That… actually made a lot of sense.

Asking someone to leave a perfectly good house to live in a tent instead…

Well, maybe not perfectly good—but with a bit of cleaning, it was still livable.

Choosing to live in a tent while leaving a house vacant really wasn’t a wise decision.

It was just… now that she had taken this one house, five other people would be left without a place to stay…

Mayor Li looked up at Lin Chu and gave her a standard smile.

“Ms. Lin, as you can see, we still have many survivors in the base who haven’t been assigned a house yet.”

He pointed behind him, where people on the boat were frowning at Lin Chu, clearly displeased that she had suddenly shown up and taken over a house.

“These houses were all abandoned and unclaimed when I got here,” Lin Chu said calmly, then leisurely observed their expressions.

She was gambling.

Gambling that none of these survivors had originally owned this house.

Mayor Li, seeing her composed demeanor, more or less understood her intention.

And she had a point.

It had been over half a year since the flood disaster began.

When it first broke out, the floodwaters swept away a lot of people.

This survivor base on the hillside had only been established three months after the floods started.

At first, even this hill had been submerged.

It wasn’t until three months later, when the relentless downpours shifted into a more predictable cycle of one heavy rain every three days, that the water levels gradually dropped to what they were now.

These survivors had come from elsewhere.

As for the original owners of these homes—whether they were dead or alive—no one knew.

The buildings had been completely flooded. It was only in the past few days that the water had receded enough to make them livable again.

Unclaimed houses were taken on a first-come, first-served basis. In a flooded world, this had long since become the norm.

So why should he make someone move out for others?

Mayor Li’s silence made Wang Rui, standing beside him, a little anxious.

He leaned closer and whispered,
“Mayor Li, two boatloads of people just left. That frees up about two houses. We can assign the houses originally meant for them to these folks. What do you think?”

For some reason, as a member of the security team, Wang Rui felt this woman wasn’t someone to be messed with.

That big black fish from earlier had killed a survivor named Xiao An at their base.

Today, when the fish reappeared, he and another team member had to use metal spears just to wound and drive it away.

Even Wu, the assistant—an adult man—hadn’t been able to fend off the fish’s surprise attack. He was still lying on the speedboat recovering.

But this woman had appeared on her own, unharmed, with no one accompanying her.

And in this chaotic world, a single woman—especially one who looked as attractive as she did—had an even harder time surviving.

He couldn’t help but wonder if this woman either had exceptional combat skills… or simply incredible luck.

But since the floods began, Wang Rui had yet to see any woman survive on luck alone—unless someone had been protecting her.

So his guess was: either she had someone hidden in the house, or she was truly strong.

In either case, it was best to make a good impression. If she really had skills, she’d be a great asset to recruit for the base later on.

Wang Rui was one of Mayor Li’s trusted aides. Hearing his suggestion, the mayor glanced at him, then nodded and said:

“Go ahead and register Ms. Lin’s information.”

Then, he turned to Lin Chu again with a smile and asked,
“For better management, we’re registering the residents of each building. I hope you don’t mind, Ms. Lin?”

Of course Lin Chu didn’t mind.

In 19 more days, she’d complete this world’s survival mission and leave.

Leaving behind some info meant nothing to her.

And besides, the information could be fabricated.

Seeing her agree, Mayor Li returned to the speedboat and left.

Wang Rui took out a registration booklet and handed it to Lin Chu.

It asked for basic details like name, age, profession, and skills.

Lin Chu quickly filled it out and gave it back.

Wang Rui glanced over her info, looked up at her in surprise, and asked,
“Lin Chu, you’re a doctor?”

She nodded.

Wang Rui’s dark-skinned face lit up in delight.

“We’re seriously short on doctors at our base. You know how dirty this water is—even after being filtered multiple times and boiled, it’s still not clean.”

“Because of that, more and more survivors are falling ill. Dr. Liu can’t handle them all on his own…”

As he spoke, Wang Rui’s voice gradually trailed off.

He suddenly realized: Lin Chu had only agreed to register her info for management purposes—she hadn’t agreed to work as a doctor for them. Maybe he was getting ahead of himself.

Still, now that she was living here, he could talk to Mayor Li later. If Lin Chu really had skills, the base would certainly want to recruit her.

Lin Chu smiled the entire time without giving a clear answer.

She knew that writing “forensic doctor” would scare people off. But writing just “doctor” would earn her more respect in this world.

A forensic doctor was still a doctor. The lie wasn’t far from the truth.

Wang Rui bid her farewell and went off to help assign another house.

Some of the people he was helping looked at Lin Chu with resentment in their eyes.

Why should five or six of them have to squeeze into one house, while this newcomer got an entire place to herself?

Even if she was a doctor, so what? Dr. Liu shared a house with others in the villa zone too.

But they didn’t dare speak up. At the Small Hill Survivor Base, no one openly defied Mayor Li or the security team.

Lin Chu watched them row away past her window. She was just about to close it when she felt a gaze land on her.

She immediately turned to look, but all she saw were survivors by the building to her right, climbing in through the windows.

The one assisting them was a woman with a high ponytail, helping people through.

No one seemed to be looking at her.

But Lin Chu knew her instincts weren’t wrong.

Ever since her senses were enhanced, she had become extremely sensitive to hostile stares.

That gaze just now had made her very uncomfortable.

She was sure that among these survivors, there were others like her—people who had been sent into this world as part of a mission.

They hadn’t clashed before, since there were no direct conflicts of interest—and none of them were twisted killers like Ma Yan.

But her earlier interaction with Mayor Li had definitely caught some attention.

And it was entirely possible that someone might be considering killing her for her supplies.

Lin Chu scanned her surroundings. No one was meeting her gaze.

Only then did she slowly close the window.