Just as she had expected, most of the stores on the first floor were jewelry shops.
Her little gold treasures.
Wen Ruchu counted them—there were about twelve or thirteen gold stores. On average, she collected roughly three kilograms of gold from each store. In total, she gathered nearly forty kilograms of gold.
It was a huge profit.
Now she was very curious to see what kind of changes would happen to her Dimensional Space.
After finishing with the first floor, Wen Ruchu wondered whether she should dive down to the basement levels to take a look. Perhaps the lower floors had already been looted or broken into.
But since she was already here, and since she firmly believed in the principle of leaving nothing behind, she decided to dive deeper anyway.
On the first basement level, Wen Ruchu saw many cars submerged in water. She clicked her tongue in regret.
Luckily, she had stored her own car in the Dimensional Space the day before the heavy rain started. Otherwise, she would have felt heartbroken seeing it soaked like this.
The first basement level consisted of a parking lot and a supermarket.
The supermarket had clearly already been looted. Items floated everywhere in complete chaos. There were also many rotten fruits and vegetables drifting around.
Wen Ruchu did not collect anything there. It was all messy garbage—she refused to contaminate her Dimensional Space with it.
Since there was nothing useful on that level, Wen Ruchu continued diving down to the second basement level.
But before she even had the chance to search carefully, she suddenly saw something unbelievable.
There were crocodiles in the water.
Crocodiles!
Could such creatures really survive in water this deep?
And something else was wrong. These crocodiles looked different from the ones she had seen on television.
Why did these crocodiles have two tails… and six legs?!
Wen Ruchu’s arrival disturbed them.
The crocodiles, which had originally been resting with their eyes closed, suddenly opened their eyes and stared directly at her.
The feeling was no different from being stared at by ghosts.
Wen Ruchu immediately began swimming upward as fast as she could.
The crocodiles chased closely behind her.
What the hell was this?!
She should never have been so greedy and dived down here.
But seriously—could someone please explain how crocodiles with two tails and six legs could exist underwater like this? She had never heard of anything like this in her previous life.
Unfortunately, Wen Ruchu’s ascent was still a bit too slow.
By the time she reached the first floor level, the crocodiles were already very close behind her. She could practically see their teeth about to bite into her flippers.
At that critical moment, Wen Ruchu instantly entered the Dimensional Space.
But one of her flippers had already been bitten off by the crocodile.
Inside the Dimensional Space, Wen Ruchu’s heart pounded violently.
That had been far too close.
She had almost become crocodile food.
My god!!!
From within the space, Wen Ruchu carefully observed the situation outside.
The crocodiles were clearly shocked when Wen Ruchu suddenly disappeared. However, they did not leave. Instead, they circled around the area, as if unwilling to give up until they found her.
Wen Ruchu had no intention of going out now.
She quietly observed them and counted.
There were eight crocodiles in total.
She did not know if there were more deeper below.
But what were they doing down there? There was no food underwater, and it was pitch black.
More importantly, the fact that they had two tails and six legs was incredibly confusing.
Had they mutated?
This was way too terrifying.
Suddenly, a frightening thought crossed Wen Ruchu’s mind.
What if these crocodiles were laying eggs underwater?
What if the basement level was their nesting ground?
If more and more of them appeared, the waters would become even more dangerous in the future.
Not only would there be giant snakes—but mutated crocodiles as well.
For a moment, Wen Ruchu even had a crazy idea: she wanted to blow up the crocodile nest underground.
But the thought quickly faded.
She clearly remembered that when she first saw the crocodiles, dozens of pairs of eyes had been staring at her.
That meant there were at least dozens of crocodiles below.
Even with the cheat-like advantage of her Dimensional Space, how could she possibly fight dozens—or even hundreds—of mutated crocodiles?
Especially underwater.
The danger earlier had been so intense that Wen Ruchu had not carefully examined her Dimensional Space afterward.
Now that she had calmed down, she finally noticed that changes had occurred again.
Originally, the farmland area had been three mu.
Now it had expanded to nearly five mu.
The amount of water in the spiritual spring had also increased by about one bottle’s worth. Previously it had been equivalent to three bottles of mineral water; now it was about four bottles.
Unfortunately, the time she could stay inside the Dimensional Space had not changed.
Wen Ruchu guessed that she probably needed more gold.
She remained inside the Dimensional Space for nearly an hour before finally seeing the crocodiles slowly swim back down to the lower floors.
Even then, she did not go out immediately.
She observed for another ten minutes. Only after confirming that the crocodiles had truly left did she put on her diving suit again, replace her lost flipper, and exit the Dimensional Space.
Wen Ruchu swam upward at her fastest speed, afraid she might disturb the crocodiles again.
Only when both of her feet touched the floor of the third level did she finally relax.
The water level had risen again.
When she arrived yesterday, the water had still been three or four meters below the third floor.
Now there were only about two meters left.
At this moment, Wen Ruchu wanted nothing more than to leave this shopping mall filled with mutated crocodiles as quickly as possible.
After discovering that crocodiles were lurking underwater, Wen Ruchu remained extremely cautious about the movements on the water’s surface.
During the journey, she did encounter a few other survivors. However, everyone kept to themselves, and nothing unusual happened.
Next, Wen Ruchu planned to visit a hospital.
Hospitals contained many medical instruments and medications. It would be a waste to let them all be ruined by the floodwater.
She herself was a medical student, and these supplies would definitely be extremely useful in the future.
As before, she went to the largest Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital in the city.
The lower three floors were already submerged.
Because of her earlier experience, Wen Ruchu no longer dared to dive underwater again. If she encountered something else down there, she was sure she would have nightmares for days.
Instead, she went to the fourth floor.
Protective suits, medicines, surgical instruments—she collected everything.
She even found insulin, interferon, and probiotic preparations that required refrigeration.
There was an entire room dedicated to storing these medicines. Because the room was special, it had its own powerful battery and generator. Even during the power outage, it had continued running without interruption.
This was an absolute treasure.
Wen Ruchu accepted it happily without hesitation.
Even the disinfectant, mops, and buckets in the restroom were swept away by her.
As always, her reasoning remained the same: it would be a pity to let them be flooded—she might as well take them.
After finishing with the hospital, Wen Ruchu went to Huaiyu Technology.
This technology company released dozens of products every year and had many high-tech inventions that had not yet been released to the public.
Of course she could not let such a place go.
Wen Ruchu smashed the glass entrance with brute force and entered.
Just like before, she went directly to the fourth floor.
She felt somewhat regretful. The first and second floors must also contain many valuable items, but she did not dare to go down there.
As expected of a technology company—the interior decoration was filled with a futuristic atmosphere.
Wen Ruchu looked around like a country bumpkin visiting a grand palace for the first time, constantly marveling at everything.
But suddenly she noticed several figures and jumped in fright.
However, those figures were quite strange. They did not move at all. They simply stared with wide-open eyes.
When she walked closer, she realized what they were.
Robots.
So this was the so-called artificial intelligence.
Before the apocalypse, Wen Ruchu remembered that this company had been investing heavily in AI research. It was said that the robots they developed could replace humans in many tasks.
They could take care of children, manage household chores, even write computer programs or drive vehicles.
They were able to understand human emotions, and their appearance looked almost identical to real people.
But seeing them like this now…
It was actually a little creepy.