Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The sky was completely dark when Chen Xu returned in his truck. He was returning more than an hour later compared to the last time.
When he entered the villa, his brows were wrinkled. He didn’t gain much from this trip. The rain that lasted for nearly a month and the heavy snow that followed had buried most of the city under the snow.
He would go out in search of resources once every few days. Most of the resources available nearby had already been brought back by him.
They still had a sufficient supply of certain resources, like food and water. The most crucial one they needed was petrol. As the weather was so cold now that even the ground was frozen, they exhausted a much higher amount of petrol than planned to keep themselves warm.
Furthermore, most gas stations were covered in snow. The few that had survived had already been drained by him. As a last resort, he had to go further in search of petrol.
One of the surviving gas stations that he found was, however, low in reserves. At most, it could be pumped one last time.
“There’s still a month until the dream ends. Looks like I’ll have to find another gas station,” he thought. He closed the door with the back of his hand, and his wrinkled brows relaxed as he walked inside and took off his thick winter clothing as if he had no worries.
Luo Xiyun was not in the living room. Right now, she was probably bathing.
On the dining table, there was a stainless-steel heat-insulating lunch box. After changing his clothes, he went to the kitchen to wash his hands before opening the lunch box. The food inside was still steaming hot.
The fragrance of the food made his appetite swell. He picked up the chopsticks to the side, pinched a slice of ham and tossed it into his mouth.
Compared to one month ago, Lu Xiyun’s culinary skills had much improved. Her cooking wasn’t as inedible as it was in the beginning.
After living together for a month, Chen Xu had discovered some of her strong points. At the very least, she possessed a team spirit. She would try her best to accomplish the things that she had to do, and even when there was a little dispute between them both, she never shirked her tasks.
After eating, he went to the basement with a flashlight, turned off the big generator, and filled the small generator with petrol.
In order to save on petrol, he separated the electrical supply for the heater and other electrical appliances, so that when they slept at night, only the generator responsible for heating would need to be activated.
Going back to the first floor, as usual, he took a shower, grabbed his laptop, got into bed, and turned on the television series that he hadn’t finished the day before. It was a cliché urban romance drama. The actors were bad, the plot had no logic, but he enjoyed it anyway. At least the female protagonist was attractive.
He had no other choice because he was so bored. The day time was fine as there were many things to keep him busy and not let him feel tormented. At night, that couple of hours before he went to sleep were the most boring ones.
He wasn’t interested in computer games and would only kill time with movies and television shows. By now, he had become less picky. He could watch anything so long as the female actors were pleasing to his eyes.
After finishing two episodes, he turned off the video, stretched, and double-clicked on a certain folder as per usual.
“Eh?”
After opening the folder, he discovered that the subfolder named “learning materials” was gone. He was stunned for a moment. Why would a folder disappear for no reason?
Quickly, he realized that the folder was deleted. The word “Fuck!” slipped out of his mouth.
Those were the best goods he had filtered from dozens of terabytes of resources. But now, it was deleted!
What’s more, he never backed up these resources. Once deleted, it would be gone forever.
He was outraged.
Without this spiritual food and intellectual stimulation, how would he survive the remaining month?
“How dare she!”
He knew who the culprit was without even having to guess. There were only two people left in this world. Besides Luo Xiyun, who else could’ve done it?
The more he thought about it, the more heated he became. He pushed back the covers, slipped on a coat, jumped out of bed, took a rechargeable desk lamp, went to Luo Xiyun’s door, and forcefully knocked a few times.
…
Rewinding time to a few minutes before that, Luo Xiyun was curled up in her bed. Her room was dark, with only the light coming from the screen of the mobile phone that was shining on her somewhat nervous face.
Her attention was not on her phone but fully channeled through her ears. She was listening to the movements outside the door. She could hear everything that Chen Xu did after he came back.
When she heard the door to the next room close, her heart began beating rapidly.
How would Chen Xu react after discovering that the folder was deleted?
Would he get very angry?
Would he start a fight with her at once?
She was a little afraid. After she had calmed down, she more or less regretted her actions, feeling that she had acted too impulsively. But what was done, was done. It was too late for her to fix it. She could only hope that he would act as if nothing had happened.
From what she had seen in the past month, Chen Xu was truly the only straight man of iron and steel she had ever met in her life. He had mountains of shortcomings. His temper was loathsome and stiff, he was nothing like a gentleman, and he didn’t know how to take care of people nor say anything pleasant.
However, he wasn’t an unreasonable person with a bad temper.
His self-esteem was particularly strong. Maybe he would think that this kind of conflict was difficult to express and pretend to be oblivious about it?
As she was waiting in her anxious state of mind, the door banged.
“He’s here!” she thought, shuddering.
Her heart began thumping wildly as she buried her head inside the quilt. She dared not move and was pretending to have heard nothing.
Bam bam bam!
The door banged even louder. She knew that pretending to not hear would be futile. Biting the bullet, she said, “What’s the matter? You woke me.”
Her voice was a little tight, but fortunately, he wouldn’t have heard it through the thick quilt.
“Open the door.”
Through a door and a layer of quilt, Luo Xiyun could still hear the rage in Chen Xu’s voice. She couldn’t help but feel a little scared, “W-what’s the matter? C-can we talk about it tomorrow?”
Bam bam bam. He was smashing on the door now.
Now, Luo Xiyun also became heated. She felt that she was already being so condescended to, and yet, he still refused to ease up. This was too much.
“I’ll open the door! Do you really think I’m afraid of you?” she thought.
She gathered herself, pushed back the quilt, got out of bed, and opened the door by a crack. A ray of light shone from outside the door on her face. Upon seeing Chen Xu’s somber facial expression, her heart thumped, and her speech became a little stuttered, “I-I-It’s so late already, w-w-what do you want with m-me?”
Chen Xu reached out to the door and pushed it open. In her terror, Luo Xiyun took a few steps backward.
Chen Xu asked expressionlessly, “Why did you touch my computer?”
“I…” Luo Xiyun’s voice was a little shaky, and even her body shook. It was only at that moment that Chen Xu realized that she was only wearing a thin pajama. With the cold winds from outside blowing in on her, her whole body was shivering.
With a frown, he walked into the room and closed the door with his hand, shutting the cold winds outside. Then, he placed the desk lamp he was holding on the table and took off his coat.
“W-what are you t-t-trying to do?” Luo Xiyun’s voice was already a bit distorted.