Ch 29: My Multiverse Supermarket

Inside and outside the supermarket felt like two completely different worlds.

Outside, the wind howled through the streets, carrying a strange, acrid smell that had lingered ever since the catastrophe.

Experts said the odor came from the collapse of the mines, which had caused a leak of Mia’s unique energy source, orka. Combined with the hurricanes and sudden cooling, it created a faintly toxic gas—more polluting than Blue Star’s smog or exhaust fumes.

However, for people born and raised on Planet Mia, it had almost no effect. The Mians, they said, had built up natural antibodies over generations.

Lin Jianshan and Ting Linzhi had no idea if that was true or not—and they didn’t care.

After all, what could they possibly do besides accept their fate?

Even if Blue Star’s transport ships resumed operations and began repatriating settlers, it would take centuries to bring everyone back—each vessel could carry only about a thousand people at a time.

By then, neither of them would still be alive.

Inside the supermarket, warm light drove back the darkness, and for the first time in a long while, both girls felt a trace of safety settle in their chests.

Though the door stood wide open, the wind outside didn’t enter at all—the interior remained comfortably warm.

“This supermarket looks so old-fashioned,” Lin Jianshan muttered.

Although Mians were descendants of Blue Star immigrants, the technological gap between the two worlds was vast.

To maintain its dominance, Blue Star had deliberately limited Mia’s technological development.

The equipment on Mia was usually outdated hand-me-downs from Blue Star—only mining and construction machinery related to orka energy matched modern standards.

Even so, Mia’s society had long since outgrown this kind of old-world technology.

For example, modern Mian supermarkets were automated: one could purchase everything from a single vending interface without even moving.

This place, where one had to walk from aisle to aisle, pick items by hand, and check out at a counter, was practically prehistoric.

Before the disaster, Mians had relied on their “light-brains” to order supplies; robotic couriers would deliver directly to their doors.

But all of those systems depended on orka energy. Once the energy supply began to fail, so did the machines.

…

At first, Zhou Li thought the girl was complaining about her supermarket’s decor.

She sighed inwardly. It wasn’t that she didn’t want fancy interiors—she’d simply needed the extra space for storage!

Ting Linzhi nudged Lin Jianshan sharply, then quickly turned to Zhou Li. “I’m sorry. She didn’t mean any offense.”

Her eyes screamed: Are you crazy? The woman owns a working supermarket, and you’re criticizing it?

Lin Jianshan realized her mistake and immediately began apologizing.

Zhou Li wasn’t petty enough to be offended by something like that.

She studied the two girls curiously, then whispered to her system, “So… are they technically aliens or Blue Star humans?”

The system replied, “…You could just ask them whether they prefer calling themselves Mians or Blue Starers.”

Zhou Li thought about it and waved the idea off. “Forget it. Not worth asking.”

To the girls, she said, “Operating hours are from eight in the morning to ten at night. It’s not open yet.”

Lin Jianshan and Ting Linzhi exchanged baffled looks.

Every other supermarket they’d known was open twenty-four hours a day.

Still, given how strange this place was, they dared not push their luck.

They stepped outside again.

The cold wind immediately sliced through their clothes, making them shiver.

When they turned back, the supermarket still stood there, glowing faintly in the dark. Only then did they truly believe what they’d seen was real.

Curiosity overcame them—they didn’t leave but lingered nearby, peering through the glass.

“Jianshan, is that rice?”

“It’s small-grained, but yes—it looks like rice. Though not the ‘Full Kernel’ variety we grow on Mia…”

“Are those compressed noodles?”

“They look more like the ‘instant noodles’ mentioned in The Complete Blue Star Encyclopedia.”

“What do instant noodles taste like?”

“I’ve never had them.”

“And there aren’t any energy bars here.”

Zhou Li: …

She started to worry that the longer they stared, the more likely they’d try breaking in again.

The supermarket’s defense system punished anyone who attempted harm, equally and without mercy.

But she had already reviewed the surveillance feed and realized they were orphans from the neighboring charity home. She’d intentionally made noise earlier to stop them from committing theft.

She had given them one chance and hoped they’d cherish it.

So she decisively shut off the lights and locked the doors before heading upstairs.

Darkness swallowed the windows again.

Lin Jianshan and Ting Linzhi lingered for a while longer, then reluctantly returned to the orphanage.

With the tension finally easing, Ting Linzhi’s headache flared again.

Seeing her discomfort, Lin Jianshan urged her to rest.

“Don’t try picking the lock again,” Ting Linzhi warned softly. “I saw a surveillance camera there.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Lin Jianshan said. “I just wanted to see if I could find some money… Everything in that supermarket looked so cheap.”

Planet Mia, being a colony, didn’t use Blue Star currency.

Its people used Orka.

But in the age of digitization, almost no one carried cash.

Most people transferred their money into electronic light-brain accounts and paid digitally.

Because this digital currency was virtual—and City Hall printed more whenever funds ran low—the Orka continued to devalue year after year.

After the catastrophe, resources grew scarce, and prices soared.

These days, a single egg cost seven Orka.

Yet the supermarket she’d seen earlier… sold three eggs for only one Orka!

If they could just find three Orka in the orphanage, then at least they would have food for today.

Lin Jianshan didn’t own a light-brain. Even the cheapest light-brain wristwatch cost over 120,000 Orka, and the only person in the entire orphanage who had ever owned one was the former headmaster.

So, everyone in the orphanage was used to handling cash.

Lin Jianshan hoped some careless child had dropped a few coins in a corner somewhere, forgotten to pick them up, and that she could find them before anyone else did.

*

Zhou Li, meanwhile, had no idea what was happening next door.

When she woke up, she pulled open the curtains—and found the world outside still pitch-dark.

“Did I wake up wrong or something?” Zhou Li muttered.

Had she really slept all the way to seven in the evening?

But when she checked the system clock, it really was seven in the morning.

The system explained, “Seven a.m. on Mia is still before dawn.”

“Huh?” Zhou Li frowned.

“Although Mia also uses a 24-hour clock, its rotation period is longer than Blue Star’s. One full rotation on Mia equals 33.6 hours in Blue Star time.”

Zhou Li’s focus was elsewhere. “Wait—doesn’t that mean my store hours just got longer?”

“Yes,” the system confirmed.

Zhou Li: …

Forget it. The supermarket’s internal time was suspended anyway; whether time outside moved fast or slow didn’t affect her operations.

After washing up, she made herself a sandwich for breakfast.

Then another thought struck her. “Hey, does the supermarket’s protection field start at the front door?”

The system replied, “It starts from the ‘Three Responsibilities Zone’ in front of the store—cleanliness, order, and maintenance. That entire area counts as part of the protected perimeter.”

Zhou Li’s eyes brightened.

Back in her home village, the committee had assigned her a fairly large ‘Three Responsibilities’ zone.

Two-thirds of it technically wasn’t even her property, but by local regulation, everything from her doorstep to the edge of the sidewalk counted as her responsibility area.

The sidewalk itself hadn’t come along in the world transfer—but the protection boundary wouldn’t have changed!

Feeling reassured, Zhou Li began moving crates of beverages outside the store to make room inside.

With the defense system active, she didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing or vandalizing them.

As for the ‘Three Responsibilities’ rules?

Nobody enforced them here. She could tidy it all up when she got back to her home world.

The system: …

She really had found a loophole.

Just as Zhou Li opened the front door, she was startled by a shape curled up in the cold wind.

Looking closer, she realized it was Lin Jianshan.

Half-asleep, Lin Jianshan had been waiting outside. The moment the lights flicked on, she leapt to her feet and ran toward the entrance.

“I want to buy eggs,” she said, breathless, holding out three blue round coins.

Zhou Li took them and examined the beautifully crafted pieces—they looked more like art than currency.

The system explained, “This is Mia’s currency, the Orka. It’s minted from refined orka material.”

“Why are they different sizes?” Zhou Li asked.

“The large one is worth one Orka. The smaller ones are half and one-fifth Orka—like one yuan, fifty cents, and twenty cents.”

Zhou Li: …

Good thing she had the system, or she’d need a calculator just to run a checkout counter here.

“I’m sorry,” she told Lin Jianshan, “but these coins can’t be used to buy items directly.”

Lin Jianshan’s heart tightened.

Was the economy really so bad now that even Orka wasn’t accepted anymore?

Seeing the dark circles under the girl’s eyes and how close she seemed to collapse, Zhou Li quickly explained her membership system before the shock could make her faint.

Lin Jianshan had heard of “membership supermarkets” before—but only for the wealthy.

To qualify for those, one had to spend at least a million Orka a year.

Membership came with perks, of course—but she had never imagined that such a small, outdated shop would also require one.

“I don’t have that kind of money to buy a membership card,” Lin Jianshan said, lowering her head.

Zhou Li immediately understood.

“My membership system doesn’t have a minimum threshold,” she said. “Even if you only have one Orka, you can still become a member.”

Lin Jianshan stared at her in disbelief.

Zhou Li weighed the coins in her hand, then asked her system, “Does the auction house accept Orka currency?”

Even as she asked, she was already uploading the coins to test it.

The results came back quickly: the three coins were worth 100 yuan, 50 yuan, and 20 yuan respectively.

Zhou Li sucked in a sharp breath.

“Seriously? Why are these coins worth so much?” she muttered to herself. “Ancient copper coins and lead money from the last world would like to file a complaint.”

But she already had an idea why Orka was so valuable.

The system had said it was made from refined orka—the same energy that drove Blue Star’s mining frenzy.

Its worth far exceeded that of oil or coal back home, and as an interstellar mineral, it had enormous research value.

So of course the Orka coins fetched high prices at auction.

Still, they weren’t priceless—probably because, on the buyers’ side, orka wasn’t particularly rare.

“These three coins are worth 170 yuan,” Zhou Li told Lin Jianshan. “After a 1.5% processing fee, that’s 167.45 yuan. I’ll load that balance onto your membership card—you can shop with the card from now on.”

Lin Jianshan blinked in confusion.

Three coins worth that much?

But then the realization hit her—if it meant food for the orphanage, the more the better.

☢️☢️☢️