Lin Chu initially thought that with the rate at which the water was receding, by the next day, the door of the shelter she had set up would be above the waterline.

However, that night, a torrential downpour began.

The rain lasted the entire day and only stopped the following night.

When Lin Chu went outside to check, she found that the water level had risen back to where she had marked it earlier.

The rain had stopped, and the bright, clear moon hung in the sky.

The sky was cloudless for miles, and it looked like tomorrow would be another sunny day.

But she didn’t know how long this clear weather would last or how much it would lower the water level.

Being new to this world, Lin Chu was still trying to figure out the patterns of the heavy rain and clear skies.

She couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy.

Heavy rain could affect underwater visibility and light, and without careful attention, she could easily get lost underwater.

Especially for someone like her, who only relied on basic swimming instincts to dive, the impact was considerable.

Lin Chu dared to dive for an hour at a time, mainly because the houses she had been searching were relatively close to the water’s surface.

Moreover, her physical abilities had been greatly enhanced by the body transformation pills.

She was relying on her strong physical instincts to dive.

But if an unexpected situation arose, she wasn’t sure she could handle it.

After thinking it over, Lin Chu decided to temporarily abandon the search for the other 20 rooftop apartments with terraces.

Instead, she would focus on searching within the building she was currently in.

That way, if another storm hit, she could follow the exterior walls of the building and find her way back to the shelter without getting lost.

Earlier, she had collected six bird-proof nets, which would be enough for now.

She stayed in the shelter all day due to the rain, cleaning the buckets and bath basins she had brought back with Xiao Er, then leaving them to dry in the yard.

At the same time, she continued boiling water with her kettles and filled the buckets once they were full, storing them in the space.

It’s worth mentioning that Lin Chu had found five kettles in the houses she had searched.

Although they had all been damaged, she had managed to repair all five by reusing parts and transforming them into working kettles.

With those five, plus the one she already had, she now had six kettles working at once.

Each time the six kettles boiled, they would fill one bucket.

Lin Chu had once worried that using all six kettles at once might cause the power in her small shelter to trip.

But the system reassured her that its electrical system was high-tech and that such basic issues wouldn’t occur.

With this assurance, Lin Chu boldly operated all six kettles at once.

In just one rainy day when she couldn’t go outside, Lin Chu managed to fill several buckets and three large bath basins with boiling water, storing them in the space.

This way, she could have hot water ready for baths without having to burn water while exhausted.

But this was still not enough—more storage containers would always be better.

The next morning, with clear skies, Lin Chu went out. After swimming out the window, she followed the wall down to the fifth floor.

Neither of the two apartments on the fifth floor had opened their windows. Lin Chu used her old trick, prying open the door locks with wire, and entered through the front door.

The situation on the fifth floor was similar to the sixth, as the flooding had happened later, and the more easily transferable food and supplies had already been moved.

On the fifth floor, Lin Chu only found three buckets, two soaked cotton quilts, and three ruined down jackets.

To prepare for the possibility of an extremely cold world ahead, Lin Chu wouldn’t miss any opportunity to stock up on warm items.

Even though these ruined items couldn’t be used after the flood, Lin Chu was the only one who could repurpose them.

This was a reasonable form of waste recycling.

The fourth floor was in a similar situation, and it wasn’t until she reached the third floor that she found something different.

Two bags of 10kg rice, vacuum-sealed and still intact despite being soaked in water for a long time. Fortunately, the vacuum packaging had not been damaged, so the rice was still edible.

With rice in hand, Lin Chu decided to also take the rice cooker left behind in the apartment and store it in her space.

Now she could cook rice for herself.

When she thought of this, Lin Chu made it a point to grab any rice cookers she found in other apartments she searched.

She also collected four more kettles.

The residents on the second and first floors had evacuated in a hurry, leaving the most complete supplies behind.

There was plenty of rice, flour, oil, and snacks.

The fridge contained spoiled meat, eggs, and dairy.

Although they were all no longer edible, Lin Chu wasn’t picky and took everything, storing it in her space.

One household on the first floor even had a freezer for storing frozen food.

Thinking that her space was almost full, Lin Chu planned to store some of the frozen meat in the freezer once the shelter’s space expanded.

Frozen meat wouldn’t spoil for months, freeing up some space in her storage.

She also took the freezer into her space.

Next, Lin Chu picked out some useful items.

The first floor had a yard, but most of the junk had floated away. Only a shovel and a rake remained, having sunk to the bottom due to their weight.

They were now lying in the corner of the yard.

Recalling how Xiao Er had used a small rake to dig the earth, Lin Chu immediately stored the farming tools in her space.

The original plants in the yard had all died, and new algae had started to grow, swaying with the water flow.

Lin Chu saw two large black fish fighting over the algae.

She picked some algae and stored it in her space before swimming upwards.

Before descending, she had laid a fishing net between the fourth and fifth floors of the stairwell, scattering some bread on top. Now, it was time to pull the net up.

Sure enough, when she reached the fourth floor, she looked into the stairwell and saw a bunch of large, fat black fish scrambling for food.

With so many fish, it was a fight for the food, and some of them were even eating each other.

Many of the fish were missing parts of their bodies, but they were still pushing toward the net to get the bread.

Lin Chu’s arrival startled the fish, but they were so tightly packed together that none managed to escape the net.

Lin Chu grabbed the rope she had secured to the wall and pulled hard, bringing up a full net of fish.

She immediately chose to submit the task.

In the blink of an eye, she earned 10 points.

There were 20 fish in total!

The fishing net was indeed a great tool.

Just as Lin Chu was about to store the net back in her space, she received a notification: “There are live creatures, cannot be stored in space.”

Looking down, she saw that the once-full net now only had one small black fish struggling at the bottom, trying to escape.

Lin Chu realized that the fish had managed to bite a small hole in the net while trying to break free.

She quickly understood: since two live fish could exchange for one point, but a single live fish couldn’t complete the task, this lone fish remained in the net.