At the stairwell stood a girl with striking beauty—fair skin, long seaweed-like hair cascading down to her waist, effortlessly loose yet dazzling in appearance.

She wore a khaki sweater and ginger-colored banana pants, both brand new and clean, even faintly exuding a pleasant fragrance.

She simply stood there without moving, even appearing a bit indifferent, yet it felt as if she illuminated all the gloom around her.

“You’re the one knocking?” Nan Muran swept her gaze across the crowded hallway, finally landing on the man at the very front, who still held the posture of knocking.

The woman beside the man instinctively smoothed her hair. The coarse texture startled her, and her eyes darkened. When she looked at Nan Muran again, there was jealousy in her gaze. “So what if my boyfriend was the one knocking? What right do you have to throw out our stuff?”

“You were occupying space I paid for. What’s the problem with what I did?” Nan Muran looked at the woman, clear impatience between her refined brows.

“Even so. Look at the state the world’s in now—everyone’s struggling to survive. If you didn’t want to help us, fine, but throwing away what we relied on to live? That’s just cruel.” The woman’s tone was angry.

Nan Muran sneered. “Cruel? If I were cruel, your stuff would be floating outside in the water, not just tossed in the stairwell. You should be saying I’m kind.”

**”What are you even talking about? Sure, it’s not in the water, but you threw trash in with it. Now everything’s filthy. How are we supposed to use it?

Looking at you, I bet you’ve got clean stuff to replace it.”** The woman eyed Nan Muran’s fresh new clothes, guessing that this girl must have plenty of good supplies at home.

After all, while everyone else looked thin and sallow, she was still fair-skinned and fresh-faced—like some seductress. No one knew where she got her stuff from.

Her words echoed the unspoken thoughts of the crowd—if this woman had supplies, the security team had to be notified to take control.

People don’t resent scarcity; they resent unfairness. If they’re drowning, they can’t bear to see someone else living comfortably.

Several younger women in particular looked at Nan Muran as if trying to burn holes through her with their eyes.

Nan Muran ignored their emotions and looked mockingly at the woman in front of her. “That trash was already mixed in with your stuff, wasn’t it? You were living beside it before and didn’t mind. Now suddenly it’s too good for you?”

“Enough talking. Compensate us.” The woman grew irritated by Nan Muran’s sarcasm, and her tone turned nasty.

Others began to chime in.

“Pretty little girl with a rotten heart.”

“She should compensate them.”

“Yeah, and who even cleaned her place up so nice anyway?”

“Maybe she’s hiding something shady in there.”

Everyone started projecting their worst assumptions onto Nan Muran.

With people backing her up, the woman felt emboldened.

But when she turned around, she saw her boyfriend clearly distracted by Nan Muran’s appearance, and her anger boiled over. “You mute or something? Tell her to compensate us! Or are you dead already?”

The man finally snapped out of it and said to Nan Muran in a gentle voice, “Our stuff really can’t be used anymore because of you.”

“Scram.” That one cold word was Nan Muran’s only response.

“What’s your attitude?” The man hadn’t reacted yet, but the woman beside him immediately exploded.

Nan Muran, unable to tolerate it any longer, kicked the man in the stomach.

He stumbled back in a panic, missed a step, and tumbled down the stairs.

Everyone in the stairwell was shocked by Nan Muran’s sudden move.

“You—” The woman opened her mouth to curse but froze under Nan Muran’s icy gaze.

“Shut up if you don’t want to get hit too.” Nan Muran hated women who couldn’t think straight. A coward like that man, whose head was full of filth, wasn’t worth her risking her life for.

The woman didn’t dare speak again and could only watch as Nan Muran calmly shut the fire door.

“Don’t just stand there, I’m in so much pain!” the man cried out from below. The woman rushed to check on him.

The man clutched his butt and howled in pain, feeling as though every bone in his body had broken apart.

“Go to the thirteenth floor and get Dr. Qi to take a look,” someone in the crowd whispered.

---

Qi Residence Living Room

Qi Li examined the man and said, “Hairline fracture in the pelvic bone, sprained wrist. Rest and avoid sitting. It’ll take at least half a month to heal.”

After the couple left, Qi Qing came out of her room. “Qi Li, earlier they mentioned the top-floor apartment. Was it Nan Muran?”

Qi Li, who had been tidying up, paused for a moment and then replied with a low, gloomy voice, “She came back around noon.”

“Is she okay? Did you warn her about the security team?” Qi Qing’s face was pale with worry.

The apartment’s security team had grown increasingly brazen, and Nan Muran, a lone girl, was definitely in danger.

Qi Li didn’t reply. He simply returned to his room. To be honest, even he didn’t know why, but Nan Muran’s radiant presence today had somehow shaken him to the core.

As she turned to leave, a twisted thought flickered through his mind—he wanted to drag her into this filthy abyss too.

Two little figures seemed to be battling in his head—one shouting “No,” and the other whispering temptation. Maybe only by pulling Nan Muran into the mud could he make that shining version of her belong to him again.

Qi Qing found her brother’s reaction baffling. But she’d always respected his decisions and gave up on the idea of going to find Nan Muran.

---

Back on Nan Muran’s side, after enduring the public shaming, she grabbed a flowerpot, sowed seeds, and urged the growth of three vine-like Lala plants.

(This chapter isn’t over yet! Click to read the next page for more exciting developments!)

She then placed the flowerpot outside her door, letting the vines crawl up the wall until they covered the fire exit and the area around the elevator.

She’d already seen what the apartment security team was up to in the residents’ group chat.

So once they heard she was back, they’d surely come looking for trouble—whether for food or for her.

Perfect. She was hoping they would, so she could deal with them all at once.

Too lazy to stay on alert constantly, she planted the vines as an early warning system.

---

At 7:30 in the evening, the already gloomy sky turned completely dark. Nan Muran looked south through the floor-to-ceiling windows. The apartment sat high enough to offer a far-reaching view, but what she saw was a city swallowed by inky blackness. Only a few faint yellow glows flickered in the distance.

Probably flashlights. For someone who’d grown up surrounded by the city’s neon nights, such endless darkness was terrifying.

If it had been the Nan Muran from her previous life, she might’ve cried out of fear. But now, she looked at the darkness with a calm heart, unshaken by it.

Only the cold, lonely night made her miss the warmth of the past. It stirred up the longing buried deep inside her.

She couldn’t help wondering—what was Si Ye like at this very moment?

Every time she was bored in this life, her brush would naturally start drawing Si Ye.

She had two versions of him in her sketches.

One wore a white hospital gown—gaunt, pale, with sunken cheeks and hollowed eyes. There was always a touch of melancholy and guardedness in his gaze, and he liked to sit alone in corners.

The other wore a green camouflage uniform, decked out in advanced military gear. Six-foot-three, broad shoulders, narrow waist, long legs—the perfect body proportions.

Thick brows, prominent brow bones, deep-set eyes shaped like slightly curved diamonds that always held a trace of sorrow. His straight nose sat perfectly on his face, and even his lips were well-formed.

As an art student with a sharp sense of anatomy, she’d never seen anyone whose facial and body proportions were more perfect than Si Ye.

It was a pity that in their past life, they’d met at their lowest point. So Nan Muran had never seen the version of Si Ye from her drawings. She couldn’t even be sure if she’d drawn him accurately.