Stepping out of the mental hospital, Su Jin tilted his head back and squinted against the glare of the sun.
The initial panic had faded after meeting the client and successfully negotiating his way out, but a heavy fog of doubt still weighed on his chest.
He wondered whether this alien sun might give him a tumor.
Whatever.
Looking at the current situation, his connection to the company was completely severed. Until he completed the task they had forced on him, there was no way home.
Even if it did, it would not kill him for another ten years or so. He needed to focus on immediate survival prep.
Pulling out the notebook and map Fu Qingdai had given him, Su Jin consulted them as he walked.
Ignoring the gate guard’s wide-eyed stare, he swaggered right out the front gates.
Reaching the street corner, he stopped and scanned the horizon.
According to the map, Fu Qingdai lived in the Talent Residential Community, roughly nine kilometers from the hospital.
He could easily flag down one of the taxis cruising the street to get there.
But securing a rental in the Talent Residential Community wasn’t his top priority right now. There were other things he needed to find out first.
After cross-referencing his map, Su Jin pivoted and headed right.
Two steps later, he paused. Digging a length of rope out of his briefcase, he tied one end to the bag’s handle and secured the other in a tight knot around his wrist.
He hid the rope beneath his coat and kept walking.
This place was less developed, and legal protections seemed weaker. If a drive-by snatcher grabbed his bag, he’d have nowhere to file a grievance.
Broad daylight or not, it paid to be paranoid.
He was heading for a large local market.
Whether the local flora and fauna mirrored Earth’s—and more importantly, whether it was digestible—was a massive blank spot in his data.
For the early stages, he’d stick to his own rations. He planned to get a few everyday ingredients and test small amounts after waiting overnight.
….
Inside the bustling market, Su Jin prowled the aisles.
The market looked ordinary enough.
Still, the sheer variety of alien produce made his head spin for a moment.
The good news? A lot of it looked familiar. Others, though, were completely unfamiliar.
Radishes with strange markings, huge single-leaf vegetables, red vines…
Navigating the stalls, Su Jin covertly pinched off stray leaves and stems, pocketing them while stopping now and then to ask about their names.
He would take a few leaves home to test. Until he knew they were safe, he wasn’t wasting a single dime of his limited budget.
Besides, vegetables were not his main concern. He needed meat.
If Earth logic held up here, establishing a food safety hierarchy was simple common sense.
The muscle and fat of large livestock rarely contained naturally occurring toxins.
Large animals generally survived by relying on their bodies. It was usually the small, fragile organisms that evolved toxic defense mechanisms.
Furthermore, when the apocalypse hit, cold storage facilities would be packed with high-calorie meats. In Su Jin’s view, even meat that had begun to spoil would be safer than unfamiliar plants and would provide valuable calories.
But testing the veggies remained a necessary chore.
The real goal was to indirectly verify the safety of processed foods sold in local supermarkets.
Having completed his lap of the vegetable section, he approached the meat and seafood stalls.
Looking at the rows of pink lights dangling over the butchers, Su Jin almost laughed.
So butchers here used the same trick as back home.
A little mood lighting to make the meat look fresher. Classic.
However, eyeing the massive slabs of marbled meat and the animal heads that looked rather like cattle heads…
To Su Jin, it suggested that the meat was probably safe. A very good sign.
With a few stolen vegetable leaves to test later and some reassurance about the meat, he moved on to seafood.
Rows of fish tanks filled the seafood section.
Su Jin halted in front of one, analyzing its contents.
The tank held a chaotic mix of species, but most looked comfortingly mundane—just standard, muddy river fish.
Just as he was relaxing, his gaze locked onto something.
A massive gray fish twisted its bulk around, pressing a grotesque mouth flat against the glass to stare right back at him.
When he truly processed what he was looking at, a violent shudder wracked Su Jin’s body.
“What… what is that fish…?”
Live footage: fearless reporter infiltrates an alien seafood market at risk of life and limb!
Holy shit! An alien carp with human lips!
It had a human mouth packed full of teeth, but the kicker? The mouth was vertical. It was pure nightmare fuel… every survival instinct he had screamed that this thing was profoundly wrong.
“Hey, you have been looking for a while. Want a fish? They are all fresh,” the woman running the stall said as she came over. “Free descaling and tooth-smashing included!”
“Ah?! No, I’m good. Thanks…”
Su Jin swallowed hard, waving her off as he power-walked away.
After finishing his lap of the market, Su Jin finally exhaled.
The food supply seemed viable for now, but letting his guard down was a luxury he couldn’t afford. He still needed to test the food for himself. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
Glancing around to get his bearings, he set off once more.
A hundred paces later, he pushed through the doors of a local pharmacy.
Two clerks leaned against the back counter, gossiping idly. They clearly had zero interest in customer service.
Pausing by the entrance to scan the layout, Su Jin made a beeline for the health supplements aisle.
His eyes swept the shelves twice before he picked up the most conspicuous bottle of multivitamins.
He dug the bottle of Centrum he’d bought back on Earth out of his bag and began a meticulous side-by-side comparison.
Right before the company officially teleported him to this hellhole, he had panic-bought three things at the supermarket: food, cigarettes, and multivitamins.
Ten jumbo-sized bottles of Centrum, to be exact.
His logic had been straightforward: if he was getting dumped in an alien wasteland…
Starvation was the obvious threat, but malnutrition was the silent killer. A lack of vitamins and trace elements would ruin him.
He liked working out and knew a fair bit about nutrition.
If he lacked trace elements for long, his physical performance could suffer within a month.
Under high-stress, high-load survival conditions, that degradation would hit like a freight train.
If the deficiency continued, his body could be damaged and illness would follow.
In an apocalypse, declining physiological functions or a simple illness was an absolute death sentence.
Comparing the ingredient labels on the two bottles, the knot in Su Jin’s stomach loosened.
The vast majority of the chemical compounds matched up perfectly. The few unfamiliar ingredients still looked somewhat familiar, though he was no specialist.
The ingredients looked so similar that Su Jin estimated local food was probably ninety percent safe even without testing it himself.
Shoving the local bottle back onto the shelf, Su Jin turned and walked out.
He had seen what he needed. One more stop to buy something, then he would go to the Talent Residential Community to find a rental.
….
A video rental store.
It was located right on the street corner, a little under two kilometers from the wet market.
Standing before its faded entrance, a profound wave of nostalgia hit Su Jin.
Through the glass, he could see walls lined with plastic movie cases and cheap cardboard disc sleeves.
The parallels between the two worlds were uncanny…
It dragged up memories of renting old Lam Ching-ying zombie flicks as a kid—one of the most carefree times of his childhood.
After a moment of reminiscence, Su Jin pushed the door open. Seeing the owner behind the counter, he cut straight to the chase.
“Boss, you got any disaster movies?”