Chapter 15: Little Meat Buns! Pinch!
Song Yuqing opened her mouth to decline the milestone reward, but Master Fu didn’t give her the chance.
A full-grown giant panda materialized out of thin air, plopping heavily onto the floorboards. It blinked, glanced around the quiet shop, and immediately struck an adorable posture.
“You can give it a name~” Master Fu chimed.
Song Yuqing and the giant panda locked eyes, staring at each other in mutual silence. The creature was undeniably cute, but pandas were notoriously high-maintenance and fragile.
Attempting to push itself up, the bear accidentally bumped its massive rump against a nearby display. The impact jarred a heavy paperback loose; How to Coexist with Flora and Fauna tumbled from the shelf, smacked the panda squarely on the head, and clattered to the floor.
The bear stared blankly at the book for a second, then carefully scooped it up with its thick paws and held it out to Song Yuqing.
Oh, come on! That is dangerously cute!
Song Yuqing felt her entire heart melt.
The giant panda lowered its head, repeating a desperate mantra in its mind: Don’t look too closely, don’t look too closely. All pandas look identical to humans anyway…
Wait a minute, Song Yuqing thought, her eyes narrowing. This bear looks incredibly familiar. She stepped closer, cupped the panda’s large face in her hands, and thoroughly inspected its features.
Sure enough, it was an exact match for the mischievous bear that had mugged her bun bag back in the parallel universe.
“Master Fu, what exactly is going on here?”
Master Fu’s voice returned, sounding uncharacteristically weak and sheepish. “Hehe… well, when I was executing the structural repairs on that parallel timeline, I ran into a hidden data anomaly that was severely bottlenecking the system layout. So, I figured I’d just extract the bug and gift it to you as a localized entity. Talk about killing two birds with one stone, right?”
A bug?
Song Yuqing absorbed the technical breakdown, her mind reeling. If she interpreted his words correctly, it meant the parallel universe was effectively operating like a program. No wonder Master Fu had been so absolutely confident he could restore a fractured timeline.
She opened her mouth to demand a clearer explanation, but the AI suddenly went radio silent.
The giant panda looked up at Song Yuqing with a profoundly pitiful expression, letting out a soft, frustrated whimper. Master Fu’s dimension-stitching coding was clearly subpar; the bear had completely lost its innate ability to turn invisible. If Song Yuqing refused to take it in, it would be left entirely homeless in a hostile wasteland.
“Alright, fine. You can stay,” Song Yuqing said, gently patting its large head.
Before the apocalypse, people would wait in grueling lines at zoos just to watch a panda sleep for five minutes. If she played her cards right, she could capitalize on its universal charm, transforming the bear into a high-tier store mascot tasked with drawing in refugee foot traffic.
Hearing that she was willing to take it in, the bear rejoiced. It meant it would no longer be exiled to that empty, blinding void! The panda happily collapsed onto the floorboards, rolling backward and forward in pure joy.
Watching its goofy antics, Song Yuqing couldn’t help but smile. Giant pandas truly possessed an innate ability to heal human stress.
“From now on, your official name is Little Meat Bun,” she declared. “You need to pull your weight, work hard, and act as a reliable lucky cat for God’s Supermarket.”
The bear paused its rolling, tilting its head in sheer confusion. What the hell is a lucky cat? I’m a certified bear, lady. Not a feline.
“Do you know why I picked that name for you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
The panda shook its head rapidly, privately wondering if she had somehow figured out its criminal history.
“Because you stole my bamboo shoot and pork buns.”
The panda let out a goofy, strained grin, doing its absolute best to ease the sudden, intense awkwardness in the room.
Song Yuqing picked up the survival guide, walked over to the front window, and sat down on her small stool, gesturing toward the bear. “Come here, Little Meat Bun.”
Operating on pure survival instinct, the panda ambled over obediently and sat flat on its rump right beside her, stretching its thick neck forward to let her scratch behind its ears. Since it had officially accepted her as its provider, it didn’t mind offering a few free head pats to keep her happy.
Flipping through the pages of How to Coexist with Flora and Fauna, Song Yuqing stumbled onto a highly critical section detailing the evolutionary shifts of various wildlife species. Her eyes locked onto a specific entry regarding mutated giant pandas.
According to the text, giant pandas were the absolute exception among all mutated fauna, flora, and humanity: they possessed the unique, passive ability to entirely devour and neutralize raw supernatural energy.
Song Yuqing stared at the bear in absolute shock, her hand scratching its head with significantly more vigor.
“Holy crap! A giant panda?!” Ruan Fanfan’s voice violently shattered the quiet as she spotted the bear through the window, her screech cracking with pure excitement.
Little Meat Bun instantly batted Song Yuqing’s hand away and snapped into a rigid, defensive posture. Its goofy, docile expression vanished, replaced by a fierce, terrifying glare that screamed keep your distance.
Ruan Fanfan sprinted into the shop, eagerly extending a hand to stroke the thick fur, but the bear casually raised a heavy paw and forcefully slapped her arm away. It was a proud apex predator; it wasn’t about to let an ordinary human stranger treat it like a common pet.
Rubbing her bruised forearm in pain, Ruan Fanfan stared at Song Yuqing in utter disbelief. “Did… did that bear just drop a combo on me?”
The panda bared its teeth at her, letting out a low, menacing growl.
Song Yuqing hadn’t expected the bear to display such a severe shift in temperament. She quickly reached out to soothe the panda, rubbing the fur behind its ears. “Relax, Little Meat Bun. She’s a close friend.”
The panda tilted its head away, actively dodging her touch. It had a professional reputation to maintain; it absolutely refused to show its docile, submissive side in front of outsiders.
Perched high on the rafters, the cobalt macaw suddenly squawked, repeating in a mocking tone, “Got to save face! Got to save face! Got to save face!”
Thoroughly embarrassed, Little Meat Bun lunged forward to swipe at the rafters, but Conghui simply flapped her massive wings, soaring higher up onto the topmost utility shelves.
“Too much ego! Too much ego!” the bird jeered.
The panda glared up at the bird, its eyes flashing. If my provider weren’t standing right here, I would violently pull down this entire row of shelving, tear that annoying blue chicken out of the air, and pluck every single one of its feathers!
“Alright, settle down, Little Meat Bun. Come sit back over here,” Song Yuqing commanded.
“Honestly, with a frame that massive, you should probably name him Big Meat Bun instead,” Ruan Fanfan muttered, eyeing the bear with a mix of intense longing and caution.
Hearing her, Conghui became even more obnoxious, screeching from the rafters, “Fragile ego! Fragile ego! Fragile ego!”
Hmph. I’m completely tuning that bird out, the panda resolved, deliberately turning its massive back to the room.
Ruan Fanfan stepped closer, leaning in to take a deep sniff of the bear’s fur. The panda instantly scuffled a meter away, shooting her a look of pure disgust.
“Yuck! Song Yuqing, your panda smells absolutely rancid!”
Little Meat Bun stared at her in utter disbelief. How dare this human insinuate such a thing?!
Song Yuqing leaned in as well, taking a deep, thorough sniff of the bear’s fur, but she couldn’t detect a single foul note.
“Wait a minute…” Ruan Fanfan remarked, her eyes widening as she sniffed the air around her best friend. “Holy crap, Yuqing! You smell exactly like him! You’re both stinking up the room!”
Disgusted, Ruan Fanfan dragged her folding chair to the far side of the shop, frantically waving her arm to call her macaw down. Conghui glided down smoothly, landing along her forearm as Ruan Fanfan gently stroked the vibrant blue feathers. “Yep. You’re still the only one who smells like a civilized creature.”
Thoroughly satisfied, the macaw held its head high, shooting the giant panda a deeply superior, sidelong glance.
Song Yuqing lifted her collar, sniffing her clothes multiple times, but her nose picked up absolutely nothing.
“You’ve been holed up with that massive pile of decomposing zombie corpses for way too long,” Ruan Fanfan explained, waving a hand in front of her nose. “Your senses are completely shot. You’ve basically been marinated in zombie juice!”
Realizing her friend was likely right, Song Yuqing felt a sudden wave of self-consciousness. She quickly pulled a bundle of clean towels and premium toiletries from the shelves, reaching down to grab the panda’s heavy paw.
“Where are you guys going?” Ruan Fanfan called out.
“To get clean.”
Ruan Fanfan blinked in confusion. She had spent the morning assuming the small, locked green door at the back of the shop led to a high-tech corporate restroom, but apparently not. She had spent the last hour strictly lecturing her macaw on the importance of basic manners, explicitly telling the bird that if it needed to relieve itself, it had to use the designated facility behind the green door.
Oh crap, Ruan Fanfan realized, her face turning pale. She had pointed directly at that mysterious door and told her highly intelligent bird: that’s the toilet.
“Shh!” Ruan Fanfan hissed, locking eyes with the macaw. “Keep your mouth shut about this.”
While Song Yuqing and the bear headed outside, Ruan Fanfan frantically scrambled to clean up the bird droppings that had been left right next to the locked frame.
Ever since she had assumed management of God’s Supermarket, Song Yuqing had been forced to slip into the abandoned residence next door to handle her basic hygiene and wash up.
Everything about her doomsday fortress was absolutely perfect, save for the glaring lack of a proper restroom. She had previously confronted Master Fu about the logistical oversight, but the AI had simply countered that a functional restroom facility was a milestone upgrade tied directly to her sales performance. Song Yuqing had been absolutely furious; if the Department of Labor existed in the apocalypse, she would have filed a severe complaint against the company’s working conditions.
The adjacent house was completely desolate, its original occupants likely having turned into walkers long ago. The former owner had been a fanatic horticulturist, leaving behind a sprawling indoor garden packed with orchids, moneywort, lavender, and mint. Over the past week, the flora had undergone extreme evolutionary mutations, growing with terrifying, aggressive vigor. Song Yuqing felt her skin crawl with anxiety every single time she needed to use the facility.
Strangely, the moment Little Meat Bun crossed the threshold into the house, the aggressive mutant vines instinctively recoiled, tucking themselves out of sight behind the furniture. Song Yuqing’s respect for her new companion shot up instantly.
She focused on bathing the bear first. Under the streams of clean water, Little Meat Bun squinted its eyes in pure luxury. No wonder humans are completely obsessed with spa days, it realized. This is incredible.
When it was finally Song Yuqing’s turn to clean up, the panda stood rigid guard right outside the bathroom door. To pass the time, it casually entertained itself by terrorizing the local mutant flora. It reached over, plucked a massive, glowing mutant orchid, and casually tucked the stem behind its ear, thoroughly pleased with its new aesthetic.
Song Yuqing hadn’t enjoyed a peaceful wash in what felt like an eternity. Free from the constant anxiety of a surprise zombie ambush or a carnivorous plant attack, her mood soared, and she couldn’t help but softly hum a popular tune to herself.
Whoosh—!
A sudden, stark white silhouette flashed directly past the frosted glass window.
Song Yuqing’s scalp went completely numb, every hair on her body standing on end. She aggressively threw her clothes on, threw the bathroom door open, and grabbed the giant panda’s heavy paw, scanning the dim hallways with a sharp, vigilant gaze.
