Ch 90: My Multiverse Supermarket

An Fengxuan’s curiosity about the new world faded within a single day.

She asked Zhou Li, “Boss, have you ever been outside?”

Zhou Li nodded. “I’ve stepped out before.”

Though in truth, the farthest she’d gone was less than twenty meters from the supermarket.

“What kind of world is it out there?” An Fengxuan asked.

Zhou Li thought for a moment, then combined what the system had told her about this world’s background with the gossip she’d heard from the refugees, and explained it to An Fengxuan.

“I knew it,” An Fengxuan said.

She’d guessed as much when she saw those gaunt customers in patched clothing—their standard of living clearly wasn’t high.

But then again, her own world was miserable too, so she didn’t have much room to judge.

When she saw customers using gold, silver, jewelry, and handicrafts to exchange for supermarket membership points, her eyes went wide.

“Boss, the supermarket takes those too?”

“Of course,” Zhou Li replied.

An Fengxuan slapped her leg. “Boss, why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“I did,” Zhou Li said. “I said I only take valuable things.”

An Fengxuan choked on her words.

Right.

In her world, gold and jewels had become worthless, so she hadn’t even considered them “valuable.”

Back then, the only things of worth on her were game currency and items, so she’d used items to exchange for points.

Later, she told An Yixiao about it, and the Blue Owl Guild spread the word—

So now, everyone believed that only items could be used to exchange for supermarket points!

An Fengxuan clutched her head in despair. “Argh—I’ve been a doctrinaire fool!”

Zhou Li quietly watched her have her little meltdown.

Thankfully, An Fengxuan snapped out of it quickly. “No big deal. Once I get back, I’ll tell someone from Blue Owl to pass the message to that An Yixiao woman.”

Even if An Yixiao didn’t lack low-tier items, why waste them when she could trade cheap jewelry for points?

After all, there were only two ways to get game items—clearing dungeons or buying them from other players.

Each item represented a dungeon cleared… and few dungeons ever had a zero-death rate.

Every item might well have cost a human life.

Still, because items were so valuable, anyone who used them for points usually had tens of thousands stored on their membership card.

Since the supermarket had no purchase limits in that world, many people bought up massive quantities of goods to resell later.

What puzzled An Fengxuan most was how freely An Yixiao had revealed that the supermarket’s tools were immune to corruption and worked flawlessly inside dungeons.

As a result, the supermarket’s detergent sold out in just one day.

Now, with nothing to do, An Fengxuan mentioned her thoughts while chatting with Zhou Li.

Zhou Li actually understood An Yixiao’s reasoning.

“Maybe President An thinks,” Zhou Li said, “that the more people know, the more will buy tools—and the better their chances of surviving in the dungeons.”

An Fengxuan fell silent.

She’d always been a lone-wolf player, used to fighting solo, so she didn’t have that kind of mindset.

Still, remembering how An Yixiao had transferred her debt just to give her the chance to leave that world, her heart felt heavy.

Zhou Li saw her drooping and assumed she was homesick. “You can go walk around nearby—see the scenery.”

She wasn’t worried about viruses or bacteria being carried from one world to another.

As long as someone passed through the system’s filter—whether boss or employee—they posed no biological threat to the world they entered.

—Though physically and chemically, they still could.

For instance, An Fengxuan’s combat power from the Infinite World remained intact here, and her items worked in every world—the home world, the ancient world, and the interstellar one.

Which was precisely why Zhou Li needed to train her properly—so her new employee wouldn’t go wild and wreck the place.

Hearing she could go out, An Fengxuan ran off happily.

But when she saw that outside was nothing but hills and forest, her excitement died instantly.

She remembered another dungeon she’d entered once—beautiful scenery, right before she’d almost died.

Now, staring at the landscape, that memory made her skin crawl.

She hurried back to the supermarket for safety.

Just as she returned, she saw Zhao Changyan talking with Zhou Li. She couldn’t understand a word, so she sat by the door, swatting mosquitoes.

*

Zhao Changyan glanced at the “new envoy” beside Zhou Li, feeling an unexpected pang of insecurity—like she’d been replaced.

Still, she kept her composure. “Boss, is that your true divine envoy?”

Her own “envoy” title had been self-proclaimed; this woman, brought by Zhou Li, was the real thing.

“She’s a supermarket employee,” Zhou Li explained. “My subordinate.”

Zhao Changyan remembered she’d once been one too—a temporary worker, as Zhou Li had put it.

She suddenly found her own pettiness laughable.

From the moment she’d sworn vengeance, she’d cut off the path to transcendence.

She was human—why covet a destiny that wasn’t hers?

Once she accepted that, her expression softened, the heaviness in her gaze lifting away.

After some small talk, she didn’t forget the other reason she’d come.

“Boss, do you still have any ‘Yunnan Baiyao’ in stock?”

Previously, to treat refugees suffering from an epidemic, Zhou Li had brought in a large batch of medicines and medical herbs—including Yunnan Baiyao aerosol spray and ointment.

Yunnan Baiyao was known as the “sacred medicine of trauma care.” Whether for bruises and contusions or for resolving blood stasis, stopping bleeding, detoxifying, and reducing swelling, it was remarkably effective.

Of course, it had even more applications, but since it was a prescription drug, most people rarely had the chance to use it.

However, the aerosol spray and ointment were over-the-counter versions, available in any pharmacy or supermarket. Their effects focused mainly on promoting circulation, dispersing bruises, and relieving pain and swelling.

Because of her military background, Zhao Changyan immediately saw how such a medicine could be used to its fullest potential.

—The army was desperately short of such drugs!

She had even considered asking Zhou Li to sell her the formula, but Zhou Li didn’t know it either. The packaging contained no ingredient list.

So Zhao could only have the military physicians study it on their own. When they couldn’t figure it out, she had no choice but to order more directly from Zhou Li.

Zhou Li found the order rather troublesome.

The Yunnan Baiyao formula was a state-level secret. The powder version required a prescription to buy. Although the spray and ointment were over-the-counter, purchasing large quantities at once would draw unwanted attention.

Still, it wasn’t an unsolvable problem.

If the only requirement was equivalent efficacy, she could find substitutes in the Interstellar World.

She had already tested this with An Yixiao—the results proved that even for humans from another world, interstellar pharmaceuticals worked just as well.

Her only headache was that Wolf Pharmaceuticals seemed to have taken an interest in the supermarket and had started threatening the city hall and the Richter family, refusing further drug supplies.

Hmm. It looked like she’d have to do some maneuvering in the Interstellar World.

If she could resolve the medicine supply issue there, she’d never have to return to her original world to restock again.

After thinking this through, Zhou Li told Zhao Changyan, “These medicines are special—even the supermarket can’t prepare large quantities.”

Zhao nodded. “I understand!”

To better play the role of a “divine envoy,” she had studied Taoist cosmology in depth.

She knew that Taoism had various branches—such as the Talismanic Sect and the Alchemical Sect.

The “elixir” of the Alchemical Sect referred to real pill-making and pharmacology.

—There were two branches: external alchemy, which involved refining substances in furnaces (popular before the Song Dynasty), and internal alchemy, the meditative path that replaced it in later centuries.

From Zhao Changyan’s perspective, it made perfect sense that Zhou Li didn’t rely on alchemical pills for her “cultivation,” and thus didn’t store many medicines.

She smiled inwardly. “Indeed, shortcuts lead to weakness. Once people get used to them, it’s hard to change.”

Ever since Zhou Li and her supermarket appeared, some people had grown dependent on external aid.

Farmers who ought to till the soil now thought: If the Celestial Dwelling sells grain, why bother planting it myself?

Water-carriers thought: If the Celestial Dwelling has clean water you can drink without boiling, why still fetch it?

Some even grew lazy and greedy, believing that if they chopped a few precious trees and sold the wood to the supermarket, they could earn thousands of membership points—why bother working hard?

Fortunately, such people were a minority.

Because the supermarket only appeared seven days a month—and imposed purchase limits—the villagers all felt a sense of crisis. They feared that if the goddess stopped descending one day, and they had no reserves, they would starve for failing to produce anything themselves.

Zhao Changyan, no longer troubled by basic survival, was in more danger of falling into that subtle trap of complacency.

…

She didn’t stay long in the supermarket, because Qiao Siniang had come in, leading several well-dressed noblewomen.

They were the wives of local officials and magistrates, and upon seeing Zhao Changyan, they naturally came forward to greet her.

Having been harassed by their endless chatter before, Zhao quickly excused herself and slipped away.

Qiao Siniang greeted her politely but not too warmly.

Some debts of gratitude were best remembered quietly; flaunting them in public—especially when status was unequal—would only make people think her obsequious.

After exchanging pleasantries with Zhou Li, Qiao Siniang led Madam Zhou Wanniang and Hua Xiangzhi to the checkout counter and began explaining the products one by one.

Although her main sales were sanitary pads, shampoo, and body wash, she wasn’t about to overlook another highly promising market—barrier-type products, namely contraceptives.

[Author’s Note]

Qiao Siniang: “I’m an unmarried maiden introducing these to a bunch of married mothers—isn’t that a bit inappropriate?”

Zhou Li: “You’re discussing it right in front of me. Did I complain?”

☢️☢️☢️