Happy with her haul, An Ling immediately transferred all the food into her food box. The food box sat side by side with the storage box, leaning against the bed. She had specifically tested it out—cooked food could also be stored in the box. This thing was no different from a refrigerator; in fact, it was a hundred times more useful.
Once she had settled the supplies, An Ling felt it was time for dinner. Falling asleep to the sound of rain sounded like a rather pleasant experience.
She heated a pan with oil. For dinner, she was having yesterday’s leftovers. They hadn’t spoiled yet, though they were close, and they were still edible once reheated. Her appetite wasn’t that large, so she hadn’t been able to finish so many dishes the day before. After dumping the remaining beef brisket and potatoes onto a bowl of rice, her simple rice bowl was complete.
Finishing her dinner quickly, An Ling leaned back in her chair and opened a can of assorted fruits to eat. Having eaten and drunk her fill, she planned to kill some time with the light screen before heading to bed.
Two hours later, An Ling checked the remaining burn time of the stove one last time and added more firewood. Only then did she feel at ease enough to prepare for sleep.
The night passed in silence.
*Whoosh—*
A strong wind from over the island blew straight through the cabin window and into the room. The wooden window frame rattled and banged under the force of the gale. Although the cabin’s roof had a wooden eave, it couldn’t withstand the onslaught of such a heavy sea breeze. For a moment, stray drops of rain began to blow into the house.
Fortunately, An Ling had added wood in advance the night before, so the fire in the iron stove had never gone out. Even though it was chilly outside, it couldn’t dispel the small pocket of warmth inside the room.
An Ling didn’t sleep directly on the wooden bed. Instead, she lay on a wool felt mat and covered herself with cowhide. She had been worried she might catch a cold upon waking up, especially since she had been caught in the rain yesterday. Fortunately, this body’s resistance was quite robust, and she didn’t feel any discomfort when she got up in the morning.
An Ling got dressed and turned to close the rattling wooden window to prevent the rain from splashing into the room again. It was still raining heavily outside, no different from yesterday, and the wind was even stronger now. Looking out from the island, she could see the surging waves.
‘Could it really be like that navigator said? Is this rain really going to last all day?’ An Ling felt a bit worried. Her time to enter the Survival Island was imminent, yet she was being hindered by such terrible weather. If this continued, she would waste another day.
Waves crashed against the edges of the island, and tides surged up, turning the ground outside into a muddy mess. The twenty-square-meter island felt like a tiny ant in the vast ocean, liable to be submerged at any moment.
‘No, with only three days left, I can’t head to the resource islands anymore. Keeping these points wouldn’t make much sense then.’
An Ling felt uneasy and decided to spend all her points now to expand the island’s area. After all, whether she lived or died once she set foot on the Survival Island was an unknown; earning points there would probably be as easy as reaching out and taking them.
The cabin was ten square meters, and the shower pod was four square meters. Together, they took up fourteen square meters, which felt quite crowded on an island that was only twenty square meters. With seventy-eight points remaining, An Ling directly exchanged them for seven Cornerstone Cards and used them all.
In the dawn of the storm, the island’s area expanded to twenty-seven square meters. Looking at the enlarged island, she felt a vague sense of security in her heart.
After finishing all this, An Ling prepared breakfast while once again turning the blessing pendant around her neck.
**[Obtained Blessing: Good things come in pairs. All resources obtained are doubled.]**
**[Remaining time: 16:25:34]**
‘It’s the first day’s blessing; it seems there won’t be any changes today.’ An Ling realized she had woken up a bit late today—it was already 7:30 AM.
A pack of cookies, a pack of chocolate, and a bag of instant coffee made up An Ling’s breakfast.
‘This damn weather… am I really going to spend the whole day stuck inside the cabin…?’
While the waves around the island weren’t exactly violent, the sea breeze was unnervingly strong. There was no way to cast a fishing rod in these conditions. An Ling stood by the window and looked out. She only hoped the waves would wash more resources onto the island; that way, it wouldn’t be a total loss.
Today’s blessing was “Good things come in pairs,” which could compensate for the losses brought by the storm to some extent. No one else could develop their islands right now, but she could. That was an advantage.
‘It would be great if it were raining over the entire ocean world.’ Having no other choice, An Ling sat back in her chair and began to stare boredly at the light screen.
Time ticked away until noon, but the rain showed no signs of letting up. An Ling gave up entirely. Since she couldn’t make progress, she would just stay in the cabin.
For lunch, she had her last cup of instant noodles, some vegetable soup, and a ham sausage. The first two were the last of her stock, and An Ling decided to finish them off to save space in the boxes. Given the chance, she wouldn’t just soak them; she chose to boil and cook them instead.
Some might say that instant noodles lose their soul if they aren’t soaked in the cup. Wrong—they tasted much better when cooked.
After finishing lunch, An Ling happened to turn her head and saw a crate had actually been washed onto the island. This was a stroke of immense luck.
She casually tossed her trash into the stove to burn, then stood at the door to test her ability. She could easily reach a distance of a few meters. Thus, a wooden crate was brought into the cabin without any effort at all.
Unfortunately, luck wasn’t always that good. This wooden crate didn’t have a lock. Upon opening it, there were no cards inside either—only some basic materials: wood x4, rope x3, and gauze x2.
That was it.
Feeling disappointed, An Ling disassembled the crate and threw all the wood into the fire.
‘Right, why am I being so stupid!’
An Ling slapped her forehead as she suddenly remembered. Although she couldn’t retrieve crates from the sea, she could trade for them from other survivors. A locked wooden crate was like Schrödinger’s cat; everyone was gambling on whether something good would drop from it. At the same time, those survivors without keys would be eager to sell them.
Strictly speaking, wooden crate keys were rarer than the locked crates themselves, even though the crates weren’t cheap either.
Action followed thought. An Ling immediately opened the light screen and began to get busy…
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