Chapter 4: Primary Zombie
When Lin Han heard Song Yuqing declare that four zombies could only be exchanged for a single bottle of water and one pack of instant noodles, his eyelids twitched. She was incredibly ruthless.
Yet, reading the room, Lin Han and his crew had no choice but to accept that she held all the cards. They dumped the four decaying corpses outside the shop and turned back toward the main street to hunt for more. Fortunately, the undead roaming outside the alley weren’t clustered in massive hordes, making them easy enough for the four powered men to take down.
Left alone, Song Yuqing looked at the corpses on the ground, a wave of nausea washing over her.
Not long ago, these monsters had been living people, capable of running, jumping, and singing silly songs. Now, they were just maggot-infested shells of rotting flesh, emitting faint, wet thumping sounds as the gases produced by decomposition built up inside their internal tissues.
“Hey, hurry up and drag those little zombies over to the security gate!” Master Fu chimed in, sounding thoroughly excited.
The security gate? Song Yuqing finally noticed that the seemingly ordinary frame was now crackling with a faint white light, emitting the sharp hiss of static electricity.
“That’s the zombie value assessment system equipped by God’s Supermarket,” the voice explained.
Following Master Fu’s instructions, Song Yuqing pulled on a pair of thick plastic gloves and dragged the nearest corpse toward the threshold.
Ding~ Primary zombie.
The gate announced the inspection results in an oddly playful, synthesized tone. A jagged arc of white lightning flashed across the doorframe, gradually melting the zombie’s body until it dissolved into absolutely nothing.
Song Yuqing froze in surprise for a second, but her expression quickly smoothed over. She reached down and grabbed the next one.
Once a person turned into a zombie, they seemed to lose a significant amount of weight. Song Yuqing managed to toss all four corpses through the security gate without breaking much of a sweat. When she finished, she walked over to the alley wall, scooped up a handful of ash from the burned ivy, and rubbed it vigorously between her palms to clean off any grime.
“Congratulations! You’ve traded your first four zombies. Only twenty-six left to go~” Master Fu announced cheerfully.
Song Yuqing sat back down on her small stool by the door as a critical realization struck her. “What happens if I fail to meet the monthly quota of thirty zombies?”
“Then I will simply have to find a new manager for God’s Supermarket,” Master Fu replied, his tone turning dead serious.
Song Yuqing knit her brows. That meant she would lose the absolute protection of the convenience store.
Before long, a grunting Lin Han and his three companions returned, each dragging another corpse. Their clothes were heavily stained with a foul-smelling, greenish sludge that gave off a sickening stench.
Noticing the bare pavement, Lin Han blinked in confusion. “Where did you dump the other bodies?”
Without a word, Song Yuqing calmly picked up one of the fresh corpses and tossed it into the security gate, letting the white light vaporize it instantly.
“Go ahead and pick whatever flavor of instant noodles you want,” she said smoothly.
Lin Han stood rooted to the spot, completely baffled. How did Song Yuqing possess such a bizarre, high-tech piece of equipment? What was its actual purpose? And more importantly—why couldn’t it belong to him?
His three accomplices had already rushed over to the shelves. Realizing they couldn’t manually carry all the food and water alongside their weapons, they looked back at Song Yuqing helplessly.
“Stewed chicken with mushrooms,” one called out.
“Braised beef.”
“I want braised beef too.”
Lin Han squeezed a few words past his teeth. “Seafood flavor.”
“Got it.” For a brief moment, Song Yuqing felt a wave of nostalgia, as if she were a kid again helping her parents run the family shop.
Lin Han systematically stored the water and noodles into his spatial inventory, and the four men marched back out of the alley to hunt down more targets. Lin Han was already feeling a surge of arrogance; as it turned out, zombies weren’t all that special.
Inside the shop, Song Yuqing grabbed a zombie by the leg and was about to heave it into the gate when Master Fu spoke up urgently.
“Wait! Don’t you want to harvest the crystal core from its brain? Those cores can strengthen your physical body and level up your superpowers.”
Song Yuqing recalled reading about this in webnovels—cracking open an undead skull to retrieve a magical core.
“Exactly what you’re thinking,” Master Fu laughed. “Crack the skull open!”
Song Yuqing hesitated, her stomach turning. She was the type of person who didn’t even like tearing into a spicy duck neck at dinner.
“How do you know it’s not fun if you don’t even try?” Master Fu coaxed.
A heavy metal wrench materialized out of thin air, hitting the floor with a sharp metallic clatter.
Fine, she thought. There’s a first time for everything.
Picking up the wrench, Song Yuqing swallowed her revulsion and pried open the zombie’s skull. Gritting her teeth, she used the tip of the tool to fish out a gray, crystal-clear stone buried in the gray matter. It was coated in a sticky, green mucus.
Is this the core?
Before she could examine it closely, the crystal began to shrink rapidly right in her palm, dissolving until it vanished entirely. The only thing left on her skin was a disgusting layer of slime that looked like a long string of snot.
Suddenly, a wave of pure warmth bloomed inside her chest, spreading from her hands down to her toes. Her exhaustion vanished.
Not far off, Lin Han and his crew were returning, each dragging two zombies by their ankles. Just as the men were about to pull the bodies into the alley, Lin Han suddenly held up a hand, signaling them to stop.
Having kept a close eye on the shop, Lin Han immediately imitated what he had seen. He used brute force to smash open a zombie’s head and dug out the crystal core. Watching the stone dissolve into his skin, feeling his internal energy expand, Lin Han raised an eyebrow in realization.
He knew it! There was no way a girl with thin arms and legs like Song Yuqing could naturally possess such overwhelming power. It was all because of these crystal cores!
Spurred by greed, Lin Han and his three companions dragged their zombies into a blind corner of the alley and began frantically smashing skulls.
After throwing the remaining headless corpses into the security gate, Song Yuqing collapsed onto the camp bed to rest. She had no idea she had just accidentally created a fierce group of competitors in the core-harvesting business.
“Ahem… about your pricing…” Master Fu finally spoke up, having held his tongue for as long as he could. “I really think you need to rethink your exchange rates.”
“I know,” Song Yuqing agreed easily. Charging four zombies for a single bottle of water was a premium rate reserved strictly for Lin Han, considering he had tried to rob her the moment he walked in.
Wanting to establish a standardized baseline, she thought it over. Since survival supplies were bound to skyrocket in value, she decided to price them like a tourist trap or a high-end scenic resort. Essentially, one zombie would equal ten credits of value.
One zombie for a bottle of water.
Two zombies for a bottle of water and a pack of instant noodles.
And so on.
As for the big-ticket items like daily necessities and heavy-duty outdoor gear, customers would need to fork over at least twenty zombies.
“Does that sound reasonable?” she asked.
Master Fu muttered, “I suppose it’s fine…” In his own calculations, one basic zombie was supposed to be worth ten bottles of water.
However, he chose not to argue with her structure. He had his own long-term agenda; he needed Song Yuqing to willingly and obediently manage God’s Supermarket. Right now, his priority was keeping her stable so she wouldn’t run away like the previous candidate.
On the other side of Chen Town, a tall, gaunt man sneezed violently. He was currently huddled in a shopping mall restroom, his hands white-knuckled as he gripped the doorknob from the inside.
Outside, the entire corridor was swarming with the undead. The man kept chanting a frantic mantra to himself: “It’s fine. These are just basic zombies. I’m going to be fine.”
Suddenly, a rotting face pressed against the floor outside, peering into the stall through the gap beneath the door.
“Ahhh!!!” the man shrieked in terror.
The vast majority of the shoppers who had been in the mall last night had turned. Hearing the human scream, the horde instantly descended upon the restroom, completely blocking the exit.
Hiss—!
The monsters clawed and tore at one another, driven mad by the scent of flesh.
Under the overwhelming weight of the horde, the stall door began to splinter. The man desperately tried to channel his newly awakened metal-manipulation powers to block the entrance, but his reserves were spent, and it was entirely futile.
Tears of bitter regret streamed down his face. In the final seconds of his life, his mind flashed back to that shabby, safe convenience store he had abandoned.
Back inside the quiet shop, Master Fu let out a long, uncharacteristic sigh.
“Song Yuqing, I’m going to give you some time to adjust. You must manage the supermarket efficiently while rapidly building up your own personal strength. That way, even when I’m not around, you’ll be more than capable of protecting yourself.”
Song Yuqing replied coolly, “I get it.”
“You need to understand that everything I do is out of the goodness of my heart.”
Song Yuqing paused. Why did that phrase sound so painfully familiar?
“Based on your pitch,” she remarked, “you sound like you’re barely in your teens. Stop trying to act like a world-weary old man. It doesn’t suit you.”
Master Fu sputtered, “Hey! How can you say that?!”
