The water rat beast that was hit shuddered, then its eyes rolled back, and it died silently without a sound.
Su Li watched from a distance, finding it very strange. The punch didn't seem particularly powerful—there wasn't even a visible mark on the surface—yet the water rat beast had died without a sound. This method of attack was truly bizarre.
The remaining water rat beast seemed frightened by the man's attack. It, too, couldn't understand why its companion had suddenly died with its eyes rolled back. Perhaps driven by a profound fear of the unknown, the surviving water rat beast suddenly turned and plunged deep into the water, fleeing swiftly.
The man didn't give chase but instead rose upward toward the surface.
At the same moment, Su Li also swam upward toward the water's surface. His physical condition was now excellent; with his basic constitution, he could hold his breath underwater for two minutes. If he activated the special ability of his strong lungs, he could extend that by another two minutes, giving him a total of four minutes underwater.
The recent skirmish had only lasted a minute or two, so he could still stay underwater for another two minutes. However, the water was full of dangers, and Su Li didn't dare linger. He surfaced, opened his mouth wide, took a deep breath to exchange the air in his lungs, and then looked up to see Xu Xuehui on the raft.
Xu Xuehui wasn't dead. On the raft beside her lay two more water rat beasts, their bodies stiff and lifeless, eyes rolled back with no visible wounds. Su Li immediately understood what had happened.
Clearly, after he had fallen into the water, Xu Xuehui had been rescued when danger struck. These two water rat beasts, dead on the raft, had also been killed by the man who had just plunged into the water. Only the water rat beasts struck by his fists died in this strange way—no visible injuries, yet they perished silently. It was very peculiar.
Xu Xuehui saw Su Li emerge from the water, and her eyes lit up with surprise. She hurried forward to get closer to him.
"Someone just saved me..." Xu Xuehui gestured with her small hands, trying to tell Su Li that while he was in the water, another person had appeared on the raft and rescued her.
"I know," Su Li said, grabbing the edge of the raft and pulling himself up with a heave. Just then, a voice followed with a hearty laugh: "Are you talking about me?"
Su Li followed the sound and saw a head emerge from the water about two meters away from the raft. It was a middle-aged man, around thirty-seven or thirty-eight years old, with short hair that was slightly thinning on top—a sign of early hair loss, though not yet very noticeable.
He was the one who had just killed the water rat beasts in succession and saved Xu Xuehui and Su Li.
Finally meeting another survivor, and such a strong one at that, Su Li felt a surge of excitement and enthusiasm. He quickly patted the raft and said, "Big brother, thank you just now. Come on up quickly—it's dangerous in the water."
As he spoke, he picked up the two water rat beast corpses on the raft and tossed them away. He had already collected food like rice, flour, and noodles, so there was no shortage for now, and there was no need to keep these corpses as provisions.
The middle-aged man smiled and shook his head. "I actually think it's fine staying in the water. Here, let me give you a hand."
With that, he took a breath and dove back into the water with a splash, disappearing from sight.
Su Li knew the man was an excellent swimmer, far better than himself. Seeing him dive again, Su Li quickly stood up on the raft. The middle-aged man resurfaced behind the raft, then pushed it with both hands, steering it toward the thirty-two-story building that was now not far away.
"Welcome. I've been bored out of my mind here alone these past few days. Oh, by the way, I'm Ding Longyun. What about you? What are your names?"
"I'm Su Li, and she's Xu Xuehui. Brother Ding, have you been alone here all this time?" Su Li asked, glancing at the building they were approaching.
The building had thirty-two floors, but with twenty-nine submerged, only three floors remained above water. It was much larger in area than the thirty-story building where Su Li had been staying. In Su Li and Xu Xuehui's building, each floor had only three apartments, but this one was divided into several units, with each floor covering at least two or three times the area of theirs.
"There were four of us originally, but now it's just me," Ding Longyun said casually, his tone light. But Su Li caught the faint, grim undertone in those simple words.
Xu Xuehui was curious and couldn't help asking softly, "What about the other three? Did they leave?"
Ding Longyun glanced at her before replying, "Leave? You could say that, but they didn't leave the building—they left this world. I was luckier than them; I barely made it."
Su Li had faced many attacks in his own place and had survived, but Ding Longyun had started with four people, and three had died. The only explanation was that the dangers they encountered were far greater than what Su Li had faced.
It seemed this building rising from the water might be even more dangerous than the one he had lived in before. That thought made Su Li's scalp tingle. He had originally planned to use this place as a temporary stop, at least until he found a better option.
Xu Xuehui understood what Ding Longyun meant, and her face turned pale as she looked at the approaching building, a hint of fear in her eyes.
Ding Longyun seemed to know what they were thinking. He suddenly grinned and said, "But don't be too scared. I've figured out some patterns over the past few days. As long as you're not too greedy, you'll be fine. I mean, I'm still alive, aren't I?"
"By the way, where did you come from? When did you first notice the city was flooded?"
At Ding Longyun's question, Su Li gave a brief introduction, pointing toward the distant building where he had lived. "I was originally in that building. I woke up on the morning of the fifteenth to find things like this. It was the same for her. What about you?"
"Same here. I woke up on the morning of the fifteenth and realized something was wrong outside. I was so scared I almost peed myself. Then I started looking for people and found that there were only four of us in this whole building. I don't know if the others never lived here or just vanished mysteriously, but I didn't see anyone."
"And the strangest thing is that many apartments had thick dust, like they hadn't been lived in for a while. It's weird. I remember this building had a high occupancy rate, but in the end, out of the twenty-four apartments on the three floors above water, there were only four of us."