Seducing and Flirting with Boss O While Stockpiling in the Apocalypse (GL) - Chapter 33

Nan Shuwan watched her lower and raise her head repeatedly, unsure of what she was doing. She leaned in closer and saw that Luo Sheng’s face was as red as a monkey’s bottom. Thinking she might have a fever, she pressed the back of her hand against Luo Sheng’s forehead. “You’re burning up! What’s wrong…”

Luo Sheng froze, allowing Nan Shuwan to press her cool hand against her forehead. She stood there stiffly, like a steadfast pine tree.

But this seemed to have the opposite effect; the proximity only made Luo Sheng’s temperature climb higher. A faint floral scent wafted from Nan Shuwan—a smell Luo Sheng had encountered in the 1502 bathroom, the scent of the shower gel she frequently used.

Seeing that Luo Sheng remained silent and unresponsive, Nan Shuwan even considered pressing her own forehead against Luo Sheng’s to test her temperature more accurately. At the last second, however, Luo Sheng skillfully dodged the move.

How terrifying.

That was Luo Sheng’s immediate thought. In all their time working together, she had never found Nan Shuwan scary, but that gesture just now felt frightening. More accurately, she wasn’t scared of the other person—she was scared of her own thoughts.

In the second their breaths nearly mingled, Nan Shuwan’s lips looked crystal clear and moist under the sunlight. Luo Sheng actually felt a sudden, fleeting impulse to bite them.

It was gone in an instant, so brief that only she could sense it.

When she was a child, she loved the resilient texture of biting the tips of baby bottles. Later it was straws, and now it was the occasional corner of her blanket… Luo Sheng licked her dry lips, wondering if her biting habit was resurfacing.

Something must have influenced her to produce such strange thoughts.

It was all Nan Chu’s fault.

She was wrong; those files weren’t “good things” at all. They were a source of corruption.

“It’s nothing. I just got flushed from sweating so much.” Luo Sheng turned away, refusing to look at her, and promptly led Nan Shuwan out of the space.

The outside world was a different reality from the space. They stepped out of the bright sunshine into a gray, rainy day. Luo Xiaoli wasn’t busy today and sat on the sofa waiting for the three younger ones to cook.

Luo Sheng prepared a spicy and fragrant “Water-Boiled Fish.” Nan Chu had been a quick study lately, and her stir-fried shredded potatoes looked glossy and decent. Nan Shuwan only boiled a vegetable dish; her knife skills were so pitiable she nearly cut her fingers every time.

Luo Sheng’s hands-on teaching had been useless. She told her to use the back of her thumb to steady the blade, but Nan Shuwan’s hands shook the moment she held a knife. Still, she didn’t want to just be a helper, so the simplest tasks were assigned to her.

Just as the dishes were brought to the table, there was a loud “pop” and the power went out again.

In the dead of night, they couldn’t see their own hands in front of their faces.

Nan Shuwan hurriedly lit several candles and placed them aside. The flickering flames filled the living room once more; though it was dim, they could at least see what they were doing.

The four of them sat down to make do with the meal.

The biggest headache of a power outage was the lack of heating. Luo Sheng placed a few more coal briquettes into the stove table. Soon, the fire was roaring. They draped a thick cotton cloth over the table, and everyone tucked their feet inside.

Luo Xiaoli’s feet tended to get icy cold; only by stepping onto the heated table board did her whole body feel warm. Back in the countryside, they used this type of table, but it wasn’t nearly as good as this one—the smell of coal gas used to be so heavy people would occasionally get poisoned.

Nan Chu ate a few pieces of fish. The Sichuan peppercorns made her tongue go numb, and she was so spicy she started huffing. “Quick, give me some water!”

Nan Shuwan poured a glass and handed it to her, but she only ate the vegetables and potatoes herself. Her recent intermittent stomachaches had scared her, so she decided to quit spicy food for a while to stop tormenting her stomach.

Luo Sheng checked her phone and saw a notice from the property management. They informed the owners that the power might not be restored until tomorrow, though the specific time was uncertain.

This caused an explosion in the group chat. Those with frail constitutions couldn’t handle the temperature of this ghost of a weather. Furthermore, except for Luo Sheng, none of the other residents had reinforced their doors or windows. The sound of the rain battering some windows at night was deafeningly loud, making them feel like they might collapse. Between the cold and the lack of sleep, more and more people were reaching a breaking point mentally.

Everyone was irritable; the slightest provocation triggered fierce arguments.

After Luo Sheng relayed the notice to the others, Nan Shuwan had the biggest reaction. Fearing the cold, she decided to sleep in her sweater and put on a pair of thick cotton socks to keep her feet warm.

After dinner, Luo Sheng retrieved items from the space and gave each of them a hand warmer. Nan Chu was surprised. “You even stockpiled these?”

Luo Sheng nodded. “Mhm. I have hot water bottles too; I can give you those if you want.”

“Sure, give me one. I want to use it to warm my feet,” Nan Shuwan requested immediately.

Late into the night, while the others were sound asleep, Luo Sheng was still tossing and turning. She checked her phone and saw the signal bars had weakened. She didn’t know when the power would return, but fortunately, she could charge things in her space, so she didn’t have to conserve battery yet.

Luo Xiaoli was right beside her; they were using two separate blankets. Luo Sheng moved further away and put on her headphones so as not to disturb her mother.

She scrolled through her chat logs, which were mostly empty. She had cleared out all the useless messages in one go. Now, the most conspicuous things were the files Nan Chu had sent her.

Seeing them, Luo Sheng thought back to the scene in the space today. It was a peculiar feeling—her heart was a mess, but it wasn’t annoyance. It was a kind of throb.

She couldn’t help but bite her lower lip, not quite understanding her own thoughts. From the beginning until now, she had spent quite a lot of time with Nan Shuwan. If she had to label it, she definitely considered her a friend, but she didn’t think she had any other “excessive” thoughts…

So why did she have that impulse today?

Many people say feelings originate from countless impulsive fragments. Hormones often surge only for a moment—perhaps because of a face, an expression, or… because of certain desires. Sometimes, you don’t need many reasons.

When these fragments piece together, they cause the secretion of dopamine. Emotional impulses are unstoppable; put another way, they are unpredictable. Who knows when one will suddenly arrive? Regardless, it didn’t matter. Although the blank space in her emotional life over the past twenty-some years left her a bit confused, Luo Sheng felt she was very good at hiding and exercising restraint.

Looking at purely physical appearance, Nan Shuwan was indeed a very charming woman. If you added her personality… she seemed to have even more of a “gap” charm.

Luo Sheng sighed and decided to stop thinking about it. It was useless anyway; she’d just let nature take its course.

The next morning, the power still hadn’t returned. Quite a few people lost their tempers in the group chat, cursing loudly. Emotions are contagious; once incited, they spread like wildfire.

Households with children were also coming down with colds. Right now, the only people known to have medicine were those who had ventured out. Some in the group began begging Sun Cuifen’s family for medicine, but she didn’t even bother with a polite refusal—she rejected them outright without a shred of sentiment.

This triggered another war of words, though it didn’t last forever due to phone battery concerns. Instead, they moved to direct action.

Wu Yin, who lived on the tenth floor, ran to Sun Cuifen’s door and knocked frantically, begging for medicine for her sick daughter and offering to pay a high price. But the iron door remained shut; she was completely ignored. Desperate and enraged, Wu Yin went home, grabbed a stool, and began bashing the door. The noise echoed through the entire building.

The short-tempered Sun Cuifen reached her limit. She opened the door holding a broom, intent on a fight. He Shugen tried to hold her back to keep her calm, but Wu Yin slammed the stool into his back, nearly knocking his gold tooth out. That set He Shugen off too; he went from peacemaker to participant, and the three of them became entangled in a brawl.

By the time the property management arrived, all three had various wounds and bruises. Wu Yin was surprisingly tough, holding her own one-against-two, but now she didn’t just need cold medicine—she needed first aid for bruises and cuts. She had literally made more trouble for herself!

As a result of this incident, the management set a rule: until the rescue teams arrived, no one was allowed to act rashly. Furthermore, they managed to get the inflatable raft from Mother Wang.

The management had also found an old, dilapidated raft in a corner somewhere, meaning they now had two. Initially, Mother Wang disagreed, but the management promised she could still collect money—whoever used it in the building would transfer the money directly to her WeChat. With this promise, she happily provided the boat.

Supplies were now beginning to run low. Every household wanted medicine and food. Furthermore, in addition to the power outages, water outages were starting to occur intermittently. The circuits and pipes were already in a precarious state, barely holding on.

The management asked owners to report their numbers in the group. From now on, one representative from each household could venture out. Two rubber boats could seat six people, meaning they could clear two floors of residents per day. Of course, if the rain was too heavy, the mission would be paused and resumed the next day.

Currently, the priority was to keep everyone united. This gave everyone a chance to search for supplies fairly. For a while, there were no dissenting voices in the group; people began to report their numbers one after another.

When it got to the fifteenth floor, Luo Sheng could only frown and send a number in.

According to the management’s plan, excluding weather factors, it would be her turn in about a week. Luo Sheng had no desire to go out and take risks, but if everyone else was searching for supplies and only she didn’t need to, it would surely draw suspicion and attention.

Furthermore, after so many days of rain, everyone’s face was pale and weak, while the four of them were glowing with health and nutrition. Even a blind person would know they were hiding something.

Luo Sheng was conflicted. What should she do?