Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - chapter 107

Outside the car window, broad streets stretched out between rows of towering buildings.

The traffic was packed, people queued to cross at the intersection… At first glance, everything looked normal. What wasn’t normal was what you noticed when you looked closer-the pedestrians, like NPCs glitching out of a system.

These “people” moved with a stiff, unnatural gait. Some placed every step with machine-like precision. Some walked with the same arm and leg moving together. And some-mid-stride-would suddenly drop to all fours and start crawling right there on the road.

Gu Huaiwei’s scalp prickled. She remembered He Jiarui’s requirement: the other half she wanted to find had to be a Pseudo-Human, and the higher the Disguise Level, the better.

The ones twisting their limbs and crawling on all fours… those were probably low Disguise Level, right?

Lin She seemed used to everything outside. Hearing Gu Huaiwei call him, he glanced over coolly and, expressionless, began noting down the Pseudo-Humans’ traits.

His notebook document was already filled up an entire page.

“Most of the ones walking on the street are Pseudo-Humans. A small number of humans appear. Humans wear a black shackle around their necks-you can tell at a glance.”

Gu Huaiwei pressed her lips together. She didn’t even know how to judge these Pseudo-Humans. Forget dating-if you ran into a few of them in daily life and watched them warp and distort every now and then, you’d start doubting whether the world itself was real.

“It’s hard to imagine He Jiarui trying to find someone to date in a crowd of these weird things.” Gu Huaiwei felt a pang of sympathy for the people living in this world. “Why doesn’t she just find a human?”

“A Pseudo-Human probably has something she needs as a human.”

Gu Huaiwei nodded. “That makes sense.”

After all, since ancient times, profit had always been the one pursuit that never changed.

Gu Huaiwei’s car stopped at a traffic light and waited at the red.

A car beside hers pulled up and stopped in parallel.

The passenger-side window of the other car rolled down. A man rested his elbow halfway outside. He was a rough-looking middle-aged guy with honey-brown skin. After the cars stopped, he kept craning his neck to stare at Gu Huaiwei, his gaze blatantly invasive.

When Gu Huaiwei glared back, he actually whistled at her.

“The hell are you whistling for?” Gu Huaiwei snapped. “What, you’re so old you can’t piss anymore, so you need some background music to get you going?”

She flipped him off without hesitation.

Then, the instant the light turned green, she stomped the gas and shot forward.

Because she accelerated too fast, she didn’t see the man’s facial skin ripple and bulge-his eyeballs stretching out unnaturally like soft-bodied creatures before snapping back into their sockets.

“Be careful. These Pseudo-Humans can be aggressive. If you provoke them, it’ll cause trouble.” Lin She sensed the attention from those unknown beings. His pupils narrowed into vertical slits as his whole body went on alert.

The Pseudo-Humans along the entire street seemed to be secretly watching Gu Huaiwei.

“I’m not looking for a fight.” Gu Huaiwei had just arrived in a new world and still didn’t understand the rules. She had to rein herself in. “I just timed it right when the red ended and hit the gas like crazy.”

“Most of the ones that make you uncomfortable are low-level Pseudo-Humans.” Lin She turned his head. He didn’t joke-every sentence was weighed carefully. “We can make a move on a dark, windy night. That way, it won’t be easy to get discovered.”

Lin She had already recorded that man’s full physical characteristics. As soon as he returned to the Matchmaking Agency and connected to this world’s network, he could look up the man’s personal information.

Then it was just a matter of staking out the spot, waiting for the right moment… and swallowing him in one bite.

“You’re not allowed to think about killing people.”

Gu Huaiwei cut off his dangerous train of thought in time.

“Look at these modern buildings-this is a civilized society. There should be legal consequences for murder. We still have to keep our doors open and do business, so don’t go attracting the cops.”

Gu Huaiwei could feel the order that held this world together.
There were traffic lights here, and people actually followed the rules of the road.

There were no violent incidents on the streets.

All the shops were open as usual, and there were even promoters on the sidewalks.

Other than the fact that Pseudo-Humans existed, everything else looked just like a civilized, modern society.

She couldn’t carry over her habits from the last world into this one.

Lin She didn’t speak. He had his own thoughts.

If he made a move, no living person would see it.

“Where are we supposed to do market research?” Gu Huaiwei asked, one hand on the steering wheel as she drove, aimlessly drifting through the city streets. “We can’t exactly grab a random passerby and start interrogating them, can we?”

If she just snatched someone off the street to ask questions, she’d get treated like a lunatic.

She’d already passed several intersections and still hadn’t spotted anything unusual about the buildings.

“You’re human.”

“Yeah.” Gu Huaiwei kept her eyes on the road. “That’s a weird way to put it. Aren’t you?”

Lin She ignored her second question entirely and proposed, “You could date a Pseudo-Human in this world. While you’re seeing them, you’ll deepen your understanding of the species and get the intel you want.”

“….” Gu Huaiwei weighed how feasible that was, then came to a conclusion. “I don’t have any experience. You go do it.”

“….” Lin She went silent for a long time. “I don’t have any experience either.”

“….”

The atmosphere in the car turned unbearably awkward.

If he didn’t have any experience himself, why was he suggesting something like that?

Gu Huaiwei thought of He Xueyi. With how particular he was about his appearance and how good he was at socializing, he probably had plenty of experience.

She’d go back and talk it over with him.

“Oh, right.” A sudden idea popped into Gu Huaiwei’s head. She smiled. “We can go stroll around a mall first. Just by looking at what the stores sell, we can tell what kind of everyday necessities these Pseudo-Humans need.”

They could also pretend to shop and ask about what certain products were for.

Gu Huaiwei checked on purpose: the mall’s underground parking garage charged a fee, and parking illegally on the street would get you a ticket.

“Ugh, ugh, ugh-how am I supposed to get my hands on that Magnetic Value?” Gu Huaiwei grew more and more irritated as she hunted for a parking space. “A broke loser who can’t even afford parking should just stay home and stop coming out to shop.”

“This is for work,” Lin She said, sitting patiently in the passenger seat as he watched her circle the same street over and over.

He didn’t rush her.

He didn’t comfort her either.

He simply waited in silence.

After a long time, Gu Huaiwei finally found a free parking lot for humans.

Once she parked, she slammed the car door shut with a loud bang.

“Driving’s easy. Parking’s the hard part,” Gu Huaiwei muttered under her breath.

Lin She acted like he hadn’t heard a thing.

He provided absolutely zero emotional support.

The two of them walked to the mall.

The moment they stepped inside, Gu Huaiwei saw another side of this world.

The mall was divided into a human shopping area and an Alien shopping area.

The human shopping area was aboveground, and it looked about the same as the malls Gu Huaiwei used to visit in the Real World.

Gold jewelry, skincare, clothes, shoes and bags… everything was there. It was just that there weren’t many shoppers, so it felt a bit deserted.

The Alien shopping area, on the other hand, was underground.

All kinds of Skin Suits were sold down there. Aliens put on Skin Suits and went out into the world wearing different human faces.

From one of the employees, Gu Huaiwei learned that in this world, it was illegal for an Alien to walk around outside without a Skin Suit.

Mm… kind of like streaking down the street.

Colorful shackles-also known as Contract Rings.

The things He Jiarui wore on her neck and limbs were exactly those.