Chapter 50: Gathering and Separation (Part 2)
She shouldn’t have crossed paths with her alternate self yet, right? Otherwise, based on Song Yuqing’s own catastrophic experience during her last visit, this entire world would already be collapsing.
Or maybe the reality-breaking rule of “never meeting yourself” only applied to Song Yuqing?
“No, I haven’t run into her,” Sister Qin said, unconsciously rubbing the bridge of her nose before smoothly changing the subject. “How is Liu Xiaona doing?”
“He’s doing great. He actually just became an official clerk at God’s Supermarket.” Without waiting for Sister Qin to ask anything else, Song Yuqing launched into a rapid breakdown of everything that had happened recently. She covered the extreme heatwave, the sudden onset of the arctic winter, Lin Han’s aggressive coup, the launch of the e-commerce platform, Chen Ke roasting pigeons for the Zombie Kings, and the storefront’s massive tier upgrade.
Sister Qin listened intently, a look of profound envy gradually pooling in her eyes as she stared at her.
“You really are the chosen one, aren’t you?”
Song Yuqing frantically waved her hands. She wasn’t anywhere near that level! It was pure, unadulterated luck. She still possessed enough self-awareness to know she wasn’t some legendary savior.
Sister Qin let out a soft chuckle, shaking her head gently. “You know, speaking of your presence in this timeline… I’ve actually seen you in this world too.”
“You have?”
“Yeah. On a massive city billboard.”
Instantly recalling her alternate self’s ridiculous thumbs-up advertising portrait, Song Yuqing slapped a hand over her forehead in a silent display of pure cringe.
“Sister Qin! We finished our martial arts drills! Do you want to come out and inspect our stances?” a child’s high-pitched voice called out from the hallway.
“No inspections today!” Sister Qin called back, her voice instantly shifting into an incredibly soft, soothing register.
Listening to her speak like that gave Song Yuqing instant goosebumps. It felt thoroughly unnatural and deeply corny. Sister Qin naturally possessed a heavy, raspy voice; the gentle tone she had just used to appease the child was painfully forced.
“So… how did you end up operating as the head caretaker for a legion of kids?”
Sister Qin put on a relaxed expression, standing up to stretch her muscles. “Call it fate. Honestly, I’ve found a deep sense of peace and happiness being surrounded by them.”
Since Sister Qin was unyielding in her decision to stay, Song Yuqing resolved to take a detailed tour of her new life. Once she returned to her own timeline, she wanted to be able to describe the setup flawlessly to Liu Xiaona, ensuring the driver wouldn’t sink into a deep depression whenever he missed her in the future.
Per Sister Qin’s breakdown, she was now the official director of this Sanctuary for the Unawakened, taking sole responsibility for these discarded children. From sourcing their food and clothes to managing their daily logistics and baseline education, she ran the entire operation completely alone.
The sanctuary housed over thirty children, every single one of them classified as an absolute outlier in this hyper-technological society. Lacking a genetic mutation meant they were structurally destined to survive at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy. To maximize their physical durability, Sister Qin taught them advanced close-quarters combat and self-defense drills. She had even custom-designed a specialized curriculum to help them analyze the tactical blind spots of elemental psychics. To properly map those weaknesses, she conducted extensive research, frequently shepherding the kids into the metropolitan core to shadow and observe elite superpower users in real-time.
Song Yuqing trailed Sister Qin across the different floors, picking up on a heavy layer of cautious anxiety clouding most of the children. Several ran up to greet Sister Qin enthusiastically whenever she entered a room, but a vast majority remained huddled timidly in the dark corners. They stared at Song Yuqing—a total stranger—with wide, fearful eyes that made her heart ache with genuine distress.
She also noticed that the clothes the kids were wearing were fundamentally no different from the ragged garments back in her own timeline. Not a single child wore the hyper-practical, beautiful tactical apparel engineered from specialized synthetic materials that she had seen the city civilians wearing.
“Are you guys completely broke?” Song Yuqing hesitated for a brief second before finally giving the question voice. She was privately wondering if she could authorize a massive supply donation from her vault.
“Desperately,” Sister Qin admitted. “A few sympathetic inner-city civilians discreetly donate capital to the accounts, but it’s nothing more than a drop in a bucket.”
She gently patted Song Yuqing’s shoulder, offering a small smile. “But listen to me—do not dump your inventory here. Pack your supplies and take them right back across the portal. The refugees in our home world stand in far greater desperation than these kids.”
Her logic was entirely sound. Forcing herself to stay perfectly rational, Song Yuqing abandoned the concept of a supply drop.
“Doesn’t the local municipal council provide a baseline subsidy to manage this shelter?”
Sister Qin let out a sudden, bitter sneer.
“The corporate entity running the parallel God’s Supermarket in this timeline functions identically to the merchant monopoly Lin Han enforces at Base 27,” Sister Qin said, locking her dark eyes squarely onto Song Yuqing’s face. “Do you have any actual comprehension of the staggering depth of oppression hidden behind their neon walls?”
Song Yuqing froze, utterly speechless. She didn’t know how to formulate a response, feeling a sudden, bizarre weight of guilt press against her chest, as if she were somehow complicit in the crime. She had never considered that her parallel counterpart would cultivate such a predatory, ruthless personality. But upon deeper reflection, it made logical sense. Different environmental trauma naturally forged a fundamentally different set of core values and executive choices.
“Promise me you will never allow yourself to evolve into that classification of merchant,” Sister Qin warned softly.
Song Yuqing shook her head so violently her hair flew around her face like the blades of a high-speed fan. She didn’t classify herself as a perfect saint, but she was absolutely certain she wasn’t a profit-obsessed, cold-blooded corporate sociopath who would ruthlessly exploit the weak.
As they walked, it became glaringly obvious that Sister Qin was balancing a massive cognitive load. Simply navigating the corridors to give Song Yuqing a perfunctory tour resulted in a dozen children aggressively swarming her for immediate assistance. Left with zero alternative, Sister Qin stepped away to resolve a series of localized crises.
While she was occupied de-escalating a loud shouting match between two young boys, Song Yuqing targeted a kid who looked remarkably talkative, crouching down to break the ice.
“Sister Qin… Sister Qin has watched over every single one of us since we were infants,” the boy mumbled, his face flushing a bright crimson the second she engaged him. He had a prominent lisp, and whenever he opened his mouth, the severe gap where his two front teeth had been knocked out made his stutter remarkably obvious. “She’s always been incredibly good to us.”
Watched over them since they were infants?
A deeply bizarre, chilling thought flashed through Song Yuqing’s mind, but she rapidly forced the theory down.
Before she could press the toothless boy for a deeper chronological breakdown, Sister Qin materialized back at her side, casually laughing about the ridiculous antics of the toddlers she had just scolded.
“Sister Qin… who exactly ran the operational logistics of this sanctuary before you took over the title?” Song Yuqing asked. She kept her posture loose and nonchalant as if she were simply making casual conversation, but her ears were intensely pricked, waiting for the exact phrasing of the answer.
Sister Qin fell into a heavy silence. After a long pause, she extended a pale finger toward a beautiful pear tree anchoring the center of the courtyard outside. The branches were heavily carpeted in pristine white blossoms, serving as the single poetic, beautiful element in the entire dilapidated facility.
“The previous shelter director took me under her wing for a few brief days when I first crossed over. But before I could even fully adapt to the baseline environment of this world, her health collapsed. She passed away and was buried directly beneath the roots of that pear tree.”
Song Yuqing’s heart violently skipped a beat.
The child had explicitly stated that this exact Sister Qin had watched them grow up from infancy. That meant the “previous director” who had died and been buried under the white blossoms was none other than the native Sister Qin of this parallel world.
Sister Qin just lied straight to my face.
Song Yuqing realized she had just accidentally uncovered a dark, terrifying corner of the woman’s survival secrets. She steeled her nerves, recognizing she could not push the investigation a single inch further. She vividly recalled an old movie plot where a desperate dimension-traveler systematically stalked and slaughtered their own alternate self to usurp their identity and assets.
She could feel her pulse violently accelerating against her ribs.
“Would you like to extend your stay?” Sister Qin asked softly, studying her face. “You could lodge with us for a few days.”
Song Yuqing forced her features into a rigid, perfunctory smile. “No, thank you. I need to return immediately; my crew is currently waiting for me at the counter.”
She paused for a fraction of a second.
“I’ll ensure I drop by the sector during my next run.”
In truth, Song Yuqing couldn’t guarantee there would ever be a next time. She hadn’t experienced the raw, isolating trauma that had broken Sister Qin down upon her initial arrival, meaning she couldn’t validate the woman’s horrific survival choices—yet she couldn’t find it in her heart to openly condemn her either. She would never fully comprehend what brutal sacrifices Sister Qin had been forced to execute just to anchor her survival in this timeline.
Ultimately, Song Yuqing simply didn’t know how to interface with her old friend anymore. She could palpably feel that the woman standing before her was no longer the unyielding, honorable blacksmith she had first met in the alleyway.
She had fundamentally changed.
After bidding a final, quiet farewell to the director, Song Yuqing retreated back into her spatial vault. She immediately brewed a strong pot of tea, sitting alone in the silence to stabilize her erratic thoughts. Once her mind cleared, she gathered her newly conditioned mutant pigeon fleet and initialized the return transfer, exiting the spatial corridor. The birds proved to be beautifully tamed and obedient; the absolute second she issued the command, they seamlessly formed a disciplined, single-file line behind her boots.
During the block of time she had spent navigating the parallel world, Nanjiao, Chen She, and the Xie brothers had thoroughly finalized their supply procurement, even managing to drain two full cups of specialty coffee from the automated taps.
The departing vanguard was currently sitting in a neat, quiet row along the plush beanbags framing the second-tier window of Passing By Coffee House. Feeling the crisp, soothing ocean breeze brush their faces as they stared out at the endless blue horizon, they patiently watched the spiral staircase, waiting for Song Yuqing’s silhouette to emerge so they could bid her a final, proper goodbye.
