Ch 76: My Multiverse Supermarket

Zhou Li looked up at the bulky machine occupying the third floor and sighed.

There was no way she could deliver the medical pod to where it would truly be useful anytime soon.

Then another thought came to her—if only she could get an item from the Infinite World that could deliver things invisibly and precisely to a designated location.

She decided that when she returned to the Infinite Plane, she would ask An Yixiao to help her search for such an item.

Until then, she could at least use the pod to give her mother a full physical checkup.

With that thought, she immediately called Zhou Hao.

“Mom, when are you coming back?”

“Not sure. If things go smoothly, maybe next month; if not, two or three months.” Zhou Hao paused, then teased, “What, missing your mom?”

“I just wanted to remind you to get a checkup.”

“Alright, I’ll go when things calm down,” Zhou Hao said halfheartedly.

Zhou Li then told her about what she’d heard from Mu Kun regarding the logistics park construction project.

Zhou Hao replied, “Oh, I know about that. Don’t worry, it won’t reach our area.”

Although everyone online was praying for a land acquisition, most villagers didn’t actually find it worthwhile.

The days of getting rich from land seizures were long gone.

In their city, compensation for logistics park land projects—adding up all the different categories—was only about 3,800 yuan per square meter.

If their house were seized, they’d get around 1.36 million yuan total—barely enough to buy a 100-square-meter apartment downtown.

Suddenly, Zhou Hao chuckled. “And you said you weren’t missing me. You never used to chit-chat about these things.”

Zhou Li: “…”

“Got something on your mind? Mom’s free if you want to talk.”

Zhou Li said, “Not really. I just watched a movie recently, and it got me thinking.”

She carefully chose her words, then described the entire incident that had taken place on Mia Star—disguised as a movie plot summary.

“…Mom, do you think those people really believed that ‘the law doesn’t punish the crowd,’ or were they just convinced their lives wouldn’t change even if that foreign trader disappeared?”

Zhou Hao thought for a moment before answering. “Maybe they weren’t unaware of the consequences… Have you ever heard of ‘group polarization’?”

“No.”

“Take your movie example. The people who first rallied others to demand an explanation from the foreign trader—they might have known he was being framed. But once they’d taken that first step, and saw others supporting them, they felt compelled to justify their actions. To rationalize themselves, they became more extreme.

“For instance, someone who originally intended only to stage a sit-in outside the trader’s stall—once faced with public doubt and fueled by inner-circle encouragement—might escalate to attacking the trader, all to prove their stance was right.”

“So you’re saying they knew what might happen, but still went ahead—dragging everyone else down with them?”

Zhou Hao asked, “If you were that trader, what would you do?”

Zhou Li thought that hit close to home.

But if she knew the answer, she wouldn’t have asked her mother in the first place.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’d definitely be upset.”

“Once trust is broken, it’s hard to give your heart again. Feeling angry is normal. And remember—if the trader was just passing through that town, the townsfolk’s plight isn’t her responsibility. The riot wasn’t her fault either, so she doesn’t need to carry that guilt.”

“Alright.” Zhou Li accepted her mother’s comfort with a small smile.

But Zhou Hao’s tone suddenly shifted. “That’s true—from the perspective of an outsider. But if you became a civil servant in that town, you wouldn’t have the privilege of staying uninvolved.”

Zhou Li asked suspiciously, “Are you trying to talk me out of taking the civil service exam?”

Zhou Hao said matter-of-factly, “Not at all. With how busy you are running that supermarket, you probably wouldn’t pass anyway.”

Zhou Li: … Truly her biological mother.

*

After hanging up, Zhou Li felt lighter.

She left thoughts of Mia Star behind and took her fully restocked supermarket back to the Infinite Plane.

With An Yixiao as the anchor, the system easily brought her to a brand-new location.

Looking out at the bustling traffic outside, Zhou Li thought she’d arrived in another world.

“Uh… where is this?” she asked.

An Yixiao pushed the door open. “The public hall.”

Zhou Li noticed fresh injuries on her and guessed, “You cleared the ‘Dawn Village’ dungeon, didn’t you?”

A faint smile flickered across An Yixiao’s face. “Just finished recently. I was planning to rest before heading to Mingde Academy, but I didn’t expect you to show up so soon.”

Zhou Li mentally calculated: she’d stayed three days on Mia Star and two more on her home plane.

If she hadn’t worried that An Yixiao or Duan Jing might have died waiting in the dungeon, she would’ve delayed coming.

Still, time and space flowed differently here—perhaps not much time had passed at all.

“Guild leader!”

“Why’d you suddenly run off?”

“What’s… that?”

A crowd came rushing over. When they saw the words “Good Life Supermarket,” their expressions shifted—some shocked, some wary, some confused.

But their gazes toward An Yixiao were unified and firm.

“Wait, is this the little supermarket the guild leader wanted us to find? Wasn’t it in the ‘Dawn Village’ dungeon? How can it be here?” they whispered among themselves.

Zhou Li had been about to ask where they were when An Yixiao began introducing her. “Boss, these are members of the Blue Owl Guild.”

Zhou Li glanced at the large crowd outside and then at the towering building behind them. “That building across the street—is that your guild headquarters?”

An Yixiao nodded with a faint smile. “Yes.”

“And the head on the lightning rod?” Zhou Li asked mildly. “Any story there?”

An Yixiao was a bit surprised at her sharp eyesight. “Enemies’s head,” she said simply.

Zhou Li’s curiosity was satisfied, so she dropped the subject.

But the Blue Owl members could no longer hold back their questions.

“Guild leader, what’s going on?”

“As you can see,” said An Yixiao, “this is the supermarket I told you to keep an eye out for. And this is its owner.”

She stopped there.

The members blinked.

No introduction? No name?

An Yixiao’s face remained blank.

She didn’t actually know the boss’s real name.

“You can call me ‘Boss’ like she does,” Zhou Li said. She had no intention of revealing her name—who knew what kind of items existed in this world? If one could assassinate someone just by knowing their name and face—like a certain Death-Note-like relic—it was better to be cautious.

Fortunately, no one pressed her.

They were more interested in what had happened to An Yixiao.

When Lü Chui had been forcibly ejected from the dungeon by her, he’d barely survived. That alone had told them how dangerous ‘Dawn Village’ was.

Everyone believed in their guild leader’s strength, but her silence afterward had made them anxious.

If not for the leaderboard still showing her alive, rival guilds might have already tried to seize Blue Owl’s assets.

Still, word of An Yixiao being trapped in the dungeon had leaked.

Lin Ao, leader of the Carefree Guild, tried to lure away Blue Owl members with promises of profit, while other large guilds watched like predators.

Luckily, An Yixiao emerged alive days later, cleared the dungeon, found her sister An Fengxuan, and finally returned to the guild—only to rush out again before even treating her wounds.

Just then, Lü Chui squeezed his way forward. “Boss! Finally, you made it to the public hall!”

Ignoring the onlookers, he whipped out his membership card and began shopping like mad.

Inside the dungeon, he’d been too busy surviving to carry supplies.

Now that he was free, he could buy as much as he wanted.

The Blue Owl members watched him curiously. “So… the supermarket really is just a supermarket?”

An Yixiao smiled. “Exactly. A supermarket is a supermarket. You should all stock up while it’s here—once it’s gone, it might not come back.”

The crowd exchanged uncertain looks.

An Yixiao added, “Oh, and there are a few rules. Let me explain first.”

Vice president Chen Linhuan whispered to the woman beside her, “Don’t you think the guild leader’s being unusually eager?”

Chen Jiaoyan, standing nearby, frowned too.

“This isn’t the time for suspicion,” said Chen Linhuan calmly. “If Axiao’s pushing this hard for us to buy memberships, there must be a reason—it’ll benefit us somehow.”

To set an example, she pulled out a small item.

[Gold-Spitting Toad (E-rank)]

Year: Unknown
Date of Origin: Unknown
Owner: Chen Linhuan
Starting Price: 3,650 (suggested)
Buyout Price: 5,000 (suggested)
Note: You reap what you sow. Offer it tribute, and for one year, it will return three of the same item daily. (Non-item tributes only; must fit in its mouth.)

As Zhou Li read the description, the toad opened its mouth and slowly spat out a single game coin.

Zhou Li: …

Chen Linhuan calmly picked up the coin.

Meeting Zhou Li’s indescribable expression, An Yixiao said, “The supermarket doesn’t accept game coins, so there’s no need for you to process this one.”

Zhou Li said to An Yixiao, “Your vice president is quite the thrifty one.”

An Yixiao nodded. “She handles finances, after all.”

Zhou Li then said to Chen Linhuan, “If it keeps producing game coins for a whole year, its true value won’t be evident until later. The current price might actually be low.”

Chen Linhuan was surprised. She hadn’t said anything about how it worked, yet Zhou Li seemed to know exactly what it could do.

“It’s not fixed,” Zhou Li continued. “If you feed it a game coin today, it’ll start spitting coins tomorrow. But if, say, two days later you feed it something else, it’ll start producing that instead. And if you stop feeding it new items, it’ll keep producing the same thing for a full year.”

Zhou Li thought for a moment. If she fed it a small Orka energy crystal the size of a button battery… wouldn’t that mean three new crystals every day?

Those crystals, after all, were Orka-based batteries that could power small devices—like light brains.

With that thought, she decided not to auction it off. Instead, she bought it directly from Chen Linhuan for 5,000 yuan.

Chen Linhuan suspected the item was worth far more but accepted after An Yixiao gave her a subtle look.

After receiving her membership card, she didn’t rush to shop—instead, she wanted to see what items others would bring out.

Unlike the Carefree Guild, which required members to surrender certain items, the Blue Owl Guild never confiscated personal gear.

As An Yixiao often said: every extra item meant one more chance to survive in a dungeon. Taking someone’s item was like taking their lifeline. If you tried to control others through greed and coercion, it would eventually come back to destroy you.

So unless someone volunteered, no one ever pried into what items others possessed.

The Blue Owl members soon treated the supermarket like a recycling hub, exchanging useless or novelty items for membership points.

If Zhou Li found something useful and cheap, she’d keep it; otherwise, she listed it for auction.

[Author’s Note]

Duan Jing, still trapped in a dungeon and suffering: “Buy something for me, peanuts!!!”

☢️☢️☢️