Chapter 78: A Stupid High-Level Zombie?
At first, Song Yuqing had no idea the woman was actually Wan Youzhi in disguise. She only caught on because he had gotten too excited and failed to mask his voice.
“Huh.” Liu Xiaona offered a speechless smile. What else was there to say? The fact that this guy went to such extreme lengths just to shop at God’s Supermarket only proved how amazing their store really was.
Song Yuqing spread her hands in a shrug. If Wan Youzhi was just a sincere customer, that was fine. But if he harbored any bad intentions and tried to cause trouble, he was going to be in for a rude awakening.
“What kind of ability coffee did he drink?” Liu Xiaona asked, curious about what kind of power Wan Youzhi had just acquired.
“I think he’s a fire type. You’re a water type, so you’re his natural enemy.”
Trudging through the snow, Wan Youzhi made his way out of the alley with difficulty. Seeing that the street was mostly empty, he pulled off his mask, relaxed his tense muscles, and let his back hunch slightly.
Pretending to be a woman was exhausting!
Excitedly, he rolled up his sleeves, concentrated his energy, and summoned a small flame in the palm of his hand.
He stared at the tiny fire unblinking.
Poof.
The little flame flickered and died.
Wan Youzhi frowned. That’s it?
He tried again, holding his breath this time so as not to disturb it. A small spark flared into life. Wan Youzhi carefully cupped the flame between both hands. He had seen fire-type espers do this before—the flame was supposed to swell into a massive fireball that, when thrown, would roar into a ferocious fire dragon.
But something was wrong.
Wan Youzhi watched helplessly as the flame in his palm gradually shrank, sputtering out like a lamp running dry of oil.
“Scammers!” Wan Youzhi cursed angrily, realizing he couldn’t squeeze out another spark.
He had thought the superpower coffee from God’s Supermarket would be amazing, but it was completely useless! In the past, he would have marched right back and smashed the place to pieces! He originally believed that drinking the coffee would grant him formidable combat abilities beyond his usual foresight, finally giving him the power to protect himself.
Who knew it would end up like this?
Frustrated, Wan Youzhi grabbed a handful of snow and hurled it at the ground.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a figure flashing by.
“Who’s there?”
He snapped his head toward the movement and saw two zombies limping out of a dilapidated house by the side of the road.
He wasn’t in a hurry to run. Staring at them, he realized that if he fled now, they would just follow his tracks all the way back to Base 27. Wan Youzhi let out a dark chuckle. Even zombies think they can bully me now?
Fine. Let’s kill a couple of them to blow off some steam.
A smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, Wan Youzhi strode across the street toward a parked, heavily modified junk car to find a weapon.
Meanwhile, back at God’s Supermarket, Song Yuqing and Liu Xiaona were waiting for Wan Youzhi to return to buy zombie protective clothing. They were curious to see what kind of tricks he had up his sleeve.
After a long wait, Wan Youzhi was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a group of awakened espers emerged from next door and lined up to buy food.
Zhang Yimiao was the first to step inside. Her eyes lit up when she saw the newly stocked shelves.
“Huh? When did this new shipment arrive?!”
Song Yuqing answered honestly, “In a dream.”
Zhang Yimiao stared at her, speechless. “Is this another one of your trade secrets?” she pouted. “Fine, I won’t ask!”
She felt that Song Yuqing was being a killjoy, using deadpan humor at the absolute wrong time.
“I want all of these!” Zhang Yimiao pointed to a row of snacks on the shelf—the very same ones Song Yuqing had casually tossed into the cart while restocking.
“We don’t offer credit at this supermarket,” Liu Xiaona reminded her, flashing a textbook customer-service smile.
Zhang Yimiao simply nodded and waved toward the door. Immediately, her teammates tossed several zombie corpses inside.
“We caught these while clearing out the houses next door,” she explained. “They were hiding in the corners. Who knows what they were doing. They were completely stupid—didn’t even try to dodge when we attacked.”
Little Meat Bun dragged the zombies toward the security gate to be processed. Instantly, the scanner chimed. Wow, they were all high-level zombies.
“Stupid high-level zombies?” Song Yuqing looked at Zhang Yimiao with an odd expression. Had she severely underestimated this girl’s strength?
Zhang Yimiao’s mouth dropped open in shock. “They were high-level?”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pink crystal core. The pink hue was swirled with a cloudy, turbid white.
“So this is what a high-level zombie core looks like?” she mused. She thought it was quite pretty and even considered keeping one to make a necklace.
Song Yuqing leaned in for a closer look, but something felt wrong. She had seen high-level crystal cores before, and they were far more flawless and vibrant than this cloudy stone.
“How many of these have you absorbed?” Song Yuqing asked.
“Just one each,” Zhang Yimiao said, raising her eyebrows proudly. She had thought her team was just incredibly powerful to have defeated them so easily. “Oh!” She suddenly remembered the drinks they’d bought earlier. “It must be the ability coffee from your supermarket! It made us super strong!”
Wordlessly, Song Yuqing took Zhang Yimiao by the hand, led her to the entrance, and pressed her palm against the security gate’s scanner.
Ding—Intermediate Fire Esper.
Song Yuqing shrugged. “Look. You’re only a mid-level esper, and that’s after drinking the coffee and absorbing a high-level core.”
Zhang Yimiao, however, was completely distracted by the magical door. “Wow! This security gate doubles as an ability-level detector? That’s so practical! Is it for sale?”
Song Yuqing let out an exasperated laugh. This girl completely missed the point!
“Don’t worry, in a few days Nanjiao will be bringing these security gates to Base Zero. You’ll see plenty of them when you get back.”
Zhang Yimiao nodded eagerly, bobbing her head like a chick pecking at rice.
“Yimiao, think about it. You’re a mid-level esper. How could you possibly defeat a high-level zombie without a scratch?” Song Yuqing asked. She knew the power gap between a mid-level esper and a high-level zombie was immense—at least tenfold. Even if a full squad of mid-level espers ganged up on a high-level zombie, victory wasn’t guaranteed. There would inevitably be casualties; a flawless, zero-injury victory was impossible.
Hearing Song Yuqing’s breakdown, Zhang Yimiao frowned in confusion.
“Could it be that these zombies just stood there and let you beat them to death on purpose?” Liu Xiaona guessed boldly.
“Why would they do that?” Song Yuqing and Zhang Yimiao asked in unison.
“How should I know?” Liu Xiaona babbled, pulling ideas out of thin air. “Maybe they lost the will to live. Maybe they’re cursed. Or maybe they were in the middle of evolving and couldn’t move.”
Song Yuqing raised an eyebrow. Who knows? Maybe they really were in the middle of an upgrade.
She walked over to the shelf, pulled out a copy of A Hundred Years Ago: The Zombie Rampage, dusted off the cover, and sat by the window to read.
Zhang Yimiao leaned in curiously. “What’s that?”
Song Yuqing didn’t even look up. “Cake.”
Zhang Yimiao pouted and tried to pull the book toward herself.
Song Yuqing flipped to the index on zombie classifications. According to the text, each tier of zombies possessed distinct traits and abilities.
“What’s the point of reading this? We already know all of that,” Zhang Yimiao muttered. She cared more about who wrote it than what was inside, tilting her head to inspect the fine print on the cover. Unfortunately, there was no author listed.
After scanning the descriptions, Song Yuqing confirmed her suspicions: the zombies Zhang Yimiao’s team had killed didn’t fit into any of the standard classifications. Supposedly, there were two types of advanced zombies—one with a pure red crystal core, and another with a murky pink-and-white core.
What was the difference between them?
“Can I have this book?” Zhang Yimiao asked as soon as Song Yuqing closed it, practically snatching it from her hands.
“That’ll be one zombie corpse.”
“Deal!” Clutching the book tightly, Zhang Yimiao left in high spirits. She was certain this manual would be incredibly useful for the researchers and record-keepers back at Base Zero.
Song Yuqing wanted to discuss the strange pink-and-white cores with Liu Xiaona, but her employee was already swamped, ringing up a long line of customers buying lunchboxes and snacks.
Very good, Song Yuqing thought. At least I don’t have to worry about hitting our sales quota today.
Leaving the storefront to Xiaona, Song Yuqing returned to her room and flopped down onto her soft bed.
“Master Fu,” she called out to the system. “Can you tell me what’s going on with these pink-and-white core zombies?”
“Hey, you can’t just ask me every little thing!” Master Fu grumbled. “As the supreme mastermind behind God’s Supermarket, I am very busy!”
“Busy with what?” An image flashed in Song Yuqing’s mind of Master Fu howling into a microphone on a stage. “Busy saving humanity’s spirit with your terrible singing?”
“…Well, you could say that,” Master Fu replied slowly after a tense pause.
“You really did save the world, though. Or at least some of the people in it,” Song Yuqing said, her tone suddenly turning serious. If Master Fu hadn’t forced her into opening this supermarket, Base 35 would have likely been wiped off the map.
Master Fu hadn’t expected her to suddenly get so sentimental. It made him feel a bit embarrassed.
“Look, I’ll tell you this much,” he finally said, his voice dropping low. “Those zombies with the pink-and-white cores? They aren’t actually supposed to exist yet.”
