In the snow-covered residential complex, panicked voices suddenly erupted, a sound that quickly turned into wails of despair.

Many people had no idea what was happening, feeling utterly bewildered.

Soon, the clamor died down. It was simply too cold. Many couldn’t bear it, adding several layers of clothing before retreating to their beds to huddle under blankets.

As the noise from outside faded to silence, Stella Sterling returned to the living room with a placid expression and sat on the sofa.

Her room was different from the outside. She had previously installed temperature-regulating materials, and her air conditioner was running continuously. So, even though the outside temperature had plunged, the impact on her room was minimal, only slightly colder than before.

But the other residents in the complex weren’t so lucky. Even indoors, the cold was unbearable.

The previous temperature of minus thirty-something degrees was already bad enough. Now it had dropped again, and not by a little, but by many degrees all at once. Under such conditions, many people’s bodies couldn’t adapt. Some of the elderly, with weaker constitutions, lost their lives directly to the sudden hypothermia.

Though she couldn’t see what was happening, Stella could guess. It was likely that in homes with elderly residents, their bodies had failed to withstand the sudden change, and they had passed away.

And this was only the beginning. The temperature would continue to drop; it wouldn’t stop here.

In her past life, the lowest it ever got was below minus seventy degrees Celsius. If humanity’s bodies hadn’t slowly acclimated to the minus thirty and forty-degree temperatures first, and instead had been plunged directly into minus seventy, almost everyone would have died.

In the current situation, many of the older people wouldn’t make it. It wasn’t just the elderly, but also those who were usually frail and weak who couldn’t endure it.

Stella remembered that in her last life, after returning to this complex and being driven out, she had stumbled along, scavenging for food, and eventually made her way back to the Sterling family home.

The conditions at the Sterling residence were incomparably better than the outside world. They still had power to run their heating, and because Mr. Quinn had prepared in advance, they also had food.

She had begged them to take her in. Mr. Quinn and Mrs. Sterling had initially agreed, but then Yara Sterling pretended to feel unwell again, trotting out the same old excuse that Stella was a jinx to her and stopping them.

In the end, her own biological parents, prioritizing Yara, didn’t let her in. They gave her a down jacket she had forgotten when she moved out, and two rock-hard steamed buns.

Later, at a dead end, she found an abandoned construction site to hide in.

She wasn’t the only one in that derelict site; there were dozens of others like her with nowhere to go. The dozens of them stayed there, surviving by scavenging for food nearby, living each day on edge and wary of those around them.

At this same point in her last life, she had been in that abandoned construction site. That day, it had suddenly become incredibly cold—so cold that no one could sleep. They could only stomp their feet in place to generate body heat.

But even so, ten of the older men and women had suddenly collapsed, dead, bleeding from all seven orifices.

In that kind of temperature, even the able-bodied could barely withstand it, let alone the elderly.

At the time, Stella had suppressed her fear and stripped a coat off one of the dead. Dressed in that, combined with her youth and good health, she managed to survive.

But she remembered that many had died in that abandoned site. Including her, only five people made it out alive—

The people in the residential complex now were still better off than those in the construction site back then.

At least they could shut their doors and windows against the frigid wind and had clothes to bundle up in.

Their conditions were far better than the people at the site in her previous life. But even so, the elderly were truly in a miserable state.

And in these conditions, to be flying in the air, that—

Stella’s hand subconsciously clenched the fabric over her chest, her breathing growing ragged. She abruptly stood up, but then, with a return to reason, sat back down, forcing herself not to think about it.

In a situation like this, everyone could only leave it to fate. There was simply no way to even go outside.

She sat on the sofa, a dazed look on her face.

Then, she smiled, her fingers unconsciously tapping the glass coffee table. "In this apocalypse, I just want to live..." 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

She chuckled softly and turned up the temperature on the air conditioner.

Looking at the food before her, she didn’t have the great appetite she usually did. The meal on the table had cooled and was beginning to congeal, a layer of grease floating on top, making it even less appealing.

Sighing, she stored the items in her space and went to the kitchen to open and eat two cans of food.

No matter how poor her appetite, she couldn’t let herself go hungry. To be cold was bad enough; to be hungry on top of that would be pure misery.

After she finished eating, she walked into the medical room.

When Stephen Lawrence saw her enter, a flash of surprise crossed his eyes. "Miss, didn’t you say these two days were for recuperation? Why are you—"

He swallowed the rest of his words when he saw her grim expression. Changing tack tactfully, he said, "Actually, I feel like some parts of my body are still uncomfortable. Why don’t you check me over again, see if anything else is wrong?"

"Hm. I’ll take another look at the parts I set earlier, to see if they’ve healed properly."

Stella nodded with a calm expression and walked towards him.

A moment later, Stephen Lawrence’s pained scream echoed in the medical room, but he quickly forced himself to stifle it.

By the time Stella left the medical room, Stephen was drenched in a cold sweat. But he didn’t dare to utter a single complaint.

He was cooped up in this small room, but the screams of certain people in the complex had faintly reached his ears. Though he couldn’t see what had happened, he could guess a few things from their words.

Compared to the miserable state of the others in the complex, his current situation—staying in a relatively warm room, with decent food—was simply blissful.

So, compared to them, what was enduring the rather poor medical skills of that she-devil? It was nothing.

Compared to the bone-chilling cold and the pangs of hunger, he could endure this.

Yes, his previous thoughts had been far too shallow. Stella Sterling wasn’t torturing him; she was clearly providing him with a piece of paradise!

She was practically his great benefactor!

Every time he thought this way, Stephen Lawrence felt much better about his situation and drifted peacefully into a daze.