Chapter 30: Estrangement
Liu Xiaona turned around slowly and held his breath.
There was no one behind him.
“Liu Xiaona…” It was still that same weak voice.
Liu Xiaona’s legs went completely weak, and his trembling hands reached out to grip the alley’s low brick wall. His courage was a fickle thing. In a pitch-black alley like this, where he couldn’t see a foot in front of him, he was an absolute coward.
“Liu Xiaona!” The woman’s voice seemed closer now.
Liu Xiaona fumbled along the wall, trying to find his bearings, when something suddenly slapped his hand.
“Yelp!”
Liu Xiaona jumped out of his skin. He was just about to bolt when a pair of hands violently grabbed his collar from behind.
“Help—”
He tried to scream, but a palm clamped over his mouth, reaching down from above his head.
I’ve finally seen a ghost.
Liu Xiaona’s eyes rolled back, and he fainted right on the spot. Compared to flesh-and-blood zombies, he was infinitely more terrified of ethereal spirits.
Perched on top of the low wall, Chen Ke was stunned. She never expected a mountain of a man like Liu Xiaona to pass out just like that.
When Liu Xiaona finally came to, Chen Ke was squatting right beside him, shining a small flashlight directly in his face.
She sneered, “Oh, look who’s awake.”
Liu Xiaona scrambled backward, wildly scanning the shadows. After confirming that the female ghost from his nightmare wasn’t there, he let out a massive sigh of relief and straightened his spine, trying to salvage his dignity.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Liu Xiaona demanded, his tone freezing over.
“I… I heard from Brother Lin that you were holed up at God’s Supermarket,” Chen Ke said. It was rare for her to speak this way, stuttering and sounding entirely unsure of herself.
“Yeah. What’s it to you?”
“I’ve seen a lot of things while working under Brother Lin…” Chen Ke looked up at him, her eyes wide and watery. “There are a few things I felt I needed to warn you about. After all, we’ve known each other for a while.”
“Oh wow, how nice of you!” Liu Xiaona mocked, his expression turning wildly sarcastic as he mimicked her sweet cadence.
“Even if you don’t believe me, I have to say it. If I don’t, I won’t be able to sleep or eat.”
“Fine. Spill it. What is it?” During his month at Base No. 27, Liu Xiaona had thoroughly seen through Chen Ke’s act. On the surface, she played the part of a pure, innocent lotus flower, but underneath, she was just a ruthless opportunist who fawned over whoever held power.
“Do you know what Song Yuqing’s actual superpower is?” Chen Ke asked, her face turning dead serious.
Liu Xiaona grew instant alert. “Bullshit! Don’t try to pry intel out of me. I’m not telling you a damn thing!”
Chen Ke: “…”
“I already know it’s a spatial ability,” she continued, pausing for effect. “But do you know what else her space can do besides store groceries?”
“Get to the point,” Liu Xiaona snapped impatiently. “Just tell me what you came here to say. Stop talking in circles. I’m not in the mood to play guessing games with you!”
“Fine, I’ll give it to you straight. Besides hoarding supplies, Song Yuqing’s space possesses a lethal ultimate technique.” Chen Ke stared directly into Liu Xiaona’s eyes, dropping her voice to a chilling whisper. “It can devour people. It erases them.”
Liu Xiaona stared down at his shoes, his brows knitting together. He hadn’t known about this. Then again, anything out of Chen Ke’s mouth was highly likely to be a lie.
“Think about it,” she coaxed. “How do you think Sister Qin actually vanished?”
Liu Xiaona snapped his head up, his gaze locking onto her.
“That day, Brother Lin was driving back to the base from Chen Town when he spotted Sister Qin and Song Yuqing walking along the highway together. He was too far away to hear what they were discussing, but it looked like a heated argument. Then, out of nowhere, Song Yuqing channeled her power and unleashed a terrifying black vortex, swallowing a completely defenseless Sister Qin whole.”
Chen Ke carefully studied the shifting micro-expressions on Liu Xiaona’s face before adding fuel to the fire. “Later, Brother Lin ran into Song Yuqing at the Chen Town commercial mall. He tried to question her about Sister Qin’s whereabouts, but she immediately unleashed that exact same black vortex on him. If Brother Lin hadn’t reacted fast and sprinted away, he would have been erased from this world, just like Sister Qin.”
Liu Xiaona’s heart began to hammer wildly against his ribs.
Could this be real?
“If you want to avenge Sister Qin, then…” Chen Ke leaned in, whispering a dark prompt directly into his ear.
When she finished, Liu Xiaona turned on his heel. His face had gone entirely wooden, his eyes vacant as he began to walk away. His balance was completely shot, his boots stumbling over the uneven rubble of the alley.
Chen Ke watched his retreating back, a malicious, triumphant smile breaking across her face.
“Hey, Liu Xiaona! You’re walking the wrong way!”
Liu Xiaona paused like a broken automaton, turned around in a daze, and began trudging back toward the shop. His eyes remained hollow, his fingers white-knuckled as they tightly clutched the fabric of his shirt.
Inside God’s Supermarket, the warm, yellow light bulb illuminated the shop floor. Song Yuqing, Gaha, Little Meat Bun, and Xie Zetian had formed a tight circle around Xie Hao.
Xie Hao stood awkwardly in the center, his head completely bald except for a comically sparse ring of yellowish-brown strands clinging to the lower sides of his scalp.
“A Kappa?” Song Yuqing offered.
“A Sha Wujing monk?” Xie Zetian chimed in.
The two of them blurted out the descriptions simultaneously, utterly decimating what little remained of Xie Hao’s dignity.
Curious, Gaha reached a pale hand out to touch the smooth skin of his crown. Wow, this feels incredible.
“Gaha!”
Xie Hao dodged her hand in pure grievance, his eyes frantically scanning the floorboards, desperately praying for a crack to open up so he could crawl inside and hide.
“Honestly, you’re surprisingly formidable,” Song Yuqing said, fighting to hold back a violent fit of laughter. “Two high-tier variant kings could only manage to steal your… hairpiece.”
“Are you kidding me?! Those two monsters had golden-brown eyes!” Xie Hao shuddered, a wave of post-traumatic terror hitting his voice. “They were executing flawless tactical combos! If I had been a fraction of a second slower, today would be my literal death anniversary!”
Little Meat Bun stared at his bare head, his jaws splitting into a massive, silent grin.
Showing a rare shred of familial conscience, Xie Zetian slid the plate of remaining beef stew over, shoving it right in front of Xie Hao’s face. “Eat up, eat up. We need to go out and hunt more walkers later. Boss Song explicitly stated that the larger our corpse delivery is, the better our meals get.”
Xie Hao’s hand froze mid-air as he reached for his chopsticks. He turned a furious, betrayed glare onto his cousin. We’re blood relatives! You don’t care about my survival in the slightest!
At the mention of dinner, Song Yuqing and Little Meat Bun simultaneously glanced toward the entrance. Their logistics partner, Liu Xiaona, still hadn’t returned from his walk.
“Gaha…” Gaha murmured, nervously rubbing her hands together. Could he have run into those exact same golden-eyed variants?
Right at that moment, outside the shop, Liu Xiaona was leaning heavily against the brick wall. His expression was entirely blank, looking as though he had merged seamlessly with the shadows, his entire silhouette radiating a suffocatingly melancholy aura. The faint line of warm light leaking from beneath the supermarket door pooled quietly right at his feet.
After standing frozen for what felt like an eternity, Liu Xiaona finally shifted his boots, preparing to step inside. Right as he moved, the door swung open, and he nearly collided headfirst with Song Yuqing.
“You’re back!” she cheered, her eyes lighting up. “I was just getting ready to head out and scout for you.”
“Yeah.”
His response was a wall of absolute, icy indifference.
Without another word, Liu Xiaona marched past her, bypassed the counters, and walked straight through the light green door. He entered his assigned dormitory and violently threw the deadbolt, locking the world out.
The vibrant, cozy atmosphere that had filled God’s Supermarket instantly evaporated, replaced by a cold desertion.
Song Yuqing stood rooted to the spot, entirely stunned. She could palpably feel a massive, unyielding chasm violently opening up between herself and the driver. In that brief second before he turned away, she was certain she had caught the dark, distinct seeds of hatred buried deep within his downcast eyes.
Three hundred meters away, perched high up in a secure room of a concrete skyscraper, Lin Han adjusted the focus on a high-powered telescope. He peered across the sprawling rooftops, ruined streets, and low alley walls, intensely monitoring the layout of God’s Supermarket.
Behind him, Chen Ke was panting heavily as she delivered her operational brief. Having just scaled twenty-eight flights of dark stairs, her lungs hadn’t fully recovered.
“Brother Lin… the tracking bug has been successfully installed outside their perimeter.”
“Excellent,” Lin Han murmured slowly, never taking his eye off the viewfinder as he played with the dials. “Tell me, Ke… do you have any idea what my next chess move is?”
“No clue.”
“Do you honestly believe a blockhead like Liu Xiaona is going to play his part and listen to us?”
