors wanted to leave with the convoy, they had only three days to reach the military academy shelter.

This was the southern outskirts of Youcheng. Aside from the military academy, there were also some secluded guesthouses hidden in the mountains. As long as the terrain was high enough, there was a stockpile of supplies, and a generator was available, people could continue hiding and holding out indefinitely.

At the same time, these individuals, having their own resources, were unwilling to integrate into the larger collective. They would rather stay hidden until they completely ran out of supplies, refusing to emerge no matter what.

Now, the reason the refugee shelter had issued this notice was that drones had detected a rapidly rising water level upstream in Qinghe. The breached dam in the elevation drop area of Youcheng’s eastern outskirts was also gradually disappearing under the surging waves.

In another two to three days, the elevation drop would completely vanish, and vast areas of land along both sides of the eastern river would turn into wetlands.

The amphibious, man-eating jumpfish that preferred to swim upstream in Qinghe could start appearing in Youcheng at any moment after that.

Whether these creatures would spread to the southern outskirts remained uncertain, but if they made landfall in Youcheng, the city would be doomed. The terrain there was low-lying, and even before, when military personnel conducted periodic supply searches, they would always check the waterline near the river.

The last check was a week ago, and even the waterfront commercial street—once a good distance from the river—was already beginning to flood.

If the river overflowed, the water wouldn’t just surge over the surface; the bigger problem was the underground drainage system. The city’s sewer network was vast and interconnected beneath the streets, and once it backed up, even low-lying areas far from the river would start to flood.

Youcheng was about to be submerged.

That was why the shelter was making a final push to evacuate all remaining civilians within three days.

Shu Fu had no idea if any survivors were still hiding nearby or whether they had received this message. Even if they had, she wasn’t sure if they would heed the warning and follow the convoy south.

The mountain lake where she was had remained eerily quiet, with nothing but endless torrential rain day after day. Compared to when she first landed in Hexi Town, the weather here had worsened significantly, as if centuries’ worth of rainfall from the northern plateau was being unleashed all at once in a single month.

On the sixth day after receiving the evacuation notice, her wristband—silent for over two months—finally vibrated.

She glanced down. Two icons were flashing simultaneously—one for the map panel and the other for the notebook.

The final mission had arrived!