Ch 16: My Multiverse Supermarket

After the distributors’ orders were all fulfilled, the supermarket warehouse suddenly felt much more spacious.

Between restocking and traveling to a new plane, Zhou Li decided to stay in this one a while longer.

First, Qiao Sinang and the others were distributors she had personally developed. She couldn’t just hand them the goods and wash her hands of the matter.

Second, she was curious about what kind of ripple effects Zhao Changyan’s departure would cause here.

And finally, shifting between planes wasn’t easy for the system. Frequent jumps consumed a tremendous amount of energy.

If something happened later and she needed to cross planes urgently, being low on energy would be disastrous.

Besides, time stopped for her in the other worlds.

In other words, she had several times more study time than anyone else.

The system said, “Someone like you, blessed for commerce, wasting talent to take civil service exams—what a loss.”

Zhou Li replied, “My heart beats for serving the people. A system like you could never understand that.”

The system fell silent.

She was joking idly with it when a few refugees suddenly ran in from outside.

They stopped at the supermarket entrance, caught their breath, and then crept in cautiously.

At their head was Xian Sanniang, who looked nervous. “Div— Little Boss.”

Zhou Li said, “Hm? What’s going on?”

Xian Sanniang handed her a piece of wood. “Little Boss, is this valuable timber?”

Zhou Li couldn’t tell, so she uploaded it to the auction system.

【Golden-thread Nanmu (broken branch)】
Age: 122 years
Starting price: 160 (suggested)
Buyout: 200 (suggested)
Note: Intact golden-thread nanmu is worth even more. New timber: ¥100,000 per ton.

Zhou Li told Xian Sanniang, “This is golden-thread nanmu.”

The refugees were overjoyed.

“It really is golden-thread nanmu!”
“That’s imperial wood!”
“Sanya’s luck is unbelievable!”

Listening to their chatter, Zhou Li pieced together the story.

Apparently, a hunter from Great Yue had gone out hunting and encountered a wild boar.

While fleeing, he stumbled deep into a valley, barely escaping with his life. There, he discovered an enormous, thick tree he recognized from the book Xian Sanniang had—The Illustrated Guide to the World’s Precious Woods.

Not wanting to miss a chance even if he was wrong, he climbed up and cut off a branch to bring back for confirmation.

But since the book was too precious, Xian Sanniang refused to lend it out. The hunter had no choice but to tell her everything.

Word quickly spread among the Dou clan.

They compared the wood with the pictures in the book and thought it resembled nanmu—but none could be sure.

Then someone suggested, “Why not take it to the divine lady? Surely she’ll know.”

“Right!”

So the hunter asked Xian Sanniang to bring the branch to Zhou Li, while he hurried back to guard the tree—worried others might find and claim it first.

If it truly was a valuable tree, Xian Sanniang would send people following his markings to locate him.

When Zhou Li confirmed it was golden-thread nanmu, she reminded them, “Intact timber fetches a higher price.”

Xian Sanniang said, “Then we’ll have to warn Sanya not to saw the tree apart.”

But that meant if they wanted to sell it to Zhou Li, they’d have to haul the entire tree up the mountain.

They left to figure it out—no doubt already thinking about how to split the profit.

The group rushed out again.

Zhou Li chuckled softly.

The system asked, “What are you laughing about?”

Zhou Li said, “Don’t you think they’re so much more lively now?”

When she first met them, the refugees had been tightly wound.

They were burdened by the sorrow of displacement, exhausted from long travels, and crushed by the realization that even after meeting the southern Chu people, life up north hadn’t been any better. They were on the brink of despair.

Settling in the mountains had been both resignation and resistance—their final stand against fate.

The supermarket’s appearance had changed that predictable, bleak future into something uncertain.

Now they were nervous, reverent, but also hopeful and eager.

The system said, “The emotional states of customers are not within this system’s monitoring scope.”

Zhou Li didn’t blame the system’s coldness.

To her, the idea of a nonliving AI developing human emotions would have been far more disturbing.

At least she could still think of the system as an artificial intelligence.

If it ever acted otherwise, she’d feel like there was a ghost living inside her body.

…

Zhou Li had no desire to leave the supermarket or wander down the mountain.

Two days later, the refugees returned, hauling a massive tree and laying it down on the clearing a few meters from the supermarket.

It stood 23.5 meters tall, 42 centimeters in diameter—two children holding hands could barely wrap their arms around it.

It had taken eighteen people to haul it up the mountain, even with Xian Sanniang’s clever idea of using the small folding carts from the supermarket to assist.

The system scanned it and reported it weighed at least two tons.

Theoretically, that didn’t require so many people, but the mountain paths were rough, and they couldn’t risk damaging such a valuable tree.

Everyone waited expectantly for Zhou Li’s verdict.

She knew what they were hoping for.

Word had spread that valuable timber could be exchanged for supermarket currency, though she had never confirmed that rumor.

If this tree could indeed be traded for money, it would ignite a frenzy of wood-hunting.

Basing her estimate on the auction system’s valuation, Zhou Li told Xian Sanniang, “This tree is worth twenty-four thousand coins.”

That was twelve thousand per ton—quite a high price for fresh timber.

If it had been aged and stored in the shade for decades, the value would rise even higher.

Xian Sanniang translated the amount into the local dialect for the hunter.

The hunter’s dark, weathered face flushed bright red, his eyes wide as copper bells.

For a moment, Zhou Li worried he might faint from excitement.

But he steadied himself and turned to the others. “Thank you, everyone. I’ll keep my word—one-tenth of the profit goes to you all.”

One-tenth—2,400 coins.

Split among the seventeen others, that was 1,412 each.

He also gave Xian Sanniang an extra share, since without her book, he never would have recognized the tree.

Though the hunter had now become the richest man among the refugees, the others only felt a brief pang of envy before optimism took over.

There were plenty of mountains around—surely someone else would find the next treasure tree!

As soon as the deal was made, the system instantly transferred the tree—leaves and all—to the buyer’s hands.

Everyone knew Zhou Li had divine powers. They’d seen her make small traded goods vanish before, but this was different.

To see a massive tree, hauled up by eighteen men, vanish in the blink of an eye—it restored the awe they’d nearly lost to greed.

The divine lady truly was divine.

Perhaps withdrawn, but vast in power, able to see through all things.

If she could see what happened even at the mountain’s foot, then surely she could also see through their selfish thoughts.

Fearing their greed might offend her, they bowed and hurried away.

Zhou Li issued the hunter a membership card.

The hunter held it carefully and asked, “Divine lady, I believe you should receive incense and worship. I would like to donate money to build a shrine in your honor. What do you think?”

Zhou Li, not understanding the dialect, only smiled at him without reply.

The hunter looked disappointed.

In his mind, the divine lady must understand every dialect—she simply chose not to answer because she did not favor him.

He left dejectedly.

Outside, Xian Sanniang told him, “If the divine lady agreed to a shrine, she’d be accepting the people’s worship—and with that, the duty to protect them. That goes against her wish to remain unbound by mortal karma.”

The hunter’s intention exposed, he grew embarrassed.

“But wouldn’t it be good?” he said stubbornly. “The incense offerings could help her ascend to true immortality, couldn’t they?”

“Everyone has their own path,” Xian Sanniang said. “Even gods have their own ways of cultivation. Why impose human thinking upon a goddess?”

The hunter fell silent.

Inside the supermarket, Zhou Li poked the system. “Isn’t there any way I can understand dialects? A free one?”

It was awkward not to understand what people were saying.

Technically, she shouldn’t even understand the local speech at all.

But the system had built-in voice conversion for trade convenience—so though Zhou Li spoke Mandarin, locals who understood the refined Central Plains dialect could comprehend her perfectly.

However, only one language translation per world was free, based on the region’s common tongue.

To understand other dialects, she would have to pay to unlock them.

The system said, “You could become the top sales representative for the Interplane Trade Division. The champion earns bonus rewards. You could use that reward to purchase permanent multi-plane voice conversion service.”

Zhou Li: “?”

[Author’s Note]

Zhou Li: “Wow, your system really is impressive.”

☢️☢️☢️