Ch 60: My Multiverse Supermarket

“Boom—”

A blast shattered the silence of the village.

As the only person who hadn’t followed the dungeon’s “lights-out” schedule, Zhou Li heard the sound from far away.

But the entire village was enveloped in thick fog, so she couldn’t see what was happening outside.

Zhou Li muttered to the system, “It was fine the past two days, but ever since the dungeon started, the weather’s turned into this mess. Could the Game be using the fog to block my supermarket’s view?”

She had good reason to suspect that the Game didn’t want her seeing what was happening inside the dungeon—and spreading that information outside.

Unable to investigate, Zhou Li gave up on her curiosity.

The noise went on for a long time, but finally faded away—just when she was starting to yawn from boredom.

*

Dawn gradually broke.

An Yixiao and Lü Chui were hiding inside a drafty, half-collapsed greenhouse.

As the night’s darkness peeled away and the light of morning spilled across the ground, neither of them felt relieved. If anything, their hearts sank deeper.

An Yixiao held another slip of paper with three new rules:

1. Danger often hides in dawn.
2. The villagers are all petty-minded.
3. Attendance at village committee meetings is mandatory.

If these were all valid, it meant the village was just as dangerous by day as it was by night.

What puzzled them even more was that although this greenhouse was broken-down and abandoned, the aberrations chasing them had stopped right at its edge.

If daylight was the reason, then the first rule would already be invalid.

An Yixiao couldn’t figure it out—but she didn’t dare lower her guard.

After a long silence, she said, “Let’s get out of here.”

Lü Chui nodded heavily. “Yeah. This place makes me uneasy.”

They were both injured, but as S-rank players—and with An Yixiao being a major guild leader—they had plenty of healing items.

“Looks like the village committee’s holding a meeting today,” An Yixiao said.

She recalled the notice she had seen on the bulletin board last night.

She had paid more attention then to the “Five-Beauties Village” evaluation announcement, but she hadn’t ignored the others.

Lü Chui said, “If rule three is true, does that mean we have to attend? But we’re not villagers here.”

“That’s easy,” An Yixiao replied. “We’ll just go to the village committee and ask whether outsiders are required to attend.”

Lü Chui: …

As expected of an S-rank player—charging in boldly was her version of confidence.

An Yixiao added, “There must be rules inside the committee.”

The Game, in its twisted sense of fairness, always liked to maintain a fake balance between players and aberrations. Translated on hololonovels. It usually set up a seemingly neutral NPC between the two sides.

As long as players didn’t break that NPC’s rules, they could seek help from it when necessary.

In the dungeon Dawn Village, there was no role more fitting for that than the village committee itself.

If it hadn’t been closed for the day when they first entered the dungeon, they would’ve gone there yesterday to look for clues.

As they headed toward the village committee together, An Yixiao suddenly stopped.

Lü Chui immediately tensed. “Did you find something, guild leader?”

He followed her gaze toward the end of the road—the entrance to Dawn Village.

Nothing was there.

An Yixiao rubbed her temples. “There’s something there.”

At that, Lü Chui realized her S-rank talent must have activated.

He asked, “What is it? Is it dangerous?”

“I don’t feel danger… but it’s like something’s deliberately being hidden,” An Yixiao murmured. “We’ll go to the committee first.”

Finding out the rules came first.

Lü Chui didn’t question her decision and followed her in.

The sense of malice An Yixiao had felt from the committee building the night before was gone.

When she looked at the bulletin board again, the meeting notice had vanished—replaced by a red-and-black ranking list.

Inside, the old men sitting in chairs all turned their heads toward them in perfect unison.

The sight was unnerving. If the two of them weren’t so experienced in dungeon runs, they might have shuddered.

“Why are there so many old people?” Lü Chui whispered.

“Dawn Village must be a hollowed-out village—mostly elders and children left behind.”

A “hollowed-out” village referred to one where all the young laborers had gone off to work elsewhere, leaving the elderly to raise the kids.

At this hour, the children were in school, so the only ones left were the elderly.

A spark of insight flickered in An Yixiao’s mind, but it slipped away before she could catch it.

The old man behind the service desk looked up. “What brings you here?”

An Yixiao glanced around, not seeing her in-game uncle anywhere, and quickly improvised. “I’m here to attend the meeting on behalf of my uncle.”

“Your uncle is…?”

“Zhang Run.”

“Oh, you’re Zhang Run’s niece.” The old man nodded. “Wait here—it’s not meeting time yet.”

An Yixiao smiled politely. “Could you tell me where the restroom is?”

He pointed the way. She exchanged a quick look with Lü Chui, and they decided to split up.

The committee office was small, with only a few staff members. They avoided them and searched every corner they could.

Finally, An Yixiao found a third sheet of paper inside the printer—another list of rules:

1. Do not quarrel with villagers.
2. If disputes occur, report them to the village committee for mediation.
3. Carrying passengers on electric scooters is strictly prohibited.
4. Minors are forbidden to smoke. If found, stop them immediately.
5. If you lose any belongings, please contact the village committee.

“These three papers—twelve rules total—and none of them connect to each other?” Lü Chui muttered.

The fewer links between the rules, the fewer clues they had to clear the dungeon.

Even as a veteran of rule-based dungeons, he found this one frustratingly difficult.

An Yixiao lowered her gaze, thinking. After a pause, she walked straight up to the old man. “Village Chief, what happened last night? There was such a loud noise—I couldn’t sleep.”

The old man’s eyes were dark and unreadable. “Nothing happened last night. Our village has always been peaceful. Perhaps you were dreaming—confusing dreams with reality?”

“I see,” said An Yixiao.

She turned as if to leave, then seemed to remember something. “Oh, Village Chief—I just realized I lost a set of stationery. I’m a senior student preparing for the mock college entrance exam in a few days. Could you help me post a lost-and-found notice?”

The old man’s face turned grave. “The college exam is no small matter. I’ll make sure it’s found. Don’t worry.”

As he spoke, he wrote down a line on paper.

“Thank you, Village Chief.”

An Yixiao got exactly what she came for—and left the committee with her answer.

Lü Chui asked her, “Aren’t we supposed to attend the meeting?”

An Yixiao said, “That rule is fake.”

She pointed toward the sky. “Look.”

Lü Chui was stunned to see that it was already evening.

“The time flow in the village committee is different from outside?”

“Not different—just numbed. It dulls our perception of time. The moment we entered, our sense of time was already being interfered with. When the village chief said it wasn’t time for the meeting yet, we naturally assumed we’d only been inside for a few minutes. Later, while we were searching for the rules, we ignored the passing of time. And when we came out and saw the old people still sitting there, we assumed it still wasn’t time yet… but who ever said they were there for a meeting?”

Lü Chui suddenly understood.

He asked, “Then how did you notice something was off?”

An Yixiao said, “I told the village chief I’d lost some stationery, and he wrote it down in the duty log.”

Anyone with work experience knew that all pending matters had to be recorded for the next shift’s handover.

Since the chief accepted her request, he had to log it.

And the work log always included a timestamp.

That’s how An Yixiao realized something was wrong with time.

Lü Chui caught on belatedly. “If we hadn’t noticed and stayed there until curfew…”

“Then we’d have violated the rule ‘No staying out overnight.’”

Lü Chui said, “Good thing you were alert, guild leader.”

An Yixiao replied, “This dungeon was originally A-rank. It only became S-rank because someone triggered a hidden quest. I suspect that’s related to whatever’s special about the village committee.”

Following her reasoning, Lü Chui said, “We stayed there for so long without danger. Maybe the committee is part of the original A-rank map—and the real key to clearing it isn’t there.”

An Yixiao didn’t respond; she was still thinking.

Lü Chui asked, “Guild leader, when night falls, will those aberrations start hunting us again?”

Day and night in Dawn Village felt like two different worlds.

The village chief’s claim that he’d heard nothing the previous night might have been self-deception—an effort to keep the “Five-Beauties Village” image intact.
But it was also possible that, in his perception, the night had truly been calm and peaceful.

Suddenly, they saw two young boys walking out of a small shop.

One of them took out a pack of cigarettes and prepared to smoke.

Lü Chui said, “Minors are forbidden to smoke. If found, stop them immediately… Guild leader?”

An Yixiao reminded him, “The villagers are all petty-minded. Even if they’re underage, they’re still villagers.”

Because the “attendance at village committee meetings is mandatory” rule had turned out false—and because “villagers are petty” seemed to contradict “villagers are kind and friendly”—Lü Chui had assumed that entire sheet of rules was unreliable. He hadn’t connected it to the others.

“One of these two rules must be fake,” Lü Chui guessed.

“Not necessarily,” said An Yixiao. “Both statements are subjective. Depending on who made the rules, the villagers’ image in their minds could be completely different.”

“So what do we do? If we don’t stop them, we violate the committee’s rule. If we do, we offend the villagers.” Lü Chui looked troubled.

An Yixiao suddenly started walking toward the two boys.

They tensed up at first, but seeing that she and Lü Chui weren’t locals, they relaxed and stared back with hostility.

“What do you want?” one asked, glaring as if daring her to say a word about their smoking.

An Yixiao smiled. “You’ve got cigarettes? Great! I was just worried I couldn’t find any.”

The two boys: …

They exchanged glances. “These are ours. If you want some, buy your own.”

An Yixiao shook her head. “Can’t. I’m an adult, but my uncle forbids me to smoke, so I can only sneak one. If I go to the shop, he’ll find out. That’s why I want to buy from you.”

The taller boy smirked. “But we’ve seen you smoke now, haven’t we?”

“I trust you won’t snitch,” said An Yixiao confidently.

They were speechless—if they reported her, they’d expose themselves too.

“So, what’ll you trade?” the boy asked suddenly, his tone turning malicious.

Lü Chui’s heart clenched.

When aberrations asked that question, it usually meant they demanded flesh or blood as payment.

An Yixiao calmly unzipped her “elementary school backpack.” “Take a look. See if there’s anything you like.”

The boys froze, about to refuse—

But the boy with glasses suddenly pulled out a bottle of cola.

“I’ll take this!” he said happily.

The tall boy glared at him.

“Look at that brand,” he said. “Doesn’t it look like the one we drank yesterday…”

He never finished the sentence.

An Yixiao kept her expression neutral, but noted the words carefully.

The tall boy rummaged in the bag too, taking two more drinks and a few packs of snacks.

They handed her a cigarette.

An Yixiao pulled out a box of nicotine gum and said, “Here, when you feel like smoking, just chew one of these.”

The tall boy asked, “Why don’t you have one?”

“Because I’m an adult.” An Yixiao smiled sweetly and pocketed the cigarette.

The two boys looked speechless but said nothing more.

When they left, Lü Chui came over in awe. “Guild leader, that was brilliant. You stopped them and didn’t offend them.”

An Yixiao watched them thoughtfully. “Were those the same boys who were with Zhang Pu yesterday?”

When they first entered the dungeon, they had seen four boys—one of whom was her in-game cousin, Zhang Pu.

Lü Chui nodded. “Yes, those were them.”

“Then where’s the fourth one today?”

As for Zhang Pu—he had attacked her last night after she refused his request to open the door. She’d barely escaped using her items.

She had fled all the way to the greenhouse, where the pursuit had mysteriously stopped.

And she suspected that if she returned to the Zhang house tonight, he would attack again.

Then, as if remembering something, An Yixiao suddenly started walking toward the village entrance.

Lü Chui caught up to her. “Guild leader, are you leaving the village? Didn’t we already confirm there’s no way out?”

An Yixiao said, “There’s something I need to verify.”

☢️☢️☢️