Chapter 4 Supermarket 1 Shopping at the Supermarket

The supermarket stands alone at the crossroads, with a dilapidated bakery in front of it. The clerk inside has a gloomy face, but when he gets your gaze, he suddenly grins and gives you a creepy smile.

You quickly lower your head, hurried past the haphazardly placed shopping cart parking area outside, thinking that you only need to buy some potatoes and water, so you don't need these things. You just want to go in and buy them quickly and be done.

Just as you're about to step into the shadow cast by the supermarket's eaves, you suddenly remember what the little green book says: the supermarkets here often have different entrances and exits.

Regardless of whether these are rules you need to follow, you pulled your foot back, quickly caught the blue arrow sign, took a small detour, and finally entered through the entrance.

In fact, the entrance and exit are only separated by a glass wall. The moment the electric glass door opens, you step in and subconsciously look towards the exit.

A boy with a "3" on his head, who was looking down at his phone, bumped headfirst into the supermarket from the exit.

Since there is a difference between the entrance and exit, you might assume that the electric door's movement should be one-way, but that's not the case.

With the creaking of the dirty electric door, the boy unknowingly entered through the exit.

You stand still, holding your breath for him. You want to test your sense of smell, but out of empathy for your "kind," you secretly pray that nothing will happen to him.

Unfortunately, almost instantly, just as the boy's body was fully inside the supermarket, a series of cracking sounds rang out. His neck twisted 180 degrees, and for a fleeting moment, his astonished face met yours.

Lifting his heels, the boy "returned" to the outside of the supermarket, still holding his phone in his hand behind his chest.

Huff, huff.

Witnessing all of this firsthand is undoubtedly terrifying, but you are even more grateful for your caution, which allowed you to escape unscathed.

Thankfully, after the ordeal of working, you've broken the habit of constantly looking at your phone, haha.

After taking a few deep breaths, you casually raise your head and stroll slowly, actually observing the situation in the supermarket.

You want to find the "rules" first, but all the items that look like brochures are just lists of discounted supermarket items.

The awful song playing on a loop in the supermarket, after being translated by voice recognition, had no special meaning; it just kept repeating with different emphases: "Your fresh food supermarket, Benny."

Alright, it's not that difficult. Just put these things on the shelf by the door, smooth out the colorful papers that were with all kinds of seeds and discounted goods, and put them back in their original places. Don't be discouraged.

Just observe what others do and do the same.

You take a fresh look at this place.

This place is called a supermarket, but to you it looks more like a small workshop.

First of all, the baskets were placed right at the entrance, but no one used them. Whether they were locals or other people with numbers above their heads, everyone just picked up whatever they wanted and stuffed it into the canvas bags made by different supermarkets on their shoulders.

You may not understand, but you respect it, so you grip the shopping bag on your shoulder tightly and prepare to shop without any guilt.

Secondly, aside from the dim lighting, fresh vegetables were placed right at the entrance, while cleaning supplies were placed on the other side. Upon closer inspection, various salad dressings and cooking oils were even placed together with dish soap. The shelves were of varying heights, some reaching the ceiling, while others were so tall that you could clearly see the bald head of someone passing by across the street.

Finally, a staff member in a red uniform, looking utterly dejected, pushed a forklift carrying piles of empty baskets back and forth, seemingly organizing them, but after a long time, he still had no clue what to do.

You also have to be on guard against them yelling at you from behind to make way.

You may not actually understand what they are saying, but the unique talent of East Asians for reading the air makes you very quick to react.

Carefully avoiding stepping on the sticky, blackened grime on the floor, you weave through the crowded shelves, searching for potatoes.

Unlike what you're used to, where supermarkets are always stocked unless you leave too late, this morning, most of the fruits and vegetables were already sold out.

You've memorized the word "potato"—Kartoffel—and discovered through the labels that there are seven or eight different kinds of Kartoffel here, but the place is empty except for a small basket covered in mud.

The Little Green Book mentioned this situation: many Chinese people are used to only going to the supermarket once a week and then buying a lot of things. If it's Saturday, the supermarket often won't restock; once it's sold out, it's sold out.

This is not good news for you.

Yesterday you noticed that Xiaoming paid in cash at the Chinese restaurant, so you specifically searched for Chinese payment customs.

In many places here, let alone mobile payments, even card payments are not yet common. Due to the increase in taxes on the food service industry, many restaurants would rather not have customers and only accept cash—to facilitate "tax avoidance."

So what do you do? You don't have cash, so you can only pay by swiping your card using the contactless payment limit.

Others were also feeling melancholy. You, who were squatting and lost in thought, were drawn to a sigh coming from behind you.

This girl doesn't look like someone from East Asia. If it weren't for the numbers on her head, you would probably subconsciously think she's a local.

She noticed you too, but just winked at you and then nimbly left.

You got up and looked around. Rather than asking the disgruntled staff for help (of course, you'd have to be able to have a proper conversation with them first ^ ^), you chose to follow this girl and see what clever tricks she had up her sleeve.

The girl shook her head like a hunting dog, as if sniffing the air, her sharp eyes scanning every shelf and every corner. You didn't understand, but followed closely behind, carefully not making a sound.

Finally, she stopped, picked up her phone, shone the light on it, and her face lit up with joy. She immediately reached inside and rummaged around for a while, and then she found a bag of perfectly intact potatoes.

This huge bag of potatoes, weighing a full 2kg, should last us a long time.

You certainly wouldn't expect the girl to share the potatoes with you, but you're still grateful for the clue she provided.

Someone must be hiding here!

Whether the other party is a local or an outsider like them, it's like an episode of the American drama "Sisters Who Make a Living" that you may have seen before. Someone will actually hide something scarce but perhaps not needed for the time being in a corner, determined that the store clerk won't check it, and even less so that it will be taken away by others.

If you have one bag, you might have two. Even if you run out today, you'll know what to do in case of an emergency.

The girl turned to you and said a few words, which were probably just idle chatter. You quickly turned on the translator and gestured for her to repeat them.

“This bag of small potatoes is enough for us. You can buy more next Monday.” The girl leaned closer, speaking slowly so your phone could read her words.

The translation is rather clumsy, probably due to the grammatical structure of the language. Fortunately, the language doesn't emphasize word order, so you can easily understand its meaning.

She's such a nice person!

You almost want to cry.

What incredible luck! I've been here for two days, and although things didn't go smoothly at first, I've always encountered kind and helpful people who offer their assistance.

You type furiously, trying to express your gratitude and suggest that you could buy her some other small gifts, wanting to translate all of this for her to see.

She smiled and looked at you for a while, then tilted her head to look curiously at your phone, waiting for you to finish typing.

However, before you could finish typing these words, in fact, only a few dozen seconds had passed, a sound of footsteps suddenly rang out.

A group of supermarket employees rushed over, pushing a huge jar. Their cold gazes only lingered on you for a moment before you got goosebumps all over.

But their ultimate target was the girl who was still carrying potatoes.

They said something, and the girl retorted loudly. She turned to run away, but was pinned down by a tall, burly shop assistant who pounced on her.

The girl pleads with you for help in terror. You know she has three more chances, but you really can't just let the person who was helping you a moment ago be dragged away and killed.

Never mind, you grit your teeth, rush up and grab the clothes of those shop assistants, using all your strength to pull them apart.

Damn it, what did they eat to grow up like that? You may be a corporate slave, but you're not weak. You still lift weights and do boxing exercises every week. In reality, you're stronger than many people, but you can't move these shop assistants even a little bit.

They didn't stop you, they just looked at you with confusion, as if they didn't understand what you were doing here, muttered a few words to themselves, and then ignored you.

The girl's screams grew increasingly shrill, and those with numbers above their heads kept their distance. Locals would come over to take a look from afar, but they didn't seem very interested and quickly chatted away, just like any other passerby in real life who was indifferent to the situation.

You're so speechless you almost laugh. How can everything here feel so "real" and human at a time like this?

Right now, you're really exhausted. The shop assistant you were grabbing and hitting sensed your weakening strength and shoved you aside. Another shop assistant quickly stepped forward, opened the strange, huge jar on the cart, and pressed the lid down on the girl's head.

A sour smell wafted over, and it turned out to be a large jar of pickled cabbage from Germany.

The moment she put this thing on, the girl stopped struggling and let them grab her and stuff her into the jar.

You wanted to do something more, but you saw that the girl's fluffy curly hair had become wet and stuck to her scalp, and the changes continued.

Her whole body was becoming damp and sticky.

She was pickled like sauerkraut.

You felt nauseous and practically scrambled to escape, finding a corner to curl up in and trying to shake off the shadow this scene had cast on your mind.

The broadcast started at just the right time. You missed the first broadcast, but by the second time you had already turned on the translator to hear what it was saying.

Please note that taking items from locations that do not belong to them is considered theft.

Does this mean that the girl took goods that someone else had hidden there, was considered to have stolen them, and was therefore punished?

That's absurd. Why can others hide things, but they can't take them?

etc.

What if the potatoes were hidden by supermarket employees? They are the rule-makers, so of course, they can't allow anything they hide to be taken away without permission.

Why do this?

In the supermarket, they may be the rules, but it seems that everyone here, whether a newcomer or a local, must abide by the general rules.

A note from the author:

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Two years ago, during the war, I actually found some sunflower seed oil that someone had hidden away.