Chapter 15: The Acid Rain Ends

“This skill book feels pretty comfortable to use.”

Seeing his happiness points jump by +30, Chen Zhuo felt even better.

“Wait—right, skills books and gene serums work like food. They boost happiness too.”

“Feels just like those fake ‘buy one, get a cashback’ reviews on Taobao. Honestly, I’d rather they just sell the books cheaper.”

The system didn’t respond to Chen Zhuo’s grumbling, so he stopped asking and immediately tested the full 30 happiness-point skill.

*Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.*

“Within twenty meters—almost flawless accuracy! This is insane!”

Sure, the hit rate dropped after twenty meters, but for hunting purposes, this was more than enough.
What did you expect from a *basic* skill book? Don’t ask for a bicycle when you’re already riding a bike.

Finished practicing.

Dinner tonight: grilled pig kidneys—celebrating the end of the acid rain.

Sipping mountain spring water, Chen Zhuo savored every bite of the smoky, tender kidney while quietly waiting out the day.

Seven days had passed—no place traveled, no movement beyond the shelter—but he’d accomplished quite a bit.

Most of his time went into digging the shelter. At 100 square meters, safety concerns forced him to halt construction.
So his first priority now? Gather materials to repair the shelter as soon as possible.

Second: the water problem remained unresolved.
To start farming, he needed a reliable, steady supply of clean water flowing into the shelter.

Wild boar tasted great, sure—but eating it every day was getting old.
And lately, he’d been feeling an odd heat beneath his skin, with two nosebleeds in recent days.
No fresh veggies or fruit meant cracked lips that wouldn’t heal.
He suspected he’d be down with scurvy if things kept going like this.

Third: right before the acid rain ended, he’d pissed off another survivor.

Chen Zhuo wasn’t worried about the guy showing up in person—he knew the survival platform still couldn’t pinpoint exact coordinates.
But he couldn’t relax either. Something about the whole situation felt… unfinished.

Maybe Qian Qian couldn’t kill him face-to-face, but sabotaging his trades? That’d be easy.

To avoid trouble, he decided to skip the auction house altogether. Just add sellers directly as friends.
His listings weren’t moving any faster anyway.

Lying in bed, savoring the rare peace, Chen Zhuo let himself drift.

Outside, the acid rain had finally tapered off. The chat group buzzed with celebration—everyone happy to have survived the storm.

But Chen Zhuo knew better. Only the living could post messages.
The dead stayed silent.

In the past seven days, countless dark corners had seen their final moments.

After a while, his attention drifted from the flashing messages.
The soft patter of rain outside, gentle and lulling, sounded like nature’s own lullaby.
His eyelids grew heavy. Slowly, they closed.

He fell asleep.

Hours later, a sudden voice shattered the quiet.

At first faint—like a distant call—then sharp, urgent.

Chen Zhuo frowned, half-awake, glancing at his wrist. It was exactly midnight.

The voice came from his hand.

【Congratulations, all Survivors! You’ve successfully endured Day One of the Acid Rain Disaster.】
【Day Two Disaster: Extreme Cold begins in one week. Duration: 6 weeks. Prepare accordingly.】
【After the acid rain, creatures across the Wasteland seem to have changed. Explore and discover for yourselves.】
【Keep going, survivors! You’ve got this!】

The acid rain was over.

Outside, pitch black. Nothing visible. Even awakened by the platform, Chen Zhuo couldn’t do anything useful.
So he turned over and went back to sleep.

December 12
Temperature: 18°C

A single ray of sunlight slipped through the door crack, painting a golden stripe across the shelter floor.

No rain. No noise. Peaceful.

At 7 a.m., the thrill of expanding the shelter and exploring resources pushed Chen Zhuo out of bed early.

He rinsed his mouth with water, then ate breakfast—again, plain pork.

For a whole week, life had been monotonous, unchanging.
Now, finally, it was breaking.

The thing that made him happiest? He could go outside.

Seven days inside the shelter had been safe, yes—but also suffocating.
Nonstop acid rain. Stale air. A cramped space that pressed in on him from all sides.
Add in the endless complaints and whining in the chat channel, and Chen Zhuo realized the mental toll of the storm had hit harder than the physical damage.

He pushed open the door.

And froze.

Birds chirped. Flowers bloomed. Sunlight poured down like liquid gold.

As if the acid rain had never happened.
Gone overnight—vanished without a trace.

The roads and trees once ravaged by corrosive storms looked exactly as they had before.
Thick green leaves. Tall, sturdy trunks. Lush and alive.

“What the hell?”

It felt like time had reversed.
Chen Zhuo pinched his cheek—real pain. Not a dream.

“Game update? Resource reset?”

Everything looked just like the first day he arrived in this world—except for one thing.

No more dust hanging in the sky.

Instead, sunlight shone down, clear and bright… but strangely cold against his skin.

“Extreme Cold, huh?”

With experience under his belt, Chen Zhuo quickly realized this disaster wasn’t about rain—it was about the sun.

He didn’t know what this world called its star, but he was certain: this was the trigger for the coming freeze.

Unlike the acid rain, which lasted only a few days, this cold would last six long weeks.

Relying solely on stored supplies wouldn’t cut it.

After seven days of acid rain, his pack was nearly empty—water and meat gone.

“We need a safe, reliable water source. Drinking’s secondary. The real goal? Irrigate farmland. Achieve basic self-sufficiency.”

Decision made, Chen Zhuo headed straight for the mountain.

Thanks to prior experience, he reached the source in just two hours.

He ran a system scan on the water.
No contamination. No signs of acid residue.
The rain had simply disappeared—along with all traces of its destruction.

“It’s clean, yes. But the flow’s too weak. Can’t channel it into the shelter like this.”

He watched the stream glide past, slow and steady.

“If we divert it here, pressure’ll be too low. Water will dribble in fits and starts—useless.”

“So if we’re taking this source, we take it *fully*.”

He followed the stream upstream, climbing higher.

By noon, he reached the summit.

There, nestled in the peak, sat a small mountain pool.

Water spilled gently over its rim, cascading down the slope—proof it wasn’t stagnant.
A living spring.
A true source.