Chapter 4

The rain outside the window had been falling continuously for an entire week.

At first, it was just an ordinary spring rain, but soon, the news broadcasts were flooded with jarring phrases like "once-in-a-century" and "unprecedented."

Several low-lying overseas countries and coastal cities had already suffered severe floods. The television screens were filled with cars being swallowed by muddy seawater and refugees trapped on rooftops battling for survival.

Domestically, several southern cities had successively issued red rainstorm alerts, and the stagnant water in some older districts had already risen past waist level.

Ordinary people were still just complaining about terrible commutes and molding clothes, but in my eyes, this sky full of rain was explicitly the countdown to death.

Over this year, my underground bunker and deep-sea fleet had been completely finished.

The abandoned underground facility on the edge of the city had now been transformed into an impenetrable steel fortress.

The living quarters were equipped with state-of-the-art air circulation systems and a full suite of medical equipment.

The middle tier, housing multi-level soil-less hydroponic greenhouses and enough strategic food reserves to sustain thousands of people for three years, gleamed reassuringly under the cool-toned lights.

And in the hidden dry dock on the lowest level lay two heavily armored, icebreaker-class supply ships, along with the miniature deep-sea submarine I had poured a fortune into securing through underground channels.

It lay silently in the deep water, ready to slice through the massive waves and birth a new life for me the moment everything was totally submerged.

At this moment, I was sitting in the central command room of the bunker, the screens in front of me flickering with faint light.

I was drafting the initial roster for bunker entry and boarding.

Coldly typing on the keyboard, I entered heavily vetted names into the system. The list included top-tier network engineers, general practitioners, hydroelectric equipment maintenance experts, and a few ordinary people who, in my past life during that hellish flood, had risked their lives to share half a biscuit and a sip of water with me.

In this life, I was giving them a ticket to survival.

At the very bottom of the list, I paused, then slowly typed out a few special names.

Sarah, and the soon-to-be-born "my" child in her womb.

Mark and Chloe.

And, David.

Looking at these names, I smiled silently in the dim command room.

How could I possibly leave them outside to simply drown? That would be too easy on them.

I was going to bring them into this underwater world where I made the rules, letting them watch with their own eyes as they lost absolutely everything.

After uploading the roster to the independent server via a secured network, I composed myself and returned to the high-rise apartment in the city center.

The moment I walked in the door, a heavily pregnant Sarah came up to greet me.

Because of the pregnancy, she had become increasingly demanding lately, but to maintain her "virtuous" facade, she still forced a gentle smile and helped take my dripping umbrella.

"Honey, you're finally back. It's pouring out there. I've pretty much finalized all the wedding details with the planners," she said, taking my arm and pulling me to sit on the couch, then seemingly casually bringing up the topic. "Oh, my brother called again today. You know his project is just one step away from the finish line. Could you help him out one last time? Pay off their final debts completely, so that once we’re married, they’ll have a clean slate. They promise they will never bother you again."

Completely pay off debts? Clean slate?

I sneered internally.

These leeches were endlessly greedy. Even on the eve of the city’s annihilation, their eyes were still fixated on tearing the last strip of flesh from my bones.

"Sarah, you know..." I rubbed my temples in exhaustion, perfectly portraying the image of an honest man who deeply loved his fiancée but was suffocated by reality. "The economy is bad lately. Most of my liquid assets and real estate have been mortgaged and dumped into that Extreme Climate Emergency Project. Even this apartment is mortgaged right now."

In reality, over the past few months, using layers of offshore shell companies and complex financial leverage, I had already drained every drop of premium assets and cash flow, converting it all into resources for the bunker and fuel for the submarine.

What remained on the books was just an empty shell about to be wiped out by the flood.

"Just think of a way!" Sarah's tone carried a hint of impatience. "It's the very last sum. Are you just going to watch me, pregnant with a huge belly, worrying myself sick over my family?"

She even brought out the bastard in her womb to threaten me.

I glanced down at her stomach, my eyes turning unimaginably cold for a split second before I looked up, reverting to a gaze full of helpless compromise. "Alright. I'll find a way to scrape it together. For you and the baby, I'll grit my teeth and pull through."

Hearing my promise, Sarah’s eyes immediately lit up. With visible relief, she kissed my cheek. "I knew you were the best to me!"

That night, she snuck into the bathroom to text the good news to that man named David, without any suspense whatsoever.

And I lay in the bedroom, listening to the wind and rain outside growing increasingly violent.

Three days later, sirens ripped through the city's sky.

Red alert sirens wailed mournfully over every single street.

Texts from the flood control department were blasted to everyone's phones at unprecedented frequencies.

The upstream reservoirs have exceeded their limits and will be forced to release floodwaters.

The main arteries in the south of the city have been completely submerged by backflowing river water.

Government broadcasts urgently called for residents in low-lying areas to immediately gather essential supplies and evacuate to higher ground and shelters.

The countdown to the apocalypse had officially hit zero.

I stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, looking at the street below that had already turned into a raging river, watching the washed-away cars and the panicked crowds.

In the living room behind me, Sarah was frantically packing jewelry and a few expensive designer bags. Her phone was ringing non-stop, flooded with SOS voice messages from Mark and Chloe, who were trapped by the rising waters at Galaxy Bay.

I ignored them entirely.

I simply pulled out my phone and transmitted the startup command to my underground bunker.

It had begun.