Chapter 20: Sweeping Through a Skyscraper

The man struggled desperately. In his fading consciousness, he suddenly thought of his dog.

If Da Huang were here, that little white dog wouldn’t have been able to bite him at all.

Da Huang had sharp teeth, a strong and agile body—even this woman wouldn’t be its match.

It feared no one but its owner. Even that day, it didn’t fight back until he knocked it out...

If only Da Huang were still here...

His mind grew fuzzier and fuzzier. He seemed to see Da Huang running toward him.

An Nan watched as the man gradually sank beneath the water, then started up the speedboat and chased after the last woman.

Hearing the roar of the engine behind her, the woman swam frantically while begging for mercy, “Please let me go! I know I was wrong!”

An Nan said nothing, steering the speedboat straight at her.

When they had numbers, they bullied her, tried to steal her gear, and even wanted to take her dog. Now that they’d lost, suddenly they knew they were wrong?

Sorry, too late.

The water soon returned to calm, as if those people had never appeared.

An Nan took out a towel and began drying off her soaked dog.

“Fugui, you can’t just go around biting people’s privates. That’s so dirty!”

“You’re a little girl—you need to be ladylike, understand?”

Fugui snuggled obediently against An Nan, whining softly.

I know, I know!

Once the dog was dry, An Nan let her climb back into the backpack, then changed out of her wetsuit and stored it away to avoid further trouble.

She started up the speedboat and headed deeper into the Kuancheng District.

She’d just overheard those people talking about going to the Tech Tower, which reminded her—there was still a high-rise building in Kuancheng District.

But the building was at the very edge of the city, almost all the way across Kuancheng. Without a speedboat, just relying on a kayak or even a plastic tub, there’d be no way to reach it. So chances were, it hadn’t been looted yet.

Those people must have realized this, which was why they’d come all the way from Zhongguan District.

An Nan piloted the speedboat straight toward the Tech Tower.

It took her two hours to get there. Amid the endless floodwaters, the building stood alone, rising above the surface.

On the rooftop, the sign for Taiyu Technology Tower still gleamed brightly.

Taiyu Group was the province’s second-largest conglomerate, mainly in electronics, but in recent years they’d branched out into all sorts of industries.

This building was their headquarters in Linbei City.

An Nan approached cautiously. Seeing no one around, she stowed the speedboat in her spatial storage, slung on her backpack, and entered the building.

Kuancheng District was low-lying, so the bottom eleven floors were completely submerged—only the top six floors remained above water.

An Nan entered directly through a twelfth-floor window.

The twelfth floor belonged to Taiyu Group’s Urban Construction Company. No one had searched here yet; everything was neat and orderly, just like before the disaster.

An Nan started by collecting the coffee machine, ice maker, and other appliances from the break room into her spatial storage.

Then she swept through the area, grabbing all the snacks from the employees’ desks—cookies, chocolate, beef jerky, you name it.

She didn’t even spare the newer office supplies.

After all, her storage space was vast—might as well fill it up! Who knew what might come in handy later?

She took the men’s tea leaves, the women’s humidifiers, mini-fridges—everything went in.

The file cabinets were full of bidding documents and contracts, which were useless now. She dumped them out and took the empty cabinets too.

She was determined to leave nothing behind—not even the janitor’s disinfectant tablets.

The thirteenth floor was the renovation company.

Besides the usual office supplies and snacks, there were plenty of building materials—sample tiles, modular flooring, banana oil, waterproof coatings, all sorts of things. An Nan took them all.

She even found some blast-proof glass and five armored doors.

Now those were valuable. She checked them over—they were brand new, just as good as the ones at her own place.

Into the storage they went!

The next floor up was the group’s innovation tech company, established just three years ago.

An Nan remembered seeing on the news that they were developing a high-tech new fabric—supposedly comfortable, cut- and stab-resistant, and able to maintain a constant temperature.

She was very interested in that.

If such a miraculous fabric really existed, she wouldn’t have to suffer through extreme heat or cold anymore.

She searched the R&D department thoroughly, but only found some failed prototypes. The meeting room whiteboard was covered in incorrect data and ideas for improvement.

Apparently, the miracle fabric hadn’t been successfully developed yet.

An Nan was a little disappointed. “You haven’t even made any progress—why hype it up in the news? Just empty marketing.”

Leaving the R&D department, she continued exploring. In another department, something caught her eye.

Three brand-new drones, latest model, worth 300,000 each.

Long battery life, ultra-high-definition cameras.

An Nan happily took all three, along with every related spare part she could find.

After a quick sweep, she found nothing else of value on this floor and moved up to the fifteenth.

This was a seed company.

There were small samples of all kinds of seeds—grains, fruit trees, flowers—neatly organized.

She didn’t know what kind of “black tech” seeds they’d been developing, but to her, seeds meant hope.

With a wave of her hand, she swept them all into her storage.

After the floods, almost all crops had been destroyed. But as long as there were seeds, Blue Star still had a chance to recover.

After collecting the seeds, An Nan headed to the sixteenth floor—Taiyu Group’s newly established automotive R&D department.

She couldn’t help but marvel at how wide-ranging Taiyu’s interests were—they had a hand in everything.

But as she recalled, aside from electronics, Taiyu hadn’t made much of a splash in any other field.

Financially, they were always a step behind the Gu family’s conglomerate, only ranking second in the province.

Not that An Nan was in any position to judge—her own family’s business couldn’t compare, and she’d been kicked out by her scumbag dad anyway.

She wandered around the sixteenth floor. There were no concept cars, but she did find plenty of auto parts.

She didn’t care whether they’d fit her own car—she just took them all.

She also found ten boxes—four hundred bottles—of maintenance oil, which she added to her stash.

The company warehouse had car mats, child safety seats, and all sorts of automotive accessories—probably meant as employee perks.

Too bad the poor workers wouldn’t be needing them now.

An Nan took everything.

With this floor cleared, only the seventeenth—the top floor—remained.

She headed for the stairwell, about to go up, when suddenly she heard a lot of noisy footsteps coming from below.

An Nan’s heart skipped a beat. She stopped in her tracks: someone was coming."