Chapter 7: Don’t Miss It If You Pass By!
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Song Yuqing demanded, clenching her fists so tightly that her thumbnails dug deep into her palms.
Master Fu hadn’t expected her to immediately turn the blame on him. When he thought about it, though, he realized he hadn’t explicitly spelled out the rules.
“I did warn you,” Master Fu muttered defensively. Feeling a rare pang of guilt, he kept his true thoughts to himself.
“Is there really no way to save that world?” Song Yuqing’s eyes rimmed with red. Reaching out to steady herself against a shelf, she slowly sank into a squat.
“Well… yes, I can repair it,” Master Fu coughed uncomfortably. “Next time I tell you not to do something, just listen to me.”
Watching her huddle under the shelf looking entirely broken, Master Fu found himself softening. After all, he was the one who had handpicked this store manager.
Song Yuqing took a deep breath, forcing her emotions back under control. She had a strong suspicion that Master Fu had withheld the rules of dimension-traveling on purpose. She had initially thought he was trustworthy, but this incident left her wavering.
“You can trust me,” the voice insisted. “I would never harm my own store manager.”
With a low hum of static electricity, a translucent screen flickered to life in front of Song Yuqing. On the display, the collapsed silver skyscrapers and the path blanketed in sycamore leaves were being rebuilt brick by brick, restoring the city to its exact original state.
“See? A real-time feed.”
Song Yuqing stared intently at the screen for a long time. After demanding confirmation from Master Fu over and over, the crushing weight in her chest finally lifted. A stray tear slipped down her cheek, and she smiled in spite of herself.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Where there’s a sea, there are waves; where there are people, there is love,” Master Fu ranted, thoroughly pleased with his own profoundness.
For the next several days, Song Yuqing kept the front door of God’s Supermarket wide open, ready to welcome customers at any hour.
She was driven by an unprecedented determination to run the shop successfully. If her alternate self could build an empire in a parallel universe, so could she. Without realizing it, she was subconsciously measuring herself against the other Song Yuqing. Deep down, she envied her.
Song Yuqing threw herself into organizing the shop. She swept away the dust with a feather duster, retrieved self-defense weapons and instant rations from her spatial inventory, and lined them up neatly on the shelves.
When she finished, she sat by the entrance, waiting for customers to show up.
Ever since the mutated ivy had been incinerated, the local undead had grown bolder. A few zombies wandered past the mouth of the alley from time to time, tracking Song Yuqing with their milky eyes, thick drool spilling from their jaws. However, the store’s boundary kept them at bay, leaving them to pace anxiously as they caught whiffs of her human scent.
Realizing that good wine still needs a bush to advertise it, Song Yuqing knew she couldn’t just sit around forever hoping people would stumble upon her. She asked Master Fu if the store’s protection would follow her if she left the alley to solicit customers. His answer was a flat no.
If she kept waiting, her sales performance at the end of the month would be an absolute disaster.
Song Yuqing decided to take a risk. She changed into the athletic gear she had bought in the parallel world, gripped a razor-sharp kitchen knife in her left hand, and held a high-voltage stun gun in her right. Packing a backpack full of bottled water and food, she marched out of God’s Supermarket, Master Fu’s nagging instructions ringing in her ears.
“Hiss!”
The moment she stepped out, the nearby zombies perked up excitedly and lunged at her. Song Yuqing immediately spun on her heel and bolted back inside the store.
Master Fu: “…Wow. Spectacular job.”
Song Yuqing simply didn’t have the confidence to go toe-to-toe with monsters that couldn’t feel pain and didn’t fear death. She stood at the threshold, locked in a tense staring match with the horde. Neither side crossed the invisible boundary line.
After a few minutes, the zombies lost interest and drifted away. Seizing the window, Song Yuqing slipped out into the alley once more.
“Hiss—!”
A rogue zombie ambushed her. But the instant its decaying hand brushed against her jacket, it was violently repelled.
Song Yuqing prepared to sprint back to safety, but she froze when she saw the zombie’s arm. Where it had touched her clothes, the dead flesh had rapidly dissolved and peeled away, leaving nothing but bare bone.
Emboldened, she took a deliberate step toward the monster.
The zombie threw its hands up and scrambled backward. The further it retreated, the more confidently Song Yuqing marched forward. Eventually, the zombie turned and fled, its retreating figure looking profoundly pathetic amidst the backdrop of the apocalypse.
Song Yuqing strutted through the street like a conquering hero. Any zombie that dared to get too close had its hands melted by her supernatural outfit, causing the rest of the horde to hastily clear a path for her.
Just as she reached the edge of the alley, her foot caught on something. She looked down, her breath hitching. Coiled around her ankle was a tiny wildflower with swaying purple and white petals. Its long, vine-like stem extended out onto the main avenue.
The little wildflower stretched its petals wide, though it was barely large enough to cover the toe of her sneaker. Song Yuqing was about to dismiss the tiny plant when it suddenly secreted a highly corrosive venom. The toe of her shoe began to sizzle and dissolve. Reacting on pure instinct, she stomped the flower into the dirt and yanked her foot back. Had she been a second slower, her socks and toes would have melted into a puddle of mush.
Furious, Song Yuqing hacked at the plant with her kitchen knife, refusing to stop until the flower was minced into tiny pieces.
Taking a ragged breath to calm her racing heart, she stepped out onto the main street. During her few days holed up in the shop, the town had transformed completely into a concrete jungle. Towering, mutated trees and giant carnivorous plants choked the avenues. Zombies staggered blindly between rusted, abandoned cars, smashing windows and tearing apart the unfortunate drivers who hadn’t managed to escape in time.
Suddenly, the unmistakable sounds of combat echoed from a short distance away. Song Yuqing peered through the dense foliage, but her view was obscured by massive, humanoid leaves. Through the gaps, she caught flashes of fire and the silver gleam of a massive metal blade hacking into a colossal banyan tree. A burly man dangled precariously from the tree’s thick, dangling roots.
With a resonant bang, the ground quaked beneath her feet.
The muscular man hanging from the roots channeled a massive torrent of water, ripping the banyan tree straight out of the pavement by its roots. In retaliation, the thrashing tree whipped its branches, hurling the man through the air. He crashed hard onto the asphalt just a few yards away from Song Yuqing.
The man landed flat on his face. Scrambling up, his eyes met Song Yuqing’s worried gaze. Looking thoroughly sheepish, he stopped rubbing his bruised backside and charged back into the fray with a fierce shout.
Among his companions, a girl with dyed red hair manifested a thick wall of earth to shield the team from the banyan’s sweeping branches. Beside her, a wind-type user conjured a localized gale, stripping the tree of its leaves. A few of the stray leaves drifted a hundred meters through the air, landing softly at Song Yuqing’s feet.
Under the relentless onslaught, the mutated banyan tree began to wither and shrink. While the main team focused on the plant, an older woman with permed, curly hair held the perimeter, fiercely fending off a wave of approaching zombies.
Song Yuqing let out a soft sigh, deeply impressed by the raw power of the other survivors. Since the outbreak, she had witnessed spatial, fire, earth, wind, and metal abilities. The only element she hadn’t encountered yet was wood.
To help her understand the post-apocalyptic landscape, Master Fu had previously given her a crash course detailing the various classifications of superpowers. Hearing about it was one thing, but seeing it live was a completely different experience—it felt like watching a blockbuster movie with Hollywood-grade special effects.
The battle reached its climax. The metal-type user remotely manipulated a massive golden blade, hacking the core of the banyan tree into neat sections and ending the fight.
Seeing her opening, Song Yuqing waved her arms frantically. She pulled the food and water from her backpack, holding them high in the air to catch their attention.
What’s the best slogan here? She thought fast, a classic retail line popping into her head. “Don’t miss it if you’re passing by!”
The five-man squad snapped their heads toward her, immediately huddling up to whisper among themselves.
“That person is acting incredibly bizarre.”
“Should we go check it out?”
“Stay sharp, everyone. Watch your step.”
Carefully navigating around the surrounding carnivorous flora, the five survivors made their way toward her.
The leader was a well-built young woman who had clearly spent a lot of time at the gym before the world ended. Her companions addressed her as “Sister Qin.” She was the metal-type user who had just sliced the banyan tree to pieces. Following close behind her were the other four: Old Zhang, the fire-wielding auntie; a young male wind-user; a red-haired earth-user named Ai; and finally, the burly man who had just taken the nasty spill.
“What’s your name?” Sister Qin asked, assessing her.
“Liu Xiaona,” the burly man chimed in, scratching his head awkwardly to introduce himself.
“Why are you out here all by yourself?” Sister Qin asked, her brows knitting together in suspicion.
Without a word, Song Yuqing laid out the food and water onto the pavement. On top of the supplies, she placed a sheet of paper with a handwritten note:
Zombies for Supplies — God’s Supermarket.
Sister Qin eyed the sign warily, clearly skeptical of the claim. Song Yuqing didn’t take it personally. She noticed that Sister Qin looked a bit younger than her, yet she carried herself with an admirable amount of grit and authority.
“I’m trading zombies for supplies,” Song Yuqing explained, pointing back down the alleyway. “Over at God’s Supermarket, we have bottled water, instant noodles, self-heating meals, and self-defense gear. It’s just right down there. The sign is pretty hard to miss.”
“You’re running a supermarket out of this alley?” Sister Qin stared at her, a flicker of mutual respect blooming in her chest. She could tell Song Yuqing wasn’t just an ordinary civilian.
“Wait, what?” Liu Xiaona blurted out, his eyes wide. “This place is crawling with zombies and mutated plants. Why on earth would you set up shop here? What are you thinking? Why haven’t you headed to the base?”
He threw out so many questions at once that Song Yuqing only caught the last word. “A base?” She hadn’t heard anything about a survivor camp being established near Chen Town.
“Yes, we’re currently en route to the base,” Sister Qin confirmed with a nod. She looked at Song Yuqing sincerely. “Why don’t you roll with us? There’s safety in numbers.”
The red-haired girl nodded in agreement, offering a welcoming smile.
Song Yuqing simply smiled back and shook her head.
Sister Qin’s expression instantly hardened. Without a word of warning, she channeled her energy, violently hurling her massive golden blade straight past Song Yuqing’s head.
