Apocalypse Dungeon: I Stockpile Supplies to Beat the Survival Game

When Lin Wanqiu opened her eyes, a notification suddenly appeared on her phone: “Apocalypse Survival Game.” The first stage was “72 Hours Without Water in the City.” Survivors could advance to the next stage, while those who failed would be trapped there forever.

She had just returned from the supermarket with half a case of bottled water when she turned and saw her older female neighbor shove her child toward a burly man fighting over supplies for a bottle of cola.

She had no supernatural powers and no System, only the “emergency checklist” she had written after staying up late the night before. Her backpack was stuffed with compressed biscuits, iodine, a windproof lighter, and even two packs of sanitary pads. The things other people had mocked as “useless” became her lifelines.

On the third day of the stage, she traded half a biscuit for a map held by an old man and avoided an underground passage full of infected. She used sanitary pads to absorb sweat and prevent chafing, walking three kilometers along a road strewn with broken glass. At the last moment, she lit alcohol with her lighter and drove back the infected closing in on her.

While everyone else was still agonizing over whether to “save a stranger,” Lin Wanqiu remembered only her grandmother’s words: “Take care of yourself first. Then you can think about everything else.”

But when she cleared the stage, the System notified her that she had “earned the right to invite a teammate.” On the screen was the girl who had once shared half a piece of bread with her, and who had nearly been bitten by an infected person.

Lin Wanqiu stared at her phone and hesitated. Perhaps this apocalypse game was about more than just staying alive. Perhaps even in desperate circumstances, she could leave a little room for trust.