Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 262

Chapter 262

[Hidden Reward: Employee Dormitory expansion. Current habitable rooms: 2 → 4]

[Oasis Sanatorium: Four-Star]

[Next stage management tasks unlocked:

Obtain the Formula for the Mist Lung Disease Cure and mass-produce it within the Sanatorium.

The end of the year is approaching. Please prepare New Year’s gifts for the hospitalized customers. Each gift must include the following: 10 Mist Lung Disease Cure pills, a Gray Mist Town Map, clearance guides for all Instances in Gray Mist Town, two bags of rice, two bottles of oil, two boxes of fruit, a nut gift pack, and a potted plant.]

The infrastructure upgrades for Oasis Sanatorium would take three days to complete.

Looking at the final stage of tasks, Gu Huaiwei felt a headache coming on.

Gray Mist Town was an enormous cluster of Instances. There had to be at least twenty of them. Just the second requirement alone, clearance guides for all Instances in Gray Mist Town, was not something she could possibly handle by herself.

Mu Lanwo and Bai Miemie moved into private suites in the Employee Dormitory.

Because the four Assistants had different living habits, living under the same roof inevitably led to a few clashes.

Lin She liked cold, damp environments, especially rainy and foggy days. Whenever the weather was like that, he would open the windows. The fine rain, like broken threads, would drift in on the wind and dampen the wigs Bai Miemie had washed and dried, making Bai Miemie so furious that Bai Miemie would jump up and run to Gu Huaiwei to complain.

Mu Lanwo did everything slowly. Gu Huaiwei did not assign her much work, but she could still end up working overtime until the middle of the night. She spent all day in the study with a lamp lit, even though that had originally been He Xueyi’s place to read.

Fortunately, He Xueyi and Mu Lanwo had known each other back in Paradise. One would sit in front of the computer and type seven words in half an hour, while the other reclined on the sofa and read. Somehow, they were fairly harmonious.

Mu Lanwo also liked damp, rainy days. When Lin She opened the window, she would stand on the balcony and let the rain soak her long hair, then trail her dripping dress through the living room.

This was something He Xueyi found much harder to tolerate.

He had a mild obsession with cleanliness and liked a clean, refreshing environment, but he would not personally clean up the water stains.

Fortunately, Bai Miemie did not fuss too much over things like that. If Bai Miemie had not used the robot vacuum to clean the place every day, mushrooms would have started growing in the dormitory.

As for Lin She and He Xueyi, there were even more ways in which they did not get along.

Their ideologies were fundamentally different.

Lin She did not believe in an afterlife. He was researching Life Datafication.

He believed that the flesh was born weak and destined to perish, while thought was the foundation of the soul. If thought could be transferred into immortal metal and gears, then the human body could break free from the shackles of time, transcend death, and attain true eternal life.

He Xueyi, on the other hand, preached Afterlife and Present Life.

He believed that humans were born sinful. The suffering of this life could not be changed, nor could it be escaped. But suffering was not the end. It was the ferry crossing that led to Redemption. If one could abandon the body, one could pass through Samsara and obtain eternal peace.

For trees to grow from a rotting body, for green life to be nurtured with one’s own flesh and blood, for that life to bear fruit and benefit even more people-this was an act of atoning for the sins of one’s present life.

They often mocked each other.

Lin She thought He Xueyi loved indulging in daydreams, that his thoughts were flashy and impractical.

Aside from using that pretty-boy face of his to swagger around and swindle people, He Xueyi contributed nothing to the shop’s operations.

He Xueyi ridiculed Lin She for spending all day researching scrap metal and dull data.

They had already come out of Paradise, yet Lin She still talked about science every single day.

What Shop Manager Miss needed was not the electronic junk he researched at all, but someone who could delight her body and mind.

Gu Huaiwei noticed that recently, each of the Assistants seemed to like seeking her out alone.

That was strange.

Back when they had not all been living together, they clearly had not been like this.
Every morning, while Gu Huaiwei was combing her hair, Bai Miemie would sneak over and style it for her.

Lin She, meanwhile, used work as an excuse to quietly bring up topics like mechanical lifeforms and brain-computer interfaces with her.

He Xueyi mixed his Green Fruit in with the grapes, trying to trick Gu Huaiwei into eating them.

As for Mu Lanwo, she gave Gu Huaiwei a snail-shell pendant, then tried to invite her to her room to watch a snail do backflips.

Gu Huaiwei felt that the four of them had far too much time on their hands.

So she doubled everyone’s workload.

And at last, the world was peaceful again.

The burned areas on Xia Wenxin’s body had slowly scabbed over and peeled away. New skin had grown over the original wounds. It was still ugly, but it no longer hurt.

She had once been the Sports Committee Member, and thanks to the physical fitness she had built up through years of training, she successfully stayed on at Oasis Sanatorium and became a caregiver.

Because of his injuries, the Class Monitor Fang Zhao had been unable to enter an Instance to earn Lifespan these past few days.

When Xia Wenxin had been injured earlier, Fang Zhao had sponsored her with some Lifespan so she could rest properly in the Sanatorium.

Now that their situations were reversed, Xia Wenxin repaid the favor by extending Fang Zhao’s room at the Sanatorium.

Fang Zhao had originally wanted to stay and work at the Sanatorium too, but he received team invitations from other squads there. The members of those squads told him that with his abilities, staying at the Sanatorium would be a waste. He would be better off fighting his way through Instances and carving out a place for himself on the Heavenly Ranking.

Oasis Sanatorium might offer excellent benefits, but that did not mean it could remain open forever. If Fang Zhao was fired one day and had also lost the ability to survive in Instances, the only thing waiting for him would be death.

Fang Zhao thought that made sense.

You could not put all your eggs in one basket.

He discussed it with the Sports Committee Member Xia Wenxin and the Learning Committee Member Bai Yuzhen. Xia Wenxin would stay and work at the Sanatorium, while he and Bai Yuzhen would join other Instance exploration teams and earn Lifespan there.

Gu Huaiwei sent Mu Lingxi the list of rice, oil, fruit, and nut gift boxes needed for the New Year presents.

The money settled from the first Dimension had given Gu Huaiwei complete financial freedom. She transferred Mu Lingxi a large sum and asked her to help prepare all the gifts to the highest standard.

When Mu Lingxi received Gu Huaiwei’s call, she was overwhelmed with nostalgia.

After they finished discussing work, she still could not help asking, “Huaiwei, I’m about to graduate. During the campus recruitment a while back, I got an offer from Xiyuan Group. I’ll probably be able to start in the second half of the year.”

“Xiyuan Group, huh? Their compensation really is pretty good. It’s just that everything we went through before suggests there’s more to that company than meets the eye… Forget it, it’s hard to explain over the phone. If you go to work there, remember to keep your bodyguards with you at all times.

“Also, once I finish handling the final stage of things at the Sanatorium, I’ll come back for your graduation ceremony.”

“Don’t worry. I know all that. I’ll be careful.”

In truth, after Mu Lingxi’s parents discovered that she had broken away from the family and was now close to Gu Huaiwei and the Jiang Family, they quickly regretted their choices and wanted to bring their daughter home.

But Mu Lingxi had already seen through her parents’ snobbish faces.

She refused to go back.

Now, relying on herself, she had already made quite a life for herself.

Mu Lingxi gently brushed the loose strands of hair by her temple. “If you’re busy, you don’t have to come back.”

Her gaze darkened as she looked out at the broken waning crescent moon beyond the window.

Xiyuan Group held secrets about Gu Huaiwei and Gu Changge’s origins. The reason she was going there was to help Gu Huaiwei investigate the truth behind it all.

Mu Lingxi clenched the fist hidden inside her sleeve, her gaze turning resolute.

As long as she could end all of this sooner…

Gu Huaiwei would come back.

Back to her side.