Why the Moral High Ground?

"Let's go in and take a look?"

The two spoke in unison, then silently shed their gear and started searching for an entrance. In a way, their temperaments were strikingly alike—even their approach matched perfectly.

Song Weishi pondered. She'd never broken into a large supermarket before, but figured it'd be like the shuttered convenience stores—locked up tight. Standalone supermarkets usually had a loading dock; a closed front door didn't mean the back was sealed too.

She silently prayed the supermarket would be exactly what she hoped.

They dug through the snow piled at the entrance. The supermarket sat on the second floor, above a row of milk tea shops.

The entire mall was nearly buried under snow. They slipped easily through a nearby skewer shop—a late-night snack joint. The freezer holding its wares was covered with just a protective sheet, as if closing up for the night.

The skewers were neatly arranged, the stock fully replenished. Song Weishi didn't pass up these frozen delicacies. She flipped off the lid and swept them all into her storage—honestly, her favorite part of arriving somewhere new was the zero-cost haul.

Chicken tenders, potato slices, baby bok choy—she turned down nothing in the fried goods line. Spotting the mall carts, Song Weishi had Xie Yi grab one while she took another.

She also slipped two more into her space.

She'd told Xie Yi her storage couldn't hold much, so she'd better carry some herself—that way they'd both have supplies on the road. She was preparing for her own departure.

The other woman nodded without a hint of suspicion. Clearly, she trusted Song Weishi completely.

Song Weishi loaded food into the cart alongside daily necessities, even tossing in some charcoal. She had plenty—her original cubic meter of space had been mostly fuel.

Xie Yi traveled far faster alone and burned barely any charcoal. She was practically a furnace, enduring the cold so well Song Weishi wondered if she had some kind of ability.

But that was her secret, and Song Weishi figured the less she pried, the longer she'd live.

They reaped rewards all the way down the row. There were undergarment shops here too—a necessity for both of them going forward. Xie Yi grabbed a few; Song Weishi swept the rest into her space, though she was careful to wait until Xie Yi moved ahead.

Most of these shops had been picked over. Someone else had gotten here first.

The first floor had few shops, so their haul was modest. They headed up to the supermarket.

The escalator had stopped. Song Weishi switched on her flashlight and cast the beam upward.

The supermarket entrance was a wreck—a mess of unsettled mud footprints and trampled snow refrozen into lumps.

The door stood half open, scattered goods spilling out, everything chaotic. It looked just as ransacked as the floor below.

They exchanged a glance and stepped inside. The shelves themselves were still intact, but the merchandise was disheveled, much of it gone.

Song Weishi suspected the staff had done it—outsiders wouldn't have keys to get in.

There was still plenty of stock. Song Weishi made straight for the daily necessities, sweeping sanitary pads and tissue from the shelves into her space. Water got no less attention. She skipped the air-filled snacks, but grabbed staple foods and cookware.

Her hoarding priority was canned goods and instant food; staples alone would feed her for ages.

With her space, emptying the whole supermarket felt more than possible. She cleaned out all the essential food, vegetables, batteries, and tools before moving on to snacks.

The frozen goods in the coolers weren't spared either. Xie Yi couldn't load up as easily as she could, but she hauled several crates to sweep through the shelves, her strength astonishing. A long train of baskets trailed behind her.

Song Weishi envied her physique. Without her space, she'd never own this much—just staring at it all would drive her crazy with longing. As she mulled this over, she grabbed two packs of river snail rice noodles and thought how convenient they'd be on a snowy day, the scent dissipating fast.

Following in Xie Yi's wake, she stripped the shelves bare, her space stuffed to bursting with all manner of odds and ends.

More good stuff never hurt. Then Song Weishi's gaze landed on the staff passage.

The supermarket's warehouse was locked tight; neither of them could get in. They groped through the dim staff corridor by flashlight until they found one open area: an online-order fulfillment station. Another batch of vegetables went into her space before she finally stepped back out.

The only things left were the frozen aquatic goods encased in ice. There was basically nothing else in this supermarket she could claim.

Xie Yi had done well for herself too. The two agreed unanimously to head downstairs and rest in this little mall.

Anywhere else wouldn't be much better. There was the risk of others showing up here, but it was still safer than the residential blocks nearby.

The fire exit led down to the parking lot—a decent spot to bunker down.

Xie Yi hauled her crates effortlessly. They had just emerged from the staff passage when voices drifted in. Song Weishi tensed instantly.

She killed her flashlight.

A man's voice rang out the next second: "The hell? Didn't we say this place was cleared out? Why's it stripped bare!"

"What? It's all gone?"

A rustling rummage followed, then an enraged shout: "You're lying to us! The whole neighborhood followed you bastards out here, said the supermarket was open with supplies—where is it?! Where's the stuff! You cleaned it all out yourselves, didn't you!"

Then a chaotic chorus of voices, male and female.

"You bastards, didn't you say you had the key to the supermarket?! You came and emptied it first, not wanting to share a single bite with us!"

"Are you even human? We took care of you! If our neighborhood hadn't opened its gates, you'd have frozen to death out there! Don't think I don't know the security guard slipped you in the back—you tried to rob our place too! We gave you a chance to redeem yourselves, and this is how you repay us? Shameless!"

Song Weishi's lips twitched. They'd walked straight into the main party. So this was what it meant to stick with the protagonist—opportunities came hand in hand with trouble, misfortune and luck always in tandem.

The two guides outside stammered defensively: "Impossible! There was stuff in there—we only took a little bit, most of it's still inside!"

When they'd arrived, the supermarket had indeed still held plenty. But the leftovers after their own scavenging were far fewer than usual.

Eighty percent of it sat in those two's hands. The mob outside wouldn't have been this furious if they'd seen food still on the shelves. Song Weishi and Xie Yi had swooped in first, and there was no making that right.

"Ow, stop hitting us! We came and went—at most half an hour in total. The stuff was definitely inside! If someone took it, it was people from your own neighborhood!"

At that, everyone fell silent. Then the sound of footsteps grew louder, drawing closer.

Song Weishi stared blankly at Xie Yi. The girl was already braced on her hands, practically itching for a fight.

Everything in those crates was earned fair and square. First come, first served didn't make it theirs.

Before Song Weishi could find a place to duck, the door in front of her was yanked open. A crowd brandishing torches stood face-to-face with her, all eyes locked in a deadlock.

Before she could ask who on earth they were, the leader spotted the trail of supplies behind Xie Yi, pointed a shaking finger, and shrieked: "It's her! Look at all that stuff behind her—they're the thieves!"

Song Weishi silently produced her knife and gave it a glint. The people opposite instinctively shut their mouths, the leader quietly slipping behind the greed-eyed masses.

"Hand over your stuff, and we'll let you walk. Otherwise, don't blame us for hitting women."

"Yeah, yeah! What you're doing is wrong! Listen to your auntie here—don't take so much. Strip it all bare, and what's left for everyone else? You can't be that selfish."

Song Weishi almost thought she'd misheard. Weren't these people just demanding Xie Yi hand everything over? Now they were climbing the moral high ground to lecture her?

What here was theirs anyway? They were all out looting for free. Why were they acting so virtuous?

The neighborhood residents' eyes gleamed with greed, practically glued to the baskets behind Xie Yi.

Song Weishi flashed her flashlight, dazzling them. These people were dressed in mismatched scraps, none of them clean, and every single one had dark red stains caked on their shoes.

What could possibly make all their shoes look so uniformly grisly?

Murder, she thought—her own shoes had that same unscrubbable bloodstain layer.

Except she'd killed in self-defense. What these people were after was plain as day.

"Why bother arguing with them? Just snatch it—it's ours then, isn't it?"

Before the words faded, Song Weishi drove her knife clean through the speaker's throat: "You're right. Why waste breath?"

People who rob neighborhoods and then supermarkets can't be anything good. What mercy did they think they'd get?

Song Weishi drew a deep breath. She wasn't letting anyone walk away.