Chapter 116: Becomes a Reality
After Master Fu’s return, Song Yuqing enjoyed her first sound night of sleep in days. The next morning, she was the first one awake. Even Shen She, whose aged body suffered from a chronic lack of rest, hadn’t stirred yet and was still curled up in the branches of the Chinese tallow tree.
Shen She had built a small, cozy nest up in the branches, sleeping there at night and working beneath it during the day. Zhang Hua was incredibly jealous of the setup. Why hadn’t he thought of building a treehouse? It was small, sure, but at least it offered some privacy. God knows he was tired of sleeping on a hard bottom bunk in the shared dorms.
Song Yuqing sat by her computer early in the morning, waiting for updates from the other bases. Orders were piling up in the system’s backend, but without the carrier pigeons, she couldn’t dispatch the shipments even if she wanted to.
“Relax, these are just minor problems,” Master Fu’s voice suddenly chimed in. However, there was a strange, mechanical distortion to his tone, as if the system was slightly malfunctioning.
“This is a minor problem?” Song Yuqing retorted. “Then what exactly qualifies as a major one?”
“Hehe.” Master Fu chuckled awkwardly before shifting the subject to analyze their current logistical situation. At the end of his briefing, he dropped a massive bombshell: “By the way, from now on, there will be absolutely no limit on the number of times you can travel to the parallel worlds.”
“Yeah,” Song Yuqing replied automatically, before her brain caught up. Wait, what?! No restrictions?! Does that mean I can jump to a parallel reality to stock up on supplies and track down the missing victims whenever I want?!
“You’re taking this rather calmly. I underestimated you,” Master Fu noted. “But remember: don’t abuse the privilege. If you travel back and forth too often, you might find yourself unable to return, and you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
Song Yuqing’s newly awakened joy was instantly doused by a bucket of cold water. What was that supposed to mean? She pressed Master Fu for clarification, but the system merely brushed it off, claiming he was just rambling and worrying over nothing. Naturally, the more he downplayed the risk, the more anxious she became.
Since it was still early, Song Yuqing entered her pocket dimension to inspect it. It was the same dimly lit space as always—a narrow corridor lined with two rows of heavy iron doors, and a few small clearings furnished with tea tables, chairs, and folding screens. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the space was starting to feel a bit like a prison.
“Master Fu, my spatial ability hasn’t leveled up in a long time,” she pointed out.
“That’s correct. Complete the task I gave you last time, and I will initiate the upgrade.”
The item retrieval tasks had been relatively easy, but locating and settling the scattered victims Lin Han had banished to parallel timelines was a logistical nightmare. Song Yuqing thought of the local Master Fu who ran the eccentric antique shop in the parallel world, the diagnostic camera that could identify disguised zombies, and the genetically modified wasteland seeds. She needed to carefully plan how to utilize these new assets.
Wasting no time, Song Yuqing pulled Gaha, Little Meat Bun, and Liu Xiaona into the dimension to make the jump back to Sister Qin’s parallel world. Now that her travel restrictions were lifted, she had a lot of work to do.
Sister Qin had indeed managed to locate two more people who had been devoured by Lin Han’s void. To their surprise, the pair were scouts from Base Zero.
They had been out inspecting the sector grid right before the acid rain hit, and had just stumbled upon an abandoned factory when a localized black hole suddenly materialized and sucked them in. If Sister Qin hadn’t intercepted them upon their arrival, the two men would still be wandering the parallel reality in complete confusion.
“That Lin guy—what did we ever do to him? Why would he banish us here for absolutely no reason?!” one of the men vented angrily.
“Wait, wasn’t that factory a manufacturing plant for plastic sheeting?” Song Yuqing asked, connecting the dots.
“Maybe. I definitely saw a few massive rolls of plastic piled up inside before we got sucked away,” the scout replied.
Song Yuqing immediately understood. Lin Han had ambushed them to secure the acid-proof plastic for himself and Chen Ke.
“Alright, let’s head to Base Zero.”
She pulled her staff and the two scouts into her pocket dimension, navigating the coordinates to pop back out into the desert wasteland of their home world.
The two scouts looked around, utterly stunned. “Are we back?”
“That’s right,” Song Yuqing confirmed.
The desert post-acid rain was a treacherous landscape of deep gullies and sinkholes. Every time they took a step, highly corrosive water seeped up through the sand. Little Meat Bun quickly jumped onto Liu Xiaona’s back to protect his bare paws, but the ground was too dangerous for the rest of them. Fortunately, Song Yuqing had stored some scrap acid-proof canvas in her inventory. She quickly pulled it out and fashioned protective wraps for everyone’s boots.
“Manager! Manager Song!” After hiking for a while, the group heard someone shouting in the distance.
Looking back, Song Yuqing saw Zhang Yimiao and several of her squad members running toward them. Their clothes were in tatters, and some of the fighters bore severe chemical burns from the toxic rain.
“Zhang Yimiao! What are you guys doing out here?” Liu Xiaona asked, startled by their battered appearance.
It turned out that after departing from God’s Supermarket, the squad’s journey back to Base Zero had been disastrous. Not only had they been ambushed by a roving mutant horde, but they had also been caught completely unsheltered when the acid rain began to fall. Anyone who survived the ordeal was incredibly lucky.
After exchanging brief summaries of their respective situations, the combined group quickened their pace toward Base Zero.
Base Zero was currently in a state of chaotic recovery. The wounded were being tended to, and the able-bodied were frantically trying to rebuild. However, the chemical storm had fundamentally altered the soil composition, rendering the subterranean bunker networks completely uninhabitable. Nanjiao, Xie Hao, Xie Zetian, and the remaining operatives were busy hauling priceless research equipment up from the flooded lower levels. The base’s elite experts sat in a row along the sand, staring at the ruins with dazed, bitter expressions.
Song Yuqing’s group came to a halt outside the heavily damaged perimeter walls. The city gates were sealed shut, and there were no sentries posted on the exterior.
“Is anyone in there?!” Zhang Yimiao and Liu Xiaona shouted, aggressively banging on the heavy gates.
After a long moment, the heavy metal doors creaked open just a crack.
Recognizing the guard, Zhang Yimiao burst into tears and threw her arms around him. The man wiped his own eyes, genuinely shocked that Zhang Yimiao’s squad had survived the storm.
“We made it back,” Zhang Yimiao sobbed, “but we suffered heavy casualties, and our supplies are completely gone.”
The guard sighed heavily. “It’s no better in here. The base is practically out of rations.”
Gaha looked at the crying humans with sympathetic tears welling in her own eyes, nervously poking her claws together.
“Do you know where Nanjiao is?” Song Yuqing asked, quickly interrupting the bleak reunion before morale tanked any further.
“Head inside. You’ll find him working,” the guard replied.
Hearing this, the supermarket staff breathed a massive sigh of relief. Thank goodness they didn’t have to hear any tragic news.
They slipped through the gates and walked down the dilapidated main street. Song Yuqing immediately noticed the shift in atmosphere; compared to their bustling first visit, the settlement felt like it had completely lost its soul.
Up ahead, a middle-aged couple—Xie Qiang and Zhang Lin—were carrying a bundle of salvaged construction materials, walking right past Song Yuqing’s group.
Song Yuqing suddenly froze in her tracks. She turned her head, staring intently at the couple’s retreating backs as her breathing hitched.
“Manager? What’s wrong?” Liu Xiaona asked, immediately noticing the sharp shift in her demeanor. Gaha and Little Meat Bun threw her concerned looks as well.
Song Yuqing furrowed her brow. Without saying a word, she pursed her lips and began quietly trailing the couple.
A familiar face. A familiar posture. Although there was something subtly off about them, she felt deep down that she wasn’t mistaken.
But how was this possible? On the day after the meteor shower, she had clearly seen her parents turn into monsters. She had witnessed them standing in the bloody ruins, clutching severed heads in their hands.
Unless… Her heart skipped a violent beat, and she stopped dead in her tracks again. The staff trailing closely behind her accidentally bumped into her back.
“Seriously, what’s going on? Aren’t we going to look for Nanjiao?” Liu Xiaona asked.
Song Yuqing stared at the couple moving briskly down the street. Her parents had always walked with a slow, measured, gentle gait. How were these two moving so quickly and powerfully?
Were those really her parents?
Gaha had turned into a zombie, yet she retained her humanity—in fact, she possessed more empathy than most living humans. Could her parents have experienced a similar evolution?
Her hands trembling slightly, Song Yuqing reached into her spatial inventory and pulled out the miniature diagnostic camera—the exact device Master Fu had sold her to identify disguised zombies.
She lifted the camera to her eye and aimed the lens down the thoroughfare.
Through the digital viewfinder, the middle-aged couple completely vanished from the screen. In fact, nearly half of the bustling “human” survivors working on the street had completely disappeared from the display.
