Ch 186: Guide to Running a Shop in Another World II

Zhang Shu actually hadn’t been employed for long either. She had only recently joined the Ghost System Main Hub and had barely met any of the otherworldly staff members aside from Harold.

Today was the first time she encountered Si Jin, Tina, Qiuyu, and Zhao Ye—all in fully human forms—so it was natural for her to be a bit shocked.

Si Jin, Tina, Qiuyu, and Zhao Ye were also meeting each other for the first time. Being dragons by nature, they carried an inherent pride that transcended worlds. After all, they were beloved by the gods.

When they met, both sides maintained a reserved demeanor. They exchanged polite nods as greetings, but there was little else.

Zhao Ye, however, wanted to initiate a conversation, but the heavy aura surrounding the others made him retreat behind Lu Yao. The little sparrow demons perched on Zhao Ye’s shoulders and head tilted their fluffy heads, trying to look obedient.

Meanwhile, Ding Qing was still staying in the staff break room to recover.

The four newcomers were curious about the store’s layout and wanted to explore the office area. This led to a brief encounter with Ding Qing.

Harold stared at Ding Qing as soon as he entered the room. When she reacted to Si Jin and Zhao Ye with even more intense nausea—greater than when she had first met him—he felt a bit more at ease.

Lu Yao hadn’t lied; this human wasn’t just reacting to him.

With six couriers now in the store—four of whom were new and unfamiliar with the job or the area—training became a priority. However, they had only one day to prepare before everyone would need to start taking orders.

Lu Yao divided the couriers into two teams: Si Jin and Qiuyu joined Harold in heading to the east to distribute flyers, promote the store’s business cards, and familiarize themselves with the routes. Lu Yao took Tina and Zhao Ye to the west to do the same and scout for potential customers.

If any customers placed an order, Zhang Shu would assign it to the closest available courier.

The four new couriers were not allowed to take orders yet. Each had to shadow an experienced courier for at least three deliveries before attempting their own.

The task itself wasn’t difficult, especially for couriers whose physical capabilities far exceeded the norm. The real challenge lay in navigating human interactions and making sound judgments in complex situations.

Lu Yao worried they might be deceived by cunning and manipulative humans or, conversely, overreact during tasks and attract unwanted attention.

At this stage, Lu Yao wasn’t overly concerned about trouble but rather about the delays it might cause to their progress.

With a seven-day timeline to complete 300 deliveries, and only seven completed on the first day, every moment counted.

Lu Yao aimed for the couriers to fulfill each task as instructed while leaving a positive impression on customers.

Although Harold had only been on the job for one day, his extensive experience accompanying Lu Yao across various worlds gave him a better grasp of human interactions than the others.

She paired Si Jin and Qiuyu with Harold, while Tina and Zhao Ye went with her.

They all rode electric scooters to maintain uniformity. Lu Yao permitted them to discreetly use magic, mana, or spiritual energy to enhance their efficiency, provided they weren’t noticed.

After breakfast at the store, each courier took a simple cloth bag filled with flyers, business cards, a gold-eating Pixiu, and snacks.

Lu Yao led her team westward while Harold’s group headed east. Zhang Shu and Ding Qing stayed behind to manage the store.

The rumbling sound of engines echoed across Guanyin Road. Unlike before, when such noise might have scared the residents into peeking nervously from behind curtains, today’s sound seemed unusually loud, as though there were more vehicles.

Zhao Xiaopeng and his grandparents stood by the window, curious. They were surprised to see more scooters and more people.

Zhao Xiaopeng asked, “What’s with the red and gold hair? Foreigners?”

Meanwhile, Zhang Shulan was giving her daughter medicine.

Shanshan, having taken the medicine Lu Yao had found yesterday, had finally recovered from her fever.

Hearing the commotion, Zhang Shulan couldn’t resist pulling back the curtain. She saw two small convoys leaving Guanyin Road.

Lu Yao’s plan was to first sweep through all residential areas within a 10-kilometer radius and then gradually expand the range of the Willing Net’s coverage and service area.

Lu Yao’s team’s morning task was to cover Wanxin City, which was 4 kilometers away from Guanyin Road, and its surrounding residential neighborhoods.

Lu Yao, Tina, and Zhao Ye rode their scooters to Wanxin Plaza and took a lap around to get a general sense of the area.

Wanxin City was an old commercial district, with Wanxin Plaza at its center. Around it were three commercial buildings, including a large chain supermarket, clothing malls, electronics and digital stores, and a hardware market. One of the buildings housed a five-story gold shopping center.

Surrounding the plaza was a three-story farmers’ market, while the nearby areas were a mix of newly built residential buildings and older complexes from over a decade ago.

Zhao Ye’s little sparrow followers flew around the area, scouting which malls and neighborhoods were inhabited and which had the highest population density.

Lu Yao selected the residential complex with the most occupants—Golden Tai Imperial Garden.

The entrance to Golden Tai Imperial Garden featured an ornate European-style design, with four thick white columns standing at the gate. However, the decorative angel statues had toppled to the ground, and the gate’s barriers were broken and sagging onto the pavement.

There was no guard post. Beyond the entrance, three marble paths extended into the residential buildings, laid over a shallow artificial lake.

The lake’s water was murky and green, barely 20 centimeters deep, with its surface cluttered by floating corpses. Some appeared to be people who had fallen from the buildings, while others were partially decayed zombies, still moving and flailing in the water.

Zhao Ye crouched by the lakeside, curiously observing the still-moving zombies, as his sparrow companions perched on his shoulders, chirping and chattering about the scene.

Zhao Ye asked, “So, just like in the movies—if you’re bitten, you turn into one of them?”

The internet café had introduced the creatures of the Floating World—be they devils, demons, or humans—to the concept of movies. Zhao Ye and his sparrow companions often peeked at customers’ screens and had seen zombie-themed shows before.

Lu Yao nodded. “That’s right. So, when you’re working, be extremely careful. Don’t get bitten or scratched by them. And for the scouts, make sure not to get caught by stray cats or humans in the area.”

Tina leapt effortlessly across to the other side of the lake and extended her hand toward a zombie stuck in the water.

The zombie immediately lunged upward, biting down on Tina’s wrist. Lu Yao’s heart leapt in alarm.

Tina shook the zombie off with a flick of her wrist. Her skin remained perfectly smooth—no injuries, not even a tooth mark.

On the other hand, the zombie, thrown with such force, slammed against the lake’s edge, chipping its teeth and scraping off its decayed flesh, leaving half of its face as bare bone.

Tina frowned as she stood up and shook her hand. “No threat at all—just gross.”

Lu Yao handed her an alcohol wipe. “Don’t be so reckless next time—it gave me a scare.”

Tina wiped her hands nonchalantly. “Even without sensing much magic here, low-grade undead like these can’t harm me.”

Zhao Ye, unlike Tina, dared not extend his hand toward a zombie.

As a demon, his physical body was stronger than a typical human’s, but having just mastered transformation, he was far less robust than the dragons.

He looked enviously at Tina. “I wish I could be that strong.”

Tina glanced at him. “You don’t seem like a dragon.”

Zhao Ye suddenly felt self-conscious, lowering his head and muttering softly, “My true form is just an ordinary mountain sparrow. How could I ever compare to the dragons?”

Tina finally gave him a good look, then reached out to touch the small black mole under his eye. “I’ve seen sparrows—they’re always chirping, and they have little spots like this on their cheeks. So, you’re a little sparrow, huh? And yet you’ve managed to transform into a human form—pretty impressive!”

Zhao Ye lowered his head even further, his ears turning bright red.

The little sparrows perched on his shoulders tilted their heads curiously, as if relishing the scene.

Standing behind the two, Lu Yao cleared her throat lightly. “Alright, let’s go. Time to sweep the building.”

Distributing flyers wasn’t difficult work. Lu Yao led the two and their twelve sparrow scouts through three floors, then let them handle things on their own.

The three of them continued working in the same building, but each was assigned different floors.

Tina, with her swift movements, was responsible for the top ten floors. Zhao Ye and his scouts, having the advantage of numbers, handled the middle fifteen floors. Lu Yao took the first ten floors.

While Lu Yao left flyers at every single door, Tina and Zhao Ye seemed to know exactly which rooms were occupied and only left flyers in front of those doors.

Dream Fulfillment System reported this to Lu Yao, who responded casually, “They have their own talents, but I’ll rely on you.”

The system, sensing no issue, cheerfully assisted Lu Yao, pointing out which rooms were occupied and which were not.

With the system’s help, Lu Yao’s task efficiency increased dramatically. A job that would have taken her 15–20 minutes on her own was now completed in about five minutes.

Starting from the first unit near the gate, they made their way through six buildings. Tina and Zhao Ye quickly grew accustomed to the work and even began feeling bored.

For rookie runners, endlessly distributing flyers without immediate results could indeed be demotivating.

It was around this time, in the sixth building’s first-floor corridor, that they encountered three zombies. Oddly enough, they weren’t wandering aimlessly but were instead strapped to wheelchairs, shrieking with open mouths.

These zombies had been elderly in life, and their arms and legs were now securely bound to their chairs with belts. Completely zombified but unable to move freely, they seemed deliberately placed there as obstacles.

The scene was eerie and pitiful at the same time.

Lu Yao decided not to go upstairs, calling Tina and Zhao Ye to move on to the next building.

Just then, the door to an apartment near the stairwell opened, and a man poked his head out. “Who are you people?”

Lu Yao initially didn’t plan to respond, but the man wheeled himself further into the hallway.

He was thin, seated in a wheelchair, with an old jacket draped over his legs.

Following the group’s gaze toward the “obstacles” at the stairwell, the man lowered his head slightly. “They were residents of this floor, like me, unable to walk. They were older than me, though. When the zombie virus broke out, the people caring for them died first, and they couldn’t survive on their own either.

“Now, only my family and I live here. My wife and child went out to gather supplies, leaving me here alone. They didn’t feel safe leaving me behind, so they set up this… barrier.”

Lu Yao was silent for a moment. She handed him a flyer across the “barrier” and turned to leave.

It was a tragic situation, but the sight was simply too gut-wrenching.

The man quickly scanned the flyer and called out to them. “Wait! I want to place an order.”

Lu Yao stopped and turned back. “You want to place an order?”

The man nodded repeatedly. “It’s gold you need, right? Just a moment. I’ll get it.”

He maneuvered his wheelchair backward into the apartment, but with a sudden clang, a kitchen knife fell from his wheelchair onto the hallway floor.

The man hurriedly bent down to pick up the knife, his face flushing red with exertion, but no matter how he reached, he couldn’t grab the handle. Suddenly, he realized the silence around him was too oppressive.

The three young people at the door were staring at him, their expressions neutral.

He gave up trying to pick up the knife, sat upright, and forced out a strained smile. “My wife and kid went out to look for supplies. It’s been two days, and there’s been no news. They’re probably not coming back. The knife wasn’t for you—I was just about to use it on myself. I’ve been a burden to them while alive; I figured I should at least be decisive in death. But since I met you, I’d like to place an order. No matter what, I have to try and find them.”

Lu Yao: “Do you know where they went?”

The man nodded. “To Wanxin Plaza. The gas and electricity at home are out, so they went to look for solid fuel and a portable stove. There’s a store in Wanxin Plaza that specializes in outdoor camping equipment. That’s probably where they went.”

Lu Yao recalled the store advertisements she had seen earlier while scouting around Wanxin Plaza and had a good idea of their location. She pulled out a card from her bag and handed it to the man.

Meanwhile, Harold’s team was assigned to sweep the area around Jinbo Road, approximately five kilometers from Guanyin Road.

Before the outbreak, Jinbo Road was a bustling new commercial district in Gaosheng City. It was always packed with people during breaks and weekends.

After the zombie virus outbreak, this dense population quickly led to the area’s collapse.

Although the malls in the Jinbo Road area were stocked with vast amounts of supplies, the sheer density of zombies around the square and commercial zone made it too risky for anyone to venture inside.

Early on, some bold and confident individuals organized groups to storm this treasure trove of resources. However, none of them returned.

Within days, people began spotting what seemed to be these same adventurers among the zombie horde. Their appearance and clothing matched the group that had entered earlier. Compared to the other zombies, these individuals appeared “fresher.”

Unsurprisingly, those people had either become part of the undead or served as their food.

Harold’s team circled the perimeter of Jinbo Road, scouting for residential buildings with significant populations to distribute flyers. Harold, the seasoned leader, was about to deliver an educational lesson to his two new recruits when he received a dispatch from the store.

Two customers in Ping’an Community, three kilometers away, had placed orders—four in total and in quick succession.

Zhang Shu had assigned all four orders to Harold’s team.

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