Chapter 111: Borrowing Life
Song Yuqing held her breath instinctively. Teacher Fu’s weathered yet gentle eyes took in both her and the giant panda beside her.
Teacher Fu offered a helpless smile, reached out, and gave them a slight nod. Turning back to his monitor, he tapped a few keys, and Song Yuqing and Little Meat Bun were silently and seamlessly pulled back into her dim, narrow pocket dimension.
Song Yuqing and Little Meat Bun stared at one another, leaning against each other to keep from falling over.
Song Yuqing was mortified. They had been caught red-handed peeping and promptly booted back to their own room, all without figuring out a single concrete detail.
Little Meat Bun lowered his head, sheepishly rubbing his nose.
Upon exiting the space, Song Yuqing refrained from discussing Teacher Fu or Master Fu with the others. Instead, she focused on distributing supplies to the refugees crammed inside God’s Supermarket to escape the acid rain, ensuring everyone was properly settled.
For some reason, the old man who had gone out into the storm had returned to the supermarket, dragging dozens of zombie corpses back with him. Not just Song Yuqing, but everyone in the store was intensely curious about where he had managed to hunt them down in this weather, and many were eager to try their own luck.
But the old man kept his mouth shut, choosing to endure their grumbles about his lack of neighborly spirit rather than reveal his hunting grounds.
Noticing how tightly he was pursing his lips and how fiercely his hands gripped the hem of his jacket, Song Yuqing knew he was deeply troubled, so she stepped in to diffuse the tension and help him out.
The old man traded his entire haul of zombie corpses for a large supply of acid-proof canvas. Carrying the material under the Chinese tallow tree, he set up a modest vending stall, using a few swatches to pitch a simple roof over his head.
The acid rain continued to pour relentlessly outside.
The old man borrowed two wooden shelves from Song Yuqing—one long and one short. He used the long board to craft his tools and the short one to paint a sign.
His handwritten message read:
“There is no telling how long this acid rain will last, but my umbrellas and raincoats are available 24 hours a day. Give me one minute, and I will give you an umbrella and a raincoat. Strict limit of ten purchases per person.”
Song Yuqing and the rest of the crowd huddled near the entrance, watching the old man position the sign at the front of his stall.
“Hey, old man, what exactly does that mean?” someone called out.
“I don’t have much time left in this world,” the old man replied softly, “so I want to spend a little more time with everyone. If each of you gives me just one minute, I can live a bit longer.”
After a brief, stunned silence, the crowd erupted into a chaotic uproar.
“Is he literally borrowing our lifespans?!”
The old man didn’t deny it. “Which is exactly why a single person can only purchase an umbrella from me ten times.”
Song Yuqing stared at the painted text, lost in thought. Though she couldn’t fully comprehend the mechanics of what the old man was doing, her intuition told her she should support him.
Liu Xiaona stared at him, her eyes wide. “Grandpa, how are you even supposed to extract a minute of someone else’s time? Are you sure you aren’t just confused?”
The old man looked across the crowded supermarket, offering a serene, steady smile. “I am a master of time. I have my ways.”
“So you really possess a time-based mutation!” “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a time esper in person!” “Wait! I’ve heard rumors about you! Aren’t you the elite subject from the Base Zero laboratory?!”
The old man merely lowered his head to continue constructing an umbrella, the frantic shouting of the crowd seemingly fading into the background.
Song Yuqing and her staff traded a series of meaningful glances. Their silent communication confirmed they were all tracking the exact same realization, their minds instantly flashing to Shen She—the stark, overly mature child they knew.
“That is an incredibly terrifying ability!” “Hurry up and craft an umbrella for me! I’ll happily trade a minute of my life for your time!” “No one else has a mutation like yours. You can just siphon away other people’s lives on a whim!”
The moment those words were voiced, the crowd fell completely silent, a sudden chill of fear rippling through the air.
Don’t let your imaginations run wild, the old man’s posture seemed to say.
“I would never abuse it,” he murmured without looking up, fully concentrated on measuring and slicing the long roll of acid-proof canvas into precise sheets.
Song Yuqing stepped closer to the stall. “Your time mutation operates very differently from another time esper I know. His ability only allows him to partially rewind localized events or blur the perception of time.”
The old man paused for one second, two seconds, three seconds, before finally speaking. “If someone overuses a mutation like that, the blowback is severe. The longer they manipulate the chronal flow, the faster their own lifespan burns away.”
Song Yuqing instantly recalled her last video call with Shen She, remembering how the boy had already aged into the physical form of a young man. A sharp pang of worry tightened her chest.
She studied the old man’s features with renewed intensity, mapping out the line of his brows, the bridge of his nose, and the underlying structure of his face. A bold, breathtaking theory suddenly ignited in her mind.
Ding-ding~
A sharp electronic alert chimed from the computer terminal, abruptly shattering her chaotic train of thought.
“Wait! Did the network connection just restore?!” Liu Xiaona cheered, excitedly vaulting over to the desk. If the signal was back online, they could re-establish contact with the external bases. They wouldn’t have to exist in isolation anymore, wondering if God’s Supermarket was truly the absolute final sanctuary left on earth.
Song Yuqing and Liu Xiaona crowded around the monitor, their faces painted with intense anticipation.
However, the incoming data block flashing across the display didn’t originate from any known survival base. The sender field was completely blank.
“I don’t know if you’ve fully pieced it together yet, but I am Master Fu, and yet I am not Master Fu. I sincerely advise you to stop trying to breach this sector. The underlying truth you are chasing is entirely trivial. Just focus on living well. Prioritize survival above all else, and we can deliberate on the rest later. Rest assured, your version of Master Fu will be returning to God’s Supermarket very soon.”
Xiaoyi had been leaning against the checkout counter. With a silent nod of permission from Song Yuqing, she leaned over to scan the glowing text.
“Manager… what does this message even mean?”
Song Yuqing shook her head slowly. “I honestly don’t know.”
She truly couldn’t parse the full scope of the transmission.
The message had undoubtedly been dispatched by Teacher Fu. The reality he inhabited possessed a direct, real-time linkage to her own world. But why?
Furthermore, with a simple keystroke, Teacher Fu had easily banished her and Little Meat Bun straight back to her private dimension. How was that mechanically possible? Were their respective universes fundamentally tethered to one another?
And why did Teacher Fu’s environment manifest on such a colossal scale? Had she and the panda been physically shrunken inside that transparent pipe, or did the physical proportions of the two worlds simply exist on radically different baselines?
Why did the advanced underwater city function as the exact spatial gateway into Teacher Fu’s server room?
What was the exact biological or digital relationship between Master Fu and Teacher Fu?
And why on earth was a live feed of God’s Supermarket pulled up on Teacher Fu’s monitors?
Every single variable was a total enigma. Song Yuqing felt as though her brain had turned into a blurry, sticky mess of unanswered questions.
But one fact cut through the noise: Master Fu was coming back!
The four employees of God’s Supermarket instantly broke into bright, ecstatic smiles.
“When exactly is he dropping back in? How fast is ‘very soon’? What on earth has he been doing all this time?” Liu Xiaona cheered. Her celebration lasted for a few seconds before her expression suddenly turned fierce. She slammed her palm violently onto the wooden desk—only to be met with a sharp slap to her arm from Song Yuqing.
“Ow! What did you hit me for?” Liu Xiaona pouted, looking deeply aggrieved.
Song Yuqing pointed a subtle finger toward Xiaoyi. “You’re going to give Xiaoyi a heart attack.”
Xiaoyi waved her hands frantically, her face flushing. “No, no, it’s fine! I’m not scared…”
Liu Xiaona noted the young girl’s pale features and sheepishly scratched her head, realizing she had indeed gone a bit overboard with her excitement.
“Um… if you don’t mind me asking,” Xiaoyi whispered cautiously, “who exactly is Master Fu?”
She had caught the staff throwing the name around constantly over the last few weeks, sometimes during group discussions, and occasionally muttered under their breath in solo monologues.
“He’s the absolute boss behind God’s Supermarket,” Song Yuqing explained with a gentle smile. “A man who comes and goes entirely without a trace.”
