My Dating Sim Just Got an Update - Chapter 43

“Wolf meat? You mean from those mutated wolves everyone processed this morning?” Mu Ning looked at Ren Chenxi with a hint of surprise. “When exactly did you find the time to harvest wolf meat?”

“While you were busy digging out crystal nuclei!” Ren Chenxi lied through her teeth without batting an eye.

Liar. Mu Ning stared at her. When I was digging for nuclei, you were clearly smashing zombies much further away from the wolf carcasses. Mu Ning realized this person carried a great many secrets. But no matter how curious she was, Ren Chenxi certainly wouldn’t tell her. In fact, it seemed she didn’t want Mu Ning to notice these secrets at all. Letting out a quiet sigh, Mu Ning chose neither to expose the lie nor to press further. Instead, she answered seriously, “Tantan hasn’t tried wolf meat yet. Usually, when we hunt mutated wolves, we eat the meat ourselves. We specifically hunt chickens and other common animals for Tantan.”

Seeing that Mu Ning wasn’t going to pursue the origin of the meat, Ren Chenxi breathed a secret sigh of relief. However, she quickly began to fret over whether Tantan would actually eat it. “Sigh… Tantan used to be a very picky eater… uh, or so my brother told me. I’m not sure how he’ll feel about wolf meat since he’s never had it.”

“Why don’t you try feeding him a small piece and see? After Tantan mutated, his bodily functions became much stronger. Last time he managed to sneak a piece of chocolate and he was perfectly fine, though it scared the life out of us for a long time…”

“Tantan, you’ve been stealing chocolate?” At the mention of chocolate, Ren Chenxi’s face darkened instantly. She held Tantan up and scolded him sternly, “Why can’t you ever break that habit of stealing food?” Back when Ren Chenxi raised Tantan in her apartment, he was picky about cat food but intensely curious about human food. Whenever she ate, he would stay by her side, pawing at her in hopes of a bite. She had also found bite marks on the snack bags hidden in her cabinets more than once. No matter how much she doted on him, she would always give him a severe lecture in those moments.

Usually, when a cat is scolded by its owner, it either acts aloof or plays innocent—essentially ignoring the lecture. But Tantan was different; he would let out a series of soft, delicate, and aggrieved meows, acting spoiled until Ren Chenxi’s heart inevitably softened.

Just like now.

“Meow meow meow meow meow—” Tantan began nuzzling her head while letting out a string of sweet meows. Ren Chenxi was so overwhelmed by his affection that she could only manage a stern warning: “Don’t you dare do it again!”

“Meow meow meow meow meow~”

However, it was always the same with Tantan. He was humble in admitting his mistakes now, but he would absolutely do it again next time. In the past, Ren Chenxi had to go to great lengths to hide things he couldn’t eat. Now… well, at least he was a mutated cat. If he accidentally ate something he shouldn’t, it likely wouldn’t lead to a major disaster.

“Honestly!” Ren Chenxi shook her head helplessly. She gave Tantan’s little head several firm rubs and huffed, “Since you’ve been stealing food again, there’s no feast for you today. You’re getting wolf meat! You’ll eat it even if you don’t like it, or you can go hungry!”

“Meow meow meow meow meow~”

Ren Chenxi’s intention was to give Tantan a small punishment to make him learn a lesson. But given her soft spot for him, she knew that if he truly couldn’t eat the wolf meat, she would eventually find other meat to fill his belly. To her surprise, the mutated Tantan’s teeth and claws were much sharper now. Even though wolf meat was lean and tough, he could snap through it in a single bite. Furthermore… Tantan didn’t really chew much anymore; with just a couple of grinds, he swallowed it right down.

Watching Tantan eat the wolf meat effortlessly, Ren Chenxi’s brow furrowed. The toughness of the meat wasn’t an issue for him, but… she had heard that wolf meat was gamey and pungent. How could Tantan be eating it with such gusto?

Indeed, Tantan showed no hesitation with the bowl of meat. His eating manner remained elegant, and the engine-like sound of his purring was constant. In just a few moments, the entire bowl of fresh, hand-cut wolf meat had vanished.

Ren Chenxi knew Tantan well; he wouldn’t eat something he disliked with such enthusiasm. When she first rescued him from the trash, he was riddled with health issues and hated taking medicine. Later in life, if he had a minor ailment, he would roll around and act pitiful to avoid his meds. He would even spit out pills she tried to hide in his food.

Ren Chenxi spoiled Tantan, perhaps to a fault. However, she never compromised when it came to his health. Consequently, after all his fussing, Tantan would eventually have to swallow his medicine under her stern gaze, drooping his head and grumbling.

Later, when she visited the home of the girl she had boarded Tantan with—the girlfriend of her friend Liang Bing—she saw the girl forcefully pilling a cat and realized… for normal cats, that was how it was done!

When Tantan was small and sick, the vet had pilled him that way too. But one day, Ren Chenxi watched the vet pill an orange tabby. The vet simply placed the tablet in his palm and held it out; the cat ate it in one go. This led the inexperienced Ren Chenxi to a massive misunderstanding: she thought kittens had to be pilled by force, but adult cats just ate the medicine themselves!

From then on, whenever Tantan needed medicine, she would hold her palm out just like the vet did with the tabby. Tantan, having grown up taking medicine, knew the foul-tasting stuff was meant for him. Even knowing he’d have to eat it eventually, he would always throw a tantrum first before reluctantly swallowing it.

Because of this, Ren Chenxi knew exactly what Tantan looked like when he was faced with something he didn’t want to eat.

“Meow meow meow meow~” A series of soft meows snapped Ren Chenxi out of her memories. Glancing at Tantan’s empty bowl and his satisfied expression, she smiled. Honestly, who am I to decide what a cat likes? To humans, wolf meat might be gamey, but maybe cats liked strong flavors. Besides, Tantan was a mutated cat now; his diet was bound to change.

Regardless, she had finally found a use for all that mutated wolf meat in her backpack.

While Ren Chenxi was feeding Tantan, the group of girls headed to the bathroom in the new building next door. Mu Ning had already filled the water tower on the roof, but since there was no water heater, they had to boil water on a wood stove and mix it with cold water. It wasn’t as convenient as it used to be, but for the girls, being able to bathe at all was a blessing. They didn’t care about the lack of showers or fancy heaters.

After the hardships of the road, the girls were covered in various “scents.” Seeing Mu Ning’s group looking so clean—even the boys had fresh, non-greasy hair—made the girls, whose hair was matted with oil, even more desperate to refresh themselves. The bathroom in the new building was identical to the one in the old house, large enough to accommodate four people at once.

Tang Ying and Lu Ping from S University were used to public bathhouses, and Jian Dan’s trio was close enough that bathing together wasn’t awkward. Tang Ying and Lu Ping had their own clean clothes, while Ren Chenxi provided new clothes for Jian Dan’s group. Their old clothes and supplies had been stolen by the gang earlier. Even though those scumbags were dead now, they didn’t want to touch their old clothes after they had been mixed in with the gang’s belongings.

The girls bathed in two shifts. Perhaps because of the upcoming feast or the habits formed from saving water, they worked quickly, keeping each shift under twenty minutes. For those used to “combat showers,” twenty minutes might seem long, but ten minutes wasn’t nearly enough to scrub away days of accumulated grime.

By the time the girls emerged, smelling fresh and clean, the aroma of cooking began to waft from the house next door.

Having fed Tantan, Ren Chenxi wasn’t in a hurry to bathe. She wasn’t particularly dirty, as she had wiped herself down before leaving the hotel. More importantly… the enticing smell from the kitchen made her stomach growl even louder. Some expert once said you shouldn’t bathe on an empty stomach! So, she decided to fill her belly before having a proper wash.

According to the typical layout of a self-built rural house, there should have been a dining area right outside the kitchen. However, this house had no dining table in sight. Sun Jia, whose arm injury kept her from helping in the kitchen, explained to Ren Chenxi that they actually had a large round table, but they rarely used it. Usually, after a mission or a supply run, everyone was so exhausted that no one had the energy to cook a feast and sit together. They would just boil water for bread or crackers. If they got tired of dry food, they might have instant noodles with a few fresh vegetables. Only on very rare occasions did they gather for a hotpot.

Hearing this, Ren Chenxi couldn’t help but marvel at how “unpretentious” the female lead’s life was, despite being a Level 5 ability user. Of course, their “unpretentious” life would be considered a luxury to the ordinary people living in tin shacks at the base.

As they spoke, Mu Ning dragged a folded round table out from the storage area under the stairs. Seeing this, Sun Jia hurried forward to help. But how could Ren Chenxi stand by and let someone with a severe arm injury do the heavy lifting? Even though she didn’t really want to help Mu Ning, she stepped forward to assist.

However, Ren Chenxi forgot that she was technically an injured person herself.

Support