Chapter 87: Unhappy
While Little Meat Bun and a few espers were still outside retrieving the rest of the meteorite shards, Song Yuqing, Liu Xiaona, and Gaha had already begun processing the raffle entries for both walk-in and remote customers.
Thirty water-type espers from Base 27 walked away with prizes, including eight third-place winners. Meanwhile, nearly a hundred people in Zhang Yimiao’s faction scored, though most walked away with consolation prizes. Still, they managed to snag over ten second-place prizes and three third-place finishes.
Oddly enough, the remote participants logged into the online system seemed to have the best luck, with one anonymous buyer even pulling the single grand prize. For those distant winners, the store would ship out their immediate supplies via pigeon, while the grand prize voucher would be held until they could redeem it in person at God’s Supermarket.
“You have some nerve,” Zhang Yimiao said, throwing an accusatory look at Song Yuqing.
How was this fair? The store manager’s own event had yielded a grand prize winner right under their noses! Even if it was drawn for a remote customer, it was still a bit irritating to witness.
“Come on, let us draw again!” Zhang Yimiao demanded, glaring down at her second-place ticket.
“Catch a few more zombies, and I’ll gladly let you spin the wheel again!” Liu Xiaona laughed. She pointed toward the tables and chairs lined up by the supermarket’s glass window. “Anyone who won a second prize, go take a seat over there. I’m cooking a massive feast for you!”
“What about us third-place winners? Do we really get to play with a giant panda?” a crowd of people asked, squeezing closer to the entrance.
Song Yuqing smiled, gesturing over their shoulders. “Look for yourselves. Your panda has arrived.”
Right on cue, Little Meat Bun padded up the steps, clutching a small pile of silver meteorites. He offered Song Yuqing a foolish, innocent grin.
In the next fraction of a second, the crowd swarmed him from all sides.
“Little Meat Bun, these are all the third-place winners,” Liu Xiaona shouted over the din, rubbing her hands together as she headed into the kitchen. “Make sure you give them a wonderful day of playtime!”
Song Yuqing pushed her way through the throng, ignoring the absolute look of betrayal in Little Meat Bun’s eyes as she took the meteorite shards from his paws.
“…Do a good job,” she muttered, giving the panda a gentle nudge with her elbow. “Good luck.”
Little Meat Bun looked ready to burst into tears. They want to play with me for a whole day? What exactly are we playing? Am I the toy here?
“Make way, make way!” Zhang Yimiao burrowed into the crowd right behind Song Yuqing, reaching out to help gather the meteorites.
However, the few espers who had returned alongside Little Meat Bun noticed everyone reaching for the loot. Frowning, they pulled their hands back, keeping the shards just out of Song Yuqing and Zhang Yimiao’s reach.
“Has everyone else already drawn their tickets?” one of them asked.
“Yes. It’s your turn now,” Song Yuqing replied smoothly, tiptoeing to deftly pluck the meteorite right out of the speaker’s grasp.
“Awesome!” With the meteorites handed over, the remaining hunters couldn’t wait to squeeze inside the supermarket, scanning the floor for the raffle boxes.
Gaha waddled out from behind the checkout counter, obediently holding the cardboard box as his lips puckered into a pout.
“Gaha!” Step up and draw!
On one side of the room, a cluster of customers surrounded Gaha to pull their tickets, while on the other side, a row of winners dragged Little Meat Bun away. Left standing in the center, Song Yuqing and Zhang Yimiao looked at the meteorite shards left in their respective hands.
“Hand it over,” Song Yuqing said, nudging Zhang Yimiao with her eyes.
“No way! I need to bring this back to Base Zero for analysis!” Zhang Yimiao protested, hugging the silver stones tightly to her chest.
“I’ve already sent a batch to Base Zero,” Song Yuqing countered, tilting her head. “Think about it. A homing pigeon flies like the wind; you guys walk like snails.”
“Oh! Right!” Zhang Yimiao smacked her own forehead, nodding vigorously in agreement.
“Go take a load off. I’ve got work to do,” Song Yuqing said, slipping the remaining stones into her pocket. She darted back behind the safety of the checkout counter to hide from the crowd.
Restocking shelves, processing remote invoices, and auditing inventory—Song Yuqing sat quietly in her chair, completely tuning out the raucous noise filling the store.
Zhang Yimiao quietly crept up behind her, leaning in close to whisper directly into her ear. “A couple arriving at Base Zero… Is that really the future you saw in there?”
Song Yuqing shrank her neck back, moving away from the sudden breath. “Yeah.”
“But what’s the point of a psychic vision predicting something so completely ordinary?”
Song Yuqing stopped moving the mouse. She turned her head slowly to look Zhang Yimiao in the eye, spacing out her words with deliberate weight. “My guess? That couple is going to bring absolute chaos to Base Zero.”
“The good kind or the bad kind?”
Song Yuqing shrugged. How could she possibly know? She was a store manager, not a certified clairvoyant. However, remembering that intense smell of blood that had filled the small theater during the screening, she was heavily leaning toward the latter.
“Yimiao, do you distinctly remember what that couple looked like in the clip?”
Zhang Yimiao rubbed her chin, contemplating. “I have a rough idea of their silhouettes.”
Song Yuqing raised her eyebrows. Regardless of whether it portended a miracle or a disaster, a little caution wouldn’t hurt. “Are you heading out tomorrow?”
“I’ll go back tomorrow!”
After a brief beat of silence, the two women spoke the exact same phrase in unison. They traded a quick, understanding smile.
Zhang Yimiao and her dark-skinned lieutenant had committed the outlines of the couple to memory. They needed to rush back to base as quickly as possible to intercept them, determined to figure out exactly what the theater’s vision was trying to warn them about.
“I’ll go coordinate with the rest of the squad in a bit,” Zhang Yimiao murmured, looking toward the shelves. “We need to trade a few more zombie corpses for trail rations.”
As the old saying goes: it’s easy to adapt to luxury, but brutal to return to scarcity. Zhang Yimiao began counting on her fingers, determined to hoard as much gourmet store food as possible for the trek home.
Suddenly, Song Yuqing’s right eyelid began to twitch violently, a troubling thought slowly taking root in her mind. Chen Ke escaped with the rest of her inner circle. Where exactly did they run to? Did they completely evacuate Chen Town?
“Don’t worry, I’ll go scout the perimeter right now and see if I can find any tracks!” Zhang Yimiao said, glancing toward the kitchen. Since Liu Xiaona’s grand feast was going to take some time to prepare, she figured she might as well utilize the wait productively.
Gathering a few of her closest confidants, Zhang Yimiao marched back out of the alley.
Once the prizes had been distributed to the walk-in crowd, Gaha stood quietly beside Song Yuqing, holding the empty cardboard box. In stark contrast to the boisterous laughter echoing from the customers gathered near the windows, the vibe behind the counter was incredibly somber.
“Gaha…” Seeing his manager looking so despondent, Gaha’s own shoulders slumped. He reached out a scaly hand, gently patting her back in an attempt to offer comfort. What’s on your mind?
Song Yuqing parted her lips to speak, but the words caught in her throat. She let out a sigh. “I’ll tell you later.”
Her thoughts were simply too tangled to untangle right now.
Outside the window, a flock of white homing pigeons fluttered down, lining up neatly along the ledge. Seeing them arrive, Gaha perked up, immediately setting aside his worry to begin feeding the birds. Song Yuqing’s internal dilemmas might be beyond his comprehension, but a pigeon’s dilemma was simple: hunger.
“Gagaha!” You guys must be starving, eat up!
Song Yuqing began packing the items slated for remote delivery, carefully securing them to the birds’ harnesses. After a few days of steady operations, the carrier pigeons looked noticeably bulkier and stronger. As for the meteorite shard destined for Base Zero, she sealed it tightly inside a lightweight protective box and fastened it securely to the largest bird’s back.
Just as she finished up and prepared to take a breather with Gaha, her eyes locked onto the small plastic tags clipped to the pigeons’ claws. Each bird bore a unique numerical stamp corresponding to a specific base.
Song Yuqing froze, slapping her own forehead in exasperation. Up until recently, only Base 35 had access to the online storefront, and she had grown completely accustomed to a single shipping lane! But with the new upgrade, Base Zero, Base One, and Base Five were all actively placing orders.
Turning to Gaha with a miserable look, she groaned, “We messed up. We have to unpack everything and sort them by location.”
The pigeons let out a synchronous chorus of coos, almost as if they were actively mocking her logistical blunder.
By the time they finally finished categorizing and reloading the cargo according to the designated bases, a dull ache was throbbing through Song Yuqing’s lower back. She had been squatting on the hardwood floor for far too long.
Right on cue, Liu Xiaona began wheeling out steaming plates of gourmet food from the kitchen, gesturing for the second-place winners to dig in.
“Wait a second, Xiaona! Some of our people aren’t back yet,” Song Yuqing said, pressing a hand to her aching back as she hobbled over. She was referring to Zhang Yimiao’s scouting party.
“It’s totally fine, tell them to eat up! I’ll just whip up a fresh batch when the rest get back. Besides, our staff meals haven’t even been cooked yet!”
Song Yuqing flashed her a grateful thumbs-up. She had initially worried about overworking her employee by forcing her to cook so many massive portions back-to-back, but Liu Xiaona clearly wasn’t one to shy away from a hard day’s labor.
Gaha looked at Liu Xiaona, his brow furrowing as he pointed at the counter. “Look. Song Yuqing is unhappy.”
Liu Xiaona paused, genuinely surprised. Unhappy? Why?
They had successfully repelled a mutant stronghold, unlocked a massive store expansion, and cleared Master Fu’s high-stakes deadline ahead of schedule. Everything was going perfectly.
When Liu Xiaona pressed for an explanation, Song Yuqing merely offered the exact same hollow phrase: “I’ll tell you later.”
Too impatient to handle the mystery, but unable to pry any answers out of her boss, Liu Xiaona retreated back into the kitchen, deciding that keeping herself busy was the best way to keep the frustration at bay.
While waiting for Zhang Yimiao’s return, Song Yuqing huddled quietly in her chair behind the register, initiating a private conversation with the system in her mind.
She pressed Master Fu about the very first dimensional doorway she had unlocked. Where exactly did that gateway lead? Could it have connected to a separate parallel reality? Was there any chance her parents were actually alive and well somewhere, having survived the initial months of the apocalypse, and were currently making their way toward Base Zero?
But Master Fu’s response was swift and entirely devoid of hope. Impossible.
That specific doorway inside the spatial inventory was anchored strictly to a single reality. The threshold led exclusively to the final location where her parents had stayed before they perished.
Song Yuqing’s eyes hardened. Then I’m going back through that door.
