Rena sat in a chair with her legs crossed, hand supporting her cheek, counting numbers while admiring Allen Zhang’s muscular lines, "Nice physique."
"You’re not bad yourself." Allen Zhang looked up to see her perky butt wrapped in jeans, and her swaying sandals, with toenails painted with polish.
Rena didn’t mind at all; instead, she crossed her legs even tighter.
With a slight smile, "Are you free tonight? Want to stay for a drink? I still have the bottle of Pinot Noir you gave me."
"Of course, I happen to be free today." Allen Zhang was about to stand up.
"Keep doing it! Don’t stop."
"..." What sort of fetish is this?
Allen Zhang, somewhat speechless, continued doing one-handed push-ups, "I am an injured man! If you exhaust me, you can’t afford the consequences, you know?"
"Then we’ll talk when you’re exhausted. Hurry up, sir," Rena hummed softly.
When he really couldn’t continue any longer, she finally let Allen Zhang go. She put on a beige coat, tied a scarf, took the car keys, and left, "I made plans with people from the other shelters. I’m going to other communities to pick up some daily supplies and ingredients. You stay here and watch the place. I’ll be back soon."
Allen Zhang didn’t want to run around aimlessly either. After seeing Rena off, he came back, took off the bandage on his arm, and threw it in the trash.
He found a charger to charge his phone and lay on the sofa watching American TV shows, eventually falling asleep.
As evening approached, a light rain began to drizzle.
When Allen Zhang woke up, he found that it was already dark outside, and Rena entered, pushing the door with bags of goods.
Allen Zhang opened the door to let her in and glanced at the goods in her hands, bags big and small, not knowing what they were, but they all had the shelter’s logo.
Rena arranged the items from the bags onto the table: handwash, skincare products, antibacterial wipes, concealer, and various other daily necessities, as well as steaks, frozen shrimp, bacon, broccoli, tomatoes, pasta, and boxed desserts.
Wait a second, what is that? A small blue umbrella?
Allen Zhang saw a small blue bag that flashed briefly in Rena’s hand and, discreetly not asking further, just offered help warmly.
"I do indeed need you to help me with some prep work," Rena said with a smile: "Making dinner alone will take some time. Allen, can you help me chop the ingredients and heat up the frying pan? I need to go upstairs for a shower."
"The rain got me all wet on the way back. I feel terribly uncomfortable all drenched."
Under Rena’s guidance, Allen Zhang got a brief orientation of the shelter’s kitchen and rolled up his sleeves, ready to get to work.
He washed the vegetables and while waiting for the water to boil, he took out his phone to reply to Dominic that he wouldn’t be coming home that night.
Dominic: Not coming back again? Where are you now?
Allen Zhang: At Rena’s shelter.
Dominic: Alright, I thought maybe you ran into another wealthy person who wanted to take you in!
Allen Zhang: Do you want to come stay here for a night as well? It might continue to rain heavily tonight.
Dominic: Maybe next time, it might not be convenient for me to come now. Simone and the others just brought back the stuff and are figuring out how to distribute and sell it.
Allen Zhang: What did they get? And they’re selling it?
Dominic: It’s quite exaggerated, they only intended to get some daily supplies, but someone robbed the neighboring electronics and cell phone stores. In the chaos, they found a PS5 someone lost while fleeing, and an Nvidia 4090 graphics card.
Allen Zhang: ??? What?
Wild 4090s, you can find them lying about on the street?
You’re saying it was picked up off the street, do you think others would believe that?
Allen Zhang searched for the price, and boy, a 4090 graphics card now sells for 2350 US Dollars, even the low-end version costs 1900. You basically can’t find any at the original price of 1599 US Dollars.
Guess that’s a one-way ticket to prison.
But this 4090 graphics card was found on the road, not snatched directly from a store, with no video evidence, so it might be a bit different in nature.
If Black can directly pick up wild graphics cards on the road, the stores’ losses must be unimaginable!
Dominic: This graphics card and the PS5 are useless to keep, so they plan to go out on the street and sell it for cash to divide evenly.
Allen Zhang: You guys handle it yourselves, I wasn’t involved in this, so I don’t have a share. Gotta go, I’m cooking!
The water was boiling.
It took Allen Zhang a few minutes to prepare the side dishes, waiting for Rena to cook herself, but she didn’t come down after a long wait. Checking the time, he decisively picked up the cookware and got to work.
Frying a steak, who doesn’t know how to do that?
In no time he had the steak done perfectly, medium rare, broccoli, tomatoes, sprinkled with rosemary for garnishing, pasta cooked, bacon fried and added in.
Looking at the frozen shrimp in hand, Allen Zhang pondered for a few seconds and decided to defrost them for a shrimp dish in garlic oil.
Obviously, it can’t compare to fresh shrimp in taste, but eating fresh seafood isn’t popular here, typically all seafood is frozen. Protein shakes and beef are staples, life’s far from the sea, some go their whole lives without tasting fresh-fished shrimps.
After everything was ready, he set the table, inserted a few plastic flowers in a vase for decoration; without electricity, there were no lights, thankfully there was a battery-operated table lamp, after turning it on, the neon lights also looked quite nice.
He searched high and low but couldn’t find that bottle of Pinot Noir, Allen Zhang was wondering when Rena came downstairs holding a wine decanter and two glass cups.
The house was filled with delicious aromas, and she was surprised to see the table laid out with food: "You’re already done?"
"Of course. I’m quite good at cooking too, take a taste."
Allen Zhang pulled out a chair, warmly inviting her to take a seat.
Her hair was pinned up, wearing only a thin silk nightgown, loose and oversized, revealing her snow-white long legs, unsure if she was wearing anything underneath.
Approaching, he caught the scent of her shower gel.
"Thank you, Allen, you really are a gentleman." Rena appreciated his gesture and after seating herself, she decanted the red wine, resembling a Red Mary, clinked glasses and tasted it, not bad.
Anyway, Allen Zhang couldn’t tell the finer notes of the wine, only tasting a sour and astringent flavor, with a hint of sweetness in the aftertaste.
Allen Zhang dug into his steak.
After a few rounds of drinks, both felt a bit tipsy.
Rena rested her cheek on one hand, giving a seductive look, her blushing cheeks under the lamp light seemed especially tempting. Allen Zhang suddenly felt her feet, which shouldn’t be there.
Looking down, he saw her polished toenails under the table.
"You had a bit too much, right? It’s raining outside, not safe to walk in the night, you definitely can’t go back home tonight, don’t you think this atmosphere is perfect for doing certain things?"
Rena looked at Allen Zhang with a tipsy blur, pulled out a blue small umbrella and placed it on the table. This was no longer a hint, this was an outright invitation!
If I don’t make a move now, I’d be worse than a beast.
"I agree with your idea."
Allen Zhang stood up and picked her up, ready to head upstairs, the paid program was about to begin.
"You can just stay right here." After Rena said that, she kissed him passionately.
The two rested upstairs for a bit, then Rena clattered into the next room, and from a pink treasure chest, she pulled out a bunch of toys.
Allen Zhang took a sharp breath, oh no, she came prepared! Is she planning to play me to death?