Chapter 34: Doomsday Online Shopping Platform
Gaha violently thrashed and rolled across the floorboards. Even with the combined strength of Little Meat Bun and Liu Xiaona pinning her down, they couldn’t keep her steady.
Nanjiao pushed his way through the frantic circle, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a small vial. He rattled out a few white pills, firmly pinched Gaha’s jaw open, and shoved the medication straight down her throat.
He administered the pills with such lightning speed that neither Song Yuqing nor Liu Xiaona had any time to intervene.
“What exactly did you just feed her?” Song Yuqing demanded, her voice laced with panic.
“A zombie sedative,” Nanjiao replied casually, keeping one hand resting on Gaha’s shoulder as he waited for the chemical compound to take effect.
Song Yuqing: “…”
At this stage, God’s Supermarket was completely drowning in the sheer volume of riddles this stranger kept bringing through the door. Before a single question could be clarified, a brand-new mystery would immediately take its place.
Song Yuqing felt her brain turning into a chaotic fog from the sudden onslaught of information. She couldn’t afford to let him run the conversation any longer; she needed to seize absolute control of the room.
She shot a sharp, meaningful look toward Little Meat Bun, Liu Xiaona, and Xie Hao: Watch my signal.
Song Yuqing brought her clenched fists up to her mouth and tapped her wrists together in a universal gesture.
Muzzle his mouth, and bind his hands.
Little Meat Bun and Liu Xiaona nodded in instant comprehension. A second later, the bear trotted over and handed Song Yuqing a cold cup of water, while Liu Xiaona proudly presented her with a clean hand towel.
Song Yuqing: “…”
Xie Hao, however, executed the directive flawlessly. Sneaking directly behind the couch, he waited until Nanjiao’s attention drifted, raised his heavy forearm, and delivered a swift, concussive chop right to the back of the investigator’s neck.
Nanjiao’s eyes rolled back, and his head slumped forward as he collapsed unconscious beside Gaha. The zombie girl stopped rolling, blinking her gray eyes as she stared blankly at his limp frame.
The entire sequence felt profoundly familiar to her.
When Nanjiao finally drifted back to consciousness, he discovered his limbs were tightly bound to a chair, and a thoroughly unwashed cleaning rag was stuffed firmly into his mouth.
Song Yuqing and her squad stood gathered in a tight circle, intensely staring down at him from head to toe.
“Question number one: what is your real operational purpose for traveling all the way out here from Base Zero?” Liu Xiaona demanded, flipping open a small notebook and reading the prompt he had drafted.
Nanjiao rolled his eyes in pure exasperation, desperately fighting back the overwhelming urge to curse them out through the fabric.
Song Yuqing stepped forward, roughly pulling the gag from his mouth.
“I already told you—I am an official special inspector,” Nanjiao panted, stretching his jaw. “My directive is to verify whether God’s Supermarket possesses the actual logistical capability to establish a formal trade partnership with Base Zero.”
“What classification of partnership?”
“Base Zero’s core reserves are running critically low. We require a fresh, multi-dimensional source of supply,” Nanjiao answered, his voice dropping into a flat, business-like drone.
Behind his back, his bound hands silently flared with elemental energy. A series of thin, green vines began to sprout directly from his palms, wrapping themselves around the heavy hemp ropes at a speed virtually invisible to the naked eye, slowly and meticulously unraveling the knots from the inside out.
Finally, a bit of breathing room, Nanjiao thought, letting out a subtle sigh of relief as the tension loosened.
“What did you just mumble?” Liu Xiaona asked, leaning his ear closer to the chair.
“Ahem! Don’t let him distract you,” Song Yuqing interrupted, snatching the small notebook right out of Liu Xiaona’s hand. She uncapped a pen, aggressively scratching a few lines into the paper:
- You previously claimed you brought these corpses as a ‘gift’—explain the structural significance of that gesture. 2. What is the explicit blueprint Base Zero intends to use to cooperate with God’s Supermarket?
“Question number two,” she announced aloud. “What else does your database contain regarding Gaha’s history?”
Nanjiao lowered his head, a heavy silence settling over his features. He didn’t need a database; he knew with absolute certainty that he and Geng Kelin had been deeply bonded comrades-in-arms on the front lines.
“Every single psychic who participated in the sabotage against Kelin will pay for it,” Nanjiao murmured, his gaze locking onto the zombie girl with a chilling intensity. “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.”
“Gah…”
Song Yuqing caught the profound wave of affection buried deep within Nanjiao’s eyes. It was a stark contrast to the shallow, infatuated grin Xie Hao usually flashed at the girl; this look carried a heavy, deeply tragic weight.
Xie Hao’s brows knitted together as he glared at the investigator, privately insulted that his own romantic tastes could align so closely with a scrawny tech geek.
“Alright, we’ll shelf that topic for the moment. Moving on to question number three.” Song Yuqing scooped up the dozen small medical vials she had stripped from Nanjiao’s pockets, holding them up to the light. “What exactly is this chemical compound?”
“It’s an experimental clinical prototype engineered to stabilize infected tissue. At its current development stage, it simply acts as a high-grade cognitive sedative for advanced walkers.”
Song Yuqing’s mouth twitched in annoyance. “Could you please practice a shred of corporate self-awareness and stop withholding half the details every single time you open your mouth?”
Nanjiao looked instantly aggrieved. “I’m not withholding anything!”
“Oh, come on! You casually claim these vials are used to treat zombies, yet you completely gloss over who engineered the formula and why they initiated the research project in the first place!” Liu Xiaona snapped, his internal gossip-loving spirit flaring to life.
“Fine, it’s a massive chronological breakdown,” Nanjiao sighed. “The second the meteor shower initiated the outbreak, Base Zero’s top neurobiologists and geneticists immediately established a dedicated research lab to dissect the physiological mechanics of the virus. They are actively trying to engineer a synthetic cure to force mutated cells to regress back into living human tissue.”
“Base Zero possesses that tier of advanced technology?” Xie Zetian’s eyes lit up with sudden, intense interest. For the first time, he seriously considered the prospect of deserting this sector to seek political asylum within their underground city.
“Of course we do. Out of the fifty-one formal survivor strongholds established across the continent, Base Zero remains the absolute undisputed superpower.”
“You seem to possess an incredibly vast amount of intelligence regarding the external grid,” Song Yuqing observed trapsing closer. “Did Ruan Fanfan sell you that data as well? What exactly is her relationship with your high command? Is she currently stationed inside Base Zero?”
Nanjiao offered a slow nod, followed immediately by a firm shake of his head.
He explained that while Ruan Fanfan had indeed traded a significant volume of local geographical intelligence to their procurement division, her files were a chaotic mix of verified truth and fabricated filler—which was precisely why high command had deployed a special inspector to verify the grid. Ruan Fanfan operated strictly as a low-tier, independent subcontractor to their outer network. She didn’t possess the clearance or the pedigree required to secure entry into Base Zero itself; their citizenship standards were exceptionally high.
“So, to summarize—Base Zero desires a logistics pact with God’s Supermarket? You want my establishment to act as your primary bulk resource supplier?” Song Yuqing negotiated, her mind already calculating a massive, premium price margin. It would be an absolute crime not to aggressively drain the accounts of a wealthy corporate empire.
Nanjiao nodded again, before executing another firm shake of his head.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Infuriated by the non-committal gestures, Little Meat Bun marched over, clamped a heavy paw onto Nanjiao’s skull, and forced his head straight. “Behave yourself! Stop wiggling around, it’s getting on my nerves!”
“Base Zero’s physical agricultural sectors have been entirely compromised,” Nanjiao clarified quickly, talking through the bear’s heavy grip. “The directors didn’t travel to God’s Supermarket simply to buy groceries; they intend to use this multidimensional terminal to anchor a decentralized, continent-wide Doomsday Online Shopping Platform to supply resources to every surviving stronghold on the map.”
The sheer scope of the project was astronomical. Song Yuqing blinked in absolute shock, her cognitive gears grinding to a halt. Online shopping? What an incredibly nostalgic, surreal piece of vocabulary to hear in the wasteland.
“Wait, you guys actually have a functional internet network?!” Xie Zetian bellowed, his jaw hitting the floorboards. Nanjiao’s earlier insult hit home; compared to these underground empires, they truly were nothing more than ignorant frogs staring up from the bottom of a dark well.
“It’s completely natural that your local grid lacks this intelligence. This entire sector surrounding Chen Town is effectively a dark zone—a primitive, isolated wasteland compared to the major strongholds.”
Song Yuqing: “…”
Before the meteorites shattered the landscape, Chen Town was celebrated as a premier luxury tourist hub in the south, serving as the pristine weekend playground for the major metropolitan elites! Who dares to classify her home territory as a backwater wasteland?
“Keep talking,” Song Yuqing commanded, forcing her tone to stay perfectly professional. “What exactly is this Doomsday Online Shopping Platform? How is a digital network even operational right now?”
“Because this is an apocalyptic restructuring, not a regression into the Stone Age,” Nanjiao countered smoothly.
The entire staff of God’s Supermarket fell into a stunned silence.
“Before the world broke, I operated as a premier network architect,” Nanjiao bragged, a proud smile crossing his face. “I absolute despised wearing standard plaid flannel shirts, but my coding efficiency was unrivaled. I successfully constructed a closed, high-capacity local area network bridging Base Zero and several sister strongholds across the country. Naturally, the infrastructure was only possible due to the unique evolution of my elemental superpower. I managed to convert a personal hobby into a tool to preserve human civilization…”
“Hold on, hold on, stop right there!” Song Yuqing barked, refusing to let him run away with the narrative again.
“Let me review the facts. Fact number one: you manually constructed a cross-country local area network during a global apocalypse. Fact number two: you claim the infrastructure functions entirely because of your elemental mutation.”
“Correct.”
“What exact classification is your superpower?”
“I belong strictly to the flora division. A plant-type mutant.”
Every single person in the room stared at him with wide, incredulous eyes. They could not comprehend how a common agricultural attribute could possibly interface with digital data arrays and local area networks.
“The core mechanics are far beyond your technical comprehension anyway, so I won’t waste my breath breaking down the code. Just think of it as a specialized adaptation of flora manipulation.”
“This is the absolute first time I’ve ever crossed paths with a plant-type mutant,” Song Yuqing murmured, studying him like a rare specimen. It had been over a month since the night of the meteor shower, and she had only ever heard whispers of flora elementals; they were practically mythological.
“Plant-type mutations are indeed exceptionally rare,” Nanjiao agreed. His gaze slid down his shoulder, tracking the line of the giant panda’s heavy paw. “Frankly, our evolutionary statistics are significantly scarcer than giant pandas.”
“Hmph,” Little Meat Bun huffed, indifferently pouting as he slowly released his grip on the investigator’s head.
“If you want my professional assessment—the common metal, fire, water, and earth elements don’t hold a candle to the strategic utility of the flora division!” Nanjiao declared proudly.
“And what exactly do you mean by that?” Song Yuqing’s eyes narrowed into a dangerous glare, internal alarm bells instantly ringing across her mind. She grew intensely worried that within the next millisecond, the investigator would deploy a surprise botanical strike that would catch her entire staff completely off guard.
“See for yourselves!” Nanjiao cheered, his voice rising in sudden excitement.
With a dramatic flourish, he violently wrenched his hands out from behind his back, snapping the unraveled hemp ropes as he thrust his open palms right into the center of the huddle.
“Peanut flower!” he shouted.
A pristine, brilliantly blue rose violently erupted straight out from the flesh of his palm. A thick cloud of shimmering, iridescent luminescent powder began to cascade from the center of the pistil. Within a single heartbeat, the entire air-conditioned interior of the shop was heavily saturated with an intensely sweet, suffocatingly dense fragrance.
Song Yuqing’s eyes widened in sudden panic. “Cover your noses! Don’t breathe it in!”
