My Romance Game Updated – Chapter 62

by Little Panda

Setting Up a Stall

Because Ren Chenxi knew the furniture would need to be unpacked and assembled as soon as they returned to the base, she had designated a specific grid in her inventory for it when collecting the shelves. However, the ground floor ceiling of their building wasn’t as high as the underground warehouse’s. If she pulled the massive shelves out directly, they wouldn’t fit. After a brief discussion, the group called over the guys resting next door. Together, they headed up past the fourth floor to the rooftop terrace, where Ren Chenxi simultaneously extracted all four massive shelves packed with boxes of furniture components.

The moment the colossal shelves appeared, the group couldn’t help but gasp in awe. The espers quickly shook it off and got to work, with the ordinary humans pitching in to help. Since it was lunchtime, none of the neighbors in the Villa Area were up on their roofs drying laundry. But the shelves were simply too large—the terrace walls only reached halfway up their height. Anyone walking through the Villa Area could spot the towering structures if they happened to glance up. They had to empty the boxes from these four shelves as quickly as possible without drawing attention.

None of the espers could reach the boxes on the very top shelves by hand. It wasn’t a difficult problem to solve, though. With her thick vine whips, Mu Ning snatched down four or five large boxes at a time. Wei Yuze’s beautiful long hair elongated, easily reaching the top tier. His fine strands bundled around several boxes at once and brought them down without a hitch.

Mu Ning and Wei Yuze handled the top tiers, while the others tackled the bottom. Their goal was simply to get the boxes onto the ground as fast as possible and then lay the shelves flat. Since the terrace walls were taller than a person, the boxes sitting on the roof floor would be completely hidden from anyone passing by, as well as from their immediate neighbors. Survivors in the base highly valued their privacy, and some even kept wild chickens and ducks on their rooftops. It wasn’t just Mu Ning’s group that had heightened their walls; every house in the Villa Area had extended the walls of their rooftop terraces.

It took less than ten minutes to empty the four massive shelves. Afterward, everyone began moving the boxes indoors in an orderly fashion. Because the fourth floor was the closest and offered plenty of open space, they piled all the boxes there.

While everyone else moved boxes, Chen Gu and the other guys studied the shelves now lying flat on the ground. Shelves capable of holding so many heavy cargo boxes were undeniably sturdy and durable. Each one was constructed from stainless steel. Chen Gu and his team planned to dismantle them, keeping some of the steel for their own use and selling the rest to the base or other survivors.

The furniture inside the boxes wasn’t limited to wooden cabinets; there were sofas, coffee tables, all sorts of chairs, and beds. Everyone gathered in the fourth-floor living room to unbox and assemble the pieces together. Whenever they ran short on screws, Tang Ying stepped in, using her Crystallization ability to weld the connecting wooden joints securely in place. Once a batch of furniture was assembled, the girls living on the fourth floor picked out what they liked and hauled it to their rooms to arrange. They assembled more, dividing it among the girls on the third floor. Even those who already had furniture, like Mu Ning and Chen Gu, tossed out the old in favor of the new. Chen Gu, for instance, wanted to build himself a larger bed, while Ge Yijin claimed a better sofa.

As for the idea of using crystal to decorate the floors and walls, the guys unanimously rejected it. They firmly insisted on keeping everything exactly as it was, right down to the toilets and bathrooms.

The group happily busied themselves all afternoon. Aside from the various pieces of furniture, they had also acquired an assortment of electrical appliances. The most popular items claimed were lamps, televisions, and DVD players. Even though there was no television signal anywhere in the country—and they didn’t actually own any DVD discs—they firmly believed that they would eventually stumble across a DVD rental shop while out searching for supplies.

The apocalypse had descended upon the world, but they still had a long, long future ahead of them.

Even in such a difficult and cruel apocalyptic world, they had to find ways to make their lives a little more comfortable.

Ren Chenxi had brought back a massive amount of furniture. Even after everyone extravagantly stuffed their rooms with multiple cabinets, a large pile of unassembled furniture remained. Ren Chenxi stored the leftovers back into her inventory. Inside the base, furniture simply wouldn’t sell for a high price. Anyone who truly needed it would much rather chop their own wood and hire a carpenter to save on crystal cores.

Furthermore, for the vast majority of survivors in the base, bulky items like cabinets were far too impractical and took up too much precious space. This was especially true for the dozens of people crammed into the Teaching Building, or the hundreds squeezed together in the Tin Shacks. For them, wasting crystal cores on furniture was absurd when they could use that wealth to buy enough food to fill their bellies! To most people surviving the apocalypse, food was the most precious commodity of all.

And yet, Ren Chenxi’s group had been feasting on such precious food in utter luxury for two days straight.

That evening, Ren Chenxi treated everyone to hot pot. Among the spoils retrieved from the underground warehouse was a large assortment of cookware, including several electric hot pots. Because these electric pots didn’t have inner dividers, the group extravagantly used a separate pot for each flavor. Using the hot pot base¹ collected from the warehouse, they lavishly prepared five different flavored broths. The ingredients included vegetables grown by Mu Ning’s team, wild mushrooms foraged from outside, and—most prominently—various cuts of meat, alongside all the local delicacies Ren Chenxi had gathered during her past travels.

The ingredients for tonight’s grand feast far exceeded the lavish meal Mu Ning had hosted the previous noon. On one hand, Ren Chenxi genuinely wanted to make up for the guilt she felt over leaving Huo Keyu and the other newly rescued girls behind yesterday. On the other hand, it was a celebration of their massive haul from the underground warehouse.

Of course, treating themselves to such an extravagant dinner was something they could only do occasionally. After all, they still had to stretch their supplies for the long days ahead!

Thanks to their bountiful harvest from the warehouse, Mu Ning’s group felt no immediate rush to go out hunting or scavenging the next day. The guys happily lost themselves in video games, while the girls gathered together to help Huo Keyu and the other ordinary humans brainstorm ways to earn crystal cores in the base.

The first and most obvious choice for ordinary people was growing vegetables to sell. Mu Ning grew vegetables for their own consumption, but Huo Keyu and the others could grow produce to sell to other survivors.

Aside from farming, they could venture outside to forage for wild mushrooms. This certainly carried a degree of risk, and there were already many people in the base selling mushrooms. Wild mushrooms grew so rampantly that even ordinary humans could risk foraging in the immediate vicinity of the base. They could also dig for wild potatoes, sweet potatoes, and various wild greens. However, while these wild crops were abundant outdoors, many people found them difficult to cultivate once brought back to the base.

Zhang Tongqi suggested that even though Huo Keyu and the others lacked abilities, they could tag along on the group’s occasional excursions. While the espers hunted, the girls could help harvest wild crops. With Ren Chenxi’s spatial inventory, they didn’t have to worry about the food rotting. Even if they couldn’t sell it all at the base, they could stockpile it as their own food reserves.

Huo Keyu was tempted, but Ren Chenxi didn’t fully agree. In her view, even with their team of espers protecting them, the world was a post-apocalyptic wasteland fraught with unpredictable dangers. Who could guarantee that a sudden crisis wouldn’t arise, leaving the espers unable to shield the ordinary girls in time?

Since Ren Chenxi objected but Huo Keyu still wanted to try, the proposal was temporarily shelved. The girls racked their brains, trying to think of other ways ordinary people could earn crystal cores inside the base. Rather than sitting around struggling for ideas, they decided it would be better to take a walk and see for themselves. The last time Huo Keyu and the others had gone out, they had been targeted by a ‘touch porcelain’ scam² before they could even get a good look at what the vendors were selling. This time, accompanied by a full escort of espers, they could investigate thoroughly.

The large group of espers, mingled with a few ordinary girls, marched out in a formidable procession. Naturally, no one along the way dared to cause them trouble—especially with a formidable 5th-order esper like Mu Ning in their ranks. The girls toured every single vendor area in the base before returning home to summarize their findings.

There were many ordinary humans setting up street stalls in the base, but those without esper abilities always banded together in groups of ten or twenty. The few stalls run by a smaller number of ordinary people always had an esper standing guard nearby. Among the numerous stalls, besides those selling cultivated vegetables, wild greens, and foraged crops, many vendors sold their manual skills. For instance, there were stalls offering clothing repairs, machine maintenance, and haircuts.

Aside from the Tin Shacks, almost every residence in the base required rent. Setting up a street stall, however, was completely free, provided the vendor found an open spot and didn’t block traffic. The shop owners who had once run proper storefronts on the streets before the apocalypse were now reduced to laying out blankets on the ground. But even among the stalls, business varied wildly. The vendors struggling the most were those selling handmade trinkets—cloth dolls, wood carvings, bamboo baskets, and the like. The thriving stalls were all related to food. They sold raw vegetables, wild greens, and mushrooms, or hawked the kind of street snacks that were popular before the end of the world.

The base had its own canteen, but the prices reflected the quality. Cheap meals tasted awful, while the delicious options were too expensive to stomach—and the menu was severely limited anyway. As a result, these street food vendors had become a popular third option. Many capable survivor teams would occasionally splurge at a snack stall to relax after a hard day.

When Huo Keyu saw the snack stalls, a plan immediately formed in her mind. Before the apocalypse, she had worked at a barbecue joint, so her grilling skills were quite good. Just last night during the hot pot dinner, she had noticed that Ren Chenxi had a seemingly endless supply of meat, and the warehouse haul meant they had a surplus of seasonings. After mulling it over for a long time, Huo Keyu looked nervously at Ren Chenxi and tentatively asked if she and Du Tian could open a BBQ stall³.

The moment the idea of a BBQ stall was proposed, Ren Chenxi immediately approved. Zhang Tongqi and the others also thought it was a fantastic suggestion. Every time they went out, they harvested a substantial amount of mutated beast meat. With Ren Chenxi’s spatial inventory, the meat would never spoil, meaning their stockpile would only grow larger over time. Furthermore, their trip to the warehouse had yielded an overwhelming amount of spices and condiments. While some people did sell seasonings at the base, it would be difficult to offload such a massive quantity all at once. Besides, selling the raw spices wouldn’t necessarily earn as much as selling freshly grilled meat.

And so, with everyone’s unanimous agreement, the plan for Huo Keyu and the girls to open a BBQ stall was officially set in stone.

The author has something to say:

Emmmm… The sun is shining brightly today~ But… it’s still so cold indoors! Also, a few days ago, my mom only dared to crack the window open a tiny bit for ventilation, but today she frenziedly threw half the window wide open!!!

Footnotes

A concentrated seasoning block or paste dissolved in boiling water to create the flavorful broth for hot pot (huǒguō).
To 'touch porcelain' (pèngcí) is a Chinese slang term for a scam where someone stages an accident or feigns injury to extort compensation from the target.
A traditional Chinese street food setup (kǎoròu tān) where various meats and vegetables are skewered and grilled over charcoal, heavily seasoned with cumin and chili powder.

Footnotes

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