10:23 AM.

She had slept for over four hours.

She got up and moved her stiff joints a bit, then went into the bathroom.

The system’s water and electricity were temporarily free to use.

The reason it was “temporary” was because Lin Chu had seen the water and electricity charges in the system’s point exchange list.

Water: 10 points/world, Electricity: 10 points/world.

It wasn’t expensive, but it wasn’t very user-friendly for most newcomers.

[Host, please rest assured. The first world is a beginner protection period, and the system will start charging for water and electricity in the second mission world.]

Since the system wasn’t charging her, Lin Chu relaxed and boldly cleaned the bloodstains off her body in the bathroom.

Although she had been careful, she still inevitably got some zombie blood splattered on her.

Fortunately, she wasn’t injured by the zombies, and the most she got were some minor abrasions from scraping the ground while avoiding them.

After cleaning up, Lin Chu disinfected her small scratches with iodine tincture that she had just moved from the medical warehouse. She then took out a set of new hospital patient clothes from her space and changed into them as pajamas.

She had taken two boxes of the same hospital patient clothes from the warehouse.

She was desperately lacking clothes.

Apart from the exercise clothes she originally wore, the only other clothes she had were the black sportswear she got from the system’s large gift pack.

So when she saw the hospital patient clothes in the warehouse, she didn’t hesitate to stockpile two boxes. Even if she couldn’t wear them when going out, she could use them as pajamas in the shelter.

Though she had plenty of patient clothes, Lin Chu lacked towels and bath towels. She ended up opening one set to use for drying her hair.

Lin Chu had always kept her hair short and neat since childhood, which saved her a lot of trouble now.

Once her hair wasn’t dripping anymore, Lin Chu left the bathroom, filled a kettle with water from the system’s gift pack, plugged it in the corner, and then sat on the bed, starting to go through her spoils from last night.

She had eaten a nutritional supplement before leaving last night, and now there was only one left, but she was already quite hungry.

So Lin Chu decided to start with a box of expired instant noodles.

Her “turning waste into treasure” skill only had one more use left today. After thinking for a moment, she placed her hand on the box of instant noodles.

A flash of white light appeared, and a string of text appeared in her mind:

[Item: Bad-tasting instant noodles * 1 box
Rarity: D
Item Description: Transformed from expired instant noodles, edible but not tasty.]

Lin Chu looked at the item description in her mind and then at the box of noodles in front of her, not sure how to react.

The box contained 12 cups of noodles, all expired for a year.

Now, from being inedible, they were turned into edible, and Lin Chu should probably be happy about it.

But “not tasty”…

She was curious just how bad they could be.

The kettle next to her had started steaming. Lin Chu took a cup of noodles from the box, skillfully opened the package, and poured the seasoning over the noodles.

The water boiled, and she poured it into the cup of noodles, covered the lid, stuck the fork in the top, and then sat quietly in front of the noodles, waiting for the 3 minutes to pass.

Three minutes usually passed quickly, but whenever Lin Chu was making instant noodles, it always felt like an eternity.

So, she tried to do something else to distract herself.

First, she counted the number of zombies she had brought back from her second trip outside — 16 in total.

She then took one of the shelves she brought back from the convenience store and placed it against the wall opposite her bed.

She put the remaining 11 cups of noodles on the shelf.

Finally, the 3 minutes were up.

Lin Chu, smelling the rich aroma of the noodles, uncovered the fork’s seal and eagerly used it to twirl the noodles into a bundle, stuffing them into her mouth.

It… tasted pretty good.

Lin Chu didn’t understand why the system labeled these noodles as “bad-tasting.”

They tasted no different from the instant noodles she had eaten in her original world, and she even thought they were more flavorful.

Seeing Lin Chu eating so contentedly, the system rarely spoke up.

[Host, do you really think this instant noodle is good?]

“Huh?”

Lin Chu, enjoying her noodles, was momentarily stunned when she heard the question. Then she nodded, “Yes, it tastes just like the instant noodles from my original world.”

[… ]

“Maybe it’s just that our food cultures are different.”

The steaming soup seemed to relieve Lin Chu’s fatigue from the day. She became in the mood to chat with the system.

But perhaps her response was beyond what the system expected, as it didn’t respond further.

Lin Chu didn’t mind. After finishing her noodles, she disposed of the trash back in her space, planning to take it outside to throw away next time. She then continued sorting through her spoils.

For items like medicine, which required strict storage conditions and hadn’t expired, it was best to store them in the time-stopped space.

But since space was limited, she still had to make room for more.

After some consideration, Lin Chu took all the expired food out and placed it on the lower shelves of the rack.

Her “turning waste into treasure” skill had limited uses, so these expired foods would be transformed into edible items when needed.

With this, she freed up quite a bit of space.

Once this was done, Lin Chu got up and went back to the bathroom.

She hung the curtain she had taken from the convenience store at the corner of the L-shaped bathroom, dividing it into two separate spaces.

The outside remained the bathroom, while the narrow interior space was used as an anatomy room.

The anatomy room had no windows, and the light was so dim it was pitch black.

Fortunately, Lin Chu had already opened a light bulb in the gift pack earlier.

She installed the bulb in the center of the ceiling, and the room immediately lit up.

She then took out a folding bed frame and several boxes from her space.

She arranged the boxes in two rows, stacked the bed frame on top, and covered it with a raincoat to create a simple dissection table.

Lin Chu casually placed a zombie body on it, then took out dissection tools from her space and put on the white lab coat she had retrieved from the medical warehouse. She began the dissection work on the first zombie body.

When Lin Chu finally looked up again, she checked the time in the system.

It was already 3:58 PM.

After more than five hours, she had finally finished dissecting the zombie body.

It was hard to earn points.

Looking at her still 0 points, Lin Chu immediately chose to submit her daily tasks.

She submitted 20 times at once, and her points finally became 20.

Lin Chu also submitted her eyeball task.

The reward for this task was a random food item.

Lin Chu received a 30% cooked steak.