Ch 139 (End): My Multiverse Supermarket

Zhou Hao stayed home for two days. Only after the supermarket’s business license had been officially transferred to Zhou Li’s name as the new legal representative did she finally board the business car waiting to take her away.

Zhou Li came out to see her off. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take you there?”

“No need,” Zhou Hao said. “But if you ever want to go on a trip with Mom, I can make time.”

Zhou Li politely declined.

She traveled through different worlds almost every week—domestic trips held little appeal now.

“Take care of yourself. If anything happens, you can ask Aunt Mu for help,” Zhou Hao reminded.

“You too, Mom,” Zhou Li said.

With that, Zhou Hao closed the car door.

The car pulled away quickly.

From the front seat, Attorney Liu Chunyi glanced at the rearview mirror. “You didn’t tell her about the logistics park?”

“Not yet,” Zhou Hao replied calmly. “It’s not the right time.”

The business car didn’t drive toward the train station but instead took a turn toward the outskirts of town—just eighteen kilometers from the Zhou family home.

The state had quietly planned a logistics park here, covering more than forty thousand square meters. No public bidding had ever been announced, yet construction had already begun before the project was even made public.

That was because this was no ordinary logistics park. It was a fusion of a military logistics base and civilian logistics complex.

Officially, it was a “State-Owned Commercial Logistics Project.”
Unofficially, it was a classified national logistics base, with security clearance on par with a military facility. Very few people knew its true purpose.

Zhou Hao took out an unfinished floor plan of the logistics park. The map only showed Zone A in detail. Zones B, C, and D each had one factory building drawn, surrounded by vast blank areas—empty and bare.

Zhou Hao began sketching in the margins of those blank sections.

If Zhou Li had seen this map, she would have noticed that the lone buildings in Zones B, C, and D were labeled respectively as:
“Orka Energy Center,” “Pharmaceutical Research Institute,” and “Fluorites Research Center.”

Time passed quietly. Eventually, the sound of rotor blades filled the air—a helicopter approached and landed on a cleared field nearby.

“Your pickup’s here,” Liu Chunyi said.

Zhou Hao folded up the blueprint and boarded the helicopter.

Inside sat an elderly man, who handed her a tablet. “These are the new warehouses under your authorization. You may handle their inventory as you see fit. For safety, we’ve prepared materials from the early to mid-20th century—fans, refrigerators, air conditioners, computers, internal-combustion engines, and the like.”

Zhou Hao swiped across the screen, memorizing the warehouse IDs, authorization codes, and coordinates.

The old man smiled. “No rush. Get some rest first. You’ll have plenty to do after midnight.”

*

Zhou Hao slept in the base.

When she woke, the entire facility was eerily silent.

The electronic clock on the wall was frozen at 00:00:00.

She washed her face, picked up the tablet the old man had given her, and walked straight to the cafeteria.

The cafeteria was full of people, but everyone sat motionless—like statues frozen in time.

Zhou Hao ignored them, took a tray, served herself food, and sat down in a corner to eat.

Before long, a digital panel appeared before her.

It displayed an interface titled Auction Hall, with two tabs: “Bidding” and “Trading.”

In the “Bidding” tab appeared a string of ancient Buddhist prayer beads—carved from Phoebe zhennan wood more than three hundred years old, each bead etched with scripture.

“So, it’s an ancient-world instance again…” Zhou Hao chuckled softly and placed her bid.

After a while, the panel blinked: Transaction complete.

Then a message popped up: Please select delivery point.

Zhou Hao glanced at her now-empty warehouse on the tablet and promptly designated it as the delivery site.

After bidding, the “Trading” tab lit up with new activity—a purchase order.

She skimmed through it quickly, then entered the warehouse codes and authorization numbers one by one until the screen confirmed: Code verified. Authorization granted. Please select items and quantities.

Sweet potatoes: 20,000 jin.
Old grain: 100,000 jin.
Military canteens: 500 units.
Disaster tents: 500 units.
…

Zhou Hao calmly operated the auction panel, filling each order line by line.

For a long while, she continued the same process.

When no more requests appeared, she finished her last bite, placed the tray back at the return area, and went to her quarters.

During the time-freeze, she couldn’t sense the passage of time—whether it was twenty-four hours or five days, she had no way of knowing.

Finally, the clock began to tick again:

00:00:01
00:00:02

Five minutes later, the old man entered with a doctor in tow.

As the doctor performed a check-up, Zhou Hao handed over her marked order sheet. “Looks like that world suffered another natural disaster.”

All the requested materials were post-disaster relief supplies.

Of course, since it was an ancient-era plane, they couldn’t offer high-tech goods or magical creations—only common treasures suitable for exchange through the interplanar market.

The old man said to his assistant, “Register everything and get it listed for auction immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

The doctor soon finished the exam. “Ms. Zhou’s health is fine.”

“I told you, I didn’t need a check-up,” Zhou Hao said with a light laugh. “After crossing so many worlds, if there were any problems, they’d have shown up long ago.”

The old man’s tone turned serious. “No one knows what long-term exposure to time-stasis might cause. You need full monitoring after every cycle.”

Zhou Hao glanced at the clock and smiled. “It’s already past midnight. You should rest, sir.”

The old man said nothing more and left.

Zhou Hao opened the window. Below, the logistics base stretched across the mountainside, glowing with lights.

While most of the world slept, a small number of people were only just beginning their work.

Listening to the soft, familiar hum of machinery and wind outside, Zhou Hao slowly drifted back to sleep.

That night, she dreamed—something rare for her.

She dreamed of a night over twenty years ago, in a spring rain, when she and a dozen villagers, including A-Rong, crowded into Zhou Ping’s house to watch the national news broadcast.

Though China’s economy had taken off, few could afford a TV.

Only three households in the village owned one.

One was a shopkeeper who ran a small store by his fishpond—he built a wooden shack over the water and refused to let too many people stand inside at once, afraid it would collapse. But to draw business, he’d play cartoons to lure the children.

Another family had made money working in the special economic zones. For appearances’ sake, they bought a television. When the couple was away, they made the elders and kids lock the doors so no one could come in and steal it.

The third household was Zhou Ping’s.

His father was a well-known carpenter in the area, who’d saved quite a bit. Zhou Ping, claiming it would help him find a wife, convinced him to buy a TV.

There was a wide open space in front of their old house, so every evening villagers gathered there to watch the news.

The children would stay for a drama or two, hurrying home by nine to sleep.

Zhou Hao and A-Rong had gone to high school together, and since A-Rong was dating Zhou Ping, the two managed to squeeze inside the house to avoid watching in the rain with bamboo hats.

That night, the news reported that the Fifth National People’s Congress had revised the Penal Code—abolishing the crime of “speculative profiteering.”

Time passed.

A few years later, one summer, the town announced a plan to build a new country road that would connect over a dozen nearby villages.

The road happened to pass right in front of Zhou Hao’s newly built home.

That same year, Zhou Hao opened a small grocery store on the first floor of her house.

On the night of its grand opening, after closing up and locking the rolling gate, she was about to check inventory in the back when someone started banging on the door.

Thinking it might be some thugs, she grabbed a hatchet and opened the small side door.

The moment she did—she froze.

The newly paved country road was gone.

In its place stood a primitive tribe, and before her was a group of strangely dressed… natives.

(The End)

☢️☢️☢️