"N-No, that’s not what I meant!"

River Larkin shook his head. For some reason, looking up at the smiling Stella Sterling above him, he felt a sliver of fear.

Stella Sterling looked down at him. Inside the dim apartment, her face seemed to melt into the shadows, but her eyes remained crystal clear.

She chuckled. "Threatening me? Tell me, if I give you a push right now, do you think you’d survive to tell them anything?"

As she spoke, Stella Sterling reached out to push him—

"No, don’t—" River Larkin cried out in alarm. In his panic, his grip nearly failed. His body swayed, and he glanced down. The 28-story drop made his limbs go weak.

But a moment later, he realized he hadn’t fallen. ’Stella Sterling didn’t push me?’

He looked back up and saw Stella Sterling watching him with a mocking gaze, her eyes seeming to laugh at his cowardice.

He realized she had just faked the motion to scare him.

She was treating him like a joke, watching him panic, watching him cut a pathetic figure!

River Larkin couldn’t tell if he was more furious or relieved. He only knew that despite the heavy snow, he seemed to be drenched in sweat.

Looking back up, he gave Stella Sterling a fawning look. "Stella, I knew you wouldn’t be so cruel!"

"Then you’d be wrong," Stella Sterling said with a light laugh, and then, as he watched with a look of stunned disbelief, she reached for him again.

This time, River Larkin’s heart felt like it was about to leap out of his chest. He discovered that when a person is in a state of extreme terror, they can’t even scream.

His grip loosened unconsciously. As his body began to fall, he saw Stella Sterling standing right where she was, her hand not having moved at all.

People can hallucinate when they’re tense and panicked. When he heard her words, he was so certain she was going to push him.

And so, his mind conjured an illusion: he saw Stella Sterling reach out her hand—

But in reality, she was still just watching him for her own amusement. It was his own panic that had made him lose his grip.

For the first time, he felt that provoking Stella Sterling had been a terrible mistake. This woman was terrifying.

’And I actually fantasized about gaining her trust and then controlling her. How ridiculous!’

Stella Sterling watched River Larkin’s face disappear from view, but she remained unmoved. There was no reaction—no joy, no sympathy.

Her expression was placid. She didn’t even bother to glance down at River Larkin’s pathetic end. She simply closed the drafty window, turned back into the living room, used the restroom, came out for a sip of water, and then went to bed.

She felt nothing for River Larkin. In this life, they hadn’t had any real conflict. He had even been trying to curry favor with her, albeit with impure motives.

But she still remembered what had happened in her past life. She remembered the arrogant faces of those people.

River Larkin hadn’t been the one to act, but he had been one of them.

In this life, she hadn’t laid a hand on him either. She had merely pulled some strings from behind the scenes. And as it happened, she hadn’t even pushed him just now when he fell!

THUD.

As she was getting into bed, a muffled thud reached Stella Sterling’s ears. She wasn’t sure if she’d misheard it, but she paid it no mind. She just rolled over, and her consciousness gradually drifted into sleep.

"AHHH—"

In the early morning, she was awakened by a resident’s scream, followed by someone’s terrified cry: "There’s a dead body—"

Stella Sterling’s eyes opened for a moment. She thought of River Larkin. ’He must have fallen to his death, and now someone’s found the body.’

She glanced at the time and saw it was only around seven in the morning. She put her phone down, pulled the covers over her head, and soon, the sound of her snoring filled the room.

Stella Sterling went back to sleep, but the other residents were in an uproar. It took a long while for things to calm down.

Even people from other buildings stuck their heads out to see what was happening. Everyone knew someone had died, but no one knew what to do. In the end, they could only pretend nothing had happened, go back to their routines, and return to bed.

But the incident weighed on everyone’s mind like a heavy stone.

Stella Sterling slept until nine o’clock this time. After eating breakfast, she entered her space, came out an hour later, and then went straight to her gym.

In the afternoon, Stella Sterling looked down and saw another body in the snow below, but it wasn’t River Larkin’s.

After snowing all night, the body was mostly covered, with only a hand, a foot, and the head exposed.

Stella Sterling could see clearly through her binoculars. The face belonged to Mrs. Ward, not River Larkin.

Someone had thrown Mrs. Ward down at some point. Stella figured her body had gone unclaimed, so in desperation, someone had just tossed it. Throwing her into the snow was better than letting her rot and stink up the hallway with no one to deal with it.

Besides, with this much snow, it wouldn’t take long for her to be completely buried.

In the face of this natural disaster, the way many people thought and acted was beginning to change—

Stella Sterling pulled her gaze back. She had scanned the area on both sides but hadn’t found River Larkin’s body.

Even Mrs. Ward’s body hadn’t been completely covered by snow yet, so it was even less likely for River’s to be. But since she couldn’t find him down there, could he still be alive?

’Or did he crawl away somewhere else?’

Stella Sterling wasn’t sure, but after thinking about it for only a moment, she dropped the matter and didn’t dwell on it.

’If he managed to survive, then he’s just lucky.’

But that was all. She wasn’t afraid of River Larkin reporting her for anything.

Of course, if he was still alive after last night and didn’t bother her again, she would consider the matter settled. If he insisted on provoking her again, she would deal with him herself next time.

Having survived so long in the apocalypse during her past life, her mindset had undergone a seismic shift. Good food and comfort were more important than anything else. She refused to get hung up on such trivial matters. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

It was just a waste of her time and energy. She wanted nothing to do with pointless emotional turmoil.

Stella Sterling spent the afternoon immersed in watching TV shows, as comfortable and content as could be.

For the next several days, the residential complex was very quiet. Perhaps it was because someone had died, but even the three Bell brothers quieted down and stopped staking out River Larkin’s front door.

They had made a final threat—they would beat up River Larkin every time they saw him from now on—before returning to their own apartment, cursing and grumbling.

They didn’t know that River Larkin was no longer in his apartment, but they knew he wouldn’t open the door anyway. Continuing to stand guard was pointless. River would just carry on as usual inside, while they were the ones freezing in the hallway every day. There was no need for it.

But the feud was now set in stone.

The days passed one by one. Soon, ten days had gone by. Many people had prepared early to go collect their supplies. Inside the complex, Ms. Larkin was also organizing people into a line, but this time, no drone came. They waited and waited, but nothing appeared.