【Completed the hidden grand-opening task. Reward unlocked: fresh apples.】
【Congratulations, Host, on your successful opening.】
Shan Nai stroked her chin, her cat ears twitching happily as she stared at the new item on the screen. “Same to you, same to you! Fruit, huh? Unlock it, unlock it.”
The moment she clicked unlock, a new row of fresh-produce fruit shelves appeared against the wall beside the two rows of shelves on the left.
Small new signs appeared above the shelves too: “Side Dishes,” “Fresh Fruit,” and “Dining Area.”
【The crystal core energy system has now been fully assessed. Currently there are eight tiers, gray, white, green, blue, purple, orange, red, and black, which can be exchanged for 100/200/400/800/1600/3200/6400 points respectively.】
“So the points double each tier.” Shan Nai blinked.
【Zombies and mutated beasts take time to evolve. For now, most regions are still dominated by the first five tiers, and each evolution brings a significant leap in ability. Importantly, don’t drop the crystal cores! After all, it’s not easy for a zombie to form one in the first place.】
Shan Nai propped her chin on her small hand, listening attentively, thinking to herself that it was really the same principle as cultivation.
Night in the apocalypse was pitch black.
After putting the apples on the shelf, Shan Nai finally finished off the leftovers from lunch.
【Host, I forgot to mention, you can select your three daily meals through the “Boss’s Private Kitchen” in the system backend.】
“Meow? You’re giving me a private kitchen? How nice!” Shan Nai eagerly opened the private-kitchen interface in the backend, feeling a little delighted.
The screen showed three options, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Clicking any one let her choose a favorite meal within her supermarket’s current level, with a choice of small or large portions.
Shan Nai set everything to small portions, if it wasn’t enough, she could always ask for more.
For lunch she could just eat from the supermarket’s own dining hall, so there was no need to choose, after all, she had a bit of decision paralysis! Every time she had to pick one out of three, it was so hard…
She was, after all, a thrifty, hardworking good orange cat!
“Alright, tomorrow’s breakfast will be soup dumplings and soy milk! Oh right, I want to write up a shopping notice to post in the store.”
That way things would be much clearer, she couldn’t possibly explain the whole “pay with points” thing to every single customer who walked in, blah blah blah.
【That can be arranged. Paper and pen for the Host!】
“Oh, the paper’s pretty big!” Shan Nai spread a large sheet of card stock on the table and picked up a set of colorful markers, thinking about how to word it.
After mulling it over for a good while, Shan Nai finally started writing.
「Lucky Supermarket Shopping Notice:
1. Points may only be used by their registered owner.
2. Crystal cores and rare items may be exchanged for points.
3. Shopping/dine-in combined time limit is three hours, overtime customers will be forcibly escorted out.
4. Goods may not be resold at a markup, no wastefulness allowed.
5. Each person may make one purchase per day.
6. Fighting inside the supermarket is strictly forbidden.
7. Violators bear the consequences themselves.」
Since it was such a large sheet, Shan Nai drew a few small background decorations so it wouldn’t look too plain.
Capping her marker, she blew on the paper. “Okay~ I’ll stick this up by the checkout counter.”
【Host’s handwriting is really lovely!】
“Well, I’m not bad, if I do say so myself. This kind of advertisement lettering used to be everywhere in the old big supermarkets, see enough of it and you pick it up, no big deal.”
Shan Nai gave her two cat ears a shake, brushed back a strand of hair, and felt a tiny bit smug.
After putting up the shopping notice, Shan Nai washed up and went to sleep.
She’d figured that since she’d already earned 200 points from the successful opening, getting the remaining 800 shouldn’t be too hard either.
But three days straight passed, and not a single customer came!
This left Shan Nai more than a little worried.
Well, it made sense. It was the apocalypse now.
Survivors were dwindling by the day, and the ones who were still alive were scraping by, barely keeping their own lives intact, who had the leisure to go window-shopping and stumble upon a supermarket here…
“System, I’ve decided to go out and do some advertising!”
Shan Nai finished the last bite of her wonton, slapped her small hand on the table, and looked thoroughly resolved.
After soup dumplings and soy milk the morning before, and egg cake with milk yesterday, today she’d chosen wontons with steamed dumplings.
Today’s dine-in dish was still the tomato-and-egg rice bowl that had refreshed the day before yesterday, the supermarket was only level 1 for now, so dine-in could only offer one dish at a time.
And the food would only refresh once a customer actually bought it.
Fortunately there was a freshness-preservation function, or it would’ve been such a waste with no one to eat it.
【Understood. Please be careful, Host, the protective barrier on your body can ignore zombies and mutated beasts of tier seven and below, along with their abilities. The only outdoor vehicle available is the specially modified electric scooter.】
“There’s an electric scooter too? Nice. And what about knives, guns, and ability users’ attacks?”
After all, in the apocalypse, zombies weren’t the only danger, survivors could be just as dangerous.
【No problem there. If the Host feels frightened, you can choose “Return to Supermarket” at any time, you know, the supermarket is absolutely safe. Later on, once the supermarket levels up, your protective barrier will sync with it.】
Understood. The system had mentioned before that it had drained a lot of its energy saving her, so for now the barrier couldn’t be linked to the supermarket.
But that was fine, being able to return to the supermarket anytime was simply wonderful.
Besides, the system had also said before that zombies above tier seven probably hadn’t evolved yet.
“Mm-hm… does the backend have any flyers for our supermarket?”
Shan Nai stroked her chin, her round eyes gleaming with an idea as she thought it over.
Advertising, she knew all about that.
【One moment please. Advertising falls under legitimate, proper channels, the system is printing them on-site.】
Shan Nai wasn’t in any hurry. “Sure, and put a photo of our products and meals on there! Write: Lucky Supermarket Grand Opening Special! Everything 20% off! Mark the address too, this place used to be really lively, easy to find.”
【Host is truly clever. Printing the advertising flyers to spec now.】
Before long, a small bundle of simple, clear, colorful flyers dropped in front of Shan Nai.
“Excellent work, Systemy.”
Shan Nai picked up a flyer and examined it, the material was actually quite nice, smooth to the touch, waterproof and UV-resistant.
【Apologies, the system’s energy is limited, only 100 copies could be printed.】
“That’s plenty, plenty. Let’s test the waters first.”
With that, Shan Nai put the flyers into the system’s built-in storage space, then pulled out the supermarket’s dedicated electric scooter.
For ease of riding, she’d specially changed into a sky-blue athletic set and tied her hair into twin pigtails.
Finally, she strapped the golden baseball bat to her back, hung a sign reading “Out” on the door, and set off.
The outdoor electric scooter had a very sleek design, was extremely light, and made almost no noise as it rode.
This was Shan Nai’s very first time going outside to see this world.
Everything was so desolate and broken.
The air carried a faint smell of burning and decay.
“Bang—”
While busy looking around at the surrounding streets, the scooter crashed into a zombie with intestines wrapped around its neck.
Shan Nai jumped in fright and quickly steadied the handlebars.
The zombie noticed her too, scrambling up off the ground and lunging at her, baring its teeth.
Most of them were tier-one zombies, slow-moving, only capable of a basic biting attack.
Unfortunately, before they could get close to her body, something like an invisible force blocked them.
The zombies clawed frantically, their bodies swaying violently, rotten flesh trembling, eyeballs bulging out of their sockets.
But they simply couldn’t touch Shan Nai.
“The system really doesn’t lie to me!” Shan Nai suppressed a wave of nausea and rode the scooter straight through the zombie, plowing right over it.
“Bang, bang, bang.”
Shan Nai sped along, sending a string of zombies flying.
Meow-ha, this felt even more freeing than ascension, this cat truly was invincible under heaven, Shan Nai gloated to herself.
She spent the whole morning busy at it.
On major streets, at corners, in front of malls, at spots that had once held supplies before the apocalypse, Shan Nai plastered them all with Lucky Supermarket flyers.
Even a few especially tall zombies got flyers stuck to their backs.
Mobile advertising, exactly to her liking, Shan Nai was quite pleased with herself.
“Hisss—”
Shan Nai had already made it to the entrance of the city when she suddenly heard a strange sound behind her and turned to look.
A small zombie was screeching its lungs out, and in response to its cries, about a dozen zombies with twisted gaits, crooked heads, and broken hands were slowly gathering not far away.
【This is a tier-two zombie, it rallies others by howling.】
The system helpfully explained, but Shan Nai had already set her sights on a prime advertising spot, right behind that group of zombies!