Ch 61: My Multiverse Supermarket

“We’re not gonna have to wait until someone clears this dungeon before we can move again, right? What if no one ever clears it—are we just stuck here forever?”

Inside the supermarket, even doing endless practice questions could no longer ease the mounting psychological pressure Zhou Li felt from being trapped in an enclosed space for so long.

The system said, “This is where conserving energy pays off. Do you want to return to your home plane?”

Zhou Li refused. “Let’s wait a bit longer.”

By her own time, she’d only been in this dimension for two days. If she went back now, having sold only a handful of items, it would be terrible business.

She still needed to save up energy to buy spatial-folding technology—of course she had to be thrifty.

After giving herself that pep talk, Zhou Li calmed down again.

Just then, she noticed the protective barrier’s outer mist suddenly churning.

Moments later, a gap tore open, and a figure darted through.

The next instant, Zhou Li found herself locking eyes with a pair of pale amber pupils outside the glass.

*

All players knew that the sixth-ranked player on the leaderboard, An Yixiao, possessed a talent called “Sixth Sense.”

With it, she could perceive subtle details and traces of strange forces that most people would miss—one of the reasons she had risen so quickly to S-rank.

However, few knew that “Sixth Sense” was not an innate gift.

It was a product of countless brushes with death—her honed observation and logic, turned into instinct.

An Yixiao never relied purely on her so-called talent or her items.

The reason she had sensed something was wrong this time was that, upon entering the dungeon, she had immediately taken in her surroundings and memorized every detail.

When she returned to the main road leading to the village entrance that morning, a northern wind happened to blow past.

She noticed that the grove of silk trees beyond the village arch swayed with the wind—except for the one closest to the archway, which remained perfectly still.

Earlier, when she’d met the two boys, they seemed to recognize the items inside the backpack that An Fengxuan had given her.

Connecting that with their origin, a suspicion had taken root in her mind.

An Yixiao approached the unmoving silk tree and placed her hand against it.

It was a silk tree—but not from the present day.

“What do you mean?” Lü Chui didn’t understand.

“The time of this tree doesn’t match the time of the place we’re in.”

Lü Chui looked confused.

An Yixiao explained, “What we’re seeing is the tree from before today. The most likely explanation is that something here is cut off from the rest of reality.”

With that detailed explanation, Lü Chui understood. “So it’s like the dungeon itself—maybe the real Dawn Village somewhere in the world was destroyed, but the version inside the dungeon remains fixed at a point in time. If we don’t enter the dungeon, we see the ruined real village. But because of some interference, both the dungeon and the real version exist at once—so we see a mix of both, the decay of the present and fragments of its once-lively past.”

An Yixiao said, “In simpler terms, it’s like a painting with a seamless patch over one corner. If you’re not looking closely, you’d never notice the flaw. To see the full picture, we’ll have to peel that layer away.”

“Let me do it,” Lü Chui volunteered eagerly.

He pulled out an oddly shaped compass, cut his finger with a wince, and smeared a streak of blood across the compass before writing the words “Wanderer’s Garment” on the tree’s trunk.

A thread of red light emerged from the compass, floating around the tree, growing longer and more chaotic by the second.

Lü Chui frowned. “Strange… Why can’t the ‘Maternal Thread’ find the weak point?”

The item looked like a compass but was called the “Maternal Compass.” The thread within it—the “Maternal Thread”—could locate the weakness of anything marked as “Wanderer’s Garment.”

“That means whatever’s causing this anomaly is an S-rank or higher entity. Your compass is only A-rank; it can’t affect it.”

Embarrassed, Lü Chui retracted the compass.

An Yixiao said, “Zhang Pu should be getting out of school soon. Go check if he still remembers chasing us last night.”

“Got it.”

“Be careful.”

“You too, guild leader.”

The two split up.

An Yixiao stayed behind to continue breaking the barrier.

…

Zhou Li noticed that ever since the stranger broke through the fog and stepped into the supermarket’s protective zone, the mist had begun to thin—gradually revealing the world outside.

It was as if the fog itself had sighed, ‘Well, since you’ve found me out, there’s no point pretending anymore.’

Seeing the familiar village archway and the road beyond, Zhou Li knew she could once again see the village clearly.

An Yixiao sheathed her blade, glanced up at the sign reading Good Life Supermarket, and felt a wave of relief.

So this was the “little supermarket” An Fengxuan had mentioned.

And the girl inside perfectly matched the description of the “young shopkeeper.”

“Welcome to Good Life Supermarket,” Zhou Li said lazily. At this point, she couldn’t even be bothered to guess whether the woman was human or another eerie being like Wang Hui.

After days without a single customer, she eagerly switched into business mode.

An Yixiao was about to speak when she suddenly drew her sword and stepped protectively in front of Zhou Li, eyes narrowing.

A boy in a school uniform, backpack slung over his shoulders, was staring at them with a cold, intense gaze.

An Yixiao vaguely remembered him—Wang Hui.

She had seen him when she first entered the dungeon, but his presence had been so faint she’d taken him for an ordinary aberration and paid him little mind.

Yet now, for an instant, a chill crawled down her spine—a primal, icy dread.

She was an S-rank player; ordinary aberrations couldn’t make her feel fear like that.

Zhou Li, seemingly oblivious to the tension, waved cheerfully. “Hey, you’re here for your soy sauce, right?”

An Yixiao: ?

She really wanted to turn around and see just how fearless—or clueless—this girl was, but facing Wang Hui, she didn’t dare let her guard down.

When Wang Hui stepped through the supermarket’s protective barrier, his gaze shifted toward Zhou Li.

He gave a dull nod.

Zhou Li took out the bottle of soy sauce he had bought not long ago—though much time might have passed inside the dungeon, to her inside the supermarket, only half a day had gone by.

Wang Hui walked past An Yixiao, grabbed the soy sauce, and then asked Zhou Li, “Do you have vegetable seeds here?”

Zhou Li said, “Not ready-to-plant ones, but there are pumpkins over there. Pumpkins come with seeds.”

Wang Hui replied, “It’s not pumpkin season.”

“Isn’t there greenhouse technology for that?”

“It’s expensive,” Wang Hui said.

Listening to their exchange, An Yixiao suddenly thought of the greenhouse she’d hidden in the night before.

That place had been abandoned for a long time—the plastic film torn apart, cold wind seeping through every crack.

Could that have been Wang Hui’s greenhouse?

Just then, Wang Hui’s face twisted into a strange, mechanical smile. “It’s fine. I found seeds that can grow outdoors.”

Zhou Li blinked. “…Congratulations?”

Then she seized the moment to advertise. “Do you have farming tools? I sell those too.”

The ever-alert An Yixiao: …

This relaxed attitude of hers almost made An Yixiao forget they were still inside a dungeon.

Wang Hui’s expression contorted. “No need.”

With that, he picked up the bag containing the soy sauce and left.

Only after his figure disappeared did An Yixiao’s tightly wound muscles start to relax.

Zhou Li said, “Customer, weapons aren’t allowed inside the supermarket.”

An Yixiao came back to her senses and realized Zhou Li was referring to her long blade. She sheathed it immediately.

Zhou Li saw her simply slip the weapon behind her back—and then it was gone. Completely gone. She couldn’t help but be shocked.

Did she have a storage-type item on her?

Her eyes gleamed with curiosity and gossip, but An Yixiao stayed silent for a moment before asking, “What’s your relationship with the Game and these aberrations?”

“I don’t have much to do with the Game,” Zhou Li said. “As for the aberrations—they’re just my customers.”

Zhou Li wasn’t lying.

In her view, the Game was an external force—just like her supermarket. Its appearance in the dungeon wasn’t because of the Game; in fact, the Game’s interference prevented the supermarket from properly locating a fixed coordinate in this dimension, forcing it to drift between multiple dungeons.

An Yixiao asked, “Then how do you enter each dungeon?”

Zhou Li blinked and countered, “Is that directly related to whether you’re here to shop?”

An Yixiao: …

She smiled faintly. “You’re right. That was intrusive of me.”

Given how casually Wang Hui had interacted with Zhou Li, An Yixiao suspected that Zhou Li only warmed up to those who played along as proper customers.

So, An Yixiao decided to browse around the store. Zhou Li hurried to explain the supermarket’s shopping rules to her.

An Yixiao pulled out a membership card. “I already know the rules.”

Zhou Li’s expression turned odd. “Sorry, but this card doesn’t seem to belong to you. Here, membership cards are for personal use only. So even if you lose yours, you don’t have to worry about it being used by someone else—you can always get a replacement.”

An Yixiao: ?

Something clicked in her mind, and she immediately understood why An Fengxuan had agreed so easily to sell her the card earlier.

Of course—An Fengxuan knew the card wouldn’t work in anyone else’s hands. She could just reissue a new one afterward.

A humorless laugh escaped her. That sister of hers had traded her two A-rank items for a piece of useless plastic—all for the price of one smug lie.

Keeping her face perfectly calm, An Yixiao put the card away, then raised her hand—and pulled out her long blade once more.

Zhou Li: …She’s not switching from soft tactics to hard ones, is she?

But her worry was unfounded.

An Yixiao simply placed the blade on the counter and asked, “How many points can I exchange this for?”

【40-Meter Blade (B-Rank)】

Year: Unknown
Date of Origin: Unknown
Owner: An Yixiao
Starting Bid: — (Not recommended)
Buyout Price: — (Not recommended)
Note: I’ll let you run 39 meters first. Auction restricted.

Zhou Li immediately understood why this happened.

The weapon’s rank was too high and its destructive potential too great—ordinary people couldn’t handle it. So the auction system outright restricted it.

Zhou Li asked, “Isn’t this your weapon?”

An Yixiao smirked. “I am the weapon.”

To Zhou Li, she radiated an aura that screamed, ‘I’m the queen here, confidence personified.’

“I see,” Zhou Li said, “but sorry—we don’t accept weapons with that much killing potential.”

An Yixiao replied, “But I haven’t told you what this blade actually does.”

“No need,” said Zhou Li. “Keep it for yourself.”

That confirmed it for An Yixiao.

This seemingly ordinary shopkeeper actually had the ability to recognize the nature of an item at a glance.

Whether that was her own talent or an identifying tool, An Yixiao couldn’t tell.

It was also possible Zhou Li had simply heard of her before—and knew the weapon’s name.

The only thing that puzzled An Yixiao now was: before she broke through the barrier, why had the shopkeeper chosen to hide the supermarket at all?

【Author’s Note】

Zhou Li: I didn’t! I swear I’m innocent!!! [Crying hysterically][Crying hysterically][Crying hysterically]

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