Chapter 26: Wuhu! Escaped
For a fleeting second, Song Yuqing seriously contemplated dining and dashing.
“Don’t even think about stiffing me!” Ai Mei snapped, reading her mind instantly.
“Relax, I’m a person of integrity,” Song Yuqing grumbled through her teeth. She reluctantly reached into her spatial vault and pulled out twenty cuts of raw meat, ten outfits, ten melee weapons, and ten sets of tactical armor, stacking them back onto the display racks.
Ai Mei produced a device that looked suspiciously like a smartphone and held it out. “Swipe here.”
Beep.
With that final transaction, the balance on Song Yuqing’s gold points card was officially zeroed out.
“Alright, let’s get you back to dry land.”
Song Yuqing blinked. “Wait, what? We’re just leaving the supermarket? We’re heading back right now?” She still hadn’t bought a single crate of emergency medicine!
Ai Mei flashed a mysterious, knowing smile. “Time flies when you’re shopping, gorgeous. We’ve actually been inside this building for eighteen hours.”
Song Yuqing stared at her, utterly dumbfounded, unable to process the chronological jump.
“Come back and shop with us again soon!” Without giving Song Yuqing a chance to argue, Ai Mei grabbed her arm and leaped straight out of the ninth-floor window.
A high-tech submarine intercepted them mid-air, catching both the mermaid and the store manager flawlessly before diving into the deep. By the time Song Yuqing fully regained her bearings, she was standing right back on the dilapidated, dark cross-sea bridge.
The night was pitch-black, suffocated by a total absence of moonlight.
Out of the ink-dark shadows, a cold, decaying hand suddenly clamped onto Song Yuqing’s shoulder. Shaken awake by the immediate threat, she instantly triggered her superpower and slipped seamlessly into her spatial void.
Back inside the submarine, Ai Mei happily keyed up her communication array. “Hey, Boss! I escorted a high-tier traveler through a massive shopping spree today. Don’t forget to wire my commission!”
Inside God’s Supermarket, the only illumination cut through the dim night from the storefront windows. On the shop floor, Gaha and Little Meat Bun were pacing the aisles in a state of absolute, frantic anxiety.
“Gaha, Gaha, Gaha…” Gaha sputtered, her arms flailing. She was sick with worry; the manager had been missing for an entire calendar day.
Little Meat Bun sat nearby, covering his ears with his paws as he scowled deeply. Master Fu had already explicitly informed him that Song Yuqing had simply initiated an inventory run, so he wasn’t genuinely terrified for her safety. He possessed absolute faith that she would return in one piece. He was mostly just losing his sanity from Gaha’s relentless noise.
He had been forced to listen to her bizarre dialect for eighteen straight hours; he was a fraction of a second away from being completely brainwashed into speaking zombie language himself!
The absolute millisecond Song Yuqing materialized back onto the shop floor, Gaha and Little Meat Bun lunged forward, violently tackling her into a tight, crushing group hug.
Gaha: “Gagaha, gagaha!” (Song Yuqing, you scared the absolute life out of me!)
Little Meat Bun: Woohoo! You’re finally back! I can finally enjoy a single second of peace and quiet!
Squeezed tightly between the bear and the zombie girl, Song Yuqing could barely draw a breath. After thrashing and struggling for a few moments, she finally managed to wriggle her way free from their overbearing embrace.
She was still thoroughly disoriented. To her cognitive mind, she had only been browsing the underwater mall for a handful of hours, yet she had returned to find the wasteland swallowed by deep midnight.
“Gagaha, gagaha…”
Little Meat Bun clamped his paws over his ears, letting out a pitiful groan. Why? Why is she still speaking in tongues?!
Song Yuqing chuckled, reaching into her corridor vault to pull out the civilian apparel and the bottles of deep purple hair dye she had selected. She thrust the bundle into Gaha’s pale hands. “Consider this your official grand-opening onboarding gift!”
Gaha froze, staring down at the stylish clothes and the dye for a few stunned seconds.
“Gah-hahahaha!” she squealed, cradling the items joyfully.
Beside her, Little Meat Bun instantly pouted, shooting Song Yuqing a deeply resentful, sour glare. What about me? I don’t get a milestone reward?
Anticipating his reaction, Song Yuqing materialized several massive, heavy ceramic jars of premium honey, lining them up right in front of his paws. “I read in a survival guide that mutated pandas develop an absolute obsession with high-tier honey.”
A massive, goofy grin instantly broke across Little Meat Bun’s face. He greedily scooped up the jars, thoroughly satisfied. Alright, fine! I accept! I love honey!
For a brief window, absolute peace settled over God’s Supermarket.
Thud—!
The front door was violently thrown open. Liu Xiaona came hurtling through the entryway, crashing face-first onto the floorboards. Two massive, heavy stalks of supernatural bamboo followed right behind him, collapsing squarely across his bare back.
Outside the threshold, the horde of zombies that had been hot-bloodedly pursuing him skidded to a halt, groaning in bitter disappointment before aimlessly drifting away. What an absolute tragedy—the human steak they had been about to sink their teeth into had just flown right into a safe zone.
Initially, Song Yuqing failed to recognize the intruder entirely. In her memories, Liu Xiaona was a mountain of a man—sturdy, broad-shouldered, and thick-set. The figure collapsed on her floorboards looked like a hollowed-out bamboo shoot.
She cautiously took a step forward, trying to get a clear look at the stranger’s face. Little Meat Bun immediately stepped into a defensive stance, shielding his provider, while Gaha pulled a piece of clothing over her face and peered over her shoulder.
“Holy crap… I’m actually alive!” Liu Xiaona gasped, violently throwing his head up as he fought for oxygen.
As his energy shifted, the two heavy stalks of bamboo resting on his back suddenly twitched, hopped up into the air, and systematically marched back out the door to replant themselves neatly into the grove outside.
Song Yuqing squinted into the dim light, her jaw dropping as she finally identified the haggard, sun-baked, emaciated creature. “Liu Xiaona?! What on earth happened to you? How did you shrink into a skinny crab?!”
Panicking, she rushed forward alongside the bear to hoist him off the floor, guiding his trembling frame to a chair by the front window.
Liu Xiaona looked up at her, his sunken eyes brimming with pure, unadulterated grievance as tears began to stream down his peeling cheeks.
He explained that over the past few days, he had done his absolute best to keep his head down and play the part of a loyal laborer just to survive. But someone had eventually snitched. The moment Lin Han discovered that he and Xie Hao had been collaborating to run a black-market supply ring inside the compound on behalf of God’s Supermarket, the dictator systematically cut off his rations entirely, ordering his elite mercenaries to violently target and torment him at every turn. Unlike Xie Hao, who could hide behind the political shield of his cousin Xie Zetian, Liu Xiaona possessed zero leverage. He had been forced to endure Lin Han’s absolute tyranny. When the deadly heatwave struck, the elite factions retreated into the underground bunkers, but Lin Han explicitly ordered his guards to drag Liu Xiaona out and lock him on the surface to burn.
“It’s a total joke! I’m a certified water-type mutant, yet I almost got turned into a strip of human jerky by the sun!” Liu Xiaona sobbed, grabbing the corner of his shredded shirt to aggressively wipe his tears and blow his nose. “I was completely spent! Nobody wanted me!”
Little Meat Bun and Gaha stared at him in absolute fascination. They had never realized a grown human could look so profoundly ungraceful while crying.
Song Yuqing quickly popped a fresh bottle of water, handing it over to moisten his cracked throat. She actively had to avert her gaze; the sheer amount of raw, peeling skin flaying off his face was deeply shocking to look at.
Liu Xiaona chugged the fluid, letting out a long, ragged breath of relief.
He went on to explain that roughly ten hours ago, the deep-seated tension between Xie Zetian and Lin Han exploded into a full-scale civil war. The armed conflict had initiated deep within the underground bunkers before violently spilling onto the surface grid. Liu Xiaona had absolutely no idea what critical incident had triggered the bloodbath, but he had seized the absolute chaos of the crossfire. While both factions were violently slaughtering each other, he had simply thrown himself into a ditch, feigned death until the perimeter line cleared, and stealthily deserted the base.
“Does… does your old offer still stand?” Liu Xiaona asked, looking up at her with large, bloodshot eyes. He was pinning his entire future on her reaction, desperately praying she would still accept him as an official clerk at God’s Supermarket.
Song Yuqing paused, looking at him thoughtfully. “Didn’t you tell me before that you were strictly bound to stay there and wait out Sister Qin’s return? Once you sign on as a permanent clerk here, the contract locks you in. You can’t just pack your bags and leave whenever you feel like it.”
Liu Xiaona lowered his head, a heavy silence settling over him. Deep down, he still harbored a desperate, foolish shred of hope that his war-goddess companion would return. If Sister Qin ever decided to travel the outer grid, his instinct was to follow her footsteps to the ends of the earth.
“Tell you what—why don’t you sign on as a temporary contractor for now to help out around the shop?” Song Yuqing negotiated gently. She had just hauled an absolute mountain of inventory back from the underwater city and desperately needed an extra pair of hands to manage the logistics and stock the shelves. “We just unlocked the new staff sector, and there’s an empty dormitory room you can crash in for the time being.”
“Well…” Master Fu’s disembodied voice suddenly boomed through the shop’s audio array, interrupting her. “Per standard corporate guidelines, an arrangement of that nature is strictly forbidden—”
Hearing the booming voice resonate from thin air, Liu Xiaona jumped in alarm, his eyes darting around the room in absolute confusion. For a split second, he assumed the giant panda was practicing ventriloquism, but Little Meat Bun was currently facedown in a jar of honey, completely checked out.
“Key phrase: ‘strictly forbidden per standard guidelines,’” Song Yuqing countered smoothly, effortlessly manipulating the AI’s corporate jargon. “Which, in legal terms, means it’s entirely permissible under discretionary executive practice.”
Master Fu went entirely radio silent, failing to mount a single counter-argument to challenge her loophole.
“Who… who the hell was that?!” Liu Xiaona whispered, a wave of pure, ominous dread washing over his skin. Is this place haunted by a poltergeist?
“That’s just the executive director behind the entire operation,” Song Yuqing reassured him with a casual wave. “He never physically shows his face. Once you spend enough shifts around here, you’ll get used to his eccentricities.”
Truthfully, Song Yuqing didn’t have a clue what Master Fu actually was either.
“So, we have a deal!” she finalized.
Overwhelmed with gratitude, Liu Xiaona firmly grasped her hand. He hadn’t misjudged her character. Song Yuqing genuinely was a leader worthy of absolute trust!
Reaching into her spatial vault, Song Yuqing retrieved a massive bowl of fresh, plump strawberries and a crisp cucumber, setting the bounty down in front of him. Having been restricted to a starvation diet of stale rice for a month, the sight of fresh, vibrant produce made Liu Xiaona’s eyes light up instantly. He shoved three massive strawberries into his mouth at once, biting off half the cucumber in a single, ravenous crunch.
“Slow down, there’s plenty more where that came from,” Song Yuqing said gently. Seeing the sheer depth of his starvation, she systematically began pulling vacuum-sealed pre-cooked meals from her vault, stacking them into his hands.
Tears welled up in Liu Xiaona’s eyes once more. Watching her line up the food reminded him of the unawakened children at the base being tenderly fed by their families after a long day of labor—he was finally being looked after.
As the nutrient-dense, enhanced produce hit his system, the physical transformation became visible; the raw, sunburnt inflammation across his skin began to rapidly recede, and a healthy color returned to his face.
Watching him inhale the food with such pure enjoyment, Little Meat Bun’s stomach grumbled. He reached a heavy paw over, plucked a fresh strawberry from the bowl, dipped it deep into his honey jar, and popped it into his mouth.
Gaha, however, possessed absolutely zero interest in human food. She stood off to the side, tightly clutching her new bottles of purple hair dye, silently tugging at Song Yuqing’s sleeve to beg for her stylish makeover.
A profound, comfortable warmth settled over the shop floor. Looking around at the ragged hunter, the enthusiastic zombie girl, and the honey-slicked giant panda, Song Yuqing felt a deep, undeniable sense of home. Sitting within her doomsday fortress, she had absolutely no idea what terrifying, catastrophic dangers were currently crawling through the dark, waiting for them the moment the night cleared.
