Apocalyptic Flood: Sexy Beauty Neighbor's Midnight Plea for Food Chapter 2: Lottery System

The abrupt alert from the system caught Liang Yuan off guard.

He jumped to his feet right away and scanned the area, noticing no oddities.

Soon enough, he settled his nerves, a spark of astonishment in his gaze.

"System?"

In the next instant, a system panel materialized in front of him.

Host: Liang Yuan

Constitution: 0.8

Power: 0.9

Agility: 0.8

Spirit: 0.7

Mutation Progress: 0%

Points: 1 point

Number of Lotteries: 0

Lottery Items: None

This panel hovered before him like a sheet of ethereal glow. He extended his hand to probe it, yet encountered no sensation.

Liang Yuan felt utterly confused: "Am I seeing things?"

He promptly examined his entire body, detecting no issues. The system panel persisted in his view.

Once he composed himself, Liang Yuan directed his focus toward the system.

Following some exploration, he gained a basic grasp of the system's purpose.

It operated as a lottery mechanism, revealing his bodily stats and enabling draws for items via points.

Yet, conducting a lottery demanded the use of points.

"These must be the points the system awarded me for eliminating a mutated sardine."

Still, Liang Yuan puzzled over the matter: when exactly had he taken down a mutated sardine?

"Time to test a lottery."

With tension building, Liang Yuan swiftly selected the lottery option.

Immediately, his single point vanished, and a spinning wheel emerged in his sight.

The wheel featured numerous segments, with a brief scan revealing prizes such as bread and soy sauce.

It whirled at high speed and finished the draw in mere moments.

"Congratulations, you have obtained a bottle of Lao Gan Ma."

Liang Yuan froze for a second, then his eyes bulged as a bottle of Lao Gan Ma showed up in his inventory.

A grin of delight spread across his face: "This is genuine!"

With mere concentration, the bottle of Lao Gan Ma materialized in his grasp.

In excitement, Liang Yuan uncapped it, and the pungent spice scent assaulted him, stirring his hunger.

Without delay, he scooped some with a finger and tasted it.

The intense salty heat almost made tears well up.

After enduring half a year of relentless rain, he couldn't recall the last time he'd savored chili flavors.

Food scarcity haunted him daily, confined by the flood for six months, with homes long depleted of provisions and drink.

He'd lasted this far thanks to his pre-stocked reserves, though those were now nearly exhausted.

The unexpected arrival of this lottery system, capable of yielding food, sparked both shock and elation within him.

Amid the catastrophic deluge, the lottery system emerged as a beacon of hope, offering a faint path to survival.

"With sufficient points, I can secure even more sustenance!"

"However... these points..."

Liang Yuan knit his brows, baffled by the system's note on slaying mutated sardines: "Where on earth did a mutated sardine appear from?"

Driven by intrigue, Liang Yuan promptly reviewed the kill log via the system.

"A nail fired by you was unintentionally consumed by a mutated sardine, resulting in its demise."

Liang Yuan stood there in shock. He'd only deployed the nail gun against intruders attempting to force entry into his home, never against fish.

Abruptly, a memory struck him; he dashed to the window and peered out.

The inky darkness outside offered scant visibility.

Heavy rain pelted the water, creating a deafening splash.

Liang Yuan grabbed a flashlight and directed its beam onto the water below.

From his tenth-floor vantage, he spotted various drifting household goods: mattresses, bed frames, foam containers...

It appeared that some individuals had fashioned crude rafts, secured to windows with ropes.

Beyond the debris, several swollen bodies bobbed lifelessly!

Liang Yuan's eyes fixed on the corpses, lost in contemplation.

"Perhaps one of the people I wounded earlier dropped into the water and got devoured by sardines?"

The notion felt bizarre, yet he'd somehow offed a mutated sardine without intending to?

On the other hand, a mutated sardine remained a sardine at core, didn't it?

Sardines inhabit oceans, so how had one reached this place?

"Has seawater surged into the Yangtze River, flooding all the way to Linjiang City?"

This realization sent a chill of foreboding through Liang Yuan.

The crisis deepened. Should the rains persist, safety even on the 32nd floor would vanish.

His forehead creased as he pondered the meaning of 'mutated' sardines.

Were sardines undergoing mutations now?

What on earth was transpiring in this world?

Anxiety gripped him, and he stared across the flooded expanse, immersed in reflection.

"Linjiang City's terrain sits relatively elevated in this region. Only a handful of structures rise higher, mainly the iconic towers in the downtown area."

"No way, heading downtown would be suicidal. If the downpour endures and waters climb further, those icons will drown too."

"What other spots nearby offer higher elevation?"

"Sun Mountain? Or Meishan?"

Options raced through his mind. When the flooding started a month back, he'd saved offline national maps and sketched a detailed Linjiang City layout, familiarizing himself with its landscape.

Thus, he knew the elevated buildings and hills close by.

Nestled in Jiangnan Province, Linjiang City lacked towering peaks. Its loftiest spot was Cangqiong Mountain, peaking at 341.7 meters along Taihu Lake's eastern bank.

Yet, it lay distant from Liang Yuan's position, necessitating a traverse through a development zone.

The raging tempest outside made any journey unwise.

Worse still, amid the storms with thunder and bolts, he'd glimpsed enormous silhouettes gliding beneath the surface.

"If sardines are mutating, might larger marine beasts be transforming as well?"

Barring dire necessity, Liang Yuan had no intention of departing Meidu Garden at present.

Pushing aside his turbulent musings, Liang Yuan returned to the kitchen, retrieving the thawed meat and green peppers from the basin.

His residence boasted not only a standard fridge but also a substantial chest freezer.

He hadn't purchased this chest freezer outright; rather, he'd leased it.

It had served originally for storing popsicles and chilled water for himself and the renovation crew.

His plan was to return it post-renovation, but the torrential rains intervened.

Consequently, he retained the freezer and loaded it with supermarket hauls like pork, sausages, veggies, and tofu.

The upright fridge brimmed with items such as eggs too.

Yet, after half a year, as waters encroached, the electrical grid had utterly failed.

The fridge functioned solely due to a compact gasoline generator.

Previously, when developers severed his electricity during works, he'd borrowed the generator from a buddy.

Presently, however, his household petrol reserves dwindled. Even limiting fridge use to brief daily runs, fuel approached depletion.

Prior to the flood claiming the ground level, he'd ventured out multiple times to siphon gas from deserted cars, amassing enough for these six months.

"When this petrol stock depletes, resupplying will prove impossible."

Surveying the endless floodwaters, Liang Yuan let out a sigh. The generator proved invaluable, but amid such chaos, procuring additional fuel appeared unattainable.

"Ah well, it hardly signifies. The fridge contents are nearly spent regardless."

A pang of regret tugged at him, yet he shrugged it off swiftly.

Devoid of stores, the fridge amounted to mere decoration.

At first, he'd attempted to scavenge further provisions.

By that stage, though, the second story lay underwater, and the basement parking turned into a deadly vortex.

Several unfortunates got dragged into the garage, vanishing forever.

Having observed this horror, Liang Yuan wisely withdrew, depending on his caches through careful portioning.

Nevertheless, his stocks wore thin, casting a bleak shadow over the future.

As he chopped the meat, Liang Yuan tallied his leftover provisions in his head.

"I've got ample oil, salt, and condiments—plenty remains from those bulk purchases."

"Meats and veggies, though, are scarce, and I'll exhaust them shortly."

"Four rice bags endure, along with solid grain stocks, plus five flour sacks."

He eyed the corner where the rice sat, down to four bags. He'd hauled back ten 10kg ones at the start.

In those days, panic buying clogged stores. Securing those ten owed to his acquaintance with the proprietor.

Countless others walked away empty-handed.