Eerie Giant Eggs

The supermarket was called Limin Supermarket. It wasn't particularly large, but it had two floors.

The first floor mainly sold snacks, fresh food, and everyday necessities.

As soon as Shen Ye entered, cold, damp air closed in around him from every direction, leaving him feeling clammy and coated in something sticky.

The farther he went, the heavier the dampness became.

He looked up. The fluorescent tubes flickered, crackling with the bzzzt, bzzzt of shorted wiring. Though bright sunlight blazed outside, the interior felt deeply sinister.

Soon, the stench of corpses grew more pronounced, stronger than it had been at the entrance.

Frowning, he looked toward the shelves. The first two rows held assorted snacks.

But this junk food took up space without filling his stomach, so it wasn't on his list.

He passed through the snack section and headed deeper inside, toward his destination: the fresh food section.

But the sight before him made Shen Ye pause.

The freezer cabinets in the meat section had long since lost power. Inside, chicken, duck, and pork had rotted into a foul mess in the hot, humid conditions.

Even the fish in the nearby tanks had long since gone belly-up, floating on the surface and giving off waves of foul odor.

The vegetable section was even more hopeless. Green leaves had already turned into black sludge. The potatoes and sweet potatoes were still barely salvageable. Shen Ye grabbed a few intact ones and put them in his backpack, then held his breath and hurried through the area.

Just then.

Something in the corner caught his eye.

Three eggs, each taller than a person, stood silently against the wall in the deepest corner of the supermarket. They looked much like the snake eggs he had seen during a rainforest mission in his previous life, but snake eggs definitely shouldn't have been that large.

A layer of sticky green slime coated their shells.

The slime dripped down the shells onto the scraps of flesh below.

Shen Ye's pupils constricted slightly.

Tattered scraps of clothing still clung to that flesh. It was clearly human tissue.

This was probably the source of the corpse stench he had smelled ever since entering.

His stomach churned violently, but he forced it down.

From what he had seen, he could safely conclude that this place wasn't nearly as safe as Song Lei had claimed.

He had seen plenty of corpses on the battlefield in his previous life, but none of them compared to the horrifying scene around the giant eggs.

Shen Ye didn't dare waste any more time.

He turned and hurried up the stairs to the second floor.

There was no turning back now. Without enough supplies, he wouldn't last more than a few days.

Unlike the deserted first floor, the second floor was a completely different scene.

The people who had come up ahead of him were now darting between the shelves like a swarm of locusts, all intent on stripping them bare.

The rice, flour, grain, and cooking oil section was the most chaotic.

Two middle-aged men were arguing over a sack of rice, looking ready to come to blows.

A woman beside them seized the opportunity to snatch up a jug of peanut oil and run.

The shelves had been picked almost clean, with goods scattered all over the floor.

Shen Ye's gaze lingered on the scrambling crowd for only an instant before he headed straight toward the shelves of bottled water.

Water was what he needed most right now.

He set down the hiking backpack that was half his height, unzipped it, and began putting bottles of water inside one by one.

He chose only the five-hundred-milliliter bottles, which were compact and easy to pack.

His movements were swift and precise. He positioned every bottle carefully, leaving as little empty space as possible.

After filling more than half the backpack with water, he moved to the nearby dry goods section.

Chocolate and compressed biscuits.

These were the truly valuable supplies. High in calories, filling, easy to store, and requiring no cooking.

As for the rice and flour everyone was frantically fighting over, Shen Ye had little interest.

Preparing those foods required not only a source of heat but also plenty of water. In an apocalypse, they were hardly worth the trouble.

He swept bar after bar of dark chocolate from the shelves into his backpack, then stuffed in several large packs of military compressed biscuits.

The backpack soon bulged, its zipper almost bursting.

Time to go.

Shen Ye zipped it shut and slung it onto his back.

The weight would have crushed anyone else, but he carried it effortlessly, walking as though he had no burden at all.

Yet after only a few steps, he stopped.

Another giant egg appeared before him, between two rows of shelves.

The stench of corpses washed over him again, mingled with a sickly sweet, rank odor.

Shen Ye instinctively took a step back.

He changed direction, intending to go around it.

But before he had gone more than a few steps, another giant egg came into view. They seemed to be everywhere.

Unlike the ones he had encountered earlier, this egg already had cracks in its shell. They were spreading steadily with sharp crack, crack sounds, as though whatever was inside might hatch at any moment.

An instinctive sense of danger made Shen Ye tighten his right hand around the hilt of the Ghost Head.

At the same time, he pulled away the rag with his other hand, exposing the ink-black blade.

And just then-

"Aah-!!"

A scream suddenly rang out from downstairs.

It was so piercing that everyone trapped in that enclosed space shuddered.

More screams followed, rising one after another.

The first group of people who had tried to leave came scrambling back up to the second floor.

"Help! Someone help-!"

"There are monsters downstairs! Monsters! They're everywhere!"

They scattered in panic. Some tripped and fell, only to be trampled by those surging up behind them before they could get back on their feet.

Within moments, the entire second floor descended into chaos.

Shen Ye glanced toward the stairwell.

Song Lei squeezed out of the chaotic crowd, carrying a large water jug in one hand and a bulging bag of food in the other.

Song Shiya beside him hadn't been idle either.

Despite her delicate appearance, she carried a case of drinks in one hand and a large bag of supplies in the other. A black mask covered her face, and her steps showed no sign of strain.

Seeing the commotion, Song Lei hurriedly set down his supplies, grabbed someone who had just run upstairs, and demanded, "What's going on?"

The man trembled all over, his face white as paper and his voice thick with tears. "Downstairs... on the first floor, several... several eerie creatures appeared! The exit... the exit is locked! We can't get out!"

Song Lei's expression changed sharply.

He released the man's collar and quickly pulled the Life Disk from his pocket.

At some point, the bone-white bead on its face had begun to glow.

It was no longer the faint white light that had indicated safety before.

Instead...

It was deep red.

And the light kept growing brighter and redder, almost staining the entire bronze disk the color of blood.

Song Lei's pupils contracted sharply.

He had seen how the Life Disk reacted to eerie creatures, but he had never seen the bead turn this red.

It meant they were already completely surrounded by eerie creatures.