My Dating Sim Just Got an Update - Chapter 46

Amidst Ren Chenxi’s distracted thoughts, the lavish lunch was quickly finished. Despite the massive spread and the mountain of rice, the girls maintained their elegant manners. However, these were survivors who had been toughened by two years of the apocalypse; no matter how refined and graceful they appeared, their speed in scooping rice and snagging side dishes was certainly not slow. After all, this was a feast of rare delicacies they rarely had the chance to touch. If they were too slow, they would simply miss out and who knew when they would ever eat like this again?

Thus, by the time Ren Chenxi snapped back to reality, she discovered the table had been completely cleared. Even the pot of radish, corn, and beef stew had been drained to the last drop. She stared in shock at the girls, who were now patting their full bellies with expressions of utter satisfaction. Are you girls the reincarnation of hungry ghosts?

Seeing the look on Ren Chenxi’s face, Mu Ning curled her lips into a smile. “That’s what you get for zoning out during a meal.” Because you didn’t eat with as much gusto as before, I ended up eating less too. “Something as important as eating…”

Should be enjoyed seriously with a happy and joyful heart, Ren Chenxi finished the sentence instinctively. Then, she froze.

Mu Ning stared at her, asking casually, “You know that saying too?”

“Ah… my brother used to say it to me all the time, so I remembered it…” Ren Chenxi continued to push the responsibility onto Ren Muhui.

This time, however, Mu Ning didn’t press her with endless questions. She simply nodded and said in a nostalgic tone, “Yes. I also heard it a few times from Ren Muhui and committed it to memory. I thought I’d never hear it again, but I didn’t expect to hear those exact words from you…”

Mu Ning used to hate eating breakfast, but once Ren Muhui found out about that habit, he insisted on bringing her breakfast every day. Sometimes it was bread and milk from the campus convenience store; sometimes it was soy milk and buns he had fought the crowds for in the cafeteria. But most of the time, he cooked it himself—a bowl of light preserved egg and pork congee, tiny handmade wontons, or a simple but nutritionally balanced sandwich.

The reason she could distinguish between what was bought and what was handmade was that the breakfasts Ren Muhui prepared were always kept in cute, beautiful little lunchboxes. Mu Ning had no idea how many different containers he had prepared just to send her food. Sadly, back then, she didn’t like Ren Muhui, and by extension, she despised the food he brought. Often, the moment he left, she would hand the meal off to whatever girl happened to be nearby. Sometimes the girls returned the lunchboxes; other times, they were simply tossed aside and lost.

Eventually, Mu Ning grew so annoyed by his persistence that she rejected him to his face, telling him never to bring her breakfast again. She claimed eating breakfast was too much trouble and she didn’t want to waste time on it. At that moment, Ren Muhui had stared at her, wide-eyed with disbelief, and said, “How could something as important as eating be a ‘trouble’? You should enjoy it seriously with a happy and joyful heart! Skipping breakfast is very harmful to the body—especially the stomach!”

He was right; skipping breakfast really was hard on the stomach. That was likely why she later suffered from stomachaches, leading Ren Muhui to buy her medicine and supervise her for three days. For some reason, she had actually listened to him and taken the pills. Later, after a girl teased her about finally accepting Ren Muhui, she began refusing his breakfasts again. To make her point, she had emptied out a bottle that was still mostly full of pills and tossed the empty container back to him.

That bottle looked very similar to the one Ren Chenxi had used for the “detox medicine.”

Thinking of those discarded pills and the breakfasts she had given away, Mu Ning let out a soft sigh.

“…” Seeing the sadness and nostalgia in Mu Ning’s eyes, Ren Chenxi pursed her lips. She wanted to snap that Ren Muhui was gone and nostalgia was useless, but… forget it. Considering how good the lunch was, she couldn’t be bothered to argue. Keep a level head, she told herself. Don’t dwell on the past. Since Mu Ning was now her landlord—and a rent-free one at that—she would try her best to treat her with a normal, polite attitude.

While Mu Ning and Ren Chenxi were talking, Zhang Tongqi and Wu Tong rose to clear the table. The other girls jumped up, competing to help. Seeing everyone so proactive, Zhang Tongqi couldn’t help but criticize the boys again.

“Sigh! I’m so glad we’re going to be neighbors with you guys instead. You have no idea—when we ate with Chen Gu and the others, the boys always tried to get out of washing the dishes. If they couldn’t get out of it, they’d procrastinate. They’d leave the lunch dishes until after dinner so they could wash them all at once!”

Wu Tong joined in the venting. “Exactly! Finally, we couldn’t take it anymore and separated from them. We washed our own dishes, and they washed theirs. And guess what?”

“They didn’t wash them and just used dirty bowls every time?”

“Yes! It’s the apocalypse; maybe some people would use the same bowl for several meals just to save water. But we have the Boss, a water-user! We aren’t short on water at all! How can those boys be that lazy?”

“If they’re like that with dishes, imagine the laundry! It’s a good thing you didn’t go up to the third floor for a tour. I doubt they had the nerve to show you anyway—the sofas, the coffee table, every surface that can hold an object is piled high with their dirty clothes!!!”

“…” The girls who had been wearing the same clothes for days and arrived at the base with greasy hair didn’t dare utter a sound.

Zhang Tongqi didn’t notice their embarrassment and continued her tirade. “With that many dirty clothes piled up, do you think they’d finally wash them? No! They just dig through the pile to find the one that looks the least dirty and put it back on!!!”

The girls, whose clothes were stained and starting to smell from the journey, all stared intently at the floor.

The observant Sun Jia quickly noticed the girls’ discomfort and laughed to break the tension. “Alright, alright! We only get to be this picky because we live here. If you look at any other house in the villa district, I bet it’s messier than Chen Gu’s place. If you didn’t have Chen Gu and the others limiting your daily water usage, you’d be piling up laundry too.”

“Aww, but we have the Boss~ so naturally we should be clean and hygienic~” Wu Tong countered stubbornly.

Because of the venting session, the girls—who were used to strict water conservation—secretly decided that to avoid being labeled as unhygienic, they would be a bit more “extravagant” with their water usage from now on.

Ren Chenxi didn’t feel any of the girls’ awkwardness. After all, she had been quite lavish with her water usage on the road. Relying on her large wardrobe, she simply discarded clothes that were too dirty or torn and replaced them with brand-new ones. However, hearing Sun Jia mention limited water usage, Ren Chenxi turned to Mu Ning. “By the way, you’re waiving my rent because I’m curing Sun Jia, but what about the water bill? How do we calculate that?”

“A little water is nothing to me. Besides, we’re living together now and sharing the same water tower. It would be hard to split, so don’t worry about the water bill,” Mu Ning said, shaking her head slightly.

“No…”

Before Ren Chenxi could refuse, Mu Ning added, “You’re curing Sun Jia’s addiction to cover the rent. If you also heal that severe shoulder wound of hers, we’ll call it even for the water. How does that sound?”

Put that way, it seemed reasonable. Ren Chenxi nodded and shot Mu Ning a glance. “You certainly have a lot of faith in my medicine.”

“Aren’t you the one who’s so confident in it?” Mu Ning countered with a raised eyebrow.

“…” Ren Chenxi didn’t argue. Her eyes fell on the hanging light in the kitchen, and she asked casually, “Then what about electricity? We should at least split that, right? Since we’re neighbors in the same building now… should we go halves?”

“Electricity?” Mu Ning paused, then looked at Sun Jia. “Have we ever paid for electricity?”

Sun Jia shook her head with a smile. “Boss, you forgot. The boys pay for the electricity. Since we usually only use the lights, while the boys play video games, they use much more than we do. They just handle the electricity purchases themselves.”

“Purchase electricity?”

“Yes. The base doesn’t provide power. If survivors want electricity, they have to buy it from lightning-type ability users.”

“Lightning users can sell power directly? How?” Ren Chenxi found this fascinating.

“Using generators. We found this generator in an abandoned factory and had a technician at the base modify it for us. Now, a lightning user can channel power through the generator to store it in two large mobile power stations.”

“Wow! So lightning users are just as popular as water users! How many are there in the base? And what’s the price?” Tang Ying asked enviously.

“There are only two lightning users in the whole base. One is a Level 4 user who belongs to the Fan family; he only provides power for their territory. The other is a Level 3 user who provides for the rest of the base. I say ‘the whole base,’ but in reality, very few survivors can afford it. Most of the users are here in the villa district or in the family housing for the base management.”

“Because he’s the only one selling, electricity is more expensive than water!” Wu Tong explained. “He charges 10 Level 1 nuclei for 1,000 mAh. Our two power stations have a capacity of 500,000 mAh each, so filling them both costs 10,000 Level 1 nuclei!”

“…Hiss, that’s so expensive!” Tang Ying stuck her tongue out in shock. “That lightning user can just sit at home all day and earn nuclei.”

“It really is expensive!” Wu Tong agreed, nodding vigorously. “So even though the boys love playing games, they don’t dare waste power. The charge in those two stations lasts for about 60 hours of gaming. They only dare play for two hours a day at most.”

Even playing two hours a day is a luxury compared to ordinary people! Most people wouldn’t spend 10,000 nuclei a month just for video games. That was clearly the confidence that came from being backed by a Level 5 powerhouse.

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