Ch 193: Guide to Running a Shop in Another World II

Lu Yao gave the short sword to Ding Qing and switched to a new set of weapons for her solo outings.

She found the long swords commonly used by cultivators from the Floating World Continent unwieldy—too difficult to carry and cumbersome to draw. Instead, she chose a short sword with a blade only 60% the length of a regular one. It was light to carry on her back and easy to draw when needed.

Qiu Yu gifted Lu Yao a set of seven palm-sized daggers, each with a red cord attached to the hilt. The cords allowed the daggers to be retrieved by pulling on the thread after throwing.

The red cords were forged from Qiu Yu’s own blood, making them highly durable—impossible to cut, burn, or break—and capable of stretching and retracting at will.

The daggers, imbued with dragon breath and demonic energy, were far more powerful than ordinary weapons. For ordinary people, using them carried the risk of backlash.

However, as Qiu Yu’s contract master, Lu Yao was immune to any negative effects.

After work last night, Lu Yao practiced with the daggers for seven to eight hours in her mustard seed space, using her willpower for control. Surprisingly, they felt natural and easy to handle.

Emerging from the space, she encountered a craftsman coming to browse the internet. She purchased a custom sheath from him, designed to hold all seven daggers and strap comfortably to her leg for easy access.

With the dagger sheath strapped to her right leg, a small cloth bag slung over her shoulder, and the short sword on her back, Lu Yao prepared herself and rode out on her electric bike.

The destination was Mingtai Community on Xingmo Road, part of Zhao Ye’s flyer distribution area for the day. The delivery address was seven kilometers from the courier shop.

With no traffic on the streets and the system optimizing her route, it took just over ten minutes to reach the location.

The journey went smoothly. Occasionally, she encountered small zombie swarms, but the system warned her in advance, allowing her to avoid them.

The Xingmo Road area consisted of older residential complexes with fairly complete infrastructure—small supermarkets, pharmacies, barber shops, fruit stores, and an underground mall connected to a subway station. Now, all were in ruins, reduced to rubble.

Mingtai Community was an aging residential complex. Its gate, a wrought iron structure, was secured with heavy chains and a large padlock.

Unable to enter through the gate, Lu Yao climbed over the wall. The buildings in the community had no elevators, with the tallest structures reaching just eight floors.

Mingtai Community had over a dozen unit buildings. The customer who placed the order lived on the third floor of Unit Nine.

The Dream Fulfillment System indicated that this area housed more people than Peaceful Neighborhood, which they had visited before.

Lu Yao located Unit Nine and entered the stairwell.

Three men sat on the steps at the base of the stairs: a bearded middle-aged man and two young men in their early twenties, all smoking.

As soon as Lu Yao stepped in, one of the young men let out a lewd whistle.

The other young man stood up, smiling as he approached. “Haven’t seen you around before. The gate’s locked—how’d you get in?”

Lu Yao took a step back, irritation rising. She was all too familiar with people like this, common in the chaos that followed the collapse of societal order.

The man who had whistled noticed the dagger sheath strapped to her leg but didn’t take it seriously. His grin grew even more brazen. “Careful, she’s armed. Don’t want to hurt your hand on that.”

The middle-aged man extinguished his cigarette on the ground, leaving half the stub intact. Reluctant to waste it, he tucked it behind his ear, stood up, and walked over with an impatient expression. “Cut the nonsense. Hand over your food and supplies, and you can leave.”

The whistling man stood as well, smirking. “Brother Hui, no need to be so rigid. She’s just a little girl. Even if something happens, no one cares these days.”

He stepped past the middle-aged man and quickly closed the distance to Lu Yao. Reaching out to touch her face, he sneered, “Blame yourself for wandering into a place like this.”

Seeing these men reminded Lu Yao of Ding Qing. Some people, no matter the circumstances, always sought to bully the weak to satisfy their base desires.

Irritated by the delay to her task, Lu Yao decided to end the situation quickly. Grabbing the man’s wrist, she twisted it outward with force. The sharp crack of breaking bones was drowned out by the man’s sudden scream.

The two men behind him recoiled in shock, stepping back in confusion. They hadn’t realized what had happened, their faces filled with disbelief, yet they didn’t dare move forward.

Lu Yao kicked the man in front of her aside and strode toward the remaining two.

The man who had whistled was sent flying out of the stairwell, landing on the ground with a heavy thud. His face twisted in pain as he writhed on the ground, unable to speak. It took over ten seconds before he could prop himself up on his right elbow, clutching his chest with his left hand. His face turned ashen as he gasped for breath, feeling as if something was blocking his chest.

It was only then that his two accomplices realized they had picked the wrong person to mess with.

Panic setting in, they turned and bolted upstairs. Lu Yao caught up in an instant, grabbing them both by the collars and dragging them back down. She pummeled them until they were kneeling on the ground, begging for mercy. Only then did she stop.

“If I see you again, I’ll feed you to the zombies! Now get lost!”

With the troublemakers dealt with, Lu Yao dusted off her hands and headed upstairs to deliver the package.

She stood at the door of Apartment 301 for a long time, knocking, but no one answered.

The Dream Fulfillment System informed her that someone was inside.

Lu Yao called out, identifying herself, and after waiting several more minutes, the door finally creaked open.

A woman in her thirties stood cautiously behind the door. She peeked out and, seeing that Lu Yao was alone, didn’t fully open the door but instead handed out a gold bracelet through the gap.

The woman had ordered ten courier business cards.

Lu Yao explained briefly that she had encountered some thugs downstairs, which had caused a slight delay.

The woman’s eyes widened in surprise. “Those men didn’t give you trouble?”

She went on to explain. Those three were former factory workers who used to live in the complex when the factory rented apartments here as dormitories.

Since this was an old complex with no elevators, the rent was relatively cheap. Even before the zombie outbreak, the three men were known for their rowdy behavior, often drinking and causing trouble at the gate, harassing tenants as they passed by.

The woman, Su Ling, also used to work nearby and had to deal with these men often when commuting through the complex.

After the outbreak, the factory was abandoned, and most of its workers fled. The dormitories were left empty.

But those three didn’t leave. They holed up in the vacant dorms, sleeping all day and refusing to go out to gather supplies.

When they ran out of food, they wandered the complex, waiting for others to return with supplies so they could rob them.

The two younger men, especially, were idle troublemakers. They frequently knocked on residents’ doors for fun, targeting people who lived alone.

They knew the layout of the complex well, including which apartments housed solitary tenants. If someone didn’t answer their door, they would stand outside jeering and insulting them until they grew bored and left.

Su Ling despised those men.

She was a single, working woman who had felt relatively safe when society was functioning. But with all order gone, the complex was no longer secure, and she hadn’t dared leave her apartment in a long time.

Lately, Su Ling had been growing increasingly anxious as her food stores dwindled. Between the zombies outside and the thugs in the complex, she was at her wit’s end. Her hair was falling out in clumps, and she was barely eating or sleeping. She felt like she was on the verge of losing her mind.

Then, during one of her spirals of despair, she spotted a flyer stuck to her door handle.

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have trusted such a suspicious-looking piece of paper. But she was desperate. If she didn’t figure out how to leave soon, she was going to starve to death.

Su Ling read every word on the flyer carefully. She hesitated for hours before finally deciding to place an order.

The moment she finished writing down her address, she regretted it. She found herself laughing at how foolish it was to expect someone to respond to an address written on a flyer. This wasn’t a phone or the internet.

Feeling resigned, she tossed the flyer aside and lay on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

But to her astonishment, less than half an hour later, someone really showed up.

Lu Yao pulled out the gold-devouring pixiu, which snapped through the gold bracelet as she replied, “I gave them a good beating. They’re behaving now.”

Su Ling was stunned. “You can handle them all by yourself?”

Lu Yao replied with a playful tone, “If I couldn’t even do that, I wouldn’t qualify as a courier.”

For the first time in a while, Su Ling felt a deep sense of relief.

The couriers were truly reliable.

Lu Yao counted out ten business cards and handed them over.

Su Ling carefully examined the cards, reading the instructions on how to use them. She still found it hard to believe. “So if I place an order with this, a courier will come straight to my door?”

Lu Yao nodded. “Mm-hmm.”

Su Ling hesitated before asking, “If I go out to search for supplies, can I hire a courier to act as a bodyguard?”

Lu Yao explained, “Strictly speaking, that doesn’t fall under the scope of courier services. However, if it’s just accompanying you from one place to another, treating you as the delivery target, the shop can take that order.”

Su Ling then asked cautiously, “How many female couriers do you have?”

Noticing the anxiety in Su Ling’s eyes, Lu Yao smiled reassuringly. “Rest assured, all of our couriers, regardless of gender, are highly professional. If you need help, feel free to place an order.”

After saying goodbye to Su Ling, Lu Yao descended the stairs.

The small-time thugs from earlier were nowhere to be seen.

The delivery had taken longer than expected, and the sky was starting to darken. Setting up a signal receiver now was cutting it close.

Lu Yao felt a twinge of frustration. She didn’t like leaving plans incomplete.

Climbing over the wall of Mingtai Community, she hesitated for a moment on her electric bike before deciding to push forward. She aimed to cover ten kilometers outward, then run five kilometers along the boundary, setting up two signal receivers on the way back.

If it got too late to return, she could always call Harold to pick her up. There was no need to overthink it.

The journey to install the signal receivers went smoothly, though zombies became more frequent as night fell, forcing her to take alternate routes at times.

After completing the setup of two receivers, Lu Yao took a different route back. Passing the main road in front of a hospital, she noticed a row of over ten vans parked by the roadside. Some still had people sitting inside.

Lu Yao stopped her electric bike. “That’s a lot of vans.”

The Dream Fulfillment System chimed in, “They’re all filled with supplies. Judging by the contents, these look like they were taken from that mall yesterday.”

Lu Yao suddenly got off her bike and walked toward a ditch by the roadside.

The Dream Fulfillment System sounded exasperated. “Are you even listening to me?”

Ignoring it, Lu Yao crouched down and inspected a small electric bike lying in the grass. “This looks like one of our shop’s bikes. What’s it doing here?”

The Dream Fulfillment System replied, “It’s Zhao Ye’s.”

Lu Yao jumped into the grass to pick up the bike, muttering under her breath, “Why would Zhao Ye leave the bike here?”

The people in the vans had noticed Lu Yao by now. A man and a woman stepped out of the first van.

The man was tall and thin, wearing black-framed glasses.

The woman was very beautiful, with her hair tied in a bun. She wore a loose grayish-white shirt and black trousers.

The man stood silently by the roadside.

The woman crouched down and asked Lu Yao, “What are you doing?”

Lu Yao leaned the bike against the roadside, climbed back onto the road, and gestured for the woman to step back. Then, bending down, she lifted the electric bike effortlessly.

The woman jumped in shock and quickly backed away several steps, her delicate features full of disbelief. “What the—are you serious? Xia Huaisong, did you see that?! Did you SEE THAT?!”

Xia Huaisong, the bespectacled young man, adjusted his glasses. Though just as surprised and puzzled as Li Mi, his expression remained as composed and steady as ever. “I have eyes.”

Lu Yao parked the bike properly and approached the two. “Hello, I’m Lu Yao. That’s my colleague’s bike, but I don’t know why it’s lying here. Have you seen a short-haired boy with chestnut-colored hair and two moles under his eyes nearby?”

The young woman, Li Mi, shook her head. “The bike was already there when we arrived. But our team leader was in a rush to park and accidentally knocked it over.”

Lu Yao bent down to inspect the parked vans more closely. “Are you from Hope Base?”

Li Mi was startled.

The base is already this well-known?

“You know about Hope Base?”

Lu Yao replied, “Yesterday, I ran into people from Hope Base at another mall. When you mentioned your team leader, I just guessed.”

Xia Huaisong tilted his head slightly and rolled his eyes. Sharp as she usually is, she loses all her caution outside. Doesn’t she realize how dangerous that is?

After exchanging a few more words, Lu Yao realized these two didn’t have any useful information. She turned and moved her electric bikes across the street, positioning them away from the row of vans. She affixed gravity and barrier talismans to the bases before heading toward the large hospital by the roadside.

The Dream Fulfillment System had just reported detecting Zhao Ye’s sparrow companions in the open area outside the hospital.

Li Mi and Xia Huaisong hurried to stop Lu Yao.

Lu Yao paused, confused. “What is it?”

Xia Huaisong said, “Our team just entered that hospital. Our task here is to block anyone else from going in.”

Lu Yao asked, “Did you buy the hospital?”

Xia Huaisong knew how unreasonable their demand sounded but stood firm. Medicine was a critically scarce resource.

Their two teams had come all the way from Jinyao City. After loading their vans with supplies from Wanxin Mall, they stumbled upon this hospital on their return trip. Their leader decided to discard some of their current load to make room for medical supplies and equipment.

As members of Hope Base’s scavenging team, it was their duty to prioritize the base’s needs. A well-developed base meant better living conditions and safety for its members.

Compared to some of their peers, Li Mi and Xia Huaisong were already being relatively polite.

Lu Yao explained, “I’m not interested in the hospital’s supplies. I just need to find someone—my colleague, the one I mentioned earlier.”

Xia Huaisong remained skeptical.

Li Mi smiled faintly. “Times are tough. We understand. Why don’t you wait for our team to come out, and then you can go in?”

Lu Yao, already feeling irritable, decided she wasn’t in the mood to argue further. Just as she was about to use force to deal with the two, a message came through from Zhao Ye.

“Boss, where are you?”

Lu Yao replied, “I’m passing by Wanyi Hospital. I saw your bike by the roadside. Where are you?”

Zhao Ye exhaled audibly. “I’m inside the hospital. Things are a bit off here. Can you come get me?”

Without another word, Lu Yao walked past Xia Huaisong and Li Mi, heading straight for the hospital entrance. “Alright. Tell me your exact location.”

Zhao Ye didn’t provide a location but instead shared an unrelated piece of information: “I ran into a group of people here and saw a man who looks a lot like Demon Sovereign Zeyuan.”

Lu Yao’s steps faltered slightly before continuing forward. “What kind of man?”

Zhao Ye replied, “Short silver hair, red eyes, wearing clothes common to this world. His features don’t entirely resemble the Demon Sovereign’s, but he’s wearing earrings identical to the ones you gave us with the Regulation Rod. Could he be the Demon Sovereign reincarnated?”

Dusk had fallen, and the autumn wind carried a biting chill.

Lu Yao stood on the desolate roadside under a crescent moon hanging in an empty sky. The cold night was starless and silent.

She asked softly, “What’s his name?”

Zhao Ye replied, “I heard the people with him call him Instructor Lu.”

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