Terrified David

The supermarket manager walked up to Li Wei with trembling hands and asked, "Everyone, please calm down! Sir, did you see monsters appearing in the mist? How... how did you make it through the white fog?"

The panicked crowd slowly calmed down, locking their gazes onto Li Wei, and the supermarket fell into a sudden silence.

Before Li Wei could even respond to the question, Mrs. Carmody, who had been hiding in the back, stepped out to make her presence known.

She first took out her Bible, held it to her forehead, and offered a devout prayer before shouting, "Those are the minions of death! The Lord's wrath has descended, and we shall all be engulfed in the radiance of the white mist; the world is coming to an end!"

"Give it a rest. The mist only covers the town; it had already stopped moving by the time I came back. 'The whole world,' my foot—pfft!"

A scoff interrupted Mrs. Carmody's sermon, leaving her aged face burning with embarrassment.

Li Wei pulled the five-dollar bill from his pocket and slapped it onto the checkout counter. He then picked up a pack of cigarettes, lit one for himself, and said, "There are indeed monsters out there. You really want to go out without a gun?"

After scanning the expressions of the people around him, he added, "Those monsters are a bit peculiar. Don't ask me; I don't know what they are either. Just stay here, and you'll be fine."

The customers realized that going out now would be the equivalent of delivering themselves as takeout, and they immediately became dejected.

Mrs. Carmody, stung by Li Wei's dismissal, grew indignant and pointed at his nose, cursing, "You, heretic! The Lord's wrath will eventually fall upon you, and the Day of Judgment will surely come."

Li Wei turned and picked up a can of some unknown beverage. He looked at the supermarket manager and asked, "Can I drink this?"

Mrs. Carmody, now ignored, wore an expression of fury, but she quickly turned away, reciting scripture to calm herself.

"Of course you can. Alright, everyone, please start cleaning up! Clear away the broken bottles and glass to avoid injuries. There are medical supplies in the third aisle." Knowing they were trapped here for the time being, the supermarket manager had everyone tidy up the store, which had been left in disarray by the tremors, while they waited for rescue.

Li Wei's pant leg was suddenly tugged. Anna, who was holding the small black bear, had returned to his side at some point. Anna whispered, "Mr. Devil, could you come over here for a moment?"

Li Wei nodded and followed Anna to a corner of the supermarket.

Anna's mother, Isha Bell, was a very traditional and conservative woman. She first expressed her apologies to Li Wei, then followed up with her gratitude.

She apologized for the misunderstanding and was happy that Li Wei had brought her daughter back.

Then, she picked up the small black bear, intending to return it to Li Wei.

"No need. It's a gift for Anna. She likes it, doesn't she? Just be careful of bites; it hasn't been vaccinated." Li Wei waved his hand. He didn't want a bear; it was useless and just got in the way.

If he needed a pet, he'd rather just summon a Hunter. They were not only obedient but also incredibly imposing—aside from being ugly, there was really nothing to complain about.

Anna was also strongly opposed to her mother giving the bear away. She tugged on her mother's long skirt in anger and shouted desperately, "No! Mr. Devil gave that to me! Give it back!"

Caught between her daughter's crying and Li Wei's refusal, Isha finally sighed, placed the small black bear back on the floor, and shook out her arms.

The small black bear was no longer tiny; it weighed at least seven or eight kilograms.

The encroaching white mist made many in the supermarket uneasy. Tonight was destined to be a sleepless one, and Li Wei chose not to leave the supermarket because he could get free food here.

The monsters outside were just pure biomass, and he didn't know what use the slime he could produce had yet. Rather than exhausting himself hunting those monsters, he'd rather enjoy some good food. He had a premonition that the white mist wouldn't disappear anytime soon.

He tasted many items from the shelves and, by chance, found a grill and some charcoal, starting to cook fresh cold steaks right there in the supermarket.

Li Wei had turned a dire situation into a barbecue party.

The supermarket manager didn't stop him and even went over to take two steaks for himself. After all, there were plenty of steaks in the store, and with the power out, they would spoil anyway. Better to eat them now!

The aroma of steak wafted through the supermarket. Some worried that it would attract the monsters, but no one here understood the monsters better than Li Wei!

Since he said it was fine, no one could argue, because he was the only one who had actually seen them.

Driven by Li Wei, many people seemed to forget the threat of the outside world, drinking and making merry, having a grand time.

Meanwhile, David sat between two shelves in Aisle 6 with the terrified Billy, chatting casually with four elderly members of the community.

Just as the atmosphere was at its peak, Li Wei and Ollie walked over and offered a friendly greeting.

Seeing Billy resting his head on David's lap, Li Wei let out a "Yo" and said, "Aren't you a bit old to be acting like a baby? Aren't you embarrassed? How old are you?"

Though David was annoyed, he stroked Billy's head and replied, "He's seven."

To his surprise, Li Wei looked genuinely shocked, crouched down to meet Billy's eyes, and exclaimed, "Seven years old and still hiding in an adult's arms like a little puppy? That's not very manly, is it?"

After staring at Li Wei for a moment, Billy left David's lap with a look that suggested he was about to cry, sat on the floor by himself, and glared at Li Wei with irritation.

"Eh~ that's more like it!" Li Wei chuckled wickedly, reached out, and ruffled Billy's hair aggressively. He then grabbed a few boxes of curry from the shelf and asked them, "Does anyone want curry rice? If this curry is still good, it should taste decent."

His behavior made David's already sour mood even worse, but he didn't want to cause a conflict at this moment, so he didn't stop him.

Grandma Repla, with her white hair, raised a hand as withered as an old tree and said with a smile, "If you don't mind, please give me a portion. Not too much, an old woman can't eat that much. Thank you!"

"No problem~!"

The others declined, saying they had no appetite.

After Li Wei left, David put his arm around Billy's shoulder, wanting him to lie back down, as he was running a fever and sitting up wasn't good for him.

"He's gone, little champ. Keep lying down; you'll be fine."

Unable to hold out any longer, Billy hesitated for a moment before lying back down.

Ollie, who hadn't left, looked at Billy with concern. "How is he?"

David continued to stroke Billy's hair and sighed slightly. "Still a bit feverish."

Amanda Dumfrey, a new third-grade teacher in town, was a plain-looking woman. Her appearance and clothing were ordinary; she gave off a very average impression.

But she loved children, and at this moment, she volunteered to help Billy get some medicine. "I'll go get him some aspirin."

"Third aisle," Ollie said, pointing the way for the helpful teacher.

David gave Amanda a friendly smile; compared to that strange Asian man, someone like her was much easier to get along with.

He then looked toward the good-natured Ollie, asking him where the blankets were, as he wanted to find one for Billy.

"Floor mats, uh... in the storage room!" After the kind-hearted Ollie finished speaking, he stood up, stepped across the aisle, and said to the group, "I still need to check on the others; call me if you need anything!"

With that, Ollie walked straight away, preparing to check on the situation of the others.

David temporarily handed Billy over to Mrs. Turman, who was sitting opposite wearing a lady's suit with a kind expression, and then headed toward the storage room.

The storage room was in the corner of the supermarket and required passing through two doors; it had good soundproofing, and the high-power generator currently being used by the supermarket was located inside.

As soon as he stepped into the storage room, David caught a whiff of an unpleasant smell in the air, something like a mixture of gasoline and hot air that made one feel dizzy and lightheaded.

Pulling a clean cloth from a shelf nearby to cover his nose, David followed the scent to the generator, which was partitioned off by a wire mesh, and discovered that it had been running on overload, with wisps of white smoke rising from it and the display showing that the stored power was already full.

He approached the wire mesh gate and shut the generator down.

"Oh... shit!"

As a result, the moment he pressed the switch, the lights in the storage room vanished as well, leaving only a few emergency lights with pitifully low brightness still working.

David fumbled through the pitch-black surroundings, trying to leave, but unluckily bumped into things twice in a row and finally tripped, nearly kissing the hard concrete floor.

He pulled out his phone, using the faint glow of the flip phone to illuminate a bit of the path, and just as he was about to start looking for a blanket, the rolling shutter door behind him suddenly made a sound...

David turned his head somewhat stiffly to look at the rolling shutter door, which was illuminated by an emergency light, and thinking of the monsters in the white mist, he swallowed hard.

It seemed as if something was pressing against the back of the rolling shutter door, causing it to bulge inward from the outside, while making a clattering noise.

A strange, inexplicable sound filtered through the gap at the bottom of the door and into David's ears, like a pair of hands covered in detergent being rubbed together frantically, giving off an unsettling, slippery sensation.

The sound grew louder and louder, and the amplitude of the rolling shutter door being struck became increasingly exaggerated; terrified to the extreme, David turned and ran toward the interior of the supermarket, not daring to stay alone for even another moment!