Dimensional Supermarket - Chapter 26

It is very late. Zou Ming is taking a shower in the bathroom, the fine streams of water falling from the showerhead and splashing onto his body. He wipes his black hair back, revealing his chest and back, which are covered with old scars. There is a deep, hideous wound on his right shoulder, as though someone has tried their best to split him in half.

Zou Ming turns off the water, wipes away the remaining droplets from his body, wraps a bath towel around his waist, and walks out of the bathroom. He moves to the mirror and stares at the wound on his shoulder, raising his left hand to gently trace the scar. As his fingers touch the wound, something seems to cross his mind. His tightly pursed lips curve ever so slightly.

Zou Ming changes into his pajamas, opens the bathroom door, and sees Ye Zhou already asleep on the bed. Ye Zhou has spent too much time selecting weapons that night and has fallen asleep from exhaustion. Zou Ming stops by the bed, looking down at Ye Zhou’s still somewhat innocent face. Without the experience of bloodshed, the weight of conspiracies, and the cruelty of the world, Ye Zhou still can’t bring himself to kill.

Living in peacetime, raised with the belief that only the law can punish wrongdoers, what kind of mental struggle must one endure to finally say, “If someone has to kill him, it should be me?”

Zou Ming stares at him, his gaze tracing Ye Zhou’s facial features. He can’t remember the first time he killed. It seems like he was six, maybe five. The base is always dark—a fortress and a prison. The lower class is worse than slaves, and the upper class lives more decadently than before the world ended. But he remembers one thing clearly—he never hesitated, never struggled in pain over it. It was either them or him. The choice is too easy. It feels only natural.

If it weren’t for…

Zou Ming breaks his gaze. His footsteps are silent, barely making a sound. Only when he opens the door does it creak. Ye Zhou shifts in his sleep but doesn’t wake up. Zou Ming closes the door behind him. He walks to the utility room where Sun Hao is locked up. Sarah, who has just come out of the warehouse, runs into him. She pauses for a moment, yawns, and says, “You go ahead. I’m going back to sleep.” She now prefers sleeping with Cao’er rather than in her coffin.

Zou Ming says nothing, and Sarah doesn’t wait for his response. Zou Ming opens the door to the utility room after Sarah leaves. Inside, the room is dark, and Sun Hao, not knowing the time, sits huddled with his knees pulled to his chest, as if seeking some comfort. When he sees the light shining through the crack in the door, his eyes shift from numbness to excitement.

“Immortal! Immortal!” Sun Hao’s hoarse shout echoes. “I really know I was wrong!”

Zou Ming flicks the light on in the utility room and shuts the door behind him, closing off Sun Hao’s last shred of hope.

Ye Zhou, still sleeping, suddenly feels as though he stepped into the air. The sensation of weightlessness jolts him awake, and he opens his eyes groggily. He covers his head with the quilt and tries to fall back asleep. But just as he is about to drift off, light pours in through the doorway. Ye Zhou sits up, squinting, and sees Zou Ming standing in the doorway, wearing only his pajamas.

Zou Ming stands against the light, casting his figure in shadow, and Ye Zhou can only make out his silhouette.

“Where did you go?” Ye Zhou yawns. “To the toilet?”

“I went to the utility room,” Zou Ming replies honestly.

Ye Zhou, who has been half asleep, suddenly sits up, crosses his legs on the bed, and stretches out his arm to turn on the light in the break room. Now he can clearly see Zou Ming’s face, and the large and small healed wounds on his body. The question he was about to ask gets stuck, and Ye Zhou blurts out, “Is that a gunshot wound on your left waist?”

Zou Ming shrugs indifferently. “I got injured a few years ago.”

Zou Ming sits on the edge of Ye Zhou’s bed. He notices that Ye Zhou is staring at his face, and it makes him realize something. He reaches up to wipe a drop of blood from his cheek, leaving a faint red mark behind.

“They’re not far from us. They’re also on this mountain,” Zou Ming says. “They’ve been watching us all along.”

Ye Zhou is in disbelief. “I’ve checked the whole area. If there were signs of people, I would have noticed.”

Zou Ming explains, “We’re halfway up the mountain. They’re at the top. The road to the mountain’s been destroyed by them. There’s only one narrow path leading up. It’s not your fault for not noticing.” He adds calmly, “If he hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have known either.”

“So… we’ve been under their noses this whole time?” Ye Zhou’s eyes sharpen with sudden clarity, and fear makes him fully awake. “This won’t do. If they were further away, we wouldn’t have to confront them directly.” He looks Zou Ming in the eye. “But two tigers can’t share one mountain.”

Even though Ye Zhou doesn’t feel like he has much in common with the bandits, he knows that to stay safe, he has to be the most powerful force in the area. He owns a supermarket, and it is impossible to coexist with a group of cannibalistic bandits.

Zou Ming continues, “They didn’t dare act before, but they’ve run out of supplies. There’s no one else around, so they attacked Sarah and the others. If they succeed, the next target will be here.” Zou Ming’s tone is calm. “I can’t defend this place alone.”

The employees Ye Zhou has hired locally are not real combatants, and even Ye Zhou himself isn’t equipped to handle such threats. Ye Zhou grits his teeth. “The problem is, Wu Yan and the others are back, but their weapons are still limited. If I give them hot weapons…”

The situation at the supermarket is complicated, and everything is stacked against him.

Zou Ming’s eyes remain on Ye Zhou. “You’ll figure it out.”

Ye Zhou, furrowing his brow, is silent for a moment before he forces a smile. “You have a lot of faith in me.”

Zou Ming lowers his gaze. “You’ll get used to it.”

Ye Zhou sighs, muttering to himself, “Really? Maybe.”

He doesn’t know when he will be able to go home. It seems he is always having to find a way to survive on the edge of a knife. His employees have great confidence in him, thinking he is all-knowing and omnipotent. But Ye Zhou knows very well that he is just a normal person. He’s never killed even a chicken before, let alone a person.

Ye Zhou sighs, “Tomorrow, the pistols I ordered should arrive. I bought two, and I spent all my money.” He mutters, “Why am I so unlucky?”

With so many people running supermarkets, why does it have to be him in this situation?

Then Ye Zhou suddenly remembers, “Sun Hao’s not dead yet, right?”

He looks at Zou Ming, who doesn’t seem to be a soft-hearted person.

Zou Ming replies, “Not dead yet.”

Ye Zhou feels a brief sense of relief, but then Zou Ming adds, “Soon.”

Ye Zhou chokes on his own saliva and starts coughing uncontrollably. Zou Ming quickly stands up, sits beside him, and pats his back, his tone stiff. “I won’t show mercy.”

It isn’t a cruel statement. Ye Zhou can hear that Zou Ming is being entirely serious.

Ye Zhou waves him off. “I’ll go check on him.”

He stands up, and Zou Ming follows. Ye Zhou glances at him. Zou Ming says simply, “I’ll accompany you.”

“I’m not that scared,” Ye Zhou mutters, heading to get the first aid kit. “It’s better to keep him for now. When the time comes, we’ll need him to guide us up the mountain. He’ll also be useful for drawing a map.”

Zou Ming frowns slightly, as though regretting something. He should’ve let Sarah handle it earlier. She is lighter than him.

If Ye Zhou had known what he was thinking, he would’ve said that if Sarah had gone, there would be a corpse in the utility room by now. Sarah’s hands aren’t heavy, but she could drain someone dry! What if she sucked him dry? Moreover, Sarah has killed before to protect Wu Yan and the others. Even though the employees are scared, they wouldn’t consider her an enemy.

But if Sarah drains a helpless, unarmed person in the supermarket, it will be seen very differently by the others.

Zou Ming takes the first aid kit from Ye Zhou and, without further delay, walks straight to the utility room.

Ye Zhou looks at his empty hands and thinks, despite Zou Ming’s cold exterior, he is actually quite considerate.

Though his supermarket isn’t even open yet and he has never experienced the kind of flattery other business owners might, Ye Zhou begins to understand what it must feel like.

At the door of the utility room, Ye Zhou takes a deep breath, steeling himself before reaching for the door handle.

“Don’t be afraid,” Zou Ming says as Ye Zhou opens the door.

But Ye Zhou has already seen the scene inside.

The man is sprawled on the floor, his limbs twisted at odd angles behind him, fingers scattered at his side, a few teeth missing. His head is so swollen it no longer resembles a human face, but more like a monster from a horror story.

He looks dead, but his body still moves, shallowly rising and falling. His condition is so painful that it seems as though life is torturing him, and only death can bring him peace.

Ye Zhou turns stiffly to look at Zou Ming.

He thought Zou Ming’s torture methods were brutal, but now he sees the cruelty up close.

Zou Ming says, “I told you about the environment I grew up in. This is the only way I know to question someone. I don’t enjoy it.”

For some reason, Ye Zhou hears a trace of grievance in Zou Ming’s calm voice.

Ye Zhou swallows hard. “…I’m not blaming you,” he says. “It’s just the visual impact hit me kind of hard.” Ye Zhou hesitates. “Can his limbs be put back in place? Or are they completely broken?”

Zou Ming squats beside Sun Hao and looks up at Ye Zhou. “They can be set. He just can’t move much for a few days.”

Ye Zhou breathes a sigh of relief. “As long as he can still talk, that’s good enough.”

Zou Ming suddenly adds, “I didn’t cut out his tongue.”

Then he sneaks a glance at Ye Zhou.

Ye Zhou: “…”

What—am I supposed to praise you for being thorough?

Dryly, he says, “You set his limbs. I’ll apply the medicine.”

Right now, all he can think of is that Sun Hao has a terrifying will to live.