Ch 62: My Multiverse Supermarket

Public hall, McDang’s.

An Fengxuan sat expressionless, eating a “beef” burger that contained no beef, deeply regretting that she’d given all the food she bought from the supermarket to An Yixiao.

She should have secretly kept a few items for herself.

With An Yixiao’s abilities, she wasn’t going to starve to death in a dungeon anyway.

As she was mulling this over, she suddenly caught the sound of her sister’s name—“An Yixiao.”

She pricked up her ears and realized that a few players nearby were chatting. They were talking about a new internal bounty posted by Blue Owl Guild’s leader, An Yixiao, asking members to keep an eye out for a supermarket called “Good Life” while exploring dungeons.

An Fengxuan wasn’t at all surprised the news had leaked.

After all, Blue Owl Guild was far from airtight.

But if even these casual players had heard, then the top five guilds definitely knew too.

“Why are they looking for that supermarket?” one uninformed player asked.

“I heard finding that supermarket lets you clear the entire Game.”

An Fengxuan almost choked on her burger.

If there was ever a definition of “telephone game,” this was it.

She forced the food down with effort, tossed the rest of the burger in the trash, and tried contacting An Yixiao through the comm device.

No reply for a long time—meaning An Yixiao must have already entered the Dawn Village dungeon.

So she switched to contacting Chen Jiaoyan instead.

This time, the call connected.

“What’s up, Young Miss?” Chen Jiaoyan asked lazily.

An Fengxuan didn’t even have time to care about that nickname. “An Yixiao entered a dungeon?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“By herself?”

Chen Jiaoyan sounded curious. “Why are you suddenly so concerned about the guild leader?”

An Fengxuan rolled her eyes. “Going into an S-rank dungeon alone? That’s suicide.”

“For her, bringing people is worse. More teammates just mean more dead weight—and faster death. Isn’t that why you two fell out in the first place?”

An Fengxuan fell silent.

Chen Jiaoyan’s words stirred up memories from long ago.

Before the Game descended, theirs had been a peaceful family of four.

Afterward, the world turned upside down.

Every human was turned into a “player,” forced to enter dungeons and earn game coins and points to survive in this new world.

At first, the four of them acted together—clearing dungeons as a team.

But their parents were over fifty and had chronic illnesses; the dungeons were too dangerous for them.

Other than the mandatory monthly dungeon, they avoided every other one they could.

Meanwhile, An Yixiao kept diving into high-difficulty dungeons, her level shooting up like a rocket.

And strong people always attracted others.

The number of people around An Yixiao grew—some were comrades she’d bonded with through battle, others weaklings seeking protection.

Among them were their own relatives.

They all wanted the sisters to lead them—though mostly, they wanted An Yixiao to lead. After all, An Fengxuan wasn’t as strong.

Once or twice was fine, but over time, their progress was seriously dragged down.

And dungeon runs required items—items earned with their lives. Every time one was used, they had to risk their necks again to replace it.

Eventually, An Yixiao made a cold decision: she refused to bring any more friends or family into dungeons.

The move earned her a storm of criticism—from relatives, family friends, even their parents.

But no one could change her mind.

Then came the day their parents were forced into a mandatory dungeon.

Originally, An Fengxuan had planned to join them, but since she’d just finished a run and was still injured, they asked An Yixiao to go instead.

At that time, most players were still D- or E-rank; even An Fengxuan was only C-rank. But An Yixiao had already reached B-rank.

She warned them that the greater the level difference between players, the higher the dungeon’s difficulty.

But they insisted—a B-rank dungeon couldn’t be that bad, and they trusted she could handle it.

In the end, An Yixiao agreed.

While she recuperated, An Fengxuan waited for news—but the only message that came was that a D-rank dungeon had upgraded to A-rank, and their parents had died inside.

An Fengxuan blamed An Yixiao for agreeing to go at all. If she hadn’t, their parents wouldn’t have died.

That was when one of An Yixiao’s friends exposed the lie.
“You’re not angry because she was softhearted. You’re angry because you’re jealous. The moment your gap widened, you panicked. You hate that you can’t catch up—and you fear how far she’ll go. Your parents’ deaths just gave you an excuse to drag her down.”

Humiliated and furious, An Fengxuan broke ties with her sister completely.

Later, she learned the truth: their parents hadn’t gone in alone. They had secretly given their team-entry item to a few of their friends—without telling An Yixiao.

By the time she entered the dungeon, it was too late to turn back.

Worse still, one of those “friends” had concealed his true level—an A-rank player using an item to disguise himself as D-rank.

That deception caused the dungeon to rank up mid-run.

And his reason? Simply that he thought it’d be “fun” for a max-level player to toy with newbies.

The leap from B-rank to A-rank dungeons was an almost impassable chasm.

Even for An Yixiao, fighting A-rank aberrations was difficult enough—and she was burdened with several D-rank companions.

In the end, the D-rank players were annihilated, and An Yixiao was gravely wounded.

Had she not used her talent to clear the dungeon and escape first, she too would have died, a victim of the A-rank player’s cruelty.

Fearing he might hunt her down in the real world, she used the moment of An Fengxuan’s anger as a chance to sever ties completely.

Later, An Yixiao herself ascended to A-rank—and eventually found that same A-rank player, still stuck where he’d been.

She took his head and avenged her parents.

Then she founded the Blue Owl Guild.

People always assumed the name “Blue Owl” came from her own name.

But in truth, the “Owl” (枭) referred to execution.

That very head was impaled on a steel rod and mounted at the highest, most prominent spire of the Blue Owl Guild headquarters—serving as a lightning rod.

And from then on, every thunderstorm struck that head again and again.

…

An Fengxuan pulled herself out of her thoughts and said, “There’s a mole in Blue Owl Guild.”

At the mention of the guild, Chen Jiaoyan’s expression turned serious. “What do you know?”

“Every player now knows you’re looking for the Good Life Supermarket!”

Chen Jiaoyan seemed to realize something. “So it was you who told the guild leader about it.”

An Fengxuan: …

Chen Jiaoyan continued, “The day you left, the guild leader issued a Blue Notice, telling everyone to quietly gather intel on the supermarket’s location.”

An Fengxuan had already promised An Yixiao she wouldn’t talk about that matter. “Don’t change the subject. Either way, if you’ve got a leak, that’s your guild’s problem. If one day An Yixiao gets betrayed, that’ll be her own fault for trusting the wrong people. She’ll have to live with the consequences.”

*

【Dungeon: Dawn Village】

An Yixiao could tell that the shopkeeper, Zhou Li, wasn’t the type who liked answering questions unrelated to business.

So she swallowed all her curiosity and simply pulled out another item.

【Twist-and-Hatch Egg (D-rank)】

Year: Unknown
Date of Origin: Unknown
Owner: An Yixiao
Starting Price: 24,788 (recommended)
Buyout Price: 500,000 (recommended)
Note: Twist it—what kind of egg will it be? Place any fresh egg inside and twist to hatch. (Each twist reduces success rate by 1%.)

Zhou Li: …

If someone put a dinosaur egg in there, would it hatch a dinosaur?

Oh wait, no—dinosaur eggs are fossils now. Definitely not “fresh.”

But does “egg” include all eggs?

Like chicken eggs—they’re the reproductive eggs of hens, also called “chicken ova.”

So if chicken eggs count, what about fish eggs? Could you hatch those too?

If that worked, wouldn’t this item give endangered species a second chance at survival?

Just as Zhou Li listed the item for auction, it was instantly bought at full price.

While processing An Yixiao’s membership card, Zhou Li asked, “Do you have any more of those?”

She wanted to buy one herself—maybe someday she could hand it over to national scientists for research.

When the item vanished from Zhou Li’s hands, An Yixiao wasn’t surprised.

Since Zhou Li was clearly a high-level player, she must have storage-type equipment.

To Zhou Li’s question, she replied, “That was my only one, but if the shopkeeper wants more, I can keep an eye out.”

“Then thank you,” Zhou Li said brightly. “You get a ten-percent discount today.”

An Yixiao smiled faintly, her tone suddenly sharper. “But if I find another one—how would I reach you?”

Zhou Li frowned and turned to ask the system if there was a solution.

The system replied, “You could hire her as an official supermarket employee. Then she’ll travel with the store whenever it relocates. But when the supermarket moves, she must be physically inside.”

“But when she clears a dungeon, won’t she be ejected from it?” Zhou Li asked.

“If she’s inside the supermarket, she won’t be affected.”

Zhou Li thought about it. The method sounded good in theory, but she couldn’t just hire An Yixiao so easily.

Unlike temporary workers Zhao Changyan and Lin Jianshan, she didn’t know enough about An Yixiao’s character—and someone like her clearly didn’t need a part-time job to make ends meet.

“Let’s leave it to fate,” Zhou Li said at last.

An Yixiao smiled. “I understand.”

The little shopkeeper must be worried about exposing her secret—or being tracked and located—so she wouldn’t reveal a way to contact her.

Zhou Li: ?

Understand what, exactly?

An Yixiao strolled around the supermarket and cleared out the entire liquor shelf.

There hadn’t been much alcohol to begin with, and since there was no purchase limit, she even bought out all the beer in storage.

Zhou Li began to suspect that the “Straight Man’s Pocket” storage item An Fengxuan mentioned was in An Yixiao’s possession.

An Fengxuan had said it belonged to the leader of the number-one guild… could An Yixiao be that leader?

Wait—An Fengxuan, An Yixiao…

Was there some family relation there?

That would explain why An Fengxuan’s membership card ended up in An Yixiao’s hands.

But why hadn’t An Fengxuan told her that membership cards were non-transferable?

Suddenly, a tremendous noise erupted outside the supermarket.

It sounded eerily familiar to Zhou Li.

Her first thought was, not again.

At that moment, An Yixiao vanished from sight—moving faster than Zhou Li’s eyes could track.

A second later, a figure crashed violently through the door, slamming into the wall and collapsing to the floor in a heap.

【Author’s Note】

Lü Chui: I’m out here running for my life, and you’re leisurely shopping???

An Yixiao: “.”

☢️☢️☢️