Chapter 31

It didn't take long for Chen Xu to select a restaurant at the intersection. It was located on the first floor, so there were no stairs to climb, and the freezer was large enough. Best of all, it contained a Diesel Generator.

He was no stranger to diesel generators. Before he went to college, his parents ran a supermarket in the county. For a period, the county changed its power lines and suffered frequent outages, so the supermarket used a diesel generator for power.

After getting the power running, he swept through a dozen nearby restaurants, hauling back meat until the freezer could hold no more.

Although two people could never finish that much meat in six months, it was better to be prepared.

"Right, I wonder how Luo Xiyun is doing."

As he was frying a Steak and calculating his food supply, he remembered Luo Xiyun, who should have appeared long ago.

Given the nature of this dream, this virtual version of Luo Xiyun was likely to have woken up at home, just as she would have in reality. She hadn't appeared yet, and he had no idea where she could have gone.

He had no clue where her home was, and in a city this large, finding one person was undoubtedly like looking for a needle in a haystack.

"The best way is to create some noise and lure her over."

He caught the scent of the frying steak and couldn't help but swallow. Having worked all morning, he was starving.

The first day was spent entirely on moving supplies.

At night, Chen Xu, having just bathed, sat in the restaurant's only Office. He still felt a pang of guilt; using bottled Spring Water to take a bath was just too wasteful.

"Can't be helped, the tap water is off."

He couldn't help but sigh. When one is the only person left in the world, surviving is far more difficult than he had imagined.

No food delivery, no running water; he had to do everything himself.

Those things aside, the most unbearable part was the lack of internet! No web access, no forums, no videos, no Douyin, no novels... it was lethal. He didn't usually play games, and his phone didn't even have a simple puzzle game, so he could only sit there staring blankly at the screen.

There was a Computer in the office, but it was password-protected.

"I'll have to go to the company tomorrow and bring back a computer," he thought. Yawning, he drifted off to sleep to the hum of the Diesel Engine.

The next morning, as soon as Chen Xu woke up, he felt soreness in every inch of his body. It was incredibly uncomfortable.

"Damn it."

He sat up with a hiss. His muscles were stiff and aching. That sharp pain was "truly brutal."

He hadn't done physical labor in a long time and rarely exercised. After moving so many things yesterday, the overexertion had taken its toll.

"Is this really a dream?" He questioned the reality of the situation for the umpteenth time.

It was hard to imagine that everything in this world, along with the very real aches and pains in his body, were just simulations within a dream.

He took a deep breath and crawled out of bed.

"No matter what, I should stockpile more supplies."

This doubt created a profound Sense of Crisis. What if this wasn't a dream, but reality, and he was truly the only person left in the world? To survive better, he had to prepare in advance.

Enduring the muscle soreness, he ate a little, grabbed his tools, and headed out.

Beyond food, there was something else of vital importance: Medicine. It was life-saving. Other supplies could wait, but he had to collect a batch of medication first.

From this moment on, he felt he could no longer treat this entirely as a game. Instead, he began to seriously consider how to survive in such an apocalypse.

At seven in the morning, the sun had already risen.

Chen Xu woke up and looked at the poster of the Female Celebrity—whose name he couldn't remember—stuck to the ceiling. Two seconds later, he fully awoke, sat up, picked up a pen, and wrote the number "31" on the wall.

The entire wall was filled with numbers from 1 to 30, meaning he had been here for a full month.

He put down the pen, walked to the mirror, picked up his Razor, and meticulously shaved off his stubble.

Then he went into the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face.

After freshening up, he left the office.

There was a table by the hallway with a Rice Cooker on it. He lifted the lid to find steaming porridge inside.

He had put the rice in last night and set a timer so it would cook automatically; it was ready to eat the moment he woke up, which was very convenient.

He finished the half-pot of porridge with some crispy fried Peanuts, feeling his stomach warm and comfortable.

After breakfast, he washed the pots and bowls and put them away. He took out the Notebook he carried with him and flipped through the to-do list.

He scanned it quickly, picked up a pen, and circled two of the items.

Diesel stocks running low.

Find vegetable seeds.

Then, he closed the notebook, tucked it into his pocket, grabbed his gear, and went out.

Before leaving, he switched the power to the Battery Bank and turned off the diesel generator.

To extend the lifespan of the generator, he had assembled a battery bank as a backup power source; whenever he left, he used the battery bank to provide power.

"Nice weather."

He stepped out of the restaurant, looked at the clear sky, and felt his mood brighten as well.

On the main road outside, two rows of cars were parked: luxury sports cars like a Ferrari and Porsche, vans like a Wuling, and even an Isuzu Medium Truck.

He walked into a nearby shop and pushed out a cart full of Oil Drums. He had converted all the shops along this street into warehouses to store various supplies.

Chen Xu pushed the trolley to a blue Isuzu truck and began loading the oil drums. After several trips back and forth, he had filled more than half the cargo bed and set off.

He started the engine and turned onto the road to the right.

Over the past month, he had cleared the surrounding roads. It was no small feat; the city was packed with cars, and in some of the more congested areas, the vehicles had completely blocked the path. It had taken him a great deal of effort just to clear a single lane wide enough for a vehicle to pass.

Gas stations are everywhere, so that's not a concern. But vegetable seeds are hard to find. I'll start by checking that farmers market, he mused while driving.

Modern urbanites could hardly go a day without vegetables, yet few had ever grown them by hand. When he was in elementary school, he had helped his Grandpa, who lived in the countryside, harvest rice. However, he had never actually seen what vegetable seeds looked like.

Living on meat alone without any greens was becoming unbearable.

For the past month, the only things he'd managed to eat that could barely pass for vegetables were potatoes, tomatoes, and bean sprouts. He was sick of them.

He had never imagined there would come a day when he would crave leafy greens so desperately.

Half an hour later, Chen Xu parked his truck a few hundred meters from the farmers market. This area hadn't been cleared yet, and the road was so jammed with cars that it was completely impassable.

He grabbed his tool bag, stepped out of the truck, and walked the rest of the way.

From a distance, the stench of rot wafted out of the market. He pulled out a gas mask and put it on before daring to step inside.

Ten minutes later, he fled the place as if his life depended on it. The smell inside was horrific; even with the gas mask, it was almost too much to bear, with the remnants of decayed vegetables and meat everywhere.

He returned to the truck, feeling rather dejected. "Do I really have to go all the way to the suburbs?"

Modern metropolises didn't have much in the way of vegetable farming; everything was shipped in from the outskirts. He had found a few Vegetable Bases located in the suburbs on his map.

However, the nearest one was over thirty kilometers away. The sheer amount of work required to clear a road that far was enough to make his scalp tingle just thinking about it.

In the end, he took out his notebook and jotted down a reminder to search for seeds at the Vegetable Base, leaving the task for another time.

Next, he headed to the nearest gas station to fill all his oil drums.

These iron drums had a capacity of about thirty liters. Once full, they weighed nearly fifty pounds each. He had brought fifty empty drums in total. Filling them all and hauling them onto the truck took over two hours, leaving him completely exhausted.

A month ago, he never could have done such labor; moving just a few would have broken his back. This was all the result of the heavy physical work he had been doing every day for the past month.

After finishing the job, he took a reclining chair and a folding table off the truck, found a shady spot to set them up, pulled a tablet computer from his backpack, mounted it on the stand, and started a movie.

He leaned back in his chair, unscrewed his Thermos, and began to enjoy his movie while sipping tea.

After grueling physical labor, this was how he liked to reward himself.

Leisurely time always passed quickly, and he finished the movie before he knew it.

Chen Xu checked the time; it was 11:40, almost lunchtime.

He dragged the gas cylinder, gas stove, pots, pans, and other utensils from the cargo bed and started cooking right there on the side of the road. Whenever he went out to work, he brought everything he needed so he could cook lunch on the spot, saving himself the trouble of running back and forth.

Rinsing rice, cooking, washing vegetables, chopping, and tossing them into the pan...

Before long, the meal was ready: two dishes, stir-fried potato slices with beef, and stir-fried garlic sprouts with cured meat.

He sat right in the middle of the road and finished his lunch.

After resting for half an hour, he dragged a folding bed off the truck, set it up in a shady spot, put on his headphones to listen to some soothing instrumental music, donned an eye mask, and took a nap.

Chen Xu slept until he woke up naturally; it was already three o'clock. He stretched comfortably.

Ever since he started working, he had rarely enjoyed such leisurely moments. To make money, he had felt like a tightly wound spring; even on weekends, he could only catch his breath, never truly relaxing.

He packed up his things, moved them back to the truck, started the engine, and set off again.

He drove all the way to the riverbank, parked the truck, grabbed several fishing rods, and walked to the water's edge. Finding a suitable spot, he baited the hooks and cast them into the water one by one.

Then, he secured the five fishing rods at intervals. He pulled up a stool, sat down, and watched the bobbers floating on the river, waiting with a calm heart.