Chapter 25

The torrential rain poured down as Shu Fu pulled back her hand holding the tape measure. After checking the scale, she shook her wet hand.

In the sky, the sound of a helicopter could be heard. She quickly stepped back a few paces and hid under the eaves of the corridor.

Moments later, a red and white rescue helicopter appeared in her sight, flying westward over the city.

This was her third day living alone. In these three days, four helicopters had appeared, but she didn’t know whether they were passing through Suicheng, rescuing people, or transporting supplies before leaving.

This situation wasn’t very favorable for her. She had been planning to wait until Suicheng became a true water-bound empty city before moving to a taller building, but clearly, she couldn’t predict the appearance of helicopters.

These helicopters were flying relatively low, and she couldn’t be sure if the people aboard would notice her small raft floating on the water below.

Perhaps they would mistake it for a floating piece of debris, like a building door, or they might lower the altitude to investigate.

Fortunately, the water level hadn’t yet reached the fourth floor, so she still had time.

When the red and white helicopter completely disappeared into the rain, she turned back and went up to the fifth floor.

Two days later, the water level reached the ceiling of the third-floor corridor, completely flooding the third floor.

Three days after that, the water line passed the first step of the fourth floor. Shu Fu dismantled the bedroom and bathroom doors, using space transfer, along with an iron bucket and stove discarded by neighbors in the stairwell, to make a simple ferry bridge between the fourth-floor stairwell and corridor.

That same night, she began using the raft outside the fourth-floor corridor overnight, while also starting her routine of casting and retrieving her fishing line three times a day.

The results were underwhelming—mostly small items like benches, iron buckets, stainless steel pots, hammers—things that wouldn’t be damaged even after being submerged in water. Occasionally, she retrieved unopened cans of brown sugar, bags of vermicelli, dried tofu, and red dates.

It seemed that the residents of the Safe Community had left in such a hurry that they had taken most of their belongings, and she suspected these food items were left behind when the floodwaters rose suddenly that night.

However, overall, the automatic water area fishing rod was still reliable. Anything she caught was either undamaged food or items that could still be used even after being submerged. There were no scraps or trash, and after using the “disinfection” function, everything was safe and hygienic.

Two mornings later, as she stepped out of the drifting island house, she noticed that the simple wooden bridge she had made on the fourth-floor corridor was now submerged in water.

Shu Fu checked the time. It was just before 6 a.m., and she still had six hours left of raft usage time for the day.

She didn’t stay on the raft any longer. She changed into a waterproof jacket, packed up the raft, and headed back upstairs.

At 9 a.m., she stood at the entrance of her rental house and looked back at the small house.

Though it was a rental, before she awakened, she had truly considered it her future home. She had put a lot of effort into decorating it and had imagined living there in the future.

But after today, she wouldn’t return here. The house would likely soon be submerged.

Shu Fu locked the door, then went directly to the corridor railing, where she released the raft onto the water below.

The water level had already submerged several steps of the fourth floor. After releasing the raft, she climbed over the fifth-floor railing, landing on the roof of the drifting island house, and then descended onto the raft. When stationary, the raft was as stable as if it were on solid ground, without any rocking from her movements.

She changed shoes and entered the house. The indoors and outdoors were two different worlds: outside, the rain continued, and the temperature was cold, while inside the wooden house, it felt like a gentle, refreshing early summer—dry and warm. Even with the door open, the slanting rain couldn’t penetrate the frame.

She confirmed twice that even without activating the raft’s protective shield, the invisible barrier around the house’s eaves started from the outside and kept the rain at bay.

This confirmed for her that the hardware furnishings produced by the blue prize, which connected to the drifting island house, became part of the house once equipped. They were integrated into the “owner mode” and became a safe space resistant to disaster, with constant temperature and exclusion of external elements.

Now, the small space under the eaves of both the front and back doors had been utilized. The two small shoe cabinets were moved to the outside of the door, and on the other side, there was a camping chair with a backrest and a small camping table. She could sit while changing shoes, and the table was convenient for placing things. When the raft was drifting, she could sit there to get some fresh air.

However, the space under the eaves wasn’t as compressed as the internal space. It was relatively small, and unlike when the raft’s protective shield was activated, the entire raft was protected from wind and rain. If she made any big movements under the eaves, her hands and feet would get wet immediately from the rain.

Shu Fu activated “drifting,” set the direction, and skillfully navigated the raft toward the intersection.

Even through the rain, the two buildings at the intersection were particularly striking. The nearby buildings weren’t very tall, and the water level in the area had already surpassed 11 meters. Many buildings, like the one she lived in, had only two or three floors remaining above the water.

The shopping mall had six floors, each over four meters high, and the office building behind it was 18 stories tall.

These two buildings—one wide and one narrow—looked like two large sea creatures lying in the ocean, one in front of the other.

Shu Fu temporarily changed her shelter plan. If she could enter the office building from the outside, it would become her second refuge.

First, the 18-story building can be considered a safe height for the time being. Second, there is a large supermarket nearby with plenty of items she could potentially scavenge.

The location here is average. The office building behind doesn’t meet Grade A standards, and the ceiling height is around 2.8 meters, which is similar to the 2.7-meter ceiling height in her community.

She parked the raft on the side of the office building near the front shopping mall, trying to make it “dock” as close to the exterior glass wall of the building as possible. Then, she opened an umbrella to shield herself from the rain, took out a windproof torch lighter, set the flame to the highest setting, and pressed it against the corner of the glass wall.

Office building exteriors are typically made of tempered floor-to-ceiling glass, and in order to break the tempered glass, it needs to be done from the corners. Generally, one would strike the edges or corners with a hammer, or heat the glass first to make it brittle and then strike it hard.

She chose the latter method.

She hadn’t practiced this before, so if she couldn’t break it using various methods, she would activate the raft’s protective shield and head toward the planned commercial street building.

That building had a special design, allowing her to enter directly from the outside.

After about ten minutes, the tempered glass was successfully broken. She cleaned up the glass shards and entered the office building, stowing the raft.

The building’s garage was in the basement, and the fourth floor was nearly submerged. She entered through the large office area on the fifth floor. There was no electricity in the building, and the lighting was poor. It felt dark, damp, and cold. The desks and chairs were moved around in disarray, and a cleared space was found against the wall where sofa cushions and blankets were stacked.

It seemed this area had been used by refugees earlier, leaving behind many bottles, cans, and packaging trash. The air quality was poor.

Shu Fu didn’t rush to go upstairs but first took a tour of the entire fifth floor to get a sense of the internal layout and identify the location of the safe staircase before starting to ascend.

This building wasn’t part of the commercial district, and similar buildings in the area were few. There were no elevated highways or subway stations, making the transportation not very convenient. Unlike the building where she had worked before, where some office floors had been left unleased, and the exterior glass doors were locked, with the interior empty.

From the seventh floor onward, the building was much cleaner, with fewer signs of refugees. The desks and chairs were not as disorganized, and by the ninth floor, there were barely any traces left from the refugees.

Finally, she selected a temporary place to stay on the tenth floor. It appeared that the entire floor belonged to one company. Aside from the reception area near the elevator, the space was semi-open, without glass doors. The small offices inside were mostly separated by frosted glass walls, and several larger offices had doors, but all were locked.

Shu Fu took a look around and finally chose a small meeting room.

The meeting room faced north, with an unlocked door and several manually operable windows in the floor-to-ceiling glass. There was a thick carpet on the floor, and the space wasn’t too large, so it would heat up quickly with a kerosene stove.

She began arranging the space, moving the long table and most of the chairs to the outer area using space transfer. She found a three-seat sofa and a coffee table from the breakroom and placed them near the floor-to-ceiling glass. Then, she moved a smaller desk from the large office area inside, along with the previously relocated chairs, and placed them against the wall.

This wasn’t her permanent home, so she didn’t want to make the space too detailed. She only needed a place to rest and eat. She planned to return to the drifting island house to sleep at night.

After setting up her temporary living space, she ran a few more floors up to briefly check the environment and then returned to the fifth floor. She released the raft again through the broken glass window and cast her automatic water fishing rod.

She stayed in the office building for about half a month. It was indeed different from her community. Not only was the time to gather supplies greatly shortened, but the materials she obtained were also plentiful—each time, her basket was full.

She found various paper products, large amounts of bottled water and canned beverages, well-packaged snacks, drink mixes, instant noodles, self-heating hot pots, self-heating rice, vacuum-packed canned meats, spicy sauces, shrimp paste, kitchenware, and unopened skincare products…

Shu Fu never picked and chose. Whatever she caught, she stored in her wristband space.

She still spent her days in the building from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., sometimes using the generator and induction stove to cook simple meals, and sometimes using the kerosene stove to cook and warm herself at the same time.

She hadn’t fully cut off from the outside world. Like before when she stayed at home, she still used another phone to browse the internet and check the news occasionally, logging into WeChat to check messages.

There were many messages from Lu Zheng and Yao Ruoyun, but she didn’t open them, leaving them marked as unread.

She replied to messages from Zhang Tian and the others, as well as Zheng Feifei. But since her WeChat wasn’t on 24/7, most of the time, her replies were delayed. It could take a few days for the back-and-forth messages to reach each other, but at least they stayed in touch and knew that everyone was okay.

Initially, the signal was intermittent, but she could still access the internet. Later, the signal gradually worsened, and even if the pages opened, they were mostly blank. Often, it would take a long time to refresh with no response.

In the end, all she could barely view were the weather forecast and emergency notifications.

The situation on the planet was dire. It was raining everywhere, and most coastal areas had been flooded after multiple tsunamis and typhoons. Some island nations with very low elevations in tropical regions had completely disappeared.

The neighboring island nation’s land area had significantly decreased, with tsunamis, heavy rain, hailstorms, and thunderstorms wreaking havoc in turn. The survivors tried to flee overseas, but with such weather conditions, civil aviation had long since shut down, and those attempting to travel by sea were all killed by typhoons and heavy storms on the ocean.

In contrast, the situation in Huaguo was relatively better. Although large cities in the southeastern coastal and low-lying areas had been flooded, Huaguo still had the highest peaks on the planet, along with vast mountain ranges and plateaus.

The internet was filled with news of the westward retreat, and the heavy rain had been falling for more than a month. By this time, most of the refugees who had been forced to leave their homes had come to terms with the fact that they wouldn’t be able to return in the short term.

In the western part of Suicheng, in the Sankou province, the formerly safe cities of Ningcheng, Shanyang, and even Zhangcheng had all been struck by flooding. Refugees had to move again with the city’s residents. The government began to modify and build temporary shelters in higher-altitude cities to accommodate these displaced people.

Life-saving items like life jackets, lifebuoys, inflatable boats, rubber dinghies, and diving suits became the most sought-after products.

The cost of living began to rise, especially for bottled water and food, which had increased by about two to three times, even under the government’s price controls in large supermarkets. Some privately owned supermarkets raised their prices by five to six times, and some even saw prices like 100 yuan for a single cabbage and 200 yuan for a box of eggs.

Of course, there were occasional reports of people buying overpriced vegetables through neighborhood property management or group buys, only to find a bag of rotten produce, and news of scammers being caught circulated every couple of days.

Sometimes, supermarkets would release batches of low-priced food and water supplies with purchase limits to ease the public’s living pressures. These supplies came from national aid and other cities.

In this time of disaster, everything was chaotic, and news, both good and bad, true and false, spread quickly.

The day before the internet was completely cut off, Shu Fu came across news about several western cities preparing to build large dams around the city. The news wasn’t officially released, and she couldn’t verify if it was true or not.

These cities were mainly hilly and mountainous, with higher altitudes. Although heavy rain continued, the cities were still functioning normally.

In Suicheng, the rain fluctuated between heavy and very heavy, occasionally accompanied by thunderstorms and hail. Some mornings, she woke up to find the water level had risen half a floor overnight.

She had to break a piece of floor-to-ceiling glass periodically to make it easier to release her raft and return to her drifting island house at night.

At first, she spent most of her time in the small meeting room, watching dramas, variety shows, reading books, and listening to music. She felt quite comfortable with the time alone.

But soon, she realized that this purely laid-back lifestyle was making her less productive. More importantly, her daily routine of milk tea, snacks, coffee, and fruits caused her to gain three kilograms over the past month and a half…

So, she started using the building’s safe stairs to do simple climbing exercises. When bored, she would visit each floor, searching for useful supplies to store.

She collected unopened bottled water, tissue paper, coffee bags, tea boxes, instant noodles, instant vermicelli, new A4 paper and pens, brand-new office chairs… Anything small and useful for future use, she would store in her wristband space.

Originally, she planned to stay until the water level reached the 14th floor before moving to the commercial district.

But as time passed, the helicopters that once flew over Suicheng gradually disappeared from sight.

There were no people, no boats, and no planes, just the sound of rain from dawn till dusk, endlessly.

Her wristband remained silent, never vibrating. She took out her black mini notebook many times, flipping through it, hoping to find new tasks written in it, but the task for the raft level 3 progress bar never appeared.

When the water level completely submerged the eighth floor, Shu Fu could no longer sit still.

The internet was completely cut off, and she had no way of knowing what was happening outside. The new upgrade task had not appeared, and the raft could only be used for 12 hours each day. If it didn’t upgrade soon, she would eventually be in trouble.

Maybe she should venture outside and take her chances; perhaps the task would appear during the raft’s drifting journey.