Inside the hut, the faint trace of relief at the corner of Liú Xiǎomǎn’s lips had barely settled when the alarm in her mind suddenly exploded, shattering it completely.
The sound was not a simple notification but a piercing, soul-rending buzz, urgent and fraught with danger, like a bucket of ice water poured over her head, instantly freezing the blood in her limbs.
In the air before her eyes, the word “WARNING” seemed to float in bright red letters.
Her familiar, normally calm and composed system interface was forcibly brought up, pale blue data streams violently overlaid by a crimson warning frame. The entire space was suffused with a sense of apocalyptic panic and oppression.
All joy from victory vanished in that instant, replaced by the terrifying unknown, like plunging into an abyss.
“System, what’s happening?” Liú Xiǎomǎn didn’t even have time to speak; she could only scream in her mind with the most urgent intent.
For the first time, the system’s cold electronic voice carried a gravity unlike any she had ever heard; every byte hit her heart like a heavy block of lead.
【Ding! Major change detected in world rules. Emergency main quest released!】
Before she could ask further, a torrent of new information cascaded like a waterfall: 【Main quest released: Prepare for the upcoming three-year mega-drought.】
【Quest background: Due to unknown celestial activity, the world’s water vapor cycle will experience a severe disruption in one month, resulting in three consecutive years of extreme drought. Expected consequences include widespread famine, epidemics, and social unrest.】
Three years of mega-drought.
The words struck her like a thunderclap, detonating in her mind, blackening her vision, skipping her heartbeat.
Her blood nearly froze.
As a modern agricultural scientist and a graduate student in history, she understood better than anyone in this world the horror that the simple phrase implied.
It meant scorched earth, harvests gone.
It meant cracked riverbeds and dried-up wells.
It meant thousands of starving corpses, children eating children!
The petty conflicts of the Liú estate, Wáng Jīnhuā’s yelling, and Liú Dàbǎo’s spying—all of it was utterly insignificant in the face of a catastrophe capable of overturning an entire dynasty.
She forced herself to calm down, pressing her nails deep into her palms to maintain sanity. She immediately focused, reviewing the task details.
【Quest Name: Survival in the Apocalypse】
【Quest Requirements: During the three-year mega-drought, ensure the life safety of the host and immediate family members (Lǐ Xiùxiù, Liú Cōngming), and establish, if possible, a sustainable survival base.】
【Quest Recommendation: Core strategy — Hoard supplies like crazy!】
Beneath the recommendation, the system thoughtfully listed a seemingly endless checklist. At the very top, in bold crimson letters: food, water, medicine, seeds. Following that were tools, weapons, clothing, fuel… a dense, exhaustive list of necessities.
At the bottom of the quest details was a reward that made Liú Xiǎomǎn’s breath catch: massive points, advanced construction blueprints (such as Qanats Construction Techniques, Ecological Greenhouse Plans), a full set of intermediate-level physical enhancement potions, and… an upgrade to System 2.0!
The immense sense of crisis and the generous rewards intertwined like an invisible hand, clutching her heart, leaving her with suffocating pressure and a hint of morbid excitement.
It was a challenge capable of destroying everything, but also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to completely change her destiny.
Her mind immediately began to race at unprecedented speed.
One month. She had only one month to prepare.
Her gaze instinctively swept over the fortress she had painstakingly built—the waterfall cave.
Those meager supplies—dozens of kilograms of grain, a few bolts of cloth, a few cans of coarse salt—were laughably insufficient against a three-year period of relentless despair.
Her ant-like, small-scale hoarding plan now seemed naive and childish.
Minor acquisitions were meaningless; she didn’t need to add bricks to a wall—she needed to build a Noah’s Ark capable of weathering the apocalypse! She needed strategic-level stockpiles!
Meanwhile, the clamor from the Liú estate had not yet fully subsided.
Liú Dàbǎo’s inexplicable itching was attributed by the village’s barefoot doctor to “contact with unclean forces,” and Old Lady Tián and Wáng Jīnhuā burned paper and prayed, causing chaos.
For now, they blamed all disturbances on the Liú family’s hut near a burial mound. Superstitious fear kept everyone away from the village edge.
This unexpected turn granted Liú Xiǎomǎn invaluable, uninterrupted time to think.
She slowly approached the worn hut door and pushed it open slightly.
The cold night wind rushed in, cooling her overheated mind a little.
She looked up at the night sky—tonight’s moon was particularly bright, stars sparse, a rare clear night.
Yet who could imagine that beneath this seemingly calm sky, a catastrophe capable of turning the human world into a hellish inferno was brewing.
She could feel the pulse of time speeding by; every minute, every second, was precious beyond measure.
Liú Xiǎomǎn inhaled deeply, the earthy scent of soil filling her lungs, forcibly suppressing the turmoil in her chest.
Her previous plans had been entirely overturned. A new, bolder, crazier plan was rapidly taking shape in her mind.
The first, and most crucial, step of this plan: she had to communicate this horrifying news to her family in a way they could understand and accept.
And she had to make them believe it without reservation.
At dawn the next morning, just as light barely broke.
Lǐ Xiùxiù and Liú Cōngming had already woken, preparing, as usual, to drink some watery rice soup.
Liú Xiǎomǎn, however, did not pick up her basket to go out as usual. Instead, she sat at the worn table with an unprecedented seriousness.
She looked at her mother’s still anxious face and her brother’s trusting eyes, paused for a moment, and then spoke with unprecedented gravity:
“Mother, Cōngming,” her voice was soft but clear, “our little treasure stockpile… is probably not enough.”