Lin Dong pointed toward the balcony outside the kitchen and said, "I have a Generator here."
Yang Mei was both shocked and overjoyed. She quickly skirted around the counter and rushed to the north balcony.
Lin Dong's apartment had a dual balcony layout—one off the living room and another outside the kitchen.
The freezer and Generator were placed on the north balcony behind the kitchen, while the refrigerator was inside the kitchen itself.
Hearing the hum of the Generator, Yang Mei's beautiful eyes widened, sparkling with disbelief and delight.
"Electricity… you actually have electricity here!"
"This is amazing, just amazing… wuwu…"
She was so overwhelmed that she began to cry.
After all, the entire neighborhood had lost power by the second day of the Great Flood.
Back then, her refrigerator had been stocked with Frozen goods. But with the sweltering June heat and no electricity to keep the fridge running, preserving food had been impossible.
Much of the food had gone to waste. Otherwise, with careful rationing, her family could have lasted half a year.
Now, seeing that Lin Dong even had a Generator, she was both astonished and thrilled.
Suddenly, a thought struck her. She turned to Lin Dong, excitement bubbling in her voice, "Little brother… can—can your Generator charge phones? Mine's dead. If we can get power, maybe we can contact the outside world, reach the government…"
Lin Dong shook his head slightly at her eager expression. "Don't get your hopes up. I've already tried. Right now, forget contacting the outside—even the internet is down. Aside from radio, basically all communication and network devices are useless."
Yang Mei's smile froze. She couldn't believe it. "N-no way… It's just a Flood. How could there be no signal at all? Signal towers are usually taller than buildings—they couldn't have been damaged, right?"
She was, after all, an educated woman. She knew phone signals came from Signal towers.
Lin Dong didn't bother arguing. He simply handed her his phone. "If there were signal, don't you think I would've called the police or contacted the government already? See for yourself."
Yang Mei hastily took the phone. Lin Dong's device had a full battery, but the signal bar was completely empty—not a single flicker.
Her agitation grew. "Could it be your phone's problem? Do you have another one? I've heard iPhones have terrible reception. Do you have an Android?"
Lin Dong sighed and pulled out another phone, passing it over. "This is a Xiaomi. It has a SIM card too. Check it yourself."
Yang Mei fiddled with it for a while, but no matter what she tried, she couldn't pick up even a trace of signal.
She stood there, stunned. "What… what's happening? What's wrong with the world? Wuwu…"
Suddenly, it all became too much. She covered her face and broke down sobbing.
Lin Dong retrieved his phone. "The world has changed in ways we can't even imagine. If this were just an ordinary Flood, we wouldn't have zero signal, and the government wouldn't have failed to mount any rescue efforts."
"But six months have passed, and we haven't seen a single sign of government aid. I even have a radio at home—I've kept it on often, but there's been no news of any rescue operations."
"We'll just have to endure. Who knows when this rain will finally stop?"
Yang Mei's faith crumbled. Everything Lin Dong said was something she already knew. In truth, over the past six months, many people had secretly clung to the hope that government rescue would come.
But as time passed—one month, then two—everyone gradually came to accept a harsh reality.
Government rescue might never arrive.
Still, deep down, there remained a sliver of hope.
The more vulnerable the group, the more they clung to that hope.
Because they knew all too well—only the arrival of government aid could ensure their survival.
Yang Mei was one of those people.
Yet Lin Dong's words had completely shattered that last bit of hope.
Ignoring her distress, Lin Dong peeled potatoes and said, "You'd better brace yourself. The world has changed. You need to abandon your old way of thinking. People out there—Li Zhiqiang, Liu Erlong—they've already lost all moral restraint."
"As time goes on and food becomes scarcer, they'll grow more desperate. If they get truly desperate, they might even resort to eating..."
He trailed off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
But Yang Mei, still sobbing, trembled violently. She knew exactly what Lin Dong meant.
If they ran out of food… those people would turn to cannibalism.
"No… no, they wouldn't," she stammered. "The convenience store is right at the entrance of the complex. So many things are floating on the water—they could just fish them out. They wouldn't… wouldn't eat… eat..."
She couldn't bring herself to say the word.
Lin Dong didn't respond, lost in thought about the idea of scavenging for food.
But outside, the storm raged, the Flood surged, and underground garages and sewers lurked beneath the water, capable of creating deadly currents at any moment.
One wrong move, and you could be dragged under.
Besides, this Flood might be seawater, backflowing from the ocean. Who knew what vicious marine creatures lurked within?
Fishing for supplies from the building's windows was one thing. But venturing out to the store at the complex entrance? That was an entirely different level of risk.
Of course, some, pushed to the brink, would eventually take that gamble.
Lin Dong himself was running low on food. If not for the sudden appearance of the system, he might have been forced down that path too.
But there was still one crucial question he hadn't figured out.
What exactly were these "Mutated creatures" the system mentioned?
Were they connected to the Great Flood outside?
What kind of threat did they pose?
These were all things he needed to consider.
Moreover, the system's lottery was random. What if he had bad luck and never drew food?
And the lottery required points—right now, he had no stable way to earn them.
So far, he only knew two things: the Great Flood contained Mutated sardines, and the building housed Mutated humans.
But Lin Dong hadn't yet noticed any differences between Mutated humans and normal ones.
As he washed the potatoes, he mulled over these questions.
Meanwhile, Yang Mei gradually calmed down.
Seeing Lin Dong peeling the potatoes, she quickly wiped her tears and stepped closer. "Little brother, you're wasting too much like that. Let me do it."
Lin Dong glanced at her. "Calmed down?"
"I… I'm sorry. I was just so hopeless," she admitted.
Lin Dong nodded and handed her the potato. "Everyone's hopeless right now. But survival is instinct. Very few people actually want to die."
"Besides, in times like these, dying is actually easier—living is the hardest part."
Yang Mei nodded silently, holding a knife as she carefully peeled the potato by hand instead of using a peeler.
This way, she could minimize waste to the greatest extent.
Lin Dong watched the scene, deeply admiring Yang Mei's frugal habits.
He had always been careless with resources and had never considered such meticulous ways of saving.