Following the system’s prompt, Su Su walked out of the hotel’s main door and circled around the lighthouse. About five meters away from the entrance, she spotted a low metal door.
She walked over and opened it with ease.
Beyond the door lay a long set of descending stairs. Dim yellow wall lamps hung on either side of the stairwell, extending all the way to the bottom.
Su Su followed the steps down. At the end of the stairs was a short corridor with a door on one side. Directly ahead was a wooden door about two meters high. When she pushed it open, the sight inside gave her quite a shock.
She had thought the current single rooms were sparse enough, but it turned out she simply hadn’t seen enough of the world yet.
The entire dormitory was about nine meters long but less than two and a half meters wide.
A massive concrete platform, fifty centimeters high, divided the room into a sleeping area and a walkway. This “cement bed” ran from the entrance to the very end of the wall and was roughly two meters wide.
Su Su did a quick count: there were ten simple mattresses laid out on the platform. Each mattress came with a pillow, an individual privacy curtain, and a wall lamp the size of a bottle cap.
When the curtains were drawn, it could—barely—be considered a private space.
She checked the system’s pricing: three points per night. It was indeed inexpensive.
Stepping out of the room, Su Su noticed another door further down the corridor. She pushed it open to find a bathroom. It was even more basic than the one upstairs, consisting of only a single stall.
After inspecting everything, Su Su returned to the hotel from the basement.
Because of her sudden departure, Yu Xin and Wang Xianchun hadn’t dared to sleep. Seeing her return, they didn’t quite dare to approach her to say hello either.
“By the way, the hotel also has a dormitory for sleeping. If you want to go there, you can.”
Su Su felt that having these two in the lobby was a bit unsettling. If a guest got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and saw these two staring at each other, wouldn’t they think they’d seen a ghost?
Hearing her words, the two were stunned for a moment, not quite processing the information. Seeing Su Su about to return to her room, they hurriedly asked for clarification.
“Boss, did you say a… dormitory?”
“Yes. Just walk five meters to the right outside the hotel entrance. There’s a door there; just open it and go in.”
Su Su let out a yawn as she spoke. It was almost midnight, and she needed to get some rest quickly.
“But, Boss, the outside…”
Yu Xin knew exactly what the ocean was like at night. He feared that the moment they stepped out, they would be soaked to the bone by seawater.
“Don’t worry. As long as you don’t leave the one-meter safety zone around the lighthouse, you’ll be fine. I’m going back to sleep; decide for yourselves.”
With that, Su Su opened her door and stepped inside, leaving the two staring at a closed door.
“Brother Yu Xin, should we go?”
After waiting a while to ensure Su Su wouldn’t come back out, Wang Xianchun asked Yu Xin in a low voice.
Yu Xin didn’t speak immediately. He thought for a moment, then nodded.
“Let’s go take a look.”
After several encounters, Yu Xin realized that although the Boss didn’t say much, she hadn’t lied to them once. He decided to trust her. After all, sitting in this lobby, they might be disturbed by someone walking out at any time. Not only would they sleep poorly, but it would also be a hassle to explain themselves.
Wang Xianchun naturally had no objections to Yu Xin’s decision. With hearts full of trepidation, they opened the hotel door.
Yu Xin cautiously reached his hand out. After waiting two seconds, his eyes instantly lit up.
The Boss was telling the truth; not a single drop of seawater touched him.
He grew bolder and stepped out entirely, discovering that within one meter of the lighthouse, the ground was dry without a single water stain.
“Come out, it’s fine.”
He took two steps to the right and called for Wang Xianchun.
The two hugged the wall of the lighthouse and walked a few meters to the right. Soon, they saw the door Su Su had mentioned. Upon opening it, they saw the stairs.
Yu Xin led the way, with Wang Xianchun clinging tightly to his side. They descended the stairs to the corridor, where the two doors weren’t far apart.
They opened the first door and saw the dormitory Su Su had described.
“It really is just a bunkhouse?”
Wang Xianchun couldn’t help but frown at the scene.
Although the apocalypse had begun five years ago, Wang Xianchun had Yu Xin as a backer while she was at school. When the school was about to be submerged and fall, Qiao He had arrived in a yacht to pick her up, providing her with another protector.
In their small five-person team, she had two people to rely on, meaning that despite the apocalypse, she hadn’t suffered much. The only bedroom on the yacht was shared by her and her cousin. Consequently, seeing such a shabby room, her first reaction was one of disdain.
Unlike Wang Xianchun, Yu Xin was quite pleasantly surprised. He had expected to spend the night on the lobby floor. No matter how simple this dormitory was, it at least had beds and pillows. Pulling the partition curtain would even allow it to serve as a private room.
After surveying the room, Yu Xin turned and walked toward the other door in the corridor. Opening it to find a bathroom, his eyes practically gleamed.
“Brother Yu Xin, why did you come out? Are we going back?”
Seeing Yu Xin leave, Wang Xianchun hurriedly followed him out.
“Xianchun, I plan to sleep here tonight. If you don’t like it, you can go back to the hotel lobby. I won’t stop you.”
With that, he stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.
After everything that had happened today, he was tired of being the savior for a fool like Wang Xianchun.
“Brother Yu Xin?”
Wang Xianchun was stunned by Yu Xin’s reaction.
What was that? Was he trying to drive her away?
“Hmph.”
She let out a cold snort, bit her lower lip, and returned to the room with great reluctance.
As for Su Su, once she returned to the staff quarters, she didn’t think about anything else and fell into a deep sleep out of sheer exhaustion. By the time she woke up, the day was already bright.
When she emerged from her quarters, several people were already standing in the lobby.
Qiao He had just come out of the bathroom after washing her clothes. She was holding a basin, and seeing Su Su, she immediately greeted her loudly.
“Boss, you’re awake!”
“Mm. Are you going to hang those clothes?” Su Su looked at the basin in her hands.
“Yes. I’ve been letting these clothes pile up for a long time. Now that things have settled down and there’s clean water, I’ve washed them all. It’s just a pity that the laundry detergent and soap I’ve had for all these years expired long ago.”
At the start of the apocalypse, Qiao He hadn’t just hoarded food and water; she had also stored some other essential daily goods. However, her storage space wasn’t completely static; at most, it could slow down the rate of food decay.
Fortunately, the food she hoarded was mostly sealed, allowing them to survive the first two years. But now?
She thought of the quiet, dreamless night she’d just had. Without exaggeration, the rooms she had spent two hundred points on at the sea base were never as peaceful or comfortable as last night.
Laundry detergent? Soap?
Su Su had been listening casually, but she suddenly became interested.
This was a big business opportunity.
Just as she was about to speak, the system suddenly appeared.
Ding!
System detection: Customer has a strong demand for daily necessities. Temporary mission unlocked: Sell over 200 points worth of daily necessities to receive one Automatic Vending Machine.
“You should have said so earlier. I have everything here. What do you need?”