Ch 138: My Multiverse Supermarket

After Zhou Hao returned, Zhou Li temporarily put her interplanar trade operations on hold, and the system conveniently went into “offline” mode.

If not for the vending machine still functioning, Zhou Li might have thought that plane-hopping had all been a dream.

Even so, she couldn’t help feeling grateful that she always returned to the Earth plane after every journey. Otherwise, after staying too long in other worlds, she might start to feel estranged here—and others would surely notice the cracks in her disguise.

After lunch, Zhou Li dutifully accompanied Zhou Hao to inspect the warehouse. She also handed over the restock list to the on-duty manager, asking him to have the goods transferred so they could be delivered to the supermarket that night.

Zhou Hao glanced at the list, surprised. “No wonder the shelves in the store looked a little empty—you need to restock this much?”

Zhou Li gave a dry laugh. “Yeah… business has been a bit too good lately.”

Zhou Hao didn’t doubt her. “You can tell just by the number of same-city delivery guys going in and out.”

Ever since Zhou Li had launched the store’s mini program, customers could place orders directly online.

When delivery couriers arrived, they didn’t even need to handpick items—the vending machine system had already sorted everything. The courier simply showed the QR code and collected the prepared package.

Since the system handled it all, there had never been a single mistake. As a result, the mini program had earned overwhelmingly positive reviews.

Couriers loved picking up orders from the Good Life Supermarket—they never had to worry about wrong items leading to complaints. In fact, customers often left five-star ratings and even small tips.

Though the supermarket officially closed at night, the vending machine kept running—effectively turning the little shop into a 24-hour business.

Leaving the warehouse, the mother and daughter ran into Aunt Rong.

Aunt Rong chatted warmly with Zhou Hao and couldn’t help praising Zhou Li. “Little Pear really is capable—more than you were at her age.”

Zhou Hao laughed. “That’s how it should be—each generation surpassing the last!”

Aunt Rong invited them over for tea, but Zhou Hao waved her off. “Not this time. I’m only home for two days, and there’s still plenty to handle!”

“Only two days again?” Aunt Rong said. “Good thing you left the supermarket to Little Pear! Otherwise, if you still opened one day and closed three, you’d never make a profit!”

“That’s true,” Zhou Hao said. “So I’ve decided to officially transfer the supermarket to Little Pear.”

Zhou Li froze in shock.

Her mother’s expression stayed calm, and Aunt Rong didn’t react much either.

Once they left, Zhou Li finally blurted out, “Mom, you’re giving up the supermarket?”

“I brought the lawyer this time to take care of the transfer paperwork,” Zhou Hao said, then paused. “Why, don’t you want it?”

“I still have my civil service exam to prepare for!” Zhou Li said.

“You can deal with your assets after you pass,” her mother replied matter-of-factly.

Zhou Li stayed silent.

“What’s wrong? If you’ve got thoughts, tell Mom,” Zhou Hao said gently.

Zhou Li turned and ran back home.

Watching her retreating back, Zhou Hao suddenly saw the shadow of that stubborn teenage girl she used to be.

Behind the house, Mu Kun was washing the bamboo steamers used for buns. Seeing Zhou Li running from the village road, she called out, “What’s the rush, Lili?”

“Hi, Aunt Mu,” Zhou Li greeted politely.

“Where’s your mom?”

“Chatting with someone in the village.”

“With Aunt Rong?”

Zhou Li nodded.

She was about to head inside but hesitated, crouched beside Mu Kun under the pretense of helping, and asked, “Aunt Mu, have you known my mom for a long time?”

“For as long as our houses have been here, that’s how long,” Mu Kun said.

“Aunt Rong said my mom used to open the supermarket for one day and close it for three. What’s that about?”

“What else could it be? She’s lazy,” Mu Kun said bluntly.

Zhou Li: …

She muttered, “Then how did she make money?”

“How would I know? I always wondered that myself! I once asked her to take me along to make money—she refused. Your mom’s stingy, don’t you think?”

Zhou Li: …

So your feud goes way back, huh?

From the distance came Zhou Hao’s voice: “Why don’t you go ask the world’s richest man to take you along instead?”

Mu Kun replied without missing a beat, “I could—if I knew him!”

“You’ve got some nerve!”

“I’ve got the perfect egg-shaped face, thank you!”

Zhou Li quietly retreated from the “battlefield.”

Once home, she shut the windows to block out their bickering and asked the system, “System, tell me honestly—was my mom a sales rep before?”

The system responded in its usual mechanical tone, “Question exceeds clearance. No answer required.”

Zhou Li said, “I always thought it was strange—you chose to bind me. There are countless supermarket owners in the world, including big-chain managers who could have generated massive interplanar profits for you in no time. Why pick me—and our tiny shop? Maybe your target was our store from the start, and whoever owns it gets bound.”

System: “Error.”

“What’s wrong with that logic?”

“Question exceeds clearance. No answer required.”

Zhou Li: …

Unable to dig anything out of it, she gave up.

But thinking it over, she realized her theory had holes.

For example, whenever the supermarket engaged in cross-planar trade, time on the Earth plane froze—so there was never a need for her mom to “open one day and close three.”

Secondly, Zhou Li had lived with her mother for so many years—if their supermarket had ever traveled to another plane, there was no way she wouldn’t have known.

She was also certain that their home had never contained any kind of black technology far beyond the current era’s capabilities, let alone any unscientific items such as artifacts from the Infinite Plane or magical creations from the Magic Plane.

She still remembered when she was a child, a villager once badmouthed her mother in front of her, saying that her mother would be arrested for illegal reselling.

Back then, she didn’t even know what that meant. Looking back now, those people must have suspected that her mother was using the grocery store as a cover to trade in bulk goods.

Of course, the fact that her mother had lived well all these years—never arrested, and even saving enough to co-invest in a large supermarket project with a state-owned commercial company—proved that she had never broken the law.

But that still didn’t completely rule out the possibility that her mother had once been bound to a system.

After all, Zhou Li had attended school in the city since middle school, living in the dorms and only coming home on weekends.

If her mother had engaged in interplanar trade, she could easily have done it while Zhou Li was away.

As for why there had never been any items out of place for this era at home—well, Zhou Li had managed to erase every trace of someone else living there before her mother’s return; surely her mother could do the same.

There was, however, one thing that had always quietly bothered her—her biological father’s identity was a mystery.

Though she didn’t care anymore, there had been rumors in the village for years.

Villagers said they’d never seen her mother with any man, and that she’d never once told anyone who the child’s father was.

Thinking of the system’s stories about “love-brained reps,” Zhou Li began to wonder if her father might have been someone from another plane.

Or—perhaps not even that.

What if her mother had drunk something like the Mother-Child River water or the “Water of Life,” and that was how she became pregnant?

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

The door wasn’t locked, so Zhou Hao turned the handle and peeked in. “Little Zhou Li, still mad at me?”

“I’m not mad,” Zhou Li said.

She’d already soothed herself.

Zhou Hao walked in and said, “If you don’t want this little supermarket, then I won’t give it to you.”

Zhou Li: …

Why did this sound like she was refusing a billion-yuan inheritance?

Her mother continued, “But you have to tell me honestly—are you really not interested in running a business at all?”

Zhou Li said, “I’m really not interested in business. But… if running it means meeting all kinds of people and seeing different worlds, then maybe it’s kind of interesting.”
(What she really meant was: seeing other worlds sounds fun.)

Zhou Hao looked at her for a long moment before saying, “You still have more than ten years to decide whether to inherit the family business.”

Zhou Li: ?

“Civil service exams usually have an age limit of 35, right?”

Twenty-two-year-old Zhou Li: …

Her mother asked, “Then tell me, why were you unhappy when I said I’d transfer the supermarket to you?”

Zhou Li glanced at her. “Because… it feels like I’m being pushed forward. If my life is a ship, I want to be the one steering it.”

When she’d unexpectedly inherited the supermarket and gotten bound to the system, she’d accepted it quickly enough—but deep down, it had always made her uneasy.

Her life plans had been disrupted. She didn’t even know what consequences this change might have for the people around her.

Zhou Hao said softly, “That’s my fault—for making you uneasy. I just wanted to give you more freedom. Once the supermarket’s under your name, you can change how it runs without asking me first. No matter how it goes, I’ll always have your back. You don’t need to worry. Besides, you’ve been doing great with the store, haven’t you?”

Zhou Li thought to herself, That’s only because I have the system. If they ever unbound, she doubted she could keep it running half as well.

The system chimed in at that moment, “Sales rep, no need to worry. Even if unbinding occurs, everything that belongs to you will still belong to you. The system will not reclaim any property… unless you request it.”

Zhou Li: “…Thanks for your inspiring words and validation.”

Seeing her daughter fall silent, Zhou Hao stepped forward and hugged her, sighing. “I really shouldn’t have sent you off to live at school so early. Maybe that’s why you have such low security. This is Mom’s fault.”

Then she actually started sniffling.

Zhou Li: “…Mom, that’s a bit much.”

Her mother was never the sentimental type.

For as long as Zhou Li could remember, her mother had been someone who paid back grudges and never swallowed an insult. Take her feud with Mu Kun, for instance—when Mu Kun opened a stinky-snail-noodle shop, her mother immediately started selling durian at the door.
You stink up my air, I’ll stink up yours—mutual destruction if you’ve got the guts.

And when villagers gossiped about her, her mother would show up the next day with police officers in tow.

That was why every time Zhou Li came home from school, she found fewer familiar faces in the village. Some had “gone to work elsewhere,” others were simply too embarrassed to stay after Zhou Hao’s confrontations.

Zhou Hao suddenly pulled a small handkerchief from nowhere and dabbed at her eyes. “See? You are still mad at me.”

“I’m not.”

“Then say you love me.”

Zhou Li: …

“Go on.”

Zhou Li gave in. “Mom, I love you. Okay?”

“There’s my good girl.” Zhou Hao broke into a broad smile and planted a kiss on her head.

Zhou Li went completely numb.

As Zhou Hao left the room, her gaze lingered for a moment on the bedside table—but quickly moved on.

After the door closed, Zhou Li glanced at the table, where a Treasure-Spitting Golden Toad figurine sat beside an orka energy crystal.

That crystal had been “spit out” just before her mother came in. It didn’t look exactly like an elemental gem, but it was still decorative enough that her mother probably hadn’t noticed anything odd.

It was too late to hide it now, so Zhou Li just tossed it into the drawer and let it be.

Then the system asked suddenly, “Are you really not considering transferring the supermarket to your name?”

Zhou Li raised a brow. “You’re being unusually forward—does putting it under my name benefit you somehow?”

“The transfer would streamline many operational procedures and unlock additional services,” said the system. “For instance, the Bureau now offers mortgage-based loans to sales reps. As a loan bonus, the All-Language Conversion Service—normally energy-gated—would become free.”

“Why would I need a mortgage loan?”

“It’s the same principle as business owners who don’t need money but still take bank loans.”

Zhou Li nodded. She understood.

But she wasn’t especially interested in any “language conversion” service.

The system added, “With that service, you could comprehend any language or script.”

The phrasing sounded like a hint. Zhou Li thought for a moment, then asked, “Even the complex magical languages of the Magic Plane?”

“Included.”

…

Just as Zhou Hao was about to go downstairs, Zhou Li suddenly threw open her door and shouted, “Mom! I’ll inherit the supermarket!”

☢️☢️☢️