My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 49
by Little PandaThe Luxurious King-Sized Bed
With Ren Chenxi’s backpack to help, the girls’ move was actually quite fast. The main trouble was the subsequent tidying and decorating of the rooms. After all, this was a place they would be living in for the long term, so of course, they had to arrange it comfortably according to their own preferences.
Considering Sun Jia’s weak condition, the girls discussed it and unanimously decided that Mu Ning’s group and Sun Jia would live on the second floor. Ren Chenxi, Jian Dan’s trio, and Huo Keyu would take the third floor, and the girls from S University would live on the fourth.
Each floor had four rooms and a large hall. If the number of people far exceeded the number of rooms, they would naturally have to squeeze multiple people into one room or partition the hall into several more. But in the two years of the apocalypse, Jian Dan’s group and the students from S University had all grown accustomed to communal living. They had originally thought that upon arriving at Nanhai Base, they would probably all be crammed into a classroom together. To now get a “villa” to live in for free—even if it was only one floor—was already fantastic!
However, while organizing their rooms, Jian Dan’s group ran into a problem.
When they had helped Zhang Tongqi’s group move, Jian Dan and the others had only helped pack the smaller items. As for the large pieces of furniture, Ren Chenxi had swept them all into her backpack in one go. Now, after helping bring everything to the new building, the girls returned to their respective rooms to tidy up, only to stare at the empty spaces and suddenly realize they were missing the most important piece of furniture—a bed!
Alright, in the apocalypse, a bed wasn’t that important. Jian Dan and her friends were more than used to sleeping on the floor. But now, they had their own rooms! With a space of their own, was it really too much to extravagantly ask for a bed?
And so, the girls crowded onto the second floor again. While helping Zhang Tongqi and the others organize, they took the opportunity to ask where one could buy beds in the base.
Hearing that the girls wanted to buy beds, Sun Jia, who wasn’t busy due to her injuries and weakness, gave them a few good suggestions. The first and cheapest method was to find some discarded iron frames and assemble an iron frame bed themselves. The beds of many people in the base were basically assembled this way. Iron frames weren’t hard to find; with construction happening everywhere in the base, they could find some discarded ones at construction sites. But iron frame beds were difficult to assemble and required some technical skill. A poor assembly job could, at best, result in a bed that squeaked and groaned all night; at worst, the bed could collapse while they were sleeping on it.
Hearing that they had to assemble the beds themselves and that there were so many potential problems, the girls quickly asked about options that cost money. Since they were willing to spend, Sun Jia gave them a more practical suggestion: go outside the base to chop wood themselves, then hire a carpenter in the base to help. In fact, it wasn’t just for beds; for any other furniture, as long as you prepared the materials, you could find a carpenter to build it for you, and you only had to pay a small fee for the labor. Most of the furniture they were currently using had been made by carpenters in the base. Although the style wasn’t pretty, its sturdiness and durability were its strengths.
After hearing Sun Jia’s explanation, the girls agreed that it was better to chop wood and find a carpenter. The apocalypse had caused all sorts of plants to grow wildly outside, so they could chop down any tree they wanted. As for chopping the wood and sanding the resulting planks, Chen Gu and the other guys, along with the strength espers, could help. They even had the right tools. Just as the girls were excitedly discussing heading out to chop trees tomorrow and making do with sleeping on the floor for today, Ren Chenxi walked past and a single sentence drifted over.
“Do you have to go to so much trouble? I have plenty of beds!”
“!!!”
A group of girls whipped their heads around in unison to look at Ren Chenxi.
Facing so many scorching gazes, Ren Chenxi continued, “As for wardrobes, shelves, and whatnot… did everyone forget about that supermarket we passed this morning? There might be a warehouse underneath! Even if the goods inside have been completely cleared out, there must be some things left behind that others couldn’t carry away, right?” Since she had already eaten a meal cooked by Mu Ning and owed her a favor, Ren Chenxi no longer planned to keep the contents of that underground warehouse for herself.
“!!!”
A hungry, ferocious glint appeared in the girls’ eyes!
That’s right! How could they have forgotten about the warehouse under that supermarket? That was an entire warehouse! With a super-large spatial esper like Ren Chenxi, they could probably… loot the entire thing clean, right?
Thinking of this, Zhang Tongqi couldn’t help but ask Ren Chenxi with confusion, “Xi-jie, just how big is your space? It can fit a whole bus, plus our minivan, and you even have lots of beds stored inside…”
“Yeah! We teamed up with another spatial esper before, but when we were gathering supplies back then, he was always nervously reminding everyone not to take large, useless items because he wouldn’t have enough space. But seeing Xi-jie even storing beds, does that mean you don’t have to worry about running out of space at all?” Wu Tong chimed in.
Compared to Zhang Tongqi and Wu Tong’s curiosity about the size of Ren Chenxi’s space, Jian Dan and her group were more concerned with how many beds Ren Chenxi had, and why someone would carry beds—multiple beds!—in their personal space while wandering through the apocalypse! Was it so she could find a place, sleep on a bed, and then just abandon it? Having a spatial inventory really let you be that willful!
Listening to the girls’ chattering questions, Ren Chenxi raised a hand in a “stop” gesture before slowly answering their questions with a mix of truth and fiction.
“Mm, my space is quite large. As for how large… probably… about the size of a football field?” Ren Chenxi had no idea how large a ten-thousand-slot inventory with a stacking limit of 999 per slot actually was, so she just threw out a relatively large area.
As expected, the moment the “football-field-sized space” was mentioned, it shocked the girls so much that their eyes went wide and they all sucked in a sharp breath. In their wildest guesses, they had only dared to imagine Ren Chenxi’s space was the size of a basketball court. They never thought it would be a football field!!!
A football field was great! When they went to scavenge the warehouse tomorrow, they could go all out and strip it completely clean!
Smiling as she watched the undisguised excitement on the girls’ faces, Ren Chenxi continued nonchalantly, “With such a large space, I… tend to be a bit lazy when I’m gathering supplies. For example, I originally just wanted the clean sheets, quilts, pillows, and mattresses from those hotels. But collecting so many things one by one is too much trouble, so I just took the entire bed into my space instead~”
This part wasn’t a lie. Although Ren Chenxi could retrieve items from her space and place them anywhere within a three-meter radius of her line of sight, she had to physically touch an item to store it. Thus, if she touched a pillow, she could only store a pillow; if she touched a quilt, she could only store a quilt. But if she touched the bed at the very bottom, she could store everything on the entire bed in her backpack. In the system’s default logic, the whole bed was treated as a “container.” When this entire set was stored in a backpack slot, the information displayed was: a bed of bedding.
See? A bed really was a container for bedding. And it could even be stacked! One bed of bedding, two beds of bedding…
Because collecting the entire bed was more convenient than collecting the bedding piece by piece, Ren Chenxi had gone through the hotel rooms one by one before she left, and whenever she saw a clean, untouched bed, she stored the whole thing in her backpack. In the apocalypse, it was naturally better to have as many spare sets of linens, which needed frequent washing, as possible. She had originally stocked up on bedding to save herself water, but she never expected it to come in handy like this. Even the beds themselves were now useful.
After her explanation, Ren Chenxi immediately took out a super luxurious king-sized bed from her backpack, complete with a set of pristine bedding.
“Ahhh! It’s so comfortable! This bed is so soft! This mattress… Xi-jie, is this bed from a five-star hotel?!” Chang Ling, who hadn’t slept in a proper bed for a long time, immediately and unceremoniously threw herself onto it.
“En, it’s from a five-star hotel.”
Receiving Ren Chenxi’s confirmation, Chang Ling sprawled on the bed and refused to get up. “Just give this bed to me, okay? This is my bed now~”
“It’s yours, it’s yours, it’s yours!” Song Xin grumbled with mock disgust from the side. “You’ve already rolled all over it like that. Who else could we give it to!”
“Hey, you dare to complain about me! I never complained back at S University when you insisted on squeezing into one bed with me!”
While Chang Ling and Song Xin were bickering, Wu Tong also looked at the clean, tidy, and obviously comfortable king-sized bed with envy, murmuring, “How nice!”
The small bed she currently slept on was not only tiny, but its boards were also hard as a rock. They had just laid a few blankets on top, covered them with a sheet, and slept on it directly. It wasn’t that there weren’t comfortable, soft mattresses in the hotel they often used as a base, but their minivan was only so big. Besides important supplies and the prey they hunted, where was the space to spare for such a large mattress? Besides, they were all used to hardship by then and felt that sleeping on a wooden plank bed was fine. At least they had a bed! Wasn’t that much better than those who had to sleep on the floor?
But now, seeing Chang Ling happily rolling around on such a large, soft bed, Wu Tong couldn’t help but feel a pang of nostalgia for the comfortable beds she too had slept on before the apocalypse.
Hearing Wu Tong’s soft murmur and seeing the envious looks on Zhang Tongqi’s and Sun Jia’s faces, Ren Chenxi took the initiative to ask, “I have a lot of these hotel beds. Do you want one?” After asking, she glanced at Mu Ning, who had been quietly organizing her things the whole time.
As if sensing her gaze, Mu Ning raised her head and met Ren Chenxi’s eyes. She nodded without the slightest bit of reservation. “Then I’ll trouble you for a bed, please!”
“…” Big Sis, even though our relationship has eased up a bit, are you sure it’s okay to be so naturally familiar1 with me? You were the same way when you asked me to help you move!
Ren Chenxi complained internally, but she couldn’t possibly refuse Mu Ning. And with Mu Ning taking the lead, Wu Tong, Sun Jia, and the others shyly requested a bed each as well.
After going to Mu Ning’s room and helping her place the bed, Mu Ning thanked Ren Chenxi in a very ordinary tone, and Ren Chenxi replied just as naturally with a “you’re welcome.” After this exchange, Ren Chenxi met Mu Ning’s smiling eyes and suddenly froze.
This… this could work, couldn’t it? My identity now is Ren Chenxi. If I just treat myself as a completely new person, clear away everything from the past, and interact with Mu Ning normally… I can do that, can’t I?
But… can the past really be completely cleared away?
Forget it. Whatever happens, let’s just get along like this for now. After all, my ultimate mission is to survive in this apocalypse for ten years!
The author has something to say:
Xixi: Want a bed?
Wooden-head: Yes! I want a really big one, one you can do all sorts of bed sports2 on, one that won’t collapse no matter what you do~~~
Xixi: ……
Happy Lantern Festival3, everyone~~~~
Footnotes
- Original: zìláishú (自来熟). 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.
- Original: chuángshàng yùndòng (床上运动). A common and humorous euphemism for sexual activity.
- The Lantern Festival (Yuánxiāo jié) marks the final day of the traditional Chinese New Year celebrations. It is celebrated on the 15th day of the first month in the lunisolar Chinese calendar.
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