Chapter 3: Mutated Plants
“Exchange zombies for supplies. The zombies’ useless bodies belong to me, and the crystal cores in their brains belong to you. You know what crystal cores are, right? They enhance superpowers. They’re incredibly good for you!” Master Fu kept ramming on. “Let me think about what kind of equipment we should add to the supermarket next.”
Song Yuqing lay on the creaking camp bed, her mind a buzzing chaos. Meteor craters, meteor showers, zombies, her parents… the sheer weight of everything made it impossible to concentrate on Master Fu’s endless chatter. To her, it was just grating background noise.
Eventually, the night passed, and Master Fu’s voice faded into silence. For a fleeting second, Song Yuqing felt as though the world hadn’t changed at all. It felt like she had simply found a quiet spot to rest during a grueling filming break.
Any moment now, the producer would come looking for her frantically, and she would have to grit her teeth and force herself back into the relentless production schedule.
Sighing, Song Yuqing stood up and gulped down a bottle of water. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of morning light filtering through the crack in the door.
She stepped forward, cracked the door open a sliver, and peeked outside.
Good, there were no zombies directly outside the door.
She opened it a bit wider and stuck her head out.
Very good, the entire alley was completely empty of the undead.
Emboldened, Song Yuqing stepped fully out of the convenience store. The morning breeze was as comfortable as ever, neither too hot nor too cold. However, the ivy creepers climbing the alley walls seemed far more lush than they had yesterday, aggressively spreading as if threatening to swallow the entire alley.
Thud—!
A man, tightly bound in thick vines, flew over the low alley wall and crashed onto the pavement right in front of Song Yuqing.
Countless tiny, hair-like tentacles erupted from the vines, piercing deep into the man’s flesh. From beneath the massive, palm-shaped leaves, a small yellow flower poked its head out, slowly weaving toward the man’s terrified face.
It was mutated ivy!
Horror gripped Song Yuqing. She hadn’t expected even the most mundane, everyday plants to transform into life-threatening monsters overnight.
Panicking, she darted back into the convenience store, leaving the wooden door half-open so she could see.
Suddenly, the yellow flower’s petals snapped open. It expanded at a blinding speed, morphing into a gaping, fleshy maw ready to swallow the man whole. The man thrashed frantically, but the more he struggled, the tighter the vines coiled around him.
As he turned his head, his eyes caught Song Yuqing hiding behind the cracked door, and his expression plummeted into pure despair.
Song Yuqing’s eyes locked onto his face. She recognized him. It was Lin Han, the camera assistant from her crew.
Since it was someone she knew, she couldn’t just stand by and watch him get eaten alive.
Closing her eyes, she focused on her spatial inventory and materialized the heavy metal C-stand she had accidentally stored the night before. Suppressing her terror, she gripped the heavy stand with all her might, charged out of the store, and smashed it hard against the vines pinning Lin Han’s legs.
The massive yellow flower shuddered. It whipped its head toward Song Yuqing, letting out a bizarre, guttural “cooing” sound.
Song Yuqing’s arms were already trembling; the metal stand was incredibly heavy. Seeing the mutated flower lunging straight at her, she threw her weight forward, swinging the C-stand like a spear and jamming it directly into the creature’s gaping mouth.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. The massive flower froze, completely paralyzed.
Sweat pouring down her face, Song Yuqing pulled out her Swiss Army knife and hacked at the vines binding Lin Han. But the plant was relentless; every time she severed a vine, another grew back in its place.
The mutated flower shuddered violently and gagged, spitting the heavy metal stand back out. The falling C-stand struck Lin Han right on the ankle, making him shriek in pain.
Baring each of its sharp, fleshy petals, the monster straightened up. It was ready for revenge against the fragile human who had just forced it to swallow metal.
With death staring them in the face, Song Yuqing grabbed Lin Han and dragged him backward into the convenience store. She needed to test exactly how far the store’s protective barrier extended.
Sure enough, the monster couldn’t cross the threshold. The moment the vines wrapping Lin Han crossed into the convenience store, they turned pitch-black and withered, sizzling as if scorched by an invisible fire. The plant instantly recoiled, pulling its vines back into the alley where they hung pitifully just outside the doorway.
Whoosh—!
A sudden fireball dropped out of nowhere, landing squarely inside the giant flower’s maw. In an instant, the entire wall of ivy erupted into a roaring blaze. Strangely, the low brick wall beneath the plant remained completely untouched by the magical fire.
Lin Han finally let out a ragged breath, collapsing in relief. He fervently believed that surviving a disaster like this meant good fortune lay ahead.
Three men materialized from the far end of the alley, jogging around the burning ivy and rushing toward Lin Han.
“Brother Lin, are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Lin Han grunted, pushing himself off the floor. His exposed skin was riddled with bleeding, pinpoint punctures from the ivy’s tentacles. He looked up at Song Yuqing. “I didn’t expect you to still be alive, Director Song. Thank you so much for saving me.”
While Lin Han offered his thanks, his eyes were already scanning the convenience store. Seeing the four rows of shelves packed to the brim with supplies filled him with predatory joy. For the first time since last night, he was looking at real food and water.
An intrusive thought crossed his mind: he wanted to take everything in this store and shove it into his own spatial inventory. His space was massive—the size of ten football fields. The supermarkets and shopping malls in town were completely overrun by zombies, and he hadn’t possessed the guts to break into them, but this place was different.
“Drink some water to calm down,” Song Yuqing said, pulling four bottles of water from a shelf and handing them out to Lin Han and his companions. “What’s the situation like outside right now?”
“It’s miserable. A living hell,” one of the men muttered. “Hardly any survivors left.”
“People are probably just hiding. Either way, there are zombies and man-eating plants everywhere!”
Lin Han took the bottle and guzzled the water in massive gulps. At the same time, he casually reached a hand out toward the shelves, silently activating his superpower to pull the entire inventory into his spatial void.
Song Yuqing watched his every move, but she didn’t say a word to stop him.
Lin Han didn’t care about the director’s reaction anymore. He pushed his spatial ability to its absolute limit, sweat quickly breaking out across his forehead. Yet, even as his energy reserves rapidly depleted, the supplies on the shelves didn’t budge an inch. He couldn’t take a single thing.
How is this possible?
Lin Han frowned, glaring at Song Yuqing. This woman’s ability can actually suppress mine? He reasoned that she must have been the one who drove the mutated ivy away earlier.
“Director Song,” Lin Han said, his voice dropping into a smooth, calculated tone. “Why don’t you join us? There are four of us, and every single one of us has awakened a special ability.”
The moment he spoke, the other three men looked startled.
“Wait, Lin Han, that’s a bad idea. Why are we bringing a liability along?” one of them whispered urgently into his ear.
“No need,” Song Yuqing replied with a faint smile. “I plan to stay here and open a convenience store… well, a supermarket.”
Silence descended on the room.
The three men behind Lin Han struggled to suppress their laughter, while Lin Han simply stared at Song Yuqing with a chilling, intense gaze, as if trying to read her mind.
“A supermarket? In this world? Do you honestly think anyone is going to pay you for supplies?”
Song Yuqing felt deeply uncomfortable under his predatory stare, but she held her ground. “How do you know they won’t?”
Because I, Lin Han, am going to rob you blind, he thought. A weak woman like you doesn’t deserve to own all this food.
Lin Han smiled subtly, shooting a sharp wink at his three companions. A handsome man in the group knit his brows, instantly catching the signal. Having escaped a massive zombie horde together the previous night, the four of them had already developed a dark, unspoken understanding.
In the apocalypse, the strong ruled. The laws of the old world were dead. You couldn’t afford the luxury of morality anymore.
The handsome man quietly channeled his power. A swirling rope of pressurized water manifested in his palm, and with a flick of his wrist, he lashed it directly at Song Yuqing.
Song Yuqing sidestepped, effortlessly dodging the strike.
She let out a soft sigh. She had expected a betrayal like this to happen, but she hadn’t expected it to happen quite so fast. But before she could fully reset her stance, a ring of blazing fire erupted around her, pinning her in place.
The man who had conjured the fire smirked, looking incredibly smug.
Song Yuqing didn’t panic, nor did she get angry. She simply stood within the circle of flames, looking quietly at the four men. In her head, Master Fu was talking to her, his voice audible only to her.
To the four men, her eerie calm felt like a blatant mockery. Angered, the fire user tightened the ring of flames, bringing the heat close enough to scorch her clothes.
Meanwhile, Lin Han reached out to manually grab a package from the shelf, but his hand froze. A tiny, lightweight bag of instant noodles suddenly felt as though it weighed a thousand pounds, completely anchored to the shelf.
“If you want supplies,” Song Yuqing said calmly, “why don’t you go out and bring me some zombies to trade?”
Under the bewildered stares of the four men, Song Yuqing casually stepped right through the wall of fire as if it were nothing. With a flick of her fingers, the ring of fire snapped away from her, wrapped tightly around the four men instead, and forcefully ejected them out the front door onto the pavement.
Song Yuqing clapped the dust off her hands, thoroughly satisfied. This was one of her absolute privileges as the store manager. As long as she remained inside the shop, she was entirely immune to any superpower attacks.
Lin Han’s heart plummeted, his face twisting into a dark scowl. His three accomplices boiled with rage, aggressively rolling up their sleeves as they prepared to storm the building.
But after calculating the pros and cons for a tense moment, Lin Han raised a hand to stop them. He knew Song Yuqing’s mysterious power wasn’t something they could casually mess with.
“We’ll see about this,” Lin Han spat bitterly. He turned on his heel, leading the three men away into the alley.
Song Yuqing dragged a small stool over to the half-open door, sat down, and began casually chewing on a piece of bread.
From the distance, the eerie, guttural roars of zombies occasionally echoed through the air. Beyond this quiet alleyway, the rest of the world was a chaotic nightmare of screaming, fleeing, and dying people. For a second, she wondered if this was all just a movie. In these kinds of stories, a legendary savior usually emerged to lead humanity out of the dark.
But Song Yuqing knew her own limitations. She wasn’t a savior. She was just an ordinary convenience store owner trying to get by.
A soft flash of white light illuminated the doorway, and a neat, professional sign materialized above the entrance: God’s Convenience Store. Along with the sign, a high-tech security gate snapped into place across the threshold.
Before Song Yuqing could even process the aesthetic upgrade, footsteps hurried down the alley. Lin Han and his three men came sprinting back, each of them dragging a bloody, lifeless zombie corpse behind them.
“How many supplies will four zombies get us?” Lin Han asked, forcing a strained, ugly smile.
Song Yuqing: “…” To be honest, I don’t know either.
She cleared her throat. “Since you’re my very first customers, I’ll give you a special grand-opening discount. Four zombies can be exchanged for one bottle of water and one pack of instant noodles.”
In her mind, Master Fu chimed in: …Wow. You are kind of a crook, aren’t you?
