Apocalypse Mode: My Cheat Code Virtual Boyfriend - Chapter 17

Everyone sprang into action, packing the items still in use into the rubber inflatable boat and the tent. Once everything was sorted, they gathered in a circle, quietly waiting for the water level to rise a bit more. When it reached just below the glass floor-to-ceiling window, they would break through.

At 12:32 p.m., after a simple lunch of compressed biscuits and milk, the water level finally rose to the ideal height.

They used a cutting machine to saw open the floor-to-ceiling glass window, then draped the curtains over the bottom edge of the cut to prevent the rubber boat from getting scratched.

The inflatable platform and the rubber inflatable boat were glued together with industrial adhesive, sandwiching the tent on the inflatable platform in between. To guard against water seeping in, inflatable barriers were placed around the edges.

Cheng Wei alone could drag this combined vessel. He pulled it out through the floor-to-ceiling window, then held onto the edge to keep it from being swept away by the water. The others then crawled into the tent one by one, with Cheng Wei boarding last.

The outboard motor was installed on the edge of the inflatable platform. Instead of entering the tent, Cheng Wei started the motor and piloted the combined vessel a considerable distance, only stopping and entering the tent once the buildings were no longer in sight.

The tent was fairly spacious, easily accommodating five people. Two camping lanterns hung from the top, while a waterproof tarp was spread on the ground, covered with a thick layer of cashmere blankets. Sleeping bags and clothes were tucked along the edges.

Bai Xun pulled up the Star game system panel. The “Ocean Ark” feature still hadn’t met the specific unlocking conditions, so for now, they could only drift wherever the currents took them.

Cheng Wei quietly sidled up to him and extended his tail. After days of deliberate teasing (scratch that) friendly gestures, Bai Xun had grown accustomed to casually pulling the offered tail into his arms and stroking the fur.

Grandma Bai opened her tablet and started binge-watching dramas with Bai Guifang, both frowning at the scenes of the daughter-in-law being mistreated and abused.

Bai Xun closed the game panel and took out his phone to watch a wilderness survival documentary, learning about the “crunchy, chicken-flavored” spirit of the wild.

Cheng Wei leaned against him, playing a single-player mini-game, occasionally letting the tip of his tail brush against Bai Xun’s wrist.

Bai Yu huddled in the farthest corner, sneakily sketching a short comic. With a few strokes of her digital pen, she vividly captured the tail tip playfully hooking around a wrist, and her brother pinching it back.

Hee-hee-hee, this is love, right? It’s such a shame she’s the only one savoring these subtle moments!

But Bai Yu’s amusement didn’t last long. The fierce winds accompanying the heavy rain rocked the combined vessel from side to side, making it impossible for her to hold her pen steady.

The little boat gently drifted on the water, greeted by the oncoming wind, ugh… ugh… ugh…

Their combined vessel clearly lacked any ability to withstand waves. The entire group was tossed around like potatoes in a sieve, shaken so violently that an egg could have been churned into mayonnaise.

Bai Xun was thrown straight into Cheng Wei’s arms. Luckily, Cheng Wei reacted quickly and pushed him away with one hand, or else Bai Xun would have landed on the not-yet-fully-healed wound on Cheng Wei’s arm.

Using his tail to brace against the bottom of the tent, Cheng Wei steadied himself and avoided falling backward. Bai Xun clung tightly to his waist, treating him like an immovable anchor and refusing to let go.

The storm tossed the composite boat as if it were speeding through a high-velocity drift tunnel, pure speed and adrenaline. Fortunately, they had already left the city’s architectural clusters behind, so no large debris crashed onto the boat.

Through the transparent window of the tent, the outside world appeared as a vast, boundless ocean with no sign of land in sight. Dark waves churned under the fierce wind, and the fact that the composite boat hadn’t fallen apart was entirely thanks to the industrial-strength adhesive.

Bai Xun was tossed around until he felt utterly nauseous. It was as if a certain Sun-surnamed monkey was throwing punches in his stomach, uppercuts, hooks, each blow landing squarely in his gut.

The worst part was having to hold back the urge to vomit. If he did, there’d be nowhere to clean it up.

What on earth was happening? He’d never been seasick before!

Cheng Wei reached out to pat his back and soothe him, but after two pats, Bai Xun grabbed his hand. “Stop patting, or I really will throw up.”

The composite boat rocked and swayed, turning everyone’s faces from green to pale white. Just as they were on the verge of vomiting their guts out, the boat finally stabilized.

Bai Xun’s hand was still resting on Cheng Wei’s waist. In his discomfort, he had buried his face against it for a while. Only now, as the rocking subsided, did he realize what he had done.

His face flushed bright red.

He quickly let go but felt awkward with others around. “Sorry, I was just so dizzy…”

Cheng Wei wrapped his tail around Bai Xun’s waist to steady him. “It’s fine. You didn’t vomit on me.”

Bai Yu had long since given up and lay flat, drifting like duckweed wherever the waves pushed her. As the waves calmed, she scrambled up. “Bro, bro, give me something to eat. The rocking digested my entire lunch… Bro, why is your face so red? Did you use too many heating pads?”

“What do you want? Crackers or meat buns?”

“1111.” Anything but buns, she was practically turning into one herself.

After stuffing Bai Yu’s mouth with crackers, it was time for everyone to eat and replenish their energy. Bai Xun took food from the kitchen simulator and distributed it to everyone, then leaned against Cheng Wei’s side, nibbling on hardtack biscuits and washing them down with milk.

The hardtack was rock-hard, reminiscent of gnawing on table legs as a teething child, only back then, it was his front teeth doing the work, while now it was his molars.

Still, the taste wasn’t bad. The pack he opened was peanut-flavored, with a rich, sweet peanut aroma.

Bai Xun chewed until his jaw ached, finishing only half a biscuit. Alternating bites of hardtack with sips of milk, he managed to feel half-full.

Cheng Wei, who served as his backrest, had a good appetite and strong teeth. The crunching sound of him chewing the hardtack made Bai Xun’s own teeth ache. Unable to resist, he asked, “Is it good?”

Cheng Wei held the hardtack bag in his hand, licking his molars. “A bit rough on the teeth. I’d like some water.”

Bai Xun almost laughed, puffing out his cheeks as he took a bottle of mineral water from the kitchen simulator and handed it over. “Hardtack really is too hard. I only bought it because it’s convenient to eat.”

The kitchen simulator still held 39 unopened bags of hardtack, and they hadn’t even finished one bag yet.

As for the other ready-to-eat canned goods, they were hard to swallow without heating. The solidified animal fat at room temperature had a somewhat fishy smell.

With their stomachs full and the boat no longer rocking, Bai Xun took out the materials sent by the “Doomsday Reborn” netizen to plan their next steps.

Today is the twenty-first day of the apocalypse. According to the information, the rain will begin to ease in the early hours of the twenty-seventh day, and it won’t completely stop until the twenty-ninth day, marking the end of this nearly month-long downpour.

Once the rain stops, the cities that have been completely submerged won’t reemerge over time. Instead, they will become underwater ruins, much like Atlantis, as the floods transform the entire area into lakes and seas.

As time goes on, a major earthquake will strike at an unspecified hour on the afternoon of the eighteenth day after the rain stops, meaning preparations must be made by the afternoon of the forty-seventh day of the apocalypse.

Bai Xun tapped away on his phone’s memo app, recording the events of each day since the apocalypse began and reminding himself of what needed to be prepared.

They had no idea where they were drifting now. On the vast, endless expanse of water, there were no landmarks to help them determine their location. Although they had downloaded detailed maps of the surrounding areas in advance, relying on a compass only gave them a rough idea of their drifting direction.

Time seemed to pass even slower on the makeshift boat than it had on the 33rd floor. Even though they could stand up and walk around to stretch their legs, a sense of boredom easily crept in.

Bai Yu pulled out a deck of playing cards from a pile of clothes, rubbing her hands together eagerly. “How about a few rounds?”

After days of playing single-player games on their phones at home, everyone except Grandma Bai eagerly joined the game.

Cheng Wei wasn’t very good at playing Landlord. After being tricked into taking the landlord role twice, he caught on and launched a fierce counterattack against the trio.

“Straight!”

“Pass.”

“Bomb.”

“Skip.”

“Three of a kind with a pair.”

“Pair of Kings.”

…

To add to the atmosphere, Bai Xun even took a pack of fruit candies from the kitchen simulator to use as bets. The individually wrapped candies could be saved back in the kitchen simulator if they weren’t eaten.

After a whole night of fruit candy poker, the biggest winner turned out to be Cheng Wei, the newcomer who had lost three rounds at the start. Bai Xun and Bai Guifang broke even, while Bai Yu lost the most, especially since she couldn’t resist sneaking some of the candy bets when she got too excited.

Before 10 p.m., Bai Xun took down the two camping lanterns hanging from the tent ceiling. It was time to sleep.

He swished a mouthful of unpleasant-tasting mouthwash, waited ten minutes, then swallowed it. After finishing, he crawled into his sleeping bag to sleep.

Originally, they had planned to take turns keeping watch at night, but since they were on a boat with nowhere to run if something really happened, and being land animals themselves, they decided to just sleep.

Twenty-one consecutive days of rain had made the temperature increasingly cold, but the sleeping bags and wool blankets kept them warm enough to sleep soundly.

The six chickens they had brought to the 33rd floor were placed outside the tent, covered only with a waterproof tarp and a padded cage bottom. Their water and food troughs were filled to the brim, whether they survived or not was purely up to fate.

The sound of raindrops pattering on the tent roof was surprisingly soothing. Even before the apocalypse, sleep aid bloggers had edited rain sound videos to help insomniacs fall asleep.

Listening to the rain, Bai Xun quickly drifted off.

The night passed uneventfully. The next morning, Bai Xun woke up naturally and checked his phone, it was only 6 a.m.

Poking my head out of the sleeping bag, I looked through the small transparent window. Just like yesterday, the assembled boat was still drifting on a dark expanse of water, the waves stirred by the wind carrying them to an unknown destination.

On the second day aboard the boat, life followed the same routine as the day before, eating, sleeping, scrolling through my phone, and playing a couple rounds of Dou Dizhu in the evening.

This kind of life could truly be described as… utterly boring.

Day twenty-three of the apocalypse, and the heavy rain continued.

Bai Xun woke up promptly at 6 a.m., but this time, it wasn’t his biological clock that roused him.

The familiar mechanical voice of the Star Game system pulled him from his slumber: “The Ocean Ark has met the unlock conditions: Crystal Cone (1/1), Arrival at Sea (1/1). Unlock the game?”