My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 37
by Little PandaSplitting the Buildings
Men and women living in separate buildings? Doesn’t that mean she’d have to live in the same house as Mu Ning? No way! Ren Chenxi frowned, about to reject the proposal, but Zhang Tongqi on the other side beat her to it, shouting excitedly, “Great idea! I’ve been wanting to live separately from you stinky men for ages! You’re all so unhygienic!”
Chen Gu had only been trying to go along with his Boss’s wishes, helping her get to live with her boyfriend’s sister. He never expected to get called out by one of his own. He immediately retorted, annoyed, “Hey, hey, hey, we don’t even live on the same floor. How do you know we’re unhygienic!”
“Ha! You’ve got some nerve. We may not live on the same floor, but the toilet and bathroom are shared, aren’t they! We won’t even mention the various puddles you leave on the floor after using the toilet. But the bathroom! Could you please do us the favor of taking your dirty clothes and socks with you after you shower! Especially the stinky socks, they could kill a person! Don’t wait for us to find them and remind you before you finally take them away!” Before Zhang Tongqi could speak, another girl chimed in, unable to hold back her complaints. From her expression, it was clear she had been tolerating this for a long time.
“And even though we’re not on the same floor, whenever we come upstairs to call you for meals or missions, heh, good lord, we don’t even have to reach the door! The stench wafts out first. If we actually lived on the same floor as you, we wouldn’t be killed by zombies—we’d die from the smell first!” Zhang Tongqi nodded furiously, her face a mask of disgust.
And just like that, the refusal that was on the tip of Ren Chenxi’s tongue was forced back down. Men and women living together, sharing the same toilet and bathroom… it really was… not good! Besides, sharing a toilet felt very inconvenient and awkward…
“Eh, are all rural houses like this?” Tang Ying asked, finding it a bit much to take.
“I grew up in the countryside. A building like this with only one toilet is actually pretty good. In some places, several households have to share a public toilet outside…” Lu Ping, who was usually quiet, answered Tang Ying’s question.
“Then… can’t we just build another toilet on another floor?” Jian Dan added with a frown. Before, everyone had been willing to squeeze into the Teaching Building, but now that they had better accommodations, they were starting to get picky. Human hearts are just so hard to satisfy.
“Um… supplies are scarce right now, and we’re being frugal with these construction materials. We went through a lot of trouble and spent a lot of crystal cores just to buy two squat toilets1 and find workers to help with the modifications. Building another toilet on a different floor… is difficult!” Chen Gu was quite embarrassed to be called out so thoroughly by the girls. Thinking about it, they really were quite casual in their daily habits. If Xi-jie and the others were unwilling to split the buildings, it seemed necessary to build another toilet, but alas, the materials were truly in short supply!
“That’s right. The new buildings in the Villa Area were all modeled after the old houses’ structures, with toilets only on the first floor. One reason is to save on labor and materials, and the other is to conserve water.” Zhang Tongqi wanted an extra toilet on the other floors even more than Chen Gu did, but alas… With more and more survivors in the base, a large portion of the workers had been pulled away to construct new buildings, while another portion was mainly responsible for the base’s various defensive facilities. They didn’t have the skills to do the renovations themselves, and all the toilets and squat toilets in the uninhabited houses in the nearby areas had already been scavenged…
Hearing the heavy tone in Zhang Tongqi’s voice, everyone understood the difficulty of building another toilet at this stage. After a long silence, Jian Dan looked at Ren Chenxi hesitantly. “Xi-jie, why don’t we…”
Mu Ning was also looking at Ren Chenxi.
Feeling all eyes on her, Ren Chenxi gritted her teeth and nodded. “Alright then, we’ll split the buildings between men and women.” Hmph, so what if I have to live in the same building as Mu Ning? I definitely won’t be on the same floor as her!
With Ren Chenxi’s nod, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. For some reason, Mu Ning also felt a sense of ease. In a rare display, she flashed another smile at Ren Chenxi and said softly, “Shall we go to our place now, then? We need to bring Sun Jia to the new building. Oh, right, and we need to prepare to move~” Our place. That sounds nice.
“…” Sss, Wooden Goddess, can you please stop smiling? The more you smile, the more you creep me out!
Ren Chenxi turned her face away, just as Zhang Tongqi sidled up to her. “Xi-jie, if we’re moving, I have a lot of stuff. Uh… all of us girls have a lot of stuff. So, could we borrow your space to store it? I don’t want to run back and forth several times.”
“Yeah, sure.” They were all going to be neighbors, living upstairs and downstairs from each other. What was the big deal about lending a few inventory slots? Their van was still in her inventory, after all! As for the bus… well, that had been driven to the base’s parking lot by the long-haired Wei Yuze.
Since the living arrangements were settled, there was no need to tour the base any further. The group headed straight for the Villa Area to see the residence where they would be living for an unknown amount of time.
Before going to the new building, Ren Chenxi first followed Mu Ning to the old one… well, “new” and “old” were relative terms. In reality, they looked pretty much the same, with the two houses separated by a distance of about three people standing shoulder to shoulder. Ren Chenxi went to the old building first for two reasons: one, she had to help the girls pack their things, and two, she wanted to see the girl named Sun Jia and how serious her injuries were. Throughout the journey, Chen Gu, Zhang Tongqi, and the others had mentioned several times how bad Sun Jia’s condition was. If it was truly serious, she wouldn’t mind using a recovery card.
The “Villa Area” was really just a name the survivors used to comfort themselves. The so-called villas were just simple, plain, brick-and-mortar houses—the most common type of rural self-built house. They were nothing like the luxurious and beautiful villas in the countryside of Ren Chenxi’s original world. These self-built houses didn’t even have a coat of wall putty. The inside and outside were the same color, the original hue of stone, brick, or cement.
Fearing that Ren Chenxi would find it distasteful, Mu Ning quickly explained that various paints were hard to come by now, and workers wouldn’t waste time painting walls. However, she promised that when they went to search for supplies in cities farther away, they would look for paint, ceramic tiles, or wallpaper to bring back and decorate their home.
Ren Chenxi didn’t mind the plainness of the house. It was the apocalypse, after all. As long as the house was sturdy, didn’t let in wind or rain, and had all the basic facilities for a reasonably comfortable life, it was enough. Who cared about all that flashy, impractical decoration in the apocalypse? Oh, wait. The Fan family seemed to care a great deal. Otherwise, how could their mansions in the Luxury Mansion Area be as magnificent as palaces? They had probably monopolized all the decoration materials in the entire base.
But speaking of flashy magnificence… Ren Chenxi subconsciously turned to look at Tang Ying. Now a 3rd-order esper, the objects she crystallized were far sturdier than ordinary stone or brick. Having her coat the house in a layer of crystal seemed like a pretty good option! But they would only need to crystallize the interior walls. As for the exterior… hmm, better forget it. In a large area of plain rural houses like the Villa Area, a magnificent crystal palace suddenly appearing would be far too conspicuous and would attract a lot of hate.
Their group of ordinary common folk wasn’t like the Fan family, who deliberately made their residences so ostentatious to show off their status in the base. So, it was better to keep a low profile.
Tang Ying, who had been looking around curiously, felt Ren Chenxi’s gaze and turned her head, meeting her eyes. Seemingly understanding the meaning in Ren Chenxi’s look, Tang Ying actually gave her an “OK” sign.
“…” Did this little girl want to crystallize the interior walls herself, or… has she just gotten used to being bossed around by me?
This interaction between Ren Chenxi and Tang Ying made Mu Ning, who had been left to the side, unhappy again. She cleared her throat lightly, pulling Ren Chenxi’s attention back to her. “This building next to us is where we live now. We have a lot of things, so we’ll have to trouble you.”
“…” Big Sis, I only wanted to help your few friends move. I didn’t plan on including you! Do you have to be so overly familiar?2 Ren Chenxi really wanted to stand her ground and refuse Mu Ning directly, but then she thought about the house she was currently renting… and fell silent. Tsk, it’s just a few inventory slots. I won’t stoop to her level!
Without retorting or refusing, Ren Chenxi quietly followed Mu Ning toward the house on the left, which made Mu Ning’s mood brighten considerably. The main door of the house on the right was closed, so Jian Dan and the others followed Ren Chenxi, a large procession heading off to inspect the interior of a base villa.
Upon entering the main door, a large kitchen was on the left. From the doorway, Ren Chenxi could see a very old-fashioned stove3—the kind with an iron wok on top and a space for firewood below. The area to the right of the door was piled with various sundries. What amazed the group was the space under the window, where many flowerpots were neatly arranged, filled with all sorts of growing vegetables.
Oh, right. Mu Ning was a water-wood dual-system esper. With an ability like that, of course she had to make good use of it~
Seeing Ren Chenxi staring at the flowerpots, Mu Ning said, “We’ll move all these pots to the new building in a bit. Then everyone can pick whatever they want to eat.”
Chen Gu and the other guys: “…” Boss, at least leave a few pots for us!
After seeing the kitchen and the flowerpots, the group walked further inside. Right next to the staircase was a bathroom, and on the other side was a toilet room, with a sink in the middle. This made Ren Chenxi, who came from an era of peace, marvel. This rural house was quite sophisticated, even featuring a three-part separation design.4 The only difference was that the toilet room contained a squat toilet instead of a sitting one. The walls of the toilet room were roughly plastered with cement, making them relatively smooth, while the shower room walls were specially tiled, giving it a cleaner and tidier look. However… it would have been better if the dirty clothes hamper in the corner wasn’t stuffed full of stinky clothes and socks.
“Hey, hey, hey, our apologies! This, this, this… who left their clothes here again! I know, it must be Ge Yijin. He was the one who stayed behind to watch over Sun Jia yesterday…”
Having their lack of hygiene witnessed firsthand by a group of girls, Chen Gu and the others rushed into the shower room in embarrassment and hastily carried the dirty clothes hamper out. Seeing this, Ren Chenxi felt fortunate that she had made the wise choice to split the buildings. But… this Wooden Goddess had seemed like a total neat freak back at university. How did she tolerate the sloppiness of these guys?
Perhaps sensing Ren Chenxi’s confusion, Mu Ning quickly explained, “I’ve never run into this situation. When everyone is usually around, I’m the first one to use the bathroom!”
“…” Well, of course. You’re the boss of this group, so your status is the highest. So basically, as long as you haven’t showered, none of your underlings would dare occupy the bathroom!
After hastily dealing with the laundry hamper, Chen Gu clearly wanted to change the subject away from the bathroom and their unhygienic habits. He abruptly pointed upstairs to the second floor and said, “The first floor is really just the kitchen and toilet. Does everyone want to see the second floor? But the girls live up there, so it’s not convenient for the guys to visit. Oh, right, Sun Jia is on the second floor. Xi-jie, why don’t you go take a look at her injuries?”
The author has something to say:
Chen ‘Wingman’ Gu: Ahhh, this is so embarrassing! A bunch of girls saw how messy we guys are!
Wooden Goddess: Well done!
Chen ‘Wingman’ Gu: ???
The rural self-built houses are based on the ones in my area. I’m not exaggerating. In my grandma’s old village, every house had a courtyard, but no toilet; they used the public one outside. There are basically no young people in that area anymore, only the elderly, so they all have chamber pots. But I haven’t been back in a long time, so I don’t know what it’s like now. The setting in the game is from an era before smartphones, so conditions would only be worse.
Also, the messy guys piling up dirty clothes and stinky socks is based on my dad… I really can’t stand it…
Footnotes
- A toilet used by squatting rather than sitting. They are common in many parts of Asia and the Middle East.
- The original term is ‘zilaishu,’ a Chinese term for someone who warms up to strangers very quickly and acts familiar with them right away, which can sometimes be seen as forward or presumptuous.
- A traditional rural stove, typically built from brick or clay, with a large wok set into the top and an opening below to feed firewood.
- A bathroom layout, popular in Japan and increasingly elsewhere, where the toilet, sink, and shower/bath are in separate, enclosed compartments for simultaneous use.
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