After a quick wash, the three sat around the table. Ding Longyun had prepared breakfast: bread, milk, and fried eggs.
Ding Longyun took a bite of bread and said, "After we eat, let's clean up the monster corpses outside. Quite a few were left last night. We should move them all to the rooftop and pile them up."
Su Li nodded and said, "It's strange, though. These bodies don't seem to rot easily. Otherwise, with this temperature, the smell would be unimaginable."
Ding Longyun replied, "I noticed that early on. I think it's related to the spirit sources. They must have altered the monsters' physiology, so even after death, the bodies don't decay."
"That's possible." Su Li thought for a moment and said, "After we clean up the bodies, I want to upgrade and modify the raft. It's still too small right now."
Ding Longyun asked, "Are you planning to head to the Purple Wind Building?"
"Yeah." Su Li didn't hide it from him. "Staying here long-term isn't an option for the three of us. The safest move right now is to find a populated gathering spot as soon as possible. The Purple Wind Building seems like a decent choice."
In his mind, there was an even bigger plan: to find a place with plenty of people and ample supplies, with enough manpower and resources to build a sturdy ship, and then try to find land or cities that hadn't been submerged.
Ding Longyun said, "Alright, we'll clean up the bodies first, then work on the raft."
The three of them worked together. With their current strength, moving the corpses was easy, and they quickly hauled all the spirit source beast bodies to the rooftop, stacking them up.
"Throwing all these bodies into the water at once—I wonder what kind of monsters it would attract." Ding Longyun looked at the massive pile on the rooftop, curious.
Su Li said, "Want to give it a try?"
Ding Longyun was startled. "Are you crazy? You actually think about doing that?"
Su Li had only been joking. Seeing Ding Longyun so worked up, he couldn't help but laugh. "Alright, let's skip that. Let's go modify the raft."
When they reached the thirtieth floor, Su Li noticed the water level had risen significantly. Their feet were now submerged, with water covering their ankles.
"It looks like the water is rising faster than I expected." Su Li frowned, a hint of worry creeping back into his mind.
"Seems like it won't be long before this thirtieth floor is completely flooded." Ding Longyun shook his head and sighed.
Su Li looked at the raft moored outside the balcony. It was cobbled together from five wooden doors, bound with ropes, and looked fairly sturdy.
"Su Li, how do you want to modify it?" Ding Longyun leaned against the balcony railing, watching him.
Su Li said, "This raft is too small. My ideal is to build a big ship. I remember watching a movie once where someone crafted a floating island by slowly piling up wood and dirt."
Ding Longyun said, "A floating island? You've got quite the ambition."
Su Li replied, "With water everywhere now, if we make the raft big enough, it's not impossible. Of course, that's just a future idea. We're still far from that point."
"Speaking of wooden doors, there are over twenty apartments here, plenty of doors. Should we start moving the unused ones over?"
Su Li nodded in agreement, and the three began working together. Xu Xuehui, though small, was already a level 2 spirit source user, capable of lifting five or six hundred jin with ease, and could carry several doors at once.
The doors to these apartments had already been opened by Ding Longyun and the others. Now, Ding Longyun led Xu Xuehui in dismantling the wooden doors, cabinets, and other items from the rooms, hauling them toward the balcony.
Su Li gathered nails, wire, and rope, piling them aside. He first aligned five wooden doors together, then nailed planks on top, tightly binding them with wire and rope, creating another sturdy raft from the five doors.
After that, Su Li carefully lifted this new raft, slid it over the balcony, and placed it into the water next to the original one. He then used nails and planks to firmly join the two rafts together.
With the two rafts combined, the area doubled, finally taking on some real scale.
"Once this raft takes on water, the surface will get damp. I want to add another layer on top to make it a double-decker raft, so we won't get our shoes and socks wet." Su Li looked at the now-doubled raft and shared his idea.
Ding Longyun said, "That's too much trouble, and it'll add weight. You're not really planning to turn this into a mobile island someday, are you? It's just a simple water vehicle. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a real boat, and we can ditch this one."
"Speaking of which, those fishermen who live on boats or work in shipyards are lucky. No matter how big the flood, they wouldn't have to worry." Ding Longyun sighed with emotion.
"Yeah, if we had a big ship right now, things would be completely different." Su Li understood that crossing three kilometers of water to reach the Purple Wind Building on this crude little raft would be risky. A large ship would be much safer.
"But relatively speaking, bigger is always safer." Su Li decided to keep enlarging the raft. In his view, it was still too small.
"People." Suddenly, Xu Xuehui, standing by the balcony, pointed into the distance.
"People?" Su Li and Ding Longyun were startled and both looked toward the water where she was pointing.
Out on the water, looking into the distance, they could faintly see a thin mist rising. Visibility was low, and they could only make out vague shapes—those were buildings sticking out of the water. But where were the people?
"You saw people? What kind?" Su Li remembered that Xu Xuehui had enhanced eyesight, better than his and Ding Longyun's. She had even spotted the high-level corpse beast's third hand earlier. Now, her sudden mention of people must mean something.
"Three people." Xu Xuehui gestured. "Alive."
Hearing that, Su Li and Ding Longyun grew excited.
"You mean three people? In the water or on a boat? What's the situation?" Ding Longyun called out anxiously.
Xu Xuehui remained calm and said softly, "They're on a raft, heading this way."
"What kind of people? Can you see clearly?" Su Li took a deep breath to steady himself.
This time, Xu Xuehui thought for a moment before saying, "Adults, male." She struggled to describe their exact appearance and looked a bit troubled.