My Dating Sim Just Got an Update - Chapter 49

With the help of Ren Chenxi’s backpack, the girls’ move proceeded quite rapidly. The real challenge lay in the aftermath: organizing and decorating the rooms. After all, this was where they would be living for the foreseeable future, and everyone wanted to make their space as comfortable as possible according to their own tastes.

Considering Sun Jia’s weakened physical state, the girls discussed it and unanimously decided to let Mu Ning and Sun Jia stay on the second floor. Ren Chenxi, Jian Dan’s trio, and Huo Keyu would take the third floor, while the girls from S University would occupy the fourth.

Each floor consisted of four rooms and a large hall. In cases where the number of people far exceeded the number of bedrooms, they would either have to squeeze multiple people into one room or partition the hall into smaller living spaces. However, after two years in the apocalypse, Jian Dan and the students from S University were well-accustomed to communal living. They had originally expected to be crammed into classrooms upon reaching the Nanhai Base; finding themselves in a free “villa” even if only one floor of it—was already a dream come true.

While organizing the rooms, however, Jian Dan and the others ran into a problem.

When helping Zhang Tongqi move, the girls had only assisted in packing small items. All the large pieces of furniture had been swept into Ren Chenxi’s backpack in one go. When the girls finally returned to their respective rooms in the new building to unpack, they stared at the empty spaces and realized they were missing the most essential piece of furniture: a bed!

In the apocalypse, beds weren’t strictly necessary; Jian Dan and her group were used to sleeping on the ground. But now that they finally had their own rooms and a private space to call their own, was it really too much to ask for the luxury of a bed?

Consequently, the girls swarmed down to the second floor. While helping Zhang Tongqi and the others unpack, they took the opportunity to ask where one could buy a bed within the base.

Hearing that the girls wanted beds, Sun Jia, who was resting due to her injuries, offered a few practical suggestions. The first and cheapest method was to find discarded iron frames and assemble them themselves. Most people in the base used DIY iron beds. Iron scraps weren’t hard to find since construction was happening everywhere, and scrap metal was often left behind at work sites. However, assembling them required skill; if done poorly, the bed would creak all night at best, or collapse entirely at worst.

Upon hearing about the technical difficulties and potential for collapse, the girls quickly asked if there were options that involved spending money. Since they were willing to pay, Sun Jia offered a more cost-effective suggestion: go outside the base to fell trees, then hire a carpenter within the base. This wasn’t just for beds; as long as they provided the materials, carpenters could build almost any furniture for a small fee. Most of the furniture they currently used was made this way—it wasn’t pretty, but it was sturdy and durable.

The girls agreed that gathering timber and hiring a carpenter was the best path forward. In the apocalypse, plants grew wildly, and there was no shortage of trees to cut down. As for the heavy lifting and sanding of the wood, Chen Gu and the other boys, along with the strength-based ability users, could help with their tools. Just as the girls were enthusiastically planning tomorrow’s logging trip and resigning themselves to sleeping on the floor for one more night, Ren Chenxi strolled past and dropped a casual comment.

“Is all that really necessary? I have plenty of beds.”

A dozen pairs of eyes snapped toward Ren Chenxi simultaneously.

Under the intensity of their gazes, Ren Chenxi continued, “As for wardrobes and shelves… did everyone forget the supermarket we passed this morning? There’s likely a warehouse underneath. Even if the inventory was cleared out, there are always things people couldn’t be bothered to move.” Since she had already accepted a meal from Mu Ning and owed her a favor, Ren Chenxi no longer intended to keep the contents of that underground warehouse for herself.

The girls’ eyes gleamed with a predatory hunger.

Right! How could they have forgotten the warehouse beneath the supermarket? That was an entire warehouse! With Ren Chenxi’s massive spatial ability, they could probably strip the place bare… couldn’t they?

Thinking of this, Zhang Tongqi asked curiously, “Sister Xi, just how big is your space? It fits an entire bus, our van, and you still have room for multiple beds?”

“Yeah! We used to team up with another spatial user,” Wu Tong added. “He was always nervous when we scavenged, reminding us not to take large, useless items because he’d run out of room. But seeing you pack entire beds suggests you don’t have that problem at all?”

While Zhang and Wu were curious about the dimensions, Jian Dan and her friends were more focused on why Ren Chenxi was carrying around a surplus of beds during an apocalypse. Did she just discard a bed and pull out a new one whenever she found a place to sleep? Spatial users truly lived on a different level.

Listening to the chatter, Ren Chenxi raised a hand in a “stop” gesture before giving a half-truthful explanation.

“Well, my space is fairly large. As for exactly how big… maybe… about the size of a football field?” Ren Chenxi didn’t know the exact cubic volume of ten thousand slots that could stack 999 items each, so she just picked a large-sounding metric.

Sure enough, the “football field” comparison caused several girls to gasp and widen their eyes. In their wildest guesses, they had only imagined a space the size of a basketball court. A football field was beyond their imagination!

A football field was perfect! It meant they could go to that warehouse tomorrow and vacuum up every single item without holding back.

Smiling at the girls’ unshielded excitement, Ren Chenxi continued calmly, “Since the space is so big, I tend to be a bit lazy when scavenging. For example, I originally just wanted the clean sheets, quilts, and pillows from a hotel. But taking them one by one was too tedious, so I just took the whole beds.”

This part wasn’t a lie. Although Ren Chenxi could manifest items anywhere within a three-meter radius, she had to physically touch an object to put it into her inventory. If she touched a pillow, she got a pillow. If she touched a quilt, she got a quilt. But if she touched the bed frame itself, the system seemed to treat the bed as a “container.” The item description in her backpack would simply read: One Set of Bedding.

See? The bed was essentially just a container for the bedding. What’s more, they actually stacked! One set, two sets…

Because it was more efficient than individual packing, Ren Chenxi had gone through every room of a hotel before she left, taking every clean, untouched bed she found. In the apocalypse, where washing clothes was a chore, having spare linens was a luxury. She had originally collected them to save water on laundry; she hadn’t expected the bed frames themselves to come in handy.

To prove her point, Ren Chenxi reached into her backpack and pulled out a luxury king-sized bed, complete with a set of pristine bedding.

“Ahhh! It’s so soft! This mattress… Sister Xi, is this from a five-star hotel?” Chang Ling didn’t hesitate to throw herself onto the mattress.

“Yes, it’s from a five-star hotel.”

With Ren Chenxi’s confirmation, Chang Ling refused to get up. “Can I have this one? This is my bed now!”

“Fine, it’s yours!” Song Xin teased from the side. “You’ve already rolled all over it; who else would want it?”

“Hey! You don’t get to judge! I never complained when you insisted on squeezing onto my tiny bed back at S University!”

As Chang Ling and Song Xin bickered, Wu Tong looked at the clean, comfortable bed with undisguised envy, whispering softly, “That’s so nice.”

The bed she currently used was small and hard as a rock, consisting of a few blankets and a sheet thrown over wooden boards. In the hotel they usually stayed at when they were out on missions, there were plenty of soft mattresses, but their van was small. Every inch of space was reserved for vital supplies or hunted prey; there was simply no room for a bulky mattress. Back then, they were used to hardship and felt lucky just to have a bed at all, rather than sleeping on the floor.

But now, watching Chang Ling roll around happily on that plush mattress, Wu Tong couldn’t help but miss the comfort she had known before the world ended.

Hearing Wu Tong’s murmur and seeing the longing on the faces of Zhang Tongqi and Sun Jia, Ren Chenxi offered, “I have plenty of these hotel beds. Do you guys want some?” As she asked, she glanced at Mu Ning, who was quietly organizing her belongings.

Sensing Ren Chenxi’s gaze, Mu Ning looked up and met her eyes. She nodded without a hint of hesitation. “In that case, I’ll take one too, please.”

“…” Elder sister, we might be on better terms now, but aren’t you getting a bit too comfortable? It was the same way when you asked me to help you move!

Ren Chenxi grumbled internally, but she couldn’t bring herself to refuse. With Mu Ning taking the lead, Wu Tong, Sun Jia, and the others felt comfortable enough to shyly accept a bed for themselves as well.

After going to Mu Ning’s room to set up the bed, Mu Ning thanked her with a casualness that felt almost domestic, and Ren Chenxi responded with a natural “you’re welcome.” As their eyes met—Mu Ning’s filled with a faint smile—Ren Chenxi suddenly froze.

Perhaps… this was enough? Her identity now was Ren Chenxi. If she just treated her current self as a completely new person and wiped the slate clean, she could actually coexist with Mu Ning like this.

But could the past ever truly be erased?

Regardless, she decided to let things be for now. After all, her ultimate mission was to survive in this post-apocalyptic world for ten years.

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