Chapter 108: It’s True
Could it really be true?
After listening to the tragic account detailed by the old man, Song Yuqing fell into a long, heavy silence.
She was almost entirely certain that the tragic couple he described was indeed Ruan Fanfan and Zhang Lei. They must have seen the promotional broadcast hosted by Xiaoyi and set out toward God’s Supermarket. But caught unsheltered in the catastrophic acid rain, they chose to end their own lives rather than suffer a slow, agonizing dissolution—a desperate move to preserve their final shred of human dignity.
Their grim end perfectly mirrored the fractured, bloody premonitions projected on the cinema screen.
But had Ruan Fanfan truly perished just like that? To end her own life before death was even an absolute certainty? Had she explicitly asked Zhang Lei to deliver the fatal blow? Was their last, abrupt farewell truly the final time they would ever cross paths?
Dazed and struggling to process the reality, Song Yuqing asked in a hollow whisper, “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Those two people… they were really Ruan Fanfan and Zhang Lei,” Liu Xiaona murmured. Although she had never particularly liked Ruan Fanfan, her chest still tightened with a wave of profound sorrow upon hearing the story.
Yet, even outside the end of the world, sudden and untimely deaths were an everyday occurrence. The wasteland never suffered from a shortage of tragic stories.
The old man narrowed his eyes slightly, locking his gaze onto Song Yuqing before offering a slow, somber nod. “I witnessed it with my own eyes.”
He had originally intended to pitch his business model to Song Yuqing—discussing a potential partnership to manufacture and sell custom umbrellas from his vending stall—but seeing that the manager had completely lost her spirits, he tactfully chose to drop the subject.
Sensing the raw grief weighing on Song Yuqing, Liu Xiaona, Gaha, and Little Meat Bun quietly escorted the old man out of the bedroom, leaving their manager alone in the quiet space to process her thoughts.
Outside the storefront, the chemical deluge began to lash the ruins once more, showing no signs of stopping. By the time Song Yuqing finally stabilized her emotions and stepped back out into the lobby, midnight had already reclaimed the sky.
Every refugee in the building was trapped in an anxious spiral, wondering exactly how long this catastrophic acid rain would endure. Would it map out across a few days, or trap them for months?
A few desperate survivors remembered the magical attributes of the third-floor theater, swarming Liu Xiaona to beg for access to the Future Cognition cinema. They were desperate to extract any microscopic clue that might hint at a break in the weather.
Liu Xiaona shot a hesitant look toward Song Yuqing. He didn’t speak aloud, but his manager could easily read the question in his eyes.
They were both tracking the exact same logic: under normal circumstances, a strict transactional exchange of zombie corpses was required. But Master Fu was completely missing, hunting down mutants in this weather was a statistical impossibility, and as the verified custodians of God’s Supermarket, they had the authority to bend the rules.
Song Yuqing stepped forward, her voice echoing clearly through the crowded room. She announced that both the second-floor cafe and the third-floor Future Cognition cinema would remain open to the public completely free of charge until the acid rain subsided. Furthermore, any essential daily provisions required from the main floor could be issued strictly on store credit.
The desperate refugees erupted into immediate, ecstatic cheers, their voices bouncing off the silver walls as they shouted, “Long live God’s Supermarket!”
Although the pristine theater technically only featured five installed seats, the emergency protocol rendered those spatial limitations obsolete. By allowing the viewers to stand shoulder-to-shoulder, at least twenty people could squeeze into the room to witness each ten-second projection. The old man seamlessly blended into the first wave of spectators, securing a tight corner inside the dark room to analyze several futuristic sequences back-to-back.
Every single frame that flashed across the screen caused his brow to furrow deeper.
Meanwhile, the store staff refrained from crowding into the upper level, electing to hold an emergency tactical briefing on the first floor.
Song Yuqing stared out the front window at the smoking, melted rubble of Chen Town. Her mind automatically synthesized the old man’s testimony, vividly visualizing the horrific end of Ruan Fanfan, Zhang Lei, and their massive parrot.
This acid rain must be countered, she resolved.
Song Yuqing decided to take Little Meat Bun back into the parallel realities to purchase a massive inventory of protective gear—most importantly, a bulk shipment of the exact canvas fabric used to construct those heavy-duty backpacks.
“I’ll be back as fast as I can,” she reassured her team. “Don’t worry.”
Gaha tugged tightly on Song Yuqing’s sleeve, her shoulders dropping into a deeply aggrieved posture. Her manager was leaving her behind, opting to deploy strictly with the panda. She couldn’t help but wonder what the exclusion meant.
Song Yuqing gently patted the gargoyle’s head, offering a comforting smile. “I can’t predict what the social climate is like behind the next portal, Gaha. It’s significantly safer to bring Little Meat Bun as my vanguard.” An unfamiliar reality might react with immediate hostility to an undead zombie, whereas human societies were hardwired to instantly dote on a rare, bipedal giant panda.
“Go ahead, Boss,” Liu Xiaona said seriously, stepping up to flank her teammate. “Gaha and I will hold down the fort and guard the main floor.”
“Thank you.” Song Yuqing nodded. She turned, firmly clasping Little Meat Bun’s thick paw, and focused her mind to slip into the spatial corridor.
A sudden flash of lightning illuminated the sky outside, and the acid rain began to hammer the earth with newfound violence.
Upstairs, the old man—having saturated himself with the cinematic visions of the future—shuffled down the steps with a heavy, staggering stride. When Liu Xiaona offered a warm greeting as he passed the register, he completely ignored her, marching straight toward the exit doors.
“Whoa, grandpa! Where do you think you’re going?” Liu Xiaona yelped, quickly vaulting over the counter to physically intercept him.
The old man’s mouth was pressed into a thin, stubborn line, his brow heavily knitted. “Little Brother Xiaona, I need to step out for a brief moment.”
Liu Xiaona’s lip twitched slightly, thoroughly thrown off by the sudden honorific. “Little Brother…?”
The old man lowered his chin, smoothly twisting his arm to break her grip on his sleeve.
“Hey, listen to me, it’s literally raining chemical poison out there!”
“It’s fine,” he replied dismissively. “I have my umbrella.” He unfurled the army-green canopy, stepped past the threshold, and plunged into the toxic downpour without a single backward glance.
“What a bizarre old man…” Liu Xiaona muttered, staring through the glass at his retreating back, completely unable to parse his behavior.
“Gaha…” Gaha grunted softly, staring intently at the empty space where the old man had just stood. The expression she had caught on his face felt hauntingly familiar. She had seen that exact look before—a quiet, unyielding, silent stubbornness.
“You’d better be planning on coming back!” Liu Xiaona screamed out into the storm, leaning her head out the door.
The old man’s voice carried back through the driving rain, punctuated by a wet cough. “Of course I am… cough, cough…”
Of course he would return. He just desperately prayed there was still enough time.
Song Yuqing and Little Meat Bun navigated the spatial corridor, stepping through the fourth reinforced iron gate. The multiversal coordinates materialized them squarely back onto the familiar suspension bridge, dropping them directly in front of Ai Mei, who was currently letting out a massive, lazy yawn.
“Welcome…” Ai Mei chimed smoothly, her eyes tracking the newcomers.
Little Meat Bun flapped his ears, his gaze darting curiously toward her iridescent fish tail as it rhythmically slapped against the bridge railing.
“Where are you folks traveling from this time?” Ai Mei asked, studying the pair from head to toe. “Oh, wow, this panda is absolutely precious! He looks so delightfully simple-minded yet incredibly robust.”
Little Meat Bun’s expression soured. Hey, watch it. I don’t appreciate that. Who praises a glorious giant panda by calling him simple-minded?
Song Yuqing cut in with a smile. “I visited your sector last month, Ai Mei. Don’t you recognize me?”
Ai Mei didn’t display a single trace of surprise, her features instantly molding into a perfectly polite, polished customer-service smile. “Of course I remember! We took a trip down to the grand hypermarket last time, didn’t we?”
In truth, she didn’t possess a single concrete memory of the interaction; she had escorted an endless stream of multiversal travelers to that shopping complex over the weeks, securing a massive fortune in personal kickbacks along the way!
But since this human client had already cleared the orientation phase, it meant they didn’t need to waste precious daylight explaining the structural layout of the subterranean metropolis. They could skip straight to the commercial transaction.
Ai Mei eagerly seized Song Yuqing and Little Meat Bun by the arms, steering them toward her docking bay. “Let’s go shopping!” she cheered.
The vessel abruptly submerged, diving into the dark depths of the aquatic world. Startled by the sudden gravitational drop, Little Meat Bun nervously clutched Song Yuqing’s jacket, his small face twisting into a profound scowl. Ugh, motion sickness…
“On this deployment, in addition to restocking our basic food provisions, we desperately need to secure a massive wholesale order of a specific fabric,” Song Yuqing explained, pulling the sample backpack from her space to show the guide.
Ai Mei’s eyebrows shot up. “Ah. You’re the thirty-fifth client to request a bulk shipment of this exact canvas textile this month.”
Song Yuqing froze, her eyes widening. “Wait… how did you know?”
“Please,” Ai Mei sighed. “Aside from our own home world, a vast number of parallel realities have recently run headfirst into a catastrophic acid rain crisis. But strangely enough, our world—which features absolutely zero toxic weather anomalies—is the only dimension that actively manufactures a textile fully immune to chemical acid corrosion. Isn’t that a bizarre twist of fate?”
Song Yuqing nodded slowly. Incredibly bizarre.
“The other parallel realities you just mentioned…” she pressed, zeroing in on the crucial data point. “Are there truly that many out there?”
“Oh, absolutely! I’ve personally run logistics for survivors from fifteen separate corrupted timelines so far.”
Song Yuqing and Little Meat Bun traded a sharp, meaningful glance.
Wait a minute. If Ai Mei possessed a direct pipeline to fifteen separate timelines currently ravaged by the toxic storm, did it mean the third doomsday objective assigned by Master Fu—tracking down and settling the displaced survivors devoured by Lin Han—could be efficiently outsourced straight through her network?
Song Yuqing frantically calculated a strategy to broach the topic, wondering how to persuade the guide to assist them. She still hadn’t fully cracked Ai Mei’s behavioral matrix; to the mermaid, they were nothing more than standard commercial clients. If she suddenly dropped a multiversal rescue request on her lap, Ai Mei might flatly refuse to cooperate.
Before she could finalize her pitch, the submarine glided to a smooth halt at the hypermarket’s main terminal. Moving with lightning speed, Ai Mei linked arms with her clients and ushered them briskly through the grand entrance.
Taking in the sprawling, hyper-advanced interior, Little Meat Bun’s eyes went completely wide.
“What exactly is the corporate name of this shopping center?” Song Yuqing asked, scanning the signage.
“God’s Supermarket,” Ai Mei replied casually.
God’s Supermarket again!
“And who exactly holds the deed to this entire enterprise?”
Ai Mei flicked a glance toward Song Yuqing, her lips curling into a deeply mysterious, knowing smile. “A man named Master Fu.”
Catching the deliberate weight behind her gaze, Song Yuqing’s heart took a violent, rapid leap against her ribs. What on earth does that look mean?
