Ch 27: My Multiverse Supermarket

Interstellar Plane: Survival

At this point, the Good Life Supermarket’s storage space had already been maximized—it couldn’t expand any further.

To keep building, Zhou Li would have to buy land from her neighbors.

But since that kind of deal wasn’t supported by law or policy, if the neighbors ever changed their minds, her family would lose everything.

So Zhou Li had only been teasing her mother when she brought it up.

Soon she got to the real topic. “Mom, I’m thinking of developing a same-city delivery app so customers can buy our supermarket’s goods without leaving home.”

It was an idea she’d come up with just moments ago.

After all, every time she returned from another world, half her stock had mysteriously vanished.

And time in her original world was frozen while she was away.

From an outsider’s perspective, it looked as if a fully stocked supermarket had suddenly been emptied overnight the moment its lights flicked off—basically the plot of a ghost story.

Even though there weren’t many customers after 9 p.m., cars still passed the road in front of her store occasionally.

And of course, she had neighbors—Mu Kun, for example, had nearly discovered something odd earlier.

So Zhou Li wanted a cover story.

If anyone asked, she’d just say the goods were all being sent out by couriers.

It wasn’t like anyone was watching her store 24/7 anyway.

The app’s management could be handled by the system.

Zhou Hao said, “Wouldn’t it be easier to just join a delivery platform like Dingdong or Elephant Grocery? Why make your own app?”

“They take a huge cut,” Zhou Li replied.

She did the math.

Developing her own app would mean higher upfront costs, but afterward she’d only have to pay for server maintenance.

If she joined a platform, she’d save the cost of development—but their commission rates were 25%.

For every sale, a portion went to the delivery rider, then another to the platform. The supermarket only got what was left.

With her own app, she’d only have to pay the rider’s fee.

Zhou Hao nodded approvingly. “Not bad. Once Good Life Supermarket expands into a big retail chain, having its own app will be essential. You’re laying the groundwork early.”

She joked, “By the time I come back, maybe you’ll have already turned our store into a megamarket.”

Zhou Li followed along playfully. “Mom, our megamarket still needs a mega warehouse.”

Zhou Hao: “…”

“Do I look like a mega warehouse to you?”

Zhou Li burst out laughing.

Her mother sighed, giving her a small lecture. “It’s fine to think about expansion, but everything must be done step by step. Don’t rush ahead blindly.”

Zhou Li stopped laughing and said, “I understand, Mom.”

*

After her mother’s reminder, Zhou Li stopped worrying about warehouse capacity.

If needed, she could always restock after finishing one world before heading to the next.

Those worlds wouldn’t collapse just because they were temporarily without her supermarket. So why stress?

Still, she’d stick to her plan to create the app.

The next morning, she contacted a computer science senior from her university, asking her to find a capable programmer to develop it.

After hearing the requirements, the senior said, “If it’s just the front-end, I can handle it myself. Are you sure you don’t need back-end support?”

“I already have someone in mind,” Zhou Li replied.

As long as it integrated with her system, all the backend management and data security were no problem at all.

The senior didn’t pry further.

They settled on a price, Zhou Li paid a deposit, and then turned to contacting suppliers for her next shipment.

In addition to her usual orders, she added masks, gloves, and 75% alcohol disinfectant to her inventory.

Since the new world was described as a “survival world,” Zhou Li also bought a large stock of wilderness survival gear.

This time, she didn’t stay long in her home world.

Her suppliers delivered everything within three days, and the online orders arrived on the fourth.

But the fifth day was market day, so Zhou Li stayed one extra day to buy machetes and other farming tools at the local bazaar.

The last batch had almost sold out; as soon as she got back, she’d contacted the elderly couple who supplied her before and bought another dozen sets.

Once everything was ready, she waited until deep into the night.

When the lights in her self-built house flicked off and on again, Zhou Li and her little supermarket had already arrived in a completely unfamiliar world.

*

It was a planet 18 light-years from Blue Star—
a terrestrial world known as Mia.

The first scientist to set foot here had been named Mia Lenz. To honor her, the planet was named after her.

Orbiting a K-type star within the habitable zone, Mia possessed all the basic conditions for sustaining life.

After extensive exploration confirmed that it was suitable for human habitation, Blue Star began its colonization plan.

That plan had been running for over two hundred years.

Tens of thousands of settlers had been sent to Mia in waves.

These pioneers—called the Forerunners—were tasked with developing and building infrastructure for the planet to prepare for large-scale migration in Phase Three.

Over time, new generations were born, and the population of Mia grew from tens of thousands to more than seven hundred thousand.

“Wait a second,” Zhou Li interrupted the system’s exposition. “A whole planet with only seven hundred thousand people? That doesn’t sound like a resource crisis to me.”

The system said, “Don’t interrupt. I haven’t gotten to the important part yet.”

Zhou Li: …

Funny how the last world’s briefing had been a few sentences long.

“Go on,” she said, yawning.

She really shouldn’t have chosen midnight for her dimensional jump—but she’d wanted to avoid nosy neighbors noticing any anomalies when she returned.

Yes—she meant Mu Kun.

Other villagers went to bed early, lights out by ten.

Mu Kun, though, ran her shop however she pleased—sometimes closing before eight, sometimes still awake past eleven.

But even she, as a middle-aged woman, would always be asleep before midnight.

So Zhou Li had picked that exact time.

Unfortunately, she herself wasn’t used to staying up that late.

The system continued, “The Blue Star colonization wasn’t about easing population pressure. The real motive was resources.

“Although Blue Star’s technology had reached the level of interstellar travel via wormholes, each jump required enormous energy and cost.

“To recover those expenses quickly, Blue Star’s corporations sent workers and machines to Mia to mine and ship resources back home.”

Zhou Li muttered, “So… Avatar?”

Good thing Mia didn’t have any native aliens, or it would’ve literally been that movie.

The system ignored her. “Only one percent of Mia’s habitable area was designated for human settlement. That one percent could easily sustain its seven hundred thousand inhabitants.

“But a few years ago, Mia suffered a once-in-two-centuries catastrophe.”

The disaster devastated human habitats, drained the planet’s resources, and severed communication with Blue Star.

The transport ship scheduled to arrive that year never appeared.

Now, seven hundred thousand people were stranded on Mia—forced to survive in a world teetering on the edge of apocalypse.

Zhou Li: …

So that’s the kind of ‘survival world’ this was.

☢️☢️☢️