Volume 1, Chapter 15: Playful as You May Be, Don't Gamble with Your Life

Lin Yuyu, who had been sleeping obediently at home, woke up to find that the storm surge she had been waiting for never arrived, but her stomach was growling.

Let her think—how many days had it been since she transmigrated into this world? Four days?

Great!

Four days here, four days of starving!

So this is the island version of wasteland survival? She had truly seen it all now.

She, Lin Yuyu, had worked for four or five years and never had savings of more than four or five thousand—why? Because she would never mistreat her own stomach, no matter what.

And now?

Forget about "three days and nine meals"—that was in the past—just look at how many days had passed, and how much had she actually eaten?

Should she credit the original owner's body for this? Aside from the occasional rumble, it hadn't revolted at all. If it were her original body, it would have been cramping and stinging with pain long ago.

Although her attitude toward life and work had always been indifferent and unmotivated, she would never sit idly by and wait for death.

Since she had waited and waited for the storm to no avail, why not take advantage of the calm weather to go out and find something to eat? That was what Lin Yuyu thought.

...

It was a little past four in the morning.

Just like last time, Lin Yuyu wrapped her head and neck tightly with strips of cloth torn from the only bedsheet in her home before stepping out of the room and heading toward the edge of the safe zone.

She had expected the area to be empty today, but once she stepped out, she realized that many others shared the same idea.

Lin Yuyu glanced around and silently fell in behind a group of middle-aged women who were accompanied by their children, deciding to follow them to the gathering grounds.

Lin Yuyu reasoned: the reason she had run into trouble last time was surely because there was no one around and she had been acting alone, which was why those people dared to take action against her so brazenly.

This time, she would go wherever the women went. She didn't believe anyone would target her under these circumstances.

Furthermore, among a group of the elderly, the weak, women, and children, she wouldn't stand out enough to become a target, nor would she have to worry about being unable to handle someone or being backstabbed.

If trouble still found her, she would just hide among the children and shamelessly cling to the protection of the women.

...

As they walked, the sky gradually brightened.

By five o'clock, the group in front reached a fork in the road, and the people naturally split into two, one group heading left and the other right.

Lin Yuyu, trailing behind, was puzzled: where were they all planning to go?

Unfortunately, as she had snuck in, she didn't dare ask for fear of being suspected, so she naturally got no answers.

After a moment of thought, Lin Yuyu chose to follow the people in front of her and turned onto the small path to the left.

However, ever since they stepped onto that path, a child ahead of her kept glancing back at her.

Lin Yuyu quickened her pace to walk alongside the child and asked, "Why do you keep looking back at me?"

Like most people, the child was wrapped up tightly, revealing only a pair of large, round, light-brown eyelids, looking at Lin Yuyu innocently.

"Big sister, do you have a boat? Everyone here is getting ready to go out to sea to fish."

"Go out to sea to fish? At this time?"

"Yeah, that's the only time there are many fish in the sea..."

Lin Yuyu was confused: is that so?

This was different from the common knowledge she knew from Earth, and there were no such memories in the original owner's mind.

Was this child lying because they didn't want her following them?

Seeing Lin Yuyu's puzzled expression, the child smiled and said, "Big sister, this is common sense. You don't know that?"

Lin Yuyu's heart skipped a beat, and she immediately put on a nonchalant expression, replying casually, "I don't have my own boat, and I've never been out to sea, so it's normal that I wouldn't know."

"True, not every family can afford a boat." The child sighed, "Sigh..."

Their family didn't own the boat they used to go to sea either; it was rented.

Every time they returned after a hard day of fishing, they had to hand over more than half of the edible catch to the boat owner, and only the remainder could be taken home.

She didn't even know who they were working so hard for.

Just as Lin Yuyu thought she had bluffed her way through and wanted to heave a sigh of relief, one of the women in front suddenly turned and gave the child a light rap on the head.

"At such a young age, why are you sighing? No sighing allowed. You know that sighing too much makes your luck run away."

After saying this, she glanced at the young girl who had been sneaking behind them.

"Child, stop following us. Even if you walk all the way to the shore with us, we won't let you on the boat."

Not only was space on the boat limited, but going out to sea wasn't always a smooth trip, nor was it guaranteed that one would return safely.

She didn't want to take on any unnecessary responsibility.

Better to send her away and be done with it.

Realizing they didn't want her following them anymore, Lin Yuyu lowered her eyes for a few seconds of thought, then shook her head earnestly, "I'm not going out to sea. I'm just going to the beach to take a look."

The woman finally gave up trying to persuade Lin Yuyu to leave and continued toward the beach without stopping.

She just assumed Lin Yuyu was a naive child spoiled by her family who didn't know the difference between beans and wheat, thinking that one could just "pick up" fish at the beach without realizing that you had to wait until after a storm.

In any case, as long as she wasn't trying to act pitiful or insist on joining them at sea, she could do whatever she wanted. As for whether she would find any food, that was none of their business.

Of course, it wasn't that there was nothing on the beach on normal days, but the amount of seafood that washed ashore was very small, and almost none of it was edible.

Only in the period immediately following a storm surge would large quantities of seafood be washed onto the shore.

Only by going at that time could one hope to find one or two edible items among the mass of seafood.

Finding one edible item among a hundred was considered lucky; it was more common for it to be one in a thousand, or even one in ten thousand.

Lin Yuyu pretended not to see the woman's silent sneer and head shake.

If it weren't for the fact that they all had children with them, implying lower risk, Lin Yuyu wouldn't have chosen to approach this large group.

As for what they were thinking...

To Lin Yuyu, they were just strangers who had shared a stretch of the road. Let them think what they wanted; it had nothing to do with her.

She followed the crowd, passed through the protective forest, and reached the east coast.

This coast was much cleaner than the one Lin Yuyu had seen when she first arrived on the island. A small pier had been built along the shore, where several wooden boats of various ages and sizes were neatly moored.

People were standing on the pier in small groups, seemingly discussing the details of renting boats.

However, some of those people looked overly obsequious, while others looked arrogant, completely shattering Lin Yuyu's nice first impression of the east coast.

The blue sea and golden beach were all gone, leaving only the disheartening nature of human greed lingering before her eyes.

...

When she saw the women split up—some joining the queues to rent boats, others boarding the vessels—Lin Yuyu turned and headed back the way she came.

As she walked, she grumbled to herself: she thought she'd learn something, but instead, she just watched a group of people courting death.

Lin Yuyu felt that running out of the safe zone before a storm surge was already a huge risk. Running out to sea at a time like this was no different from throwing their lives away.

If they encountered a storm and couldn't make it back to shore in time, both the people and the boats would be finished.

Although she often heard that the higher the risk, the higher the reward, there had to be a limit to risk-taking. One couldn't gamble with their life right from the start; otherwise, if the life was gone, what else was there to play for?

She was just starting out in the wasteland; she would rather be cautious.

She could be adventurous, but she couldn't treat her life as a joke.

Not long after she turned onto the path back, Lin Yuyu saw some people who hadn't managed to rent a boat and were returning the way they came.

Seeing them veer off onto another trail as they walked, Lin Yuyu guessed they were probably going to look for another place to forage. After all, it wasn't in the nature of wastelanders to travel such a long way only to return empty-handed.

After a moment of thought, Lin Yuyu followed them, though this time she didn't follow too closely, keeping a moderate distance behind the mixed group of men, women, and children.

After walking and stopping for over half an hour, they finally reached their destination.

A wild apple grove hidden in the woods.