Dimensional Supermarket - Chapter 40

The two people standing in front of Ye Zhou are thin and frail. Despite being soldiers, they don’t resemble the soldiers of peacetime, aside from their uniforms. They lack the spirit that one can instantly recognize in a soldier, and they aren’t physically strong—not like Chen Shu and Zou Ming.

Their eyes are heavy with the weight of death, as if they are already dead inside.

Ye Zhou feels a pang of worry. He fears that in such a harsh environment, no one will be willing to “do business” with him. What if they come to rob him openly? With so few people in the store, they can’t defend it.

He has limited options—either buy weapons or hire people.

As for the former, his employees have never handled firearms before and will need time to learn and train. But Ye Zhou still has to guard against bad intentions. Even if the risk is small, he prefers to be cautious. He only has one life, and only one chance to go back.

As for the latter option…

It might be even more dangerous than training his own staff. He has no idea what kind of people he’d be bringing in. If they don’t kill him and simply drive him out of the supermarket, even if he survives, he will be ruined.

Ye Zhou exhales slowly, trying to maintain a serious demeanor. He locks eyes with the woman and says in a slightly stern voice, “You have two minutes to explain the current situation to me.”

The woman, who had initially been filled with questions, snaps back to the urgency of their situation. She decides to cut to the chase: “The zombies have been attacking the city for nearly three months, and supply lines have been cut off. We have guns, but no bullets or medicine, no grenades. We can still drive tanks, but we don’t have shells, and they’re too big, too loud. If we send one out, it’ll just become a target. Our base is situated on the only route to the rear. If the base falls, the zombies will follow the current and push through. There’s a high chance the rear lines won’t be able to hold.” She speaks with clear logic. “We need bullets and medicine.”

Ye Zhou asks, “Can you make decisions?”

The woman freezes. She probably can’t. Even though she is part of the vanguard unit, the vanguard is more like an assault rifle than a rifleman—they themselves are mere weapons. How could a weapon make decisions?

Still, she bites the bullet and says, “I can.”

Ye Zhou nods slightly. “I have bullets and medicine, but they won’t be free. I need you to exchange them for something of equal value.”

The two exchange glances, clearly surprised by the proposal, but then they lower their heads again.

How much ammunition can a supermarket possibly have?

Compared to the zombie hordes, it seems like a mere drop in the ocean.

The man asks, “What’s considered an equivalent?”

Ye Zhou replies, “In your place, gold, silver, and jewelry are probably worthless. I don’t need those things—not now, at least.”

“Boss, we’ve brought the goods.” Wu Yan’s voice comes from outside the door. He and the others have been briefed beforehand—not to call Ye Zhou Immortal when outsiders are around.

They understand perfectly. An Immortal traveling incognito wouldn’t want mortals to discover their identity. Totally reasonable!

The woman watches as several strong men bring in wooden boxes, one after another. More are being moved out, too.

One man opens a box. It is filled with bullets.

Each box contains different calibers. Not only the most commonly used 5.56 and 7.62 rounds, but also .45 caliber and 12-gauge shells. It is a diverse stockpile.

Ye Zhou isn’t just providing supplies—he’s showing off his firepower.

If there are only a few people running the store, why stockpile so many bullets?

He has already learned how to deploy smoke screens.

No one would dare attack him if they couldn’t gauge his strength.

“Know yourself and know your enemy, and you’ll never lose a battle.” Everyone thinks that way—so don’t let anyone know, don’t let others figure it out.

The woman and man are stunned by the sight of so many bullets.

Even if supplies have been delivered from the rear, it’s unlikely there would be this much ammunition.

Ye Zhou breathes a sigh of relief. The guns in the system are expensive, but the bullets are cheap—so cheap, in fact, it feels like they’re being given away.

“All the goods are right here. What do you have to trade for them?” Ye Zhou clasps his hands, resting them on his chin as he studies the two in front of him with an indifferent gaze. “This is a supermarket. I don’t do losing trades.”

Meanwhile…

“General! There’s news from the front!” A soldier in uniform sprints down the corridor, his face a mix of excitement, anxiety, fear, and elation—so many emotions jumbled together that it gives his expression a twisted intensity.

The man called the general looks at the surveillance monitor. His eyes are immediately drawn to the supermarket in the center of the screen.

Since the supermarket’s mysterious appearance, the base has descended into the same panic it felt when the zombie horde arrived.

The general immediately suppresses the news. He knows that the existence of this supermarket can’t be made public—it would only cause more panic.

No one knows what this supermarket truly is.

Is it real? A mirage? Or a trap created by mutated zombies?

The base is on the brink of collapse, and they can’t afford any more threats.

“What’s the news?” The general stands up.

The soldier takes a deep breath. “Unit A365 from the vanguard has entered that supermarket. She… she says the supermarket can provide us with ammunition, but the condition is…”

The general frowns. “What’s the condition? Don’t leave me hanging!”

The soldier replies, “The condition is that we exchange something of equal value.”

“Did they mention who runs the supermarket?” The general asks.

The soldier shakes his head. “There wasn’t enough time. They didn’t tell us.”

The general purses his lips. Nobody can tell what this supermarket is—was it an alien entity or a futuristic being?

But right now, their priority is to deal with the zombies.

Even if the supermarket turns out to be their enemy, they have to eliminate the zombies first.

If the base falls, it won’t matter if the supermarket is a friend or foe.

“What should we exchange?” the general asks.

The soldier shakes his head. “They only said ‘items of equal value.’ Not what specifically. But no gold or silver—they said those are worthless in the base.”

The general bites his lip, then says, “Then corn cakes, I suppose.”

Although the general doesn’t want to admit it, paper money and pens have lost their value in the base. He has to acknowledge that the most stable currency now is corn cakes.

“Notify logistics,” the general instructs, rubbing his eyebrows. “Send some over first, as a test. I’ll take responsibility if anything goes wrong.”

At this critical moment, he has no choice but to take a gamble.

Their main goal is to defend the base, no matter the cost.

The general glances at the surveillance again. The zombies are about to climb over the wire fence. The electrified fence is the second line of defense, strong enough to electrocute a human in an instant, possibly damaging the zombies’ brains.

It can handle small to medium-sized zombie groups.

But zombies are endless. They keep coming, more fearless than even the bravest warriors. They use their bodies to clear the path for their comrades, piling up in heaps until they either crash through the barbed wire or climb over it.

Humans seem so fragile in comparison.

Without medicine, even a small wound could lead to tetanus.

Humanity’s retreat seems inevitable.

The general wipes his face. He can’t afford to retreat. If the base falls, he will have to send the scientists away first. Most of the base’s vehicles have already been used to transport supplies. At the last moment, he’ll have to face his fate with the base.

That supermarket… whatever it is, if it really offers ammunition in exchange…

Whether it’s an alien conspiracy or a business from the future, he has no choice but to accept it.

The general takes a deep breath.

“Corn cakes?” Ye Zhou goes numb.

What the hell could corn cakes possibly be worth?

Even if corn cakes could be used as currency in this dimension, one corn cake definitely isn’t worth much. Just scanning them one by one with a barcode reader would be enough to wear out his arm.

After seeing the ammunition reserves in the supermarket, the woman speaks more cautiously. She wants to ask Ye Zhou about his identity but doesn’t dare to speak freely. Tentatively, she says, “If a corn cake is converted into the currency before the end of the world, it can be worth about fifty.”

Ye Zhou sighs helplessly.

He isn’t angry; he has already prepared himself not to make money.

After all, giving them ammunition is also a way of protecting himself.

Without the soldiers and the base, how could he deal with so many zombies alone?

At that point, he might as well just shoot himself and die early so he can be reborn.

But to the woman, Ye Zhou’s helpless expression looks like impatience and disdain. Trying to win his sympathy, she starts pleading her case: “Although our base is on the front lines, there are more than half a million civilians living there. Even if you take out the military personnel, there are still over three hundred thousand—mostly the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled. If we lose, they’ll all…”

Ye Zhou turns his head away. Of course, he sympathizes with them; they are human beings. He isn’t so heartless as to care only about business. But he can’t reveal his cards in this situation, so he says coldly, “I’m here to do business, not charity. You don’t need to tell me this.”

The woman realizes that it is useless to try to sell misery and says, “My name is Zhang Yao, and his name is He Zihao. We are both from the pioneer camp. I’ve been in the army for six years, and the zombie crisis broke out 32 years ago.”

Ye Zhou doesn’t respond or give his name.

He is panicked on the inside, but his face remains composed, exuding confidence.

A truckload of corn cakes arrives.

Although a single corn cake isn’t worth much, they have given an overwhelming amount!

Ye Zhou watches through the window as the soldiers unload the bags of corn cakes at the back door of the supermarket. He doesn’t let his employees move them inside immediately. Instead, he has them check for any rotten or moldy corn cakes that might have been thrown in as inferior goods. Then, he allows the soldiers to take away the bullets that Wu Yan and his men have brought out.

For Ye Zhou, the entire process is nerve-racking. He is constantly on alert, wary that the soldiers might rush into the store to seize control. His hand never leaves his gun.

Fortunately, the soldiers have been given orders to exchange ammunition, not to take control of the supermarket.

But Ye Zhou knows that this situation won’t last long.

After all, they are currently facing a common enemy. Compared to his strange supermarket, the greatest threat to the natives is still the zombies.

Once they defeat the zombies and push them back, they will be safe.

But Ye Zhou’s supermarket won’t be.

After the soldiers leave with the ammunition, Ye Zhou finally turns to Zou Ming and the others. “What do we do after this? Once the zombies retreat, the base won’t just let us be. Once they figure out the firepower of the supermarket, they will definitely make a move.”

If he were in their shoes, lacking resources, he can’t say he wouldn’t do the same.

A bad deed, in the context of survival, might be seen as a righteous act by many.

Sarah suddenly speaks up, “It’s not like we can only go in one direction. If they dare to attack, we can always retreat.”

Ye Zhou is stunned for a moment. He looks at Sara, and for the first time, thinks she is really smart—compared to how slow-witted he has been.

That’s right! If they try to take him out and he can’t win, can’t he just run?

Now he has plenty of money in his account and a lot of points he can exchange. Besides, he can always return to the Daliang Dynasty or head to that other continent.

Thinking about this, Ye Zhou feels relieved.

He looks at Sarah. “Good thing you’re with me. I never thought of that.”

He has still thought of himself as the poor guy just starting to do business in different planes, unaware that he has already acquired something to protect himself.

Sarah yawns. “The system wants you to do business, not get yourself killed. Once you’ve done a few more jumps, they won’t dare mess with you anymore.”

Ye Zhou nods. “Right, after all, I still need to earn money here to buy a protective shield.”

Without one, he would never feel truly safe.

He just doesn’t know how much money he can make in this plane where corn cakes are used as currency.

Meanwhile, the employees are much more nervous.

Wu Yan and his team, relying on their trust and loyalty to The Lord Immortal, have found a place to hide.

“The eyeballs have fallen out!” Zhou Wen says, his face turning blue with fear. “It can still move!”

After finishing their work, they stay in the warehouse. The windows there are high up, so they can’t see the zombies outside—and that makes it less terrifying.

The female employees haven’t gone outside, but from the men’s descriptions, they now know they are surrounded by monsters.

“Are they demons or what?”

“Don’t be ridiculous! What kind of demon has a rotting face?”

“What about those skin-wearing demons from the old tales? Maybe they’re looking to flay someone!”

“The ones who came to move the goods—they must’ve been soldiers, right? There was even a female soldier!”

The women are surprised. “Women can be soldiers?”

“They look no different from the men,” Wu Yan says. “All of them taller than me.”

He can’t understand how the people here grow like this! Back home, he is already considered tall! But everyone here is tall, with many people a head taller than him.

Even the women look stronger than him.

“Come to think of it, The Lord Immortal has hired a new girl, whose arms are thicker than my thighs!”

The women are shocked. “It seems that in The Lord Immortal’s eyes, there’s no difference between men and women.”

“Aunt Li really had foresight!”

They all look over to Cao’er, who is holding a repeating crossbow and keeping watch.

Cao’er, hearing them, doesn’t show off like she used to. Instead, she says calmly, “Now that we serve the Immortal, we can’t stay the same as before. We’ve got to achieve something too. We can’t keep hoping the Immortal will always protect us—we need to protect the Immortal! Otherwise, we’re just burdens.”

She is determined to learn how to use the crossbow—and even hopes that when danger comes, she’ll be the one standing in front of the Immortal.