Chapter 102: Becoming a Mother?
Song Yuqing and her companions were temporarily paralyzed by the sudden, explosive flash of lightning. Fortunately, Little Meat Bun and Gaha were the first to react. Before the oncoming vehicle could plow into them, they lunged forward, each grabbing Song Yuqing and Liu Xiaona by the waist and pulling them out of the path of destruction.
The car roared past at an breakneck speed, missing them by mere inches. It didn’t stop; instead, the vehicle barreled straight into the dense brush separating the fork in the road and vanished from sight in a split second.
The four of them stood on the curb, trading bewildered glances.
“What the hell was that?” Liu Xiaona muttered, her voice trembling.
Song Yuqing stared toward the thicket where the car had disappeared, a deep sense of suspicion settling in her chest. The driver-side window hadn’t been fully rolled up. In the microscopic fraction of a second when the vehicle tore past, she could have sworn she caught a glimpse of the man behind the wheel.
It looked exactly like Lin Han.
Is it possible for him to enter a parallel dimension on his own, too?
“Let’s… let’s just go find Sister Qin first,” Liu Xiaona coaxed, her palms slick with cold sweat from the near-miss.
“Yeah,” Song Yuqing breathed, forcing herself to move.
For the remainder of the trek toward the sanctuary for non-espers, the entire group remained on high alert. They kept a hyper-vigilant eye on the sky, terrified another bolt of lightning would detonate at their feet, or that a rogue vehicle would suddenly materialize from the shadows behind them.
“Seriously, what was up with that car?” Liu Xiaona asked, tightly clutching Little Meat Bun’s arm. “You were born and raised in this city, buddy. Have you ever seen weird anomalies like that happen at that intersection before?”
The panda shook his head, looking entirely perplexed. He suddenly understood why Master Fu always nagged him to go out and see the world instead of loafing around the bamboo groves. He had originally thought the man just wanted to get rid of him to enjoy some peace and quiet, but it turned out he truly lacked basic worldly experience.
“Maybe there’s some sort of hidden spatial rift anchored right at that fork?” Liu Xiaona muttered to herself. But even as the words left her mouth, she knew the theory was weak. She had inspected the junction thoroughly; the center of the fork held nothing but ordinary, manicured green trees. It was physically impossible for an actual car to drive straight through them and vanish without leaving a trace.
Song Yuqing listened silently to her employee’s frantic stream of consciousness, a bold, terrifying hypothesis taking root in her own mind.
“Did either of you catch a glimpse of Lin Han sitting in that driver’s seat just now?” she asked, needing verification. She was desperate to prove it hadn’t just been a visual hallucination.
Liu Xiaona shook her head, and Little Meat Bun echoed the gesture. The near-collision had been too sudden and chaotic; they had been entirely focused on survival, leaving them zero time to inspect the identity of the reckless driver.
If the man piloting that vehicle really was Lin Han… Liu Xiaona shivered, a heavy weight sinking into her stomach. “There’s no way, right? How could Lin Han possibly manifest in this reality?”
“Don’t forget, he possesses a unique spatial mutation,” Song Yuqing reminded her grimly. “If his devour ability has evolved…”
She let the sentence trail off, but the implications were crystal clear. If Lin Han could slip between dimensions at will, completing Master Fu’s third task was going to be an absolute nightmare.
“Gaha…” Gaha grunted, nodding solemnly. She agreed that her manager’s logic was entirely sound.
Song Yuqing’s mood grew heavier with every step. If Lin Han’s core ability allowed him to banish his victims across various parallel realities, it stood to reason that he might eventually master the capacity to traverse those exact same spatial pathways himself. The only reason she could stand in this advanced world was due to the systemic privileges granted by Master Fu. If Lin Han could achieve the same feat purely through his own biological mutation, it meant he was an absolute prodigy—and an incredibly dangerous adversary they could not afford to underestimate.
Lost in their fragmented discussions, the group drifted forward until the familiar perimeter of the non-esper shelter finally loomed ahead. The massive pear tree guarding the entrance was still in full, spectacular bloom, dusting the courtyard with white petals. Through the open windows of the facility, the rhythmic chorus of children reading aloud and the sharp shouts of martial arts practice drifted out into the afternoon air.
“We’re here,” Song Yuqing announced, coming to a halt before the main gates.
“Whew. Okay, I’m actually a little nervous,” Liu Xiaona admitted, restlessly rubbing her palms together as she stared at the weathered compound. She couldn’t help but wonder how Sister Qin had been faring since their last visit.
But as she took in the contrast of the dilapidated facility, a sharp pang of discomfort hit her chest. “Man… why does this place have to look so radically different from the glittering high-tech sectors in the city center? It’s like one half of the world lives in heaven, and the other is stuck in hell.”
Along the trek, she had clearly observed that the further they traveled from the urban grid, the more desolate and crumbling the infrastructure became.
Little Meat Bun arched an eyebrow, throwing her a look that seemed to say: Welcome to reality. Honestly, there are sectors far worse than this. Rebuilding an entire society from the ashes of a collapse—especially when navigating the volatile egos of ambitious, high-tier espers—was a monumental labor that would likely take another century to normalize.
As the supermarket squad stepped into the courtyard, a sharp school bell chimed, and a wave of energetic children burst through the building’s double doors.
“Whoa! Look, guys! We have visitors!” one of the children squealed, freezing in his tracks the second he spotted the newcomers. “And they brought a giant panda!”
It wasn’t every day a caravan of four strangers materialized at the shelter gates—let alone a massive, bipedal panda that casually strolled around on its hind legs like a normal person.
“I’ll go alert Mom!” an older child shouted, spinning on his heel to sprint back inside.
Realizing these must be the children Sister Qin had taken under her wing, Liu Xiaona’s eyes welled with sudden, emotional tears. Her chest swelled with a chaotic mix of intense pride and sorrow, resulting in a forced, awkward smile that looked more painful than a sob.
The curious children quickly formed a tight perimeter around the quartet. But the moment they caught sight of Liu Xiaona’s strained, weeping grimace, they instinctively took a cautious collective step back.
“Hey there, guys! Do any of you remember me? I visited a few months back,” Song Yuqing offered kindly, waving to break the ice.
A few of the older kids in the huddle traded glances. “Yeah… we remember you.”
“Are you friends with our mom?”
Song Yuqing blinked. “Mom?”
Liu Xiaona snapped out of her crying fit. “Wait, what?”
Before they could parse the new title, the older scout who had run inside re-emerged, gently parting the crowd of onlookers to pave the way for Sister Qin.
The woman marched into the courtyard, her fingers firmly clamped around a young boy’s ear.
“Ow, ow, ow! Mom, stop! I swear I’ll never do it again! I promise!” the boy yowled, wincing as he stumbled alongside her.
Song Yuqing recognized him instantly—it was the exact same boy in the baseball cap who had aggressively confronted them outside the high-tech supermarket earlier that afternoon.
“I’m so sorry…” the boy whined, trying to sound pathetic. “You have important guests now! Go ahead and handle your business, you don’t need to waste your energy holding onto my—”
He had clearly been holding out hope that the arrival of visitors would force her to release her grip to maintain appearances. Unfortunately for him, Sister Qin merely tightened her fingers in response.
But the moment Sister Qin’s eyes locked onto Song Yuqing and Liu Xiaona, she froze dead in her tracks. In an instant, a wave of profound, joyful tears flooded her eyes.
“Sister Qin!!!” Liu Xiaona cried out, breaking formation to sprint across the cobblestones and throw her arms around the woman.
Sister Qin immediately released the boy’s ear, returning the embrace with equal fervor.
Free at last, the boy frantically rubbed his throbbing ear, letting out a massive sigh of relief that a distraction had arrived. He curiously lifted his gaze to inspect the visitors, only to freeze in utter shock. “Wait… why are you guys here?”
Song Yuqing narrowed her eyes, her lips curling into an amused smile. What a small world.
“Mom, I actually know these people,” the boy piped up, completely discarding the fact that she had been furious with him a second ago as he reached out to tug on the hem of her sleeve.
Liu Xiaona gently stepped back from the embrace, her eyes going wide as she processed the conversation. “Wait a minute… Sister Qin, you’re a mother now?”
Sister Qin let out a hearty, booming laugh. “Yes! That’s exactly right!”
Liu Xiaona stared at her, entirely incredulous. She turned to look at Song Yuqing, but her manager merely offered a completely calm, knowing nod. Only then did the pieces begin to click.
“Oh, wow,” Liu Xiaona laughed. “We’ve only been gone for a few months, and you’ve already raised a son this big?”
Sister Qin smiled warmly, wrapping a protective arm around the boy’s shoulders. “Introduce yourselves, sweetie. This is your Uncle Xiaona, and over there is your Sister Song Yuqing.” She then turned her attention to the rest of the gathering crowd of children. “Come on, everyone, mind your manners!”
“Hello, Uncle Xiaona! Hello, Sister Song!” the children chanted in a flawless, rhythmic unison.
“Oh! Uh, hey there, guys! Hello!” Liu Xiaona stuttered, her face instantly flushing bright crimson. It was the absolute first time in her entire life that a massive crowd of people had addressed her as “Uncle.” She began frantically patting down her pockets, desperately wishing she had brought along some store treats to hand out as gifts.
“So, running a school wasn’t enough to keep you busy? Now you’re taking on full-time motherhood?” Song Yuqing teased, walking up to clasp Sister Qin’s hand.
“Well, the more time I spent with them, the more my heart ached for these poor kids,” Sister Qin explained softly, her voice dropping into a tender register. “They’ve lost their mothers and fathers to the collapse. So, I made a deal with them—if any child was willing to accept me, I would gladly step up and be their mother.”
Liu Xiaona quietly dabbed at her eyes. Classic Sister Qin. She never changes.
Song Yuqing gestured toward the rest of her crew, calling them forward. “Sister Qin, I’d like you to meet Little Meat Bun and Gaha. They’re official employees at God’s Supermarket now.”
Sister Qin offered them a warm, perceptive smile. “It’s a pleasure. I could tell the moment you walked through the gates that these two were extraordinary.”
Gaha scratched the back of her head, looking thoroughly embarrassed. She could tell Sister Qin had instantly clocked her underlying nature as a zombie, yet the woman didn’t display a single trace of fear or revulsion.
“Honestly, your arrival is an absolute miracle,” Sister Qin sighed, her gaze drifting down to the boy standing at her side as her expression turned noticeably grim. “I was just driving myself ragged trying to figure out a way to get in touch with you.”
Song Yuqing’s smile vanished, her eyes narrowing. Wait. Did something happen?
