Zhang Jun set the Low-Grade Deadwalker Core in his palm.
It was colder than he expected. Not the cold of an ordinary stone—more like something that had been pulled from a place you weren't supposed to touch. The gray-white surface was covered in warped, twisting veins, and staring at it too long made his stomach turn.
"System, analyze this."
He said it quietly, inside his head.
A pale blue screen materialized in front of him.
[Item: Low-Grade Deadwalker Core]
[Effect: Contains a small quantity of chaotic spatial energy. Has a probability of breaking the Genetic Lock, enabling the user to become Awakened.]
[Success Rate: Below 1%.]
[Warning: The energy within this item is extremely unstable. The absorption process will deliver severe shock to the user's Gene Sequence.]
[Failure Risk 1: Complete Gene Sequence collapse. User is disintegrated on the spot.]
[Failure Risk 2: Gene Sequence undergoes Malignant Mutation. User transforms into a Deadwalker. Irreversible.]
[Overall Assessment: Extremely high-danger extraordinary item.]
Zhang Jun's hand trembled. He nearly flung the Core straight across the room.
Below one percent?
Fail and you either die on the spot or turn into one of those things shambling around outside?
This was supposed to be an opportunity?
This was a lottery ticket where losing meant losing your life.
A chill ran down Zhang Jun's spine. The Core in his hand was still ice-cold, but now it felt like a live coal—dangerous to hold for even one more second.
Was this how Hong Van got her fire ability?
By betting on something with less than a one-percent chance?
He pictured her standing in the ruins, flames rising around her like a living weapon, and felt his scalp go numb.
He thought back to the System's earlier prompt.
[Transaction recommended.]
Recommended?
Was this its way of telling him to go die?
The thought had barely formed when the screen shifted.
[Shopkeeper detected in contact with an extremely high-danger extraordinary item.]
[Absolute Safe Zone of Dai Jun General Store detected: Active.]
[Within the store's boundaries, the Shopkeeper is immune to all forms of harm.]
[Including but not limited to: physical damage, energy shock, mental contamination, Gene Sequence collapse, Malignant Mutation.]
[Conclusion: If the Shopkeeper absorbs a Low-Grade Deadwalker Core, all failure consequences will be nullified.]
Zhang Jun stopped breathing.
He stared at the last few lines.
Read them once.
Then read them again.
By the third time, he was sure he wasn't seeing things.
Gene Sequence collapse—nullified?
Malignant Mutation—nullified?
In other words, for everyone else, absorbing a Core was a gamble with their life on the table. But for him, as long as he was standing inside Dai Jun General Store, even failure couldn't kill him.
The whole shop went quiet.
Ten-some seconds later, Zhang Jun laughed.
At first it was barely a sound.
Then he couldn't hold it back.
"Ha… ha ha ha…"
The fear from a moment ago was swept away by a surge of fierce, electric excitement.
This wasn't a nine-deaths-one-survival gamble anymore.
For him, this was a bet with no downside.
Zhang Jun looked at the Core in his hand. His eyes were completely different now.
It wasn't a dangerous rock anymore.
It was a key.
A key to step across the line between ordinary and Awakened.
Only now did he truly understand why the System had wanted him to take this in trade.
Gold could pay off debt.
Gold could buy inventory, fill the hole left by thirty-five million in loan shark debt breathing down his neck.
But then what?
Keep being a broke convenience store owner, scraping by in the old world, just occasionally pocketing some gold from the Collapse world?
No.
If he wanted to actually live differently—if he wanted to hold on to Dai Jun General Store, if he wanted to stand firm between two worlds—money alone wasn't enough.
Strength was the only real guarantee.
Zhang Jun closed his fist around the Core.
"How do I use it?"
The System answered immediately.
[Swallow it directly.]
Zhang Jun looked down at the Core, roughly the size of a pigeon's egg, sitting in his palm.
Swallow it?
It didn't look like food by any stretch of the imagination.
He frowned, but only hesitated for a few seconds. He thought of the flames in Hong Van's hands, and the last of his reluctance went under.
Fine. Reckless it is.
He was inside the store. He couldn't die here.
Zhang Jun closed his eyes and tossed the Core straight into his mouth.
It didn't feel like stone.
The moment it touched his tongue it dissolved, turning into a stream of ice-cold liquid with a heavy, metallic taste. It slid down his throat and dropped into his stomach like a chunk of living ice.
One second later.
"Ugh—"
Zhang Jun doubled over.
Pain erupted from his gut and detonated outward through his entire body.
Not the pain of a cut or a punch. It felt like every muscle fiber, every bone, every blood vessel inside him was being crushed by an invisible fist and then stretched apart.
His knees buckled.
He went face-down on the old tile floor behind the counter, both hands clenching so hard his nails scraped the ground. Cold sweat broke out in seconds, soaking through the back of his shirt.
The pain was so intense he could barely scream.
His body felt like it was being torn apart from the inside.
But strangely, through all of it, Zhang Jun's mind stayed sharp.
Razor sharp.
He could feel something inside him collapsing, piece by piece. But just before everything shattered completely, a steady, temperate force washed over him, pulling the pieces that were about to come apart back into place.
Then the energy in the Core pushed again.
And that force pulled everything back again.
Collapse.
Restore.
Collapse.
Restore.
Zhang Jun lay curled on the store floor, breathing in ragged, broken gasps.
This was the Absolute Safe Zone.
Pushing him right to the edge of the cliff—but never letting him fall.
He had no idea how much time passed before the pain finally receded like a tide pulling back.
Zhang Jun lay motionless on the floor. His whole body was soaked in sweat, hair plastered to his forehead, chest heaving violently like he'd just been dragged out of deep water.
It took a while longer before he pressed a hand against the nearby shelf and pushed himself upright.
*Crack.*
A small sound.
Zhang Jun froze.
On the metal bar beside the shelf—right where his hand had gripped it—there was a clear, visible dent.
Five finger-marks pressed into the thin metal.
He stared at it.
Then he slowly made a fist.
The strength in his body was completely different from before. Not the refreshed feeling after a good night's sleep—this was like every muscle had been replaced. Lighter, denser, and full of force.
"So this is what it means to be Awakened?"
Zhang Jun felt equal parts elated and disbelieving.
But then he thought of Hong Van.
She could call fire out of her hands.
So what was his ability?
Zhang Jun took a slow breath, raised one finger, and mimicked Hong Van's pose from earlier.
"Fire."
Nothing happened.
He tried a different word.
"Flame."
His fingertip stayed still.
"Fire?"
Silence.
Not even a spark.
Zhang Jun's expression darkened.
Had he failed?
He'd nearly died from the pain, and all he got out of it was being slightly healthier?
Sure, increased physical strength was still a gain—but compared to Hong Van throwing her hand out and watching fire roar to life, the gap was genuinely frustrating.
The more he thought about it, the more irritated he got. Zhang Jun punched the shelf beside him.
*Whoosh.*
The instant his fist connected with the metal shelf, something strange happened.
A section of the shelf in front of him—along with a few bags of spicy snack sticks sitting on top—vanished.
Not knocked away.
Not fallen to the floor.
They disappeared right where they stood, leaving nothing but a clean, empty gap in his field of vision.
Zhang Jun went still.
"What the—"
Right then, a very strange sensation appeared in his mind.
Like somewhere right alongside his own consciousness, a small additional space had opened up.
Invisible to the eye.
But he knew it was there.
In that dark pocket of space, the section of shelf that had just vanished was floating quietly, the bags of spicy snack sticks still sitting on top of it, undisturbed.
Zhang Jun focused.
*Take it out.*
*Whoosh.*
The shelf section reappeared in front of him, back in its exact original position. The bags of spicy snack sticks sat right where they'd been—not fallen, not shifted, not even dusty.
Zhang Jun's heart started beating faster.
He fixed his gaze on one bag of spicy snack sticks on the shelf.
*Store.*
The bag vanished.
In that small pocket of space, it quietly appeared.
*Retrieve.*
The bag returned to Zhang Jun's palm.
He looked at the cheap snack in his hand, his breathing picking up.
This time, he pulled up the System screen immediately.
[Awakened: Zhang Jun]
[Awakened Ability: Space Storage]
[Current Capacity: 1 cubic meter]
[Note: Isolated spatial pocket. Retrieve and store by intent.]
Zhang Jun stared at the four lines on the screen.
Then he slowly tightened his grip on the bag of spicy snack sticks. He'd done it.
He stared at those lines for a long time.
Then he started testing it, over and over.
A bag of spicy snack sticks disappeared from his palm.
A second later, it came back.
Store.
Retrieve.
At first, Zhang Jun couldn't hide the excitement on his face. But the more he tested it, the more the smile on his lips slowly faded, replaced by a very different kind of clarity.
He looked down at his own hands.
The grip from a moment ago had left a clear dent in the metal shelf bar. Inside his body, the newly born strength was still flowing steadily—not explosive like Hong Van's fire, but solid and real in a way that couldn't be denied.
This was his real asset.
Gold could help him pay off debt.
Gold could buy more inventory, fill the hole in front of him, pull him away from the loan sharks breathing down his neck.
But gold couldn't make him stronger.
Deadwalker Cores were different.
One Core had given him physical strength, a stronger body, and Space Storage. For anyone else, that was a bet staked with their life. But for him, inside Dai Jun General Store, the most terrifying risks were wiped clean by the Absolute Safe Zone.
The System hadn't told him to take Hong Van's deal for a little pocket change in gold.
It was pointing him toward a different path.
A path where he wouldn't be some broke shopkeeper getting pushed around anymore—and wouldn't have to rely on luck to survive between two worlds.
Zhang Jun looked up at the System screen.
[Spatial Transfer: Cooldown Active.]
[Time Remaining: 08:55:21]
Less than nine hours before he'd be sent back to the old world.
Would he come back here next time?
Or would the System drop him into a completely different world—one with no Deadwalkers, no Cores, no Hong Van?
Too many variables.
He couldn't put all his hopes on a woman he'd met twice, no matter how strong she was or how likely she seemed to return.
Hong Van wasn't stupid.
The first time, hunger and the smell of noodles had pulled her in. But once she calmed down, she'd realize Cores were worth far more than gold. The next time they traded, getting anything out of her hands wouldn't be nearly as easy as today.
Before he left the Collapse world, he needed to collect as many Deadwalker Cores as he possibly could.
Zhang Jun's gaze moved slowly across the small store.
One bowl of instant noodles had brought Hong Van to his door.
So what if it wasn't just one bowl?
What if it was a whole pot?
What if the smell carried far enough to draw in not just one survivor, but many?
A very practical plan took shape in his head quickly.
Zhang Jun didn't hesitate. He walked straight to the bottom shelf and pulled out a cardboard box covered in dust.
Inside was a large multi-function electric pot. He'd ordered it in a wholesale batch a while back, planning to bundle it with a promotion, but it had sat in storage ever since with no takers.
He hadn't expected it to come in handy like this.
He tore off the tape, took out the pot, and wiped down the inside with a clean cloth. Then he did something that would have broken the heart of anyone surviving in this world if they'd seen it.
Zhang Jun opened bottle after bottle of brand-new sealed water and poured them straight into the pot.
One bottle.
Two bottles.
Three bottles.
Clear water flowed into the stainless steel pot, the soft gurgling sound almost obscenely luxurious in the Collapse world.
By the tenth bottle, the water level was just right.
Next, he hauled an entire case of beef broth instant noodles up onto the counter.
*Rip.*
*Rip.*
*Rip.*
Package after package was torn open. Noodle bricks, dried vegetable packets, oil packets, and seasoning packets tumbled into the pot one after another. The smell of beef broth powder began to rise—faint at first, just a whisper, but already enough to make a person think of late nights eating instant noodles in a cramped apartment.
Ten packets.
Fifteen packets.
Twenty packets.
The noodle bricks piled up in a thick layer, floating in the clear water.
Zhang Jun opened a pack of ready-to-eat sausages, peeled off the red plastic casing, snapped each one in half, and tossed them into the pot. The pale pink sausage pieces nestled between the noodle bricks, looking completely ordinary. Unremarkable.
But on the other side of that door, ordinary was worth dying for.
Finally, he opened the fridge and took out the four remaining eggs.
His ace in the hole.
Zhang Jun didn't crack them into the pot yet. He set them neatly in a small bowl beside the burner, keeping them back to raise the stakes at exactly the right moment.
Once everything was ready, he plugged in the pot.
The red indicator light came on.
The water began to heat.
Zhang Jun dragged the old desk fan over near the door, aimed it straight outside, and cranked it to the highest setting.
The blades spun with a low roar, scattering a thin layer of dust across the store floor.
One pot of noodles—big enough, fragrant enough, extravagant enough to turn the hunger of an entire ruined district into a line leading straight to his door.
At first it was just the faintest trace of a smell.
Then it deepened.
Beef broth, seasoning oil, cooked noodles, sausage warming in the broth—they blended together into something humble but devastatingly effective.
In the old world, it was the smell of a cheap late-night meal.
In the Collapse world, it was a bell ringing straight into your stomach.
The desk fan carried that smell out of the store.
It passed through the invisible Space Barrier, spilled out onto the cracked street, drifted into gaps in collapsed walls, into burned-out storefronts, into abandoned cars lying on their sides in the middle of the road.
Three blocks from Dai Jun General Store, in a building that was little more than half a shell, three people were huddled in a dark room.
*Cough… cough…*
Tin was slumped against the corner wall, his face a sickly yellow, his lips cracked and dry. The wound on his thigh was wrapped in layers of dirty cloth, the blood dried to a dark brown, but the skin around it was still swollen and red in a way that didn't look good.
Every time he coughed, his whole body shook.
By the broken window, a middle-aged man crouched in silence, quietly cleaning an old semi-automatic pistol. Two scars ran diagonally across his face, pulling from his cheekbone down toward his jaw, making one half of his face look harder than the other.
The group called him Three-Notch.
Not out of affection.
Just because in a place like this, the people still alive needed names that were easier to remember than their real ones.
The third person stood near the door. He was thin, his long hair matted with dust, a small notebook wrapped in plastic hanging from his neck. His eyes were sunken but still sharp.
People called him Ledger.
Ledger watched Tin for a moment, then turned to Three-Notch.
"His wound's running hot again. No fever reducer, no antibiotics—he's not going to make it through tonight."
Three-Notch stopped moving.
The dirty rag sat still against the barrel.
He looked up at Tin. In the middle-aged man's eyes there wasn't much emotion left—just exhaustion that had been compressed for too long.
"I know."
Three words, barely above a whisper, and the room went even quieter.
Their group had started with more than ten people. After a week wandering through this ruined district, only three remained. Food had run out two days ago, clean water was down to less than half a bottle. Medicine wasn't even worth mentioning—every pharmacy in the area had been stripped bare long ago, and the few spots that still had anything were either packed with Deadwalkers or claimed by other groups first.
If they stayed here, Tin would die first. Then Ledger. Then Three-Notch.
The dark room pressed down on them like a sealed box.
Right then, Ledger went still. He raised his head, like he'd caught something in the air.
"You smell that?"
Three-Notch frowned.
Tin, who had been drifting in and out, opened his eyes. His clouded pupils trembled faintly.
A faint smell crept into the room through the broken window. At first it was thin enough to be a hallucination—but within seconds it sharpened: beef broth, hot noodles, and the familiar, almost painful smell of sausage.
Tin pressed a hand against the wall and tried to sit up, his voice hoarse with fever.
"Noodles… that's instant noodles…"
Ledger swallowed dryly.
The sound was very clear in the quiet room.
Three-Notch shot to his feet, crossed to the broken window in quick strides, and pressed his face close to the gap. He took one long, deep breath.
Not a hallucination.
Someone was actually cooking noodles out there.
And not just one packet.
The smell hit them like a wall. Dense and rich, like someone had set a full pot boiling in the middle of the ruins.
Three-Notch tightened his grip on the gun.
Every rational instinct he had screamed *trap*.
In a world where people killed each other over half a bottle of water, anyone bold enough to cook instant noodles out in the open was either out of their mind—or had enough muscle to sit back and wait for fools to walk in on their own.
But his stomach cramped anyway.
The hunger he'd been grinding down for days tore loose the moment that smell hit him. His throat was bone-dry, yet somehow managed to produce a thin trickle of saliva. His gun hand tightened without him meaning it to.
Tin was breathing hard, eyes lit up in a way that was almost frightening.
"Three-Notch… let's go. Even if it's real, just a little broth would be enough."
Ledger couldn't keep it together either. He peered past Three-Notch's shoulder, voice clipped and urgent:
"That smell's carrying far. We're definitely not the only ones who caught it. If we wait, someone else gets there first."
Three-Notch didn't answer right away.
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
He knew exactly how dangerous stepping out was right now. The smell of food could draw survivors—but it could just as easily draw Deadwalkers, rival crews, or something worse.
But staying put?
Staying put was just a slower way to die.
Three-Notch crouched and checked the magazine. The remaining rounds lay sparse and cold in the dim light.
Not enough for a real fight.
But enough to gamble once.
The hesitation in his eyes went out. What replaced it was the raw, cornered ferocity of a man with nothing left to lose.
Three-Notch zipped up his jacket and shouldered the gun.
"Move out."