Lin Chu had not gone outside for two days.

She had stocked up on hot water, and now there was too much—space was running out.

However, since boiling water is used slowly, the amount she had stocked up would last her several months.

Once she had enough water, Lin Chu began cooking rice and making dumplings.

Previously, she had found some lunch boxes and sealed food bags in the nearby residential buildings.

Now, they were all being put to good use.

The cooked rice was packed into bags, each portion representing one meal, and then stored in space.

Next time she needed to eat, she could just take it out, pour it into a bowl, and it would still be steaming hot.

Rice alone wasn’t enough without vegetables, but Lin Chu had limited conditions. She didn’t have a kitchen and couldn’t cook anything with heavy smoke. For now, she could only prepare some simple boiled vegetables for storage.

She had, however, made a lot of dumplings.

The filling for the dumplings was simple—just mix meat, vegetables, and seasonings. There was no oil smoke involved.

With her handy dough mixer and meat grinder, which she had collected from many houses, she had everything ready.

Now that she had repaired a few of them, she used them all at once, greatly improving her efficiency.

The prepared meat filling was stored in space until she could make a batch, then she would take a bowl out to continue.

Xiao Er’s fingers were too sharp to make dumplings—he would poke holes in the dumpling wrappers with a pinch.

After a few attempts, Lin Chu gave up on having him help and sent him off to do other tasks.

She herself made 100 dumplings with cabbage and pork filling, 100 with leek and pork, and 100 with zucchini, shrimp, and egg filling.

After her body had been altered, she could eat 25 dumplings in one sitting.

These dumplings would only be enough for about ten meals.

But Lin Chu was tired of making them.

Over the past two days, apart from eating, sleeping, and physical training, she had either been cooking or making dumplings.

When she closed her eyes, all she could think of were dumplings.

Now that she had enough food, she decided to take a break.

With the water level rising again, many fish would swim nearby.

Lin Chu used the same method to catch fish as the day before.

This time, she earned 4 points.

Taking advantage of the night, she repeated the process twice more.

However, using the same method in the same spot, the results were not as good by the third attempt.

After three tries, she had accumulated a total of 10 points.

Considering she hadn’t left the shelter, this was actually a fairly good result.

Lin Chu didn’t mind.

After collecting the fishing nets, she went back to her shelter, washed up, and went to sleep.

By noon on the eighth day of the flooded world, Lin Chu turned on the faucet in the shelter, but yellow, polluted water came out.

Clean water had stopped flowing.

Since she had prepared in advance, Lin Chu was not affected. She had already found a water pump during her search of the residential buildings.

After connecting the pump to her 12-ton water storage tank and switching it on, clean water began to flow out again.

She reminded Xiao Er not to use the wrong water again.

Seeing him nod seriously, she knew there was no problem.

Lin Chu then went outside to check the growth of the tomatoes and lettuce.

It had only been a week since planting, but the tomatoes were already starting to climb the trellis.

The lettuce leaves were nearly the size of a palm, and in a few days, they would be ready to harvest.

A couple of days ago, seeing how quickly they were growing, Lin Chu had asked Xiao Er to dig them up and transplant them with proper spacing.

Now, these two types of plants were neatly arranged in the yard, looking like two small, vibrant garden beds.

Lin Chu took out the few trellises she had found a few days ago from a sixth-floor terrace apartment.

Tomatoes are climbing plants, and since she started growing tomatoes, she had been on the lookout for trellises.

She had emptied the planting tools from the terrace apartments and garden houses, and among them were the trellises.

She handed the trellises to Xiao Er, demonstrated how to guide the tomatoes to climb, and then left the rest for him to do.

Having a smart robot was really reassuring.

After checking the tomatoes and lettuce, Lin Chu turned to look at the ones planted in barrels.

After two or three days, there was no sign of growth.

It seemed that the flooding was indeed causing rapid growth.

Lin Chu took some of the recently polluted water from the faucet and watered the tomatoes in the barrel.

She wanted to see how long it would take for these tomatoes to start growing after being watered with floodwater.

Because of the shadow of the large black fish, Lin Chu only dared to stay near the shelter for the two days following the heavy rain.

Aside from catching fish, she didn’t do anything else but constantly monitored whether the large black fish was nearby.

Good fortune didn’t come all the time, so Lin Chu would be extra cautious before the survivors from the nearby mountain slope moved in.

Lin Chu had already figured out the pattern of the heavy rains in the flooded world.

It rained heavily every three days.

The water level dropped by 50-70 cm each day, but after the heavy rain, it would rise back to the previous day’s level.

After three days, the water level would generally drop by about 1 to 1.5 meters.

By the ninth day of Lin Chu’s entry into the flooded world, the water level had completely receded below the sixth floor.

Lin Chu knew that there would be another heavy rain that night.

After the rain, the water level would rise again, enough to submerge the sixth floor by about 10 cm.

If the rain pattern continued, the sixth floor would be completely exposed above the water level after the 11th day, and even if it rained again, it would not be submerged by the flood.

The survivors from the mountain slope were also planning to move around that time.

Taking advantage of the sixth floor being completely exposed, and with the survivors still not arriving, Lin Chu left the shelter and went to the apartment she had set up.

With the water level temporarily below the sixth floor, Lin Chu no longer had to worry about the large black fish ambushing her here.

When the floodwater receded, the house was left with mud and debris.

Lin Chu grabbed a 12L bucket and a shovel and began to scoop up the mud.

She hadn’t forgotten that she still had a daily task to complete—submitting a 12L bucket of mud could be exchanged for 12L of clean water.

She had been so busy stocking up on supplies and hot water that she hadn’t paid much attention to the mud task.

But with mud readily available now, she wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.

This house was a small duplex with an attic.

Lin Chu and Xiao Er spent almost a whole day cleaning up the trash and mud inside the house, finally exchanging for two 12L containers of clean water.

However, the 12L containers of clean water exceeded Lin Chu’s expectations.

She had thought they would just be regular 12L water buckets.

To her surprise, the system had given her small water bottles instead.

They were like the one she had purchased for 150 points from the system store, a small water storage container.

But this one was much smaller, only able to hold 12L of clean water.

Still, the small water bottles were easy to carry around. Even people without space could carry several of them, making them a great outdoor survival tool.

Seeing Lin Chu’s joy, the system suddenly interrupted her.

[The clean water in the bottle will be recycled by the system once it’s used up.]

…

So stingy.

Lin Chu couldn’t help but mutter in her mind.

But a thought came to her.

If she never emptied a bottle, would the system still recycle the empty bottles?

She quickly suppressed this thought.

She didn’t want to attract the system’s attention, or it would start finding ways to fix the bug.