Chapter 6: I Became a Murderer?
Song Yuqing watched in awe as the child casually heated the sushi with a tiny flame flickering from his fingertips.
So, this was a world of superhumans too.
Right next to them, a young man shot a precise stream of water from his finger, effortlessly rinsing a smudge off his shoe. Song Yuqing couldn’t help but feel envious.
Deciding to test the waters, she quietly funneled a few smaller items into her spatial inventory. When no one around her so much as blinked, she breathed a sigh of relief. Channeling the absolute limit of her power, she swept the remaining haul into her space all at once. The sheer volume of the supplies left her mind feeling physically heavy.
After leaving the grand supermarket, Song Yuqing retraced her steps to the bun shop, using every last fraction of her remaining points to stock up on steaming buns and dumplings.
Reluctant to leave this peaceful parallel world just yet, she wandered into a nearby park to relax. Settling onto a bench overlooking a pristine lake, she rested her heavy food bag beside her, enjoying the view while happily devouring a bun. A moment later, a giant panda quietly ambled up, sat down with its back to her, and stealthily reached a furry paw into her bag.
For a while, the two of them sat in blissful silence, both of their mouths slick with oil.
When Song Yuqing finished her bun, she reached blindly into the bag for another, only to brush against a thick, furry hand.
Song Yuqing: “?”
She blinked, looking over to find the massive back of a giant panda. The bear was mid-bite, slowly turning its head to flash her a smug, toothy grin.
Song Yuqing: “…”
She lunged to grab the bag, but the panda scrambled away with surprising agility, snatching the very last bamboo shoot and pork bun in its jaws. Song Yuqing had never imagined she would get mugged by a panda. Annoyed, she spun around to give chase, nearly colliding headfirst with an autonomous mobile billboard.
A dynamic advertisement flashed across the vehicle’s screen. The person smiling back at her was… herself. She had a sharp, confident short haircut and was giving a crisp thumbs-up to the camera.
“Welcome to God’s Supermarket.”
A sudden, daring idea sparked in Song Yuqing’s mind.
She popped into a small roadside kiosk and purchased a local tourist map. Scanning the familiar street names, she almost laughed aloud. She wasn’t far from her childhood home at all—it was barely an hour’s drive away.
Right on cue, Master Fu’s voice chimed in, brutally shattering her daydream.
“Don’t even think about going to see them. The version of you in this world has her own parents. Go messing around, and you’ll invite disaster.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll just take a quick look from afar,” Song Yuqing muttered to herself, trying to rationalize it.
Master Fu opened his mouth to argue further, but she tuned him out completely.
Since she was entirely out of points, she walked up to the curb and stuck her thumb out, attempting to hitchhike. Fortunately, some old-school methods remained universal no matter how advanced a society became.
The driver who pulled over to offer her a lift was a young man with a wild shock of blond hair, every strand standing straight up as if electrified. High-energy music blasted through the car’s speakers, and the guy bounced in his seat, throwing his hands up to match the rhythm.
“Pretty wild, right?” he shouted over the noise.
“What?” Song Yuqing sat rigid in the passenger seat, gripping her seatbelt.
“The music!”
Song Yuqing offered a tight smile but didn’t feel like chatting. Strangely, the cadence of the blond driver’s voice felt uncannily similar to Master Fu’s.
“What’s your name?”
The roaring bass completely drowned her out, forcing her to yell at the top of her lungs three times before he finally heard her.
“My last name is Fu! You can just call me Master Fu!”
Song Yuqing’s eyes widened. Her intuition had been dead on. What exactly was the connection between this flesh-and-blood driver and the synthetic AI voice in her head?
“Are you the hidden boss behind God’s Supermarket?” she pressed.
“Huh?” The blond guy shot her a bewildered look. “Man, I wish!”
Song Yuqing remained deeply skeptical. She opened her mouth to probe him further, but he suddenly slammed on the brakes.
“This is your stop, right? Best of luck to you!”
The guy clearly loved speeding; they had covered the entire distance in under an hour. Song Yuqing was hesitant to get out without prying any real answers from him, but as soon as her feet hit the pavement, he gunned the engine. The car roared away, leaving her coughing in a cloud of hot exhaust.
Turning around, a sudden wave of warmth flooded from her chest straight to her fingertips.
The neighborhood before her was identical to the one etched in her memories. The street was blanketed in the golden, fallen leaves of sycamore trees. Following the familiar path, she took a sharp left down a narrow walkway, and there it was.
Qingqing Convenience Store.
The storefront sign still proudly advertised snacks, local specialties, cigarettes, and alcohol.
“Haha! Boom! Pay up!”
Her mother’s triumphant voice echoed from inside. From the sheer volume, Song Yuqing knew instantly she had just won a major hand at cards.
Song Yuqing froze, not daring to step closer, content to just watch from the shadows.
“Oh, Yuqing! You’re back?” a neighbor she didn’t quite recognize called out cheerfully.
Forcing herself to play along, Song Yuqing quickly adapted. “Uh, yes! I’m back.”
The enthusiastic neighbor immediately looped her arm through Song Yuqing’s, dragging her toward the shop. “Perfect timing, I was just heading to your place to grab a bottle of soy sauce anyway.”
A desperate glimmer of hope bloomed in Song Yuqing’s chest. Maybe just a quick, harmless greeting would be okay? Just to see them up close in this beautiful world.
Inside the store, her mother was seated at a table, intensely focused on a game of mahjong. Her father stood right behind her, a deeply stressed expression on his face as he hovered over her hand.
“Hey, you shouldn’t have played that tile…”
“Shh! Quiet!”
Her throat tightening with nerves, Song Yuqing called out softly, “Mom. Dad.”
Seeing her, her mother immediately waved over one of the bystanders to take her spot at the table. “Here, take over for me.”
She quickly ushered Song Yuqing into the back kitchen, her face radiant with joy. “Look at you, home so early! I didn’t think your flight would land until tonight!”
Within minutes, her mother had laid out a massive spread of food, while her father stood by, bombarding her with a relentless stream of fatherly lectures and concern. Song Yuqing ate until her stomach was completely full, letting out a satisfied burp.
“You work far too hard,” her mother fretted, gently patting her hand. “Always on the clock, barely taking a single day off.”
Listening to her parents’ familiar nagging, Song Yuqing slowly pieced the reality together. In this timeline, her alternate self was also the manager of God’s Supermarket—except she had assumed the role a literal century ago. She had spent the last hundred years tirelessly expanding the supermarket empire, never stopping to rest.
“Wait… how many years? A century?!” Song Yuqing muttered, staring in utter disbelief.
Could human lifespans truly stretch that long? A hundred years had passed, yet her parents still looked like ordinary, middle-aged folk.
Seeing the bewildered shock in her eyes, her parents assumed their daughter was simply delirious from pure exhaustion. They quickly ushered her down the hall to go get some sleep.
Entering the bedroom, Song Yuqing found the walls plastered with various movie posters, just like her room back home. Sitting on the edge of the plush mattress, breathing in the familiar, comforting scent of the linens, she didn’t feel at peace. She felt like a thief.
She crawled under the heavy duvet, pulling it over her head as everything clicked into place. Time in this universe moved at a radically accelerated pace compared to her own. In her world, the doomsday outbreak had only just begun. In this world, the zombies had been eradicated a century ago. The historic meteor shower hadn’t brought ruin here; it had brought a golden age of superpowers and longevity.
Remembering the history book she had purchased, A Century Ago: The Great Zombie Outbreak, she pulled it from her space to skim the pages, desperate for answers.
According to the text, the government of this world had anticipated the meteor shower, executing a flawless, highly coordinated defense strategy to contain the initial undead threat. The book glossed over the military logistics, choosing instead to dedicate massive, glowing chapters to mystical sanctuaries like God’s Supermarket, which had served as beacons of absolute hope for the public during the brief crisis.
“Song Yuqing, what are you supposed to do now?” she whispered into the dark room.
Deep down, she knew she couldn’t stay. Making a hasty excuse about needing to run an errand, she walked out of the house that didn’t belong to her.
Reaching the corner of the avenue, she paused, taking one last, lingering look back at Qingqing Convenience Store. It was time to return to reality and wake up from this beautiful dream.
Suddenly, a figure brushed past her, froze, and snapped their head back.
Song Yuqing turned, her breath catching in her throat.
Separated by barely two meters, the two versions of Song Yuqing stood face-to-face, staring at one another in absolute silence.
The local Song Yuqing had noticed a familiar-looking back from down the street, but looking closer, the stranger was an exact mirror image of herself. To be precise, it was exactly how she had looked a hundred years ago—shoulder-length hair, a rugged black jacket, and cargo overalls. It was a style she had almost forgotten she ever wore.
Sensing immediate danger, the interloper Song Yuqing instinctively took a step back, but her alternate self lunged forward, locking a vice-like grip onto her wrist.
“Who the hell are you?!” the local Song Yuqing demanded.
The next second, the ground beneath their feet convulsed violently. The surrounding concrete fractured, and the nearby houses began to splinter, flickering until they turned semi-transparent.
Horror twisted both of their faces as desperate, echoed screams filled the air. The violent tremors amplified, tearing at the very fabric of reality. Trees, streets, and distant mountains began to disintegrate into thin air, dissolving like a house of cards when the foundational piece is pulled.
An invisible, crushing force seized the outsider Song Yuqing, violently ripping her backward into her own spatial void.
The tight, three-cubic-meter space was already packed to the brim with her supermarket haul, leaving her suffocatingly wedged between crates and equipment. Her arm throbbed from the jagged scratches left by her alternate self’s fingernails, and a deafening, high-pitched tinnitus threatened to shatter her eardrums.
By the time the vertigo subsided and her vision cleared, she was sitting on the floor of her own quiet shop. She had been ejected back into God’s Convenience Store.
“I warned you,” Master Fu’s voice echoed, sounding closer and heavier than usual. “I explicitly told you it was a bad idea to go looking for them.”
“What… what happened to that world?” she gasped, her voice trembling.
“It’s the absolute law of spatial dimensions. The moment two identical versions of the same soul make direct physical contact, the parallel universe collapses. It self-destructs.”
Song Yuqing froze, the air completely leaving her lungs.
A suffocating wave of guilt crashed over her. She felt like an absolute monster.
Her hands shook uncontrollably. Destroying an entire, beautiful universe with her own hands was a nightmare far more terrifying than any zombie horde.
Perfect, Master Fu thought to himself in the silence. The timing was flawless. He would step in right now to comfort her in her moment of broken vulnerability, ensuring she remained firmly within his grasp.
