Chapter 138: Their Story Continues
Song Yuqing held back the crowd from pursuing the retreating horde.
They were trapped inside a doomsday simulation program. If they wiped out the zombies entirely, it might trigger a system sequence that accelerated the end of their world. Instead, their priority was to rebuild their cities and secure their lives. Once their foundations were solid and their capabilities grew, they could capture the remaining zombies to domesticate and tame them.
This was the long-term solution Song Yuqing had hammered out with the experts from Base Zero. Ultimately, they wanted to find a way to live in harmony with the undead.
Shen She and Gaha made their way back to Song Yuqing, both carrying the meteorite fragments with expressions practically begging for a pat on the head.
Shen She curled his lips, complaining to Song Yuqing with a huff, “That Chen Ke never took me seriously before. Look who died by my hands today.”
Song Yuqing instinctively reached out to pat his head to comfort him, but stopped herself, thrown off by Shen She’s elderly face.
“This is her crystal core.” Shen She opened his palm, presenting his prize.
A dark red, diamond-shaped crystal the size of a fingernail lay quietly in his hand.
“This core feels completely different from a normal zombie’s.”
“Here, it’s yours.”
Song Yuqing waved her hand in refusal. “Keep it. That’s your trophy.”
“Alright, then I’ll hand it over to the researchers at Base Zero. Maybe those guys can figure something out from it.”
With the battle won, it was time for the community to recuperate.
Song Yuqing dispatched the God’s Supermarket guards to clear the battlefield and repair the breached walls. Setting an example for everyone, she stayed out on the grounds to work alongside them. The other three employees of the Supermarket skipped going back to sleep and rolled up their sleeves to join her. Even Huo Bin, who hadn’t participated in the actual fighting, came out to help clear the debris.
“By the way, what should we do about the people who said they wanted to surrender to the zombies?” Xie Zetian asked, squeezing through the crowd to get close to Song Yuqing.
“Forget it. It’s all over now,” Song Yuqing replied generously. In a life-or-death situation, such betrayals were inevitable. Even if someone wanted to press charges, she didn’t feel it was her place to punish them.
Turning back to the rubble on the ground, she called out, “Let’s keep moving! The sooner we finish, the sooner we can go home!”
Before long, Xiao Roubao, Gaha, Liu Xiaona, and the others drifted off to tend to their respective tasks, leaving Song Yuqing to work on her section. A few other psychics were nearby helping to clear the battlefield, though they all kept a respectful distance of several meters.
As Song Yuqing packed up the stray supplies, she mentally calculated the logistics of migrating the populations of the other bases into the God’s Community. Now that Chen Ke was dead, the zombie horde was leaderless and wouldn’t pose a coordinated threat anytime soon.
Suddenly, a sharp, searing pain erupted in her abdomen.
She looked down. A blade had pierced clean through her stomach from behind.
Around her, horrified screams pierced the air.
Song Yuqing slowly turned her head. Less than five meters away, her zombie-turned mother was rushing toward her, brandishing several more knives in her hands.
Why? Her parents?
Was she going to disappear before the program even ended?
Right behind her mother ran her father, also a zombie, his face twisted into an expression of sheer disgust as he lunged forward.
When had her parents even managed to get inside the walls?
Song Yuqing’s voice was barely a whisper. “Dad… Mom.”
It was the last time she would ever call them that.
Xiao Roubao, Gaha, and Liu Xiaona sprinted frantically over to shield her, but Song Yuqing beat them to the punch.
Unleashing her newly awakened offensive spatial ability, she struck first, completely removing her parents from this world.
Her white mist bore a superficial resemblance to Lin Han’s black hole, but their mechanics were fundamentally different. Lin Han’s black hole swallowed targets and banished them to a parallel world, whereas her white mist erased things from existence entirely. Those caught in her mist would never materialize in any parallel timeline ever again.
Watching her beloved parents dissolve into the swirling white vapor, Song Yuqing’s tears finally spilled over. Her legs gave out, her body went limp, and she collapsed into unconsciousness.
Song Yuqing remained bedridden, asleep for three whole months. Throughout her long slumber, Gaha took care of her personally, never leaving her side.
During those three months, the God’s Community tripled in size.
The survivors from the other bases had all migrated over. Song Yuqing hadn’t been awake to facilitate the move, so they had packed up and traveled here on their own. Everyone had come to the same realization: sticking together was their only shot at a better life.
The community had even erected a massive agricultural greenhouse. Thanks to the tireless efforts of a wood-type mutant, the survivors could now enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables without having to spend points at the God’s Supermarket. Though the variety was limited, everyone ate with immense gratitude.
Hope was finally returning.
Whenever the residents craved meat, they would form hunting teams and venture beyond the walls to harvest wild game and thin out the wandering undead. Though the zombies had begun taking on more human appearances, none of them possessed the intelligence to lead. They remained a scattered, disorganized faction that posed no immediate danger.
Nanjiao was now fully occupied with building a zombie domestication farm alongside the researchers, keeping his hands entirely full. The God’s Supermarket guards frequently went out on scouting missions, hunting down any remaining meteorite fragments.
In Song Yuqing’s absence, Xiao Roubao, Liu Xiaona, and Gaha had naturally stepped up as the leaders of the God’s Community. Though they never sought the authority, the residents constantly flocked to them to resolve matters big and small. On top of that, as clerks, they still had to manage the daily operations of the Supermarket.
Yet, through it all, Master Fu’s disembodied system voice never spoke again.
Over those three months, Song Yuqing drifted through a sea of dreams—some nightmares, some sweet.
At one point, her consciousness drifted back into a parallel world within her dream. Just like her previous vision, she found herself in the space where Master Fu was softly singing.
When they met this time, Master Fu embraced her tightly, his eyes filled with profound heartache.
Song Yuqing sat and talked with him for what felt like an entire day. Master Fu explained that the doomsday simulation program had been created because humanity’s real home planet was facing a catastrophic meteorite shower. The threat of cosmic radiation turning people into zombies was a very real projection. To find a path forward for human survival, Master Fu’s team had developed this massive simulation.
He revealed that the Doomsday Simulator had run tens of millions of variations—which accounted for the existence of the so-called parallel worlds. It was a core feature of the program.
The God’s Supermarket was a beacon of hope that Master Fu had intentionally hardcoded into the dying worlds. The manager didn’t strictly have to be Song Yuqing; it could have been Liu Xiaona, Gaha, or even Chen Ke and Lin Han. Anyone had the potential to become the manager and carry the torch of hope for their world.
“Song Yuqing, you must live well,” Master Fu said, his expression solemn. “When you wake up, remember to say goodbye to everyone for me. Oh, and tell Huo Bin that I forgive him for running away.”
Master Fu then shared the truth behind his identity and his relationship with Teacher Fu.
In the physical world, Teacher Fu had a son—a rebellious boy who loved music, hated his father’s strict control, and gave himself the artistic alias ‘Master Fu.’ While still young, the boy had run away from home and tragically drowned while trying to save someone else.
Unable to cope with the crushing grief, Teacher Fu refused to let his son go. He devised a radical solution: he covertly extracted his son’s residual memories and brainwaves, digitized them, and uploaded the consciousness into the doomsday simulation program. Because he was designing the blueprint for the God’s Supermarket at the time, he bound the digital ghost directly to the system. The voice of the system belonged to his son, and its erratic behavior and logic were entirely his son’s personality.
“Do you know why I always forgot certain things or experienced system glitches?” Master Fu asked, turning to her.
Song Yuqing shook her head.
“Take a guess.”
“Was it… a code bug?”
Master Fu smiled softly, shaking his head. “No.” He paused, a quiet melancholy settling over his features. “It’s because my father is getting old. He has Alzheimer’s disease. He’s losing his faculties, and he’s starting to forget things.”
Hearing the profound sadness in his voice, Song Yuqing felt her own heart ache.
“Actually, the Doomsday Simulator has already been shut down by my father’s students. In the real world, they successfully altered the trajectory of the meteorite, so our planet won’t suffer a disaster anymore. The simulation isn’t needed anymore.”
Song Yuqing froze, feeling as if she had been pinned against an invisible wall.
“But don’t worry,” Master Fu chuckled. “I inherited my old man’s brains. I hijacked this specific world data and slipped away, hiding us deep within the boundless ocean of the internet.”
Song Yuqing opened her mouth to speak, but found she couldn’t make a sound.
“Go on back now. Goodbye.”
Will we ever meet again in the God’s Supermarket?
“It’s a pity, but you won’t hear my voice anymore. I had to consume the last of my data to pull this off.”
“Oh, and you won’t be able to hop between parallel worlds using your space anymore! I could only smuggle your specific world out.”
“Don’t worry, you’re safe now. You won’t be suddenly wiped out by a system purge because I hid your world incredibly well. You can thank me later!”
An irresistible, invisible force began pulling Song Yuqing backward. Master Fu’s figure, along with the quiet space they had been sharing, began to blur and dissolve.
Bang!
With a deafening crash, the dreamscape shattered into absolute nothingness.
Song Yuqing bolted upright in her bed, gasping for air as she broke away from the dream.
“Gaha!! Gaha!!!”
[The End]
