Chapter 4

Shu Fu hung up the phone and looked once more at the black mini notebook in her hands. It was entirely black, shrink-wrapped, and only about a third the size of a regular notebook—thin and plain.

But clearly, this wasn’t an ordinary notebook.

First of all, she couldn’t write on it; no ink from any pen would stay on the pages.

Secondly, it contained instructions for upgrading the raft to level 2, or rather, it was a task.

But why was the task about going to work? Even with the apocalypse approaching, she couldn’t escape her fate as a corporate drone?

Going to the office to punch in tomorrow would unlock 5% of the upgrade progress for the raft. It seemed a bit unrealistic, but given that her very existence was already unreal, she quickly accepted it.

Shu Fu put away the mini notebook and began her earlier task. One by one, she started placing all the furniture from the living room into her bracelet’s storage space. When the living room was left with only the TV and the background wall, she tried again to rotate the drift bottle cap.

At first, she was worried the bottle might display a message saying no water detected, so placement was impossible. But clearly, a boat in the water could also be placed on land.

A small wooden raft appeared in her living room, much smaller than she had imagined—about four meters long and two meters wide.

The raft was a neat rectangle, with a flat surface made of wooden planks in a natural wood color. In the middle was a small flat-roofed wooden house, about two meters tall and only four or five square meters in area, far smaller than the 10 square meters indicated in the documentation.

Both the front and back of the raft had a small deck area, and the sides were too narrow for people to pass through. However, there were doors at both ends of the wooden house, allowing access to the deck at the rear of the raft.

Each side of the wooden house had a small window with a wooden frame and frosted glass, so it was impossible to see inside from the outside.

The raft had no sails, no paddles, and no mechanical propulsion. Its flat deck made it look more like a floating wooden platform for fishing than a boat.

No wonder the driving mode was “Drifting with the current.” Did this mean it would just drift aimlessly?

Shu Fu walked onto the raft and noticed a strange symbol painted on the front door of the wooden house. It didn’t look like any text she recognized, but overall, it resembled a curved “moon” character.

Moon? What did that mean? Did the house have a name?

She opened the wooden door and entered the house. As she stepped inside, she felt an invisible light scan her, and the dimly lit interior of the wooden house suddenly brightened. The light seemed like it was activated for the first time, as if something had just been turned on.

Looking around, the wooden house was much larger inside than it appeared from the outside. It was a square room with a small partition, and it seemed to be about 10 square meters in area, with a ceiling height of over two meters. It was as if the space had been compressed!

Inside the wooden house, there were no lights. The current light source came from her living room, and the two glass windows of the house allowed an extremely clear view of the outside light, which was much brighter than it had appeared from the outside. The windows seemed twice as large as they appeared.

The temperature inside the wooden house was cooler than outside, with a range of 23 to 26 degrees Celsius. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made of natural wood planks. The partition was on the left side of the back door, and inside was a small bathroom, about three or four square meters, equipped with a wooden washstand, wooden shelving, a small wooden shower, and a wooden toilet.

The wooden furnishings were compact but complete, and despite the small space, everything was well-organized.

Shu Fu couldn’t help but touch the wooden toilet when she saw it for the first time. It definitely had the feel of wood.

Since the raft had a toilet, a shower, and a washstand, this meant that using the raft would generate wastewater.

Regular cruise ships, like RVs, have gray water and black water. But unlike RVs, this water didn’t need to be manually processed. As long as it was in a discharge system with filters, bacteria decomposition, and ultraviolet sterilization, wastewater could be discharged in waters at least three nautical miles away from land.

But the raft and floating house didn’t seem to have such a complicated system. How would wastewater be disposed of?

Shu Fu couldn’t figure it out, so she moved on to studying the wooden washstand. She tried turning on the wooden faucet, but no water came out.

The entire little wooden house felt like a display model that could only be looked at, not used.

It wasn’t until she was about to leave the house that she noticed a screen behind the door. There was a similar screen on both the front and back doors of the house.

The screen was a bit larger than an ordinary tablet, silver in color, and when she touched it, information about the current drift island house appeared. Some of the details were familiar from the drift bottle, while others were new.

[Raft Level: 1 (Level 2 Progress: 0%)]

Drift Island House Size: 10 square meters

Level 1 Protection: Owner Mode in Wooden House Area (Interior is a disaster-resistant, temperature-controlled, and secure living space)

Raft Functions (No water source detected nearby, not selectable yet): 1. Dock; 2. Drift.

Driving Mode: Drifting with the Current (Flow Speed: 10-20 km/h)

Daily Usage Limit: 5 hours (Remaining Today: 4 hours 52 minutes)

Wastewater Storage and Filtration (0/1000L): 1. Automatically discharged when full. (No water source detected nearby); 2. Manual discharge.

Available Water Sources: 1. Purified Water (10L per day, no water source detected nearby); 2. Water Tank Storage (0/500L), no water stored.]

Raft Placement Method: Long press the “Raft” icon (or rotate the drift bottle cap)

Raft Retrieving Method: In the raft placement state, long press the “Raft” icon

Maximum Placement Distance: Within 20 meters

This should be the function control screen for the Drift Island House.

According to the display above, the raft not only has a drifting function but also a docking function, meaning it can actively approach the shore. Within a 20-meter radius, she can control the raft’s placement, indicating that she can store the raft at any time, whether she is on it or not.

She checked the bracelet again, and since the “Raft” had already been placed for the first time, the fourth icon—”Raft”—had indeed appeared.

As for the protection mode, Shu Fu wasn’t surprised. This setting had been written into her outline because it was an important function, though it wasn’t written in great detail; she only mentioned briefly that a safe house could be built on the raft, providing a personal refuge from the wind and rain.

So, the Level 1 protection here meant that while the raft deck might not be safe, the interior of the wooden house was absolutely safe.

What did surprise Shu Fu was the “Wastewater” and “Water Source” functions on the screen. She hadn’t expected such detailed features.

She touched the screen and, just like on a tablet, some selectable functions led to the next-level directory.

When she clicked on “Wastewater Storage and Filtration” and selected “Manual Discharge,” a new message appeared on the screen: “No wastewater detected, no water source detected nearby.”

She immediately understood that once the wastewater reached 1000L, the raft would automatically discharge it, and whether manually or automatically, the prerequisite was that the raft had to be placed on the water.

When she clicked on “Water Source Available” and chose “Purified Water,” the screen displayed: “Confirm ‘Purified Water’ as ‘Usage Order 1’?”

As for “Water Tank Storage,” since it appeared on the screen, it meant that there was certainly a water tank inside the wooden house. She carefully searched the wooden house again and eventually found a small silver box in the corner of the ceiling near the bathroom door.

This box looked to have a capacity of about 5L. It seemed, like the wooden house itself, to be a compressed space that could store up to 500L of purified water!

She had been concerned about the water issue, as the bracelet’s storage space was only 150 cubic meters, and now there were too many things to store, with purified water taking up a lot of space. But now, the raft could store water and purify it, solving her water problem completely.

Even though the raft seemed light and somewhat unreliable, and the wooden house was only the size of her bedroom with no furniture, she felt completely surrounded by a sense of security while standing in the house.

The biggest disaster in the future would be water—floods, tsunamis, storms, rising sea levels—Suicheng would eventually sink underwater… But with this “unsinkable drifting island house,” as long as she stocked enough supplies, she might be able to survive in this world for a long time…

She returned to the function screen, set “Water Tank Storage” to “Usage Order 1,” and then began an experiment.

She took something from her bracelet’s storage, successfully retrieved an item, then went to the bathroom to fetch a bucket of purified water, wanting to see how to store the purified water. She discovered that when purified water appeared near the water tank, the screen displayed: “Detected nearby drinkable purified water, do you want to store it?”

She pressed store, and the purified water in the bucket disappeared, with the screen displaying “5/500L Purified Water.”

After thinking for a moment, she went outside the wooden house, filled a basin with water from the kitchen, and grabbed some plastic bags and other trash before going back into the wooden house.

When the basin was near the water tank, the screen showed again: “Detected nearby purified water, do you want to store it?”

The words “drinkable” were omitted, but it seemed smart enough.

Shu Fu didn’t click on store and instead threw the plastic bags and other trash into the basin. Soon, the text on the screen disappeared.

She understood now—the system wouldn’t allow storage unless the water was purified.

She packed away the basin, casually placed a shelf in the wooden house, then left the house, closed the door, and after activating her bracelet, long-pressed the “Raft” icon. The raft in front of her immediately disappeared.

Then, she clicked on the “Bottle” icon, and the drift bottle reappeared in her hand. The small raft was still floating on the blue liquid inside the bottle. She shook the bottle up and down, side to side, then stored it away and long-pressed the “Raft” icon.

This time, as she placed the raft, she could distinctly sense that within a certain range centered around herself, she could control where the raft would land.

Inside the wooden house, the shelf remained in its original position, and not only had it not fallen, but it hadn’t even moved.

“The shock absorption is good…” Shu Fu praised.

She fully understood now. There were two ways to place the raft: directly or through the “drift bottle,” but when retrieving the raft, there was only one method.

Now, the only problem was that the raft was currently Level 1 and could only be used for 5 hours a day. If Suicheng were to be flooded right now, she’d only have 5 hours of safety, and for the remaining 19 hours, she’d have to stay on a regular rubber boat.

“Upgrading seems quite important…” Thinking about how she could increase the upgrade progress by 5% tomorrow by going to work, it didn’t feel so bad anymore. In fact, she even felt a renewed sense of determination because she saw hope.