Chapter 40: Rising Star
“Run!”
Seeing the horde of zombies suddenly altering their course, the young boy shouted to his companions. The small group scrambled in a panic, ducking sharply into a side alley to break line of sight.
Through the deep silence of the night, the gleaming metal frame of God’s Supermarket materialized faintly in the distance.
“Chen She, why don’t we just head back to the compound?” While running full tilt, the middle-aged man in the group shoved the boy’s shoulder, his voice tight with panic.
“I’m not going back!” Chen She shot back.
He kept his eyes locked on the dark path ahead. It felt as though his absolute last shred of hope lay just at the end of this lane, only a short distance away.
“Gaha!”
A bizarre, screeching cry suddenly echoed from behind them. Startled, the group spun around, only to realize the zombies hadn’t actually followed them into the side street. Everyone slowly ground to a halt, panting heavily.
This time, the view was perfectly clear. Out on the main road, the girl with the striking purple dreadlocks was aggressively shouting “Gaha” as she chased the zombies, running back and forth right at the mouth of the alley.
“Gaha!”
After letting out a frustrated hiss, the girl wildly clawed at the empty air. Miraculously, the rogue walkers turned on their heels and walked right back to her, submissively allowing her to mess with them.
“Gah-hahahahahaha…”
The girl with the dreadlocks began chattering at the monsters in a booming voice, her severe tone sounding exactly like a strict bureaucrat laying down a new set of compliance rules.
“Is… is that thing even human?” the middle-aged man stammered, freezing in place. In the apocalypse, it was universally the zombies that hunted the humans. How on earth was a human baseline aggressively hunting a zombie pack?
“I’m afraid she’s an evolved variant,” Chen She murmured, his brow furrowing. A stark, calculated maturity that didn’t match his youthful face cut through his expression.
“Gah!”
Out on the street, Gaha clapped her pale hands in pure satisfaction, admiring the backs of the dozen or so walkers surrounding her. A massive wave of professional accomplishment washed over her. Every single zombie within her perimeter was now firmly covered in a crisp, A4-sized marketing poster printed with bold, heavy characters: Zombies for Supplies. Bell Street, God’s Supermarket.
Turning on her heel, Gaha strolled into the alleyway, preparing to head back to the shop’s living quarters for a comfortable sleep.
“Gaha-gaha-gaha-gaha…”
She hummed a cheerful little tune to herself. Confident that a massive wave of customers would soon swarm God’s Supermarket because of her mobile zombie advertising vanguard, her hands and feet began to wiggle in a goofy, celebratory dance.
This had been Song Yuqing’s stroke of genius—converting the local undead into a mobile billboard network to promote the business. It was hands down the safest, most cost-effective marketing strategy available in the wasteland!
“Ga… ha…”
Gaha slowly paused mid-step, her gray pupils scanning the dark corners behind her. Her instinct flagged the four distinct silhouettes she had just briefly glimpsed in the shadows.
She tilted her head, analyzing the intruders, her gaze settling squarely on the young boy anchoring the front line.
Are they looking to throw down?
Or are they getting ready to bolt?
Except for Chen She, the remaining three refugees shifted their boots, their toes pointing back toward the mouth of the alley as they prepared to execute a frantic retreat.
“Um… excuse me, zombie sister?” Chen She broke the tense silence, taking a brave step forward. “Do you happen to know the exact path to God’s Supermarket?”
Hearing the kid calmly address an advanced undead entity, his three companions nearly lost their balance, frantically grabbing onto each other’s shirts to stay upright.
“Gaha!”
Holy crap, real customers arrived this late?! Gaha’s eyes widened with joy. She instantly credited the success to her brilliant zombie billboard campaign.
“Gah? Gah-gah! Gah-gah…”
Wait, you already deciphered my zombie status? And you aren’t even a fraction of a second terrified of me? Relax, kid, I’m a certified good zombie! I don’t consume human flesh or drink human blood. Tell you what—I’ll personally escort your group straight to the shop!
Chen She and his companions stared blankly as Gaha executed a series of frantic, dancing hand gestures, flailing her arms around as she sputtered.
Did anyone catch a single syllable of that?
No clue!
Giving up on verbal communication, Gaha simply bounded forward, grabbed Chen She by the arm, and enthusiastically pulled him down the lane toward God’s Supermarket.
Inside the air-conditioned shop, Song Yuqing, Liu Xiaona, and Little Meat Bun were gathered around the security gate, systematically extracting the valuable crystal cores from their latest batch of zombie carcasses.
Song Yuqing’s hand movements as she pried open a skull were exceptionally smooth and practiced by now, mimicking the effortless efficiency of an experienced market vendor plucking duck feathers. The moment Gaha escorted Chen She and his group past the threshold, Song Yuqing’s face lit up, and she shot a cheerful look over her shoulder at the bear and the driver.
“Keep grinding, team! I’ll personally manage the new clients!”
Liu Xiaona offered a brief nod, her arms moving with numb, mechanical repetition. Little Meat Bun, thoroughly infuriated by the endless manual labor, let out an angry huff as he violently hurled a freshly harvested corpse toward the security gate. The heavy mass of the walker slammed hard against the frame, ricocheting back onto the floorboards with a loud thud.
Seeing the carcass roll to his feet, Chen She politely stepped forward, hoisted the dead weight, and fed it straight into the security gate’s active field.
Ding~ Primary zombie.
Ding~ Primary time-attribute psychic.
The room went dead silent.
What the hell?!
Chen She’s jaw dropped in absolute shock. He hadn’t anticipated the storefront mechanics would instantly expose his classified attribute to the public. He was still a legal minor; how could the system treat him with such unmasked corporate bluntness?
Bypassing Song Yuqing and Nanjiao—who was currently focused on cultivating his indoor plants in the corner—every single entity on the shop floor whirled around to stare at the boy in pure astonishment.
“Are you serious, kid?! You possess a high-tier superpower, yet you deliberately withheld that intel from the squad the entire time?!” the middle-aged man roared, aggressively grabbing Chen She by the shoulders to spin him around.
A temporal attribute? That sounds absolutely god-tier!
Meeting the man’s furious, betrayed glare, Chen She remained stubbornly silent, his lips pressed into a tight line. He had slowly awakened to his mutation while fighting off walkers in the ruins. He had been highly uncertain of the trait at first, until Lin Han violently seized absolute command of Base No. 27. To shield his own life and protect the laborers around him during the coup, his system had experienced a massive, high-pressure spike, finally confirming that his elemental attribute was indeed time manipulation.
“An unmapped superpower functions as an absolute trump card to survive a desperate crisis,” Song Yuqing said, stepping forward to gently pat the man’s forearm, signaling him to de-escalate. “Whether a survivor chooses to disclose their traits to the public is strictly their own business. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with keeping it close to his chest. Besides, he’s still a child. Pressuring him like that borders on child abuse.”
“Manager Song, I am legally not a child!” Chen She countered, his youthful face twisting into a stubborn, defensive pout.
Song Yuqing simply offered a warm chuckle, guiding the small group deeper into the air-conditioned interior of God’s Supermarket.
“So, talk to me. What exactly brought you out here to find me?”
“This kid engineered the entire operation,” the middle-aged man admitted, his eyes instantly glazing over as he stared at the beautifully packed shelves. “He convinced us to burn our savings to secure premium rations from your shop first, before hitting the highway to track down the major alternative strongholds.”
“A brilliant strategic play!” Song Yuqing smiled, reaching onto the nearest shelf to retrieve a handful of purified water balls, handing them out to the exhausted refugees. “As the old saying goes: sometimes you have to risk your bicycle to win a motorcycle!”
Chen She raised the shimmering water ball to his lips, his throat parched, but he paused, slowly lowering the sphere. “What’s the exact transaction fee in zombie corpses for a supply of this tier?”
“A standard rate of one corpse for two water balls. But consider this initial round a complimentary corporate welcome gift. After all, organic foot traffic that tracks down my establishment on their own initiative is exceptionally rare.”
“Wait, what about me?! Why don’t I ever receive a premium welcome perk like that?!” Nanjiao grumbled from the corner, putting on a theatrical display of intense jealousy as he aggressively massaged a strand of vine rope between his fingers.
“Gaha!” Gaha’s eyes went wide, and she shook her head at him with intense, comedic gravity.
Are you completely out of your mind?! The enhanced tomatoes and cucumbers we devour in the back quarters are lightyears ahead of a standard water ball! Shush!
Chen She held the water ball quietly, his sharp eyes intensely analyzing every single staff member on the floor.
Song Yuqing was quietly running an evaluation on him as well. Before tonight, her core impression of this teenager had been strictly “pitiful.” But witnessing his tactical calculation today, a chill ran down her spine; this kid was genuinely “terrifying.” She could tell with absolute certainty that down the line, this boy would inevitably evolve into a colossal, historic powerhouse.
“Manager Song? Manager Song!” Chen She called out, waving a small hand right in front of her face to snap her out of her thoughts.
“Do you mind guiding me through the inventory as a personal shopping clerk?” the boy requested, his tone remarkably calm. He could tell the infrastructure of this multi-dimensional trading post harbored a dense selection of anomalous, high-tier treasures. Compared to his analytical focus, the adults in his group looked thoroughly unpolished, their attention completely hijacked by the rows of packaged foods and military survival rucksacks.
Liu Xiaona, who had been anxiously monitoring the room from the processing zone, immediately stood up the second she heard the request for a shopping guide. “I’ll handle the tour!”
Song Yuqing instantly blocked her path. “Negative! Stay right where you are and focus entirely on harvesting those zombie skulls!”
Aside from her baseline reluctance to handle decaying tissue, Song Yuqing possessed a highly calculated, selfish motive. She was intensely determined to forge a rock-solid, personal relationship with this future warlord before his power officially matured.
She guided Chen She down the primary aisle, systematically breaking down the utility and metrics of every single piece of merchandise. Reaching the end of the line, she discreetly reached into her spatial vault, materialized a handful of enhanced tomatoes and cucumbers, and flashed the boy a subtle wink. “And then we have these premium selections. These can be secured at a specialized rate of exactly ten zombie corpses each.”
Chen She took the tomato with immense, trembling care. A localized crop engineered to actively expand a mutant’s superpower capacity was an invaluable treasure in the wasteland. He swore to his core that he would never forget the grace Song Yuqing had extended to him today; a drop of water received in a crisis would be repaid with a roaring spring down the line.
“System Alert: Transaction quota achieved! God’s Supermarket is officially initiating an immediate infrastructure tier upgrade! All non-registered personnel are mandated to temporarily evacuate the perimeter. Re-entry will be permitted upon completion of the upgrade sequence.”
Master Fu’s disembodied, mechanical voice violently erupted across the shop’s audio array, accompanied by the sharp, rhythmic blare of a crimson hazard alarm.
Song Yuqing felt the smooth floorboards beneath her boots begin to subtly vibrate, and the warm yellow light bulb dangling above her head shook precariously.
“Be advised,” Master Fu’s voice cut through the alarm, directing the statement with clinical weight toward the staff. “Following the completion of this structural optimization, the establishment will officially close its employee onboarding registry for an extended operational window. Clerk Liu Xiaona, have you finalized your final decision regarding the contract?”
