The sun was barely up when Eli rolled out of bed, the familiar creak of his old apartment floor grounding him more than any alarm. The air was cool and dry, carrying the faint smell of instant coffee from the hallway. Outside, traffic was light, and Briggon hadn't yet woken to the war quietly unfolding in its streets.
Eli brushed his teeth in silence, pulled on a hoodie, and made two mugs of tea, one herbal, one sugary. As he stirred the second, he glanced over to the small breakfast table where Jin sat, hunched over his bowl of oats and scribbling last-minute homework.
"You slept late," Eli said.
Jin muttered without looking up, "Was finishing the clouds."
Eli smiled. He knew Jin meant the mural, the top half now shimmered with pastel skies and golden warmth.
"You proud of it?"
Jin paused. "I didn't think people would care that much," he said. "But Uncle Gen took a picture of it yesterday. Told me he sent it to his niece overseas."
Eli passed him the tea. "You made something that speaks louder than rumors. That's worth more than a full shelf of Happy Moo Milk."
Jin rolled his eyes but grinned.
They ate the rest of breakfast in companionable quiet. Then Jin pulled on his backpack.
"Big test today," he said.
"You'll crush it," Eli replied. "And if not, we'll blame the math gods and eat fried chicken."
Jin snorted and headed for the door, but stopped halfway. "You going in early?"
Eli nodded. "Need to talk to Mr. Duan. Some new shipment issues. And… something else."
Jin tilted his head. "The fake campaign?"
Eli's expression sharpened just slightly. "Yeah. I've got names, footage, and I know who funded it. We're not staying quiet."
Jin hesitated, then said, "Don't forget to breathe."
Then he slipped out the door with that same quiet confidence he'd grown into since Block Day. Eli stood there for a moment longer, then exhaled, turned toward his system terminal, and tapped the screen.
The system's metallic voice echoed in his head, crisp and emotionless:
"Congratulations. +10,000 yuan."
Eli stared at the number now glowing softly in the corner of his interface: 190,000 Yuan. It should've felt like freedom, a step closer to long-term stability. Instead, it made his chest tighten.
More money. More problems. More strings.
He sighed and closed the interface with a flick of his thumb. The glow vanished.
Pulling on his faded black hoodie, and a pair of plain trousers, Eli grabbed his keys, stepped into the hallway, and locked up behind him.
The stairwell buzzed faintly with fluorescent light. He jogged down the last steps, crossed the cracked concrete lot behind his building, and mounted his old electric scooter. It coughed to life with a sputtering hum.
As he slid his helmet on, and turned on his scooter
Then he accelerated out of the lot and merged into the narrow Briggon traffic lane.
The morning air was brisk, scented with breakfast oil and incense from the local temple. Kids in uniforms waited at bus stops, grandparents swept storefronts, and neon banners for SuperMartX fluttered too brightly against the overcast sky.
On his way, he passed billboards at 4th and Fifth, the one now plastered with a grinning family and the words:
"Your New Neighborhood Starts Here: SuperMartX, Trusted by Briggon."
Eli's jaw tensed.
By the time he reached The Corner Pocket, the sky was fully awake, but the store felt like it hadn't slept at all.
Mr. Duan was outside adjusting the front display, trying to hide the half-empty crates with a smile for the first customer. Jin's mural shimmered nearby, bright and unbothered by the cold corporate shadow stretching across the street.
Eli parked and stepped off his scooter, glancing at the mural once before heading inside.
"Morning," he called softly.
Mr. Duan gave him a tired nod. "Morning. We lost two egg crates overnight. Spoiled. Power cut again around 3 AM."
Eli didn't flinch. "I know."
Eli then went into the store to work.
At The Corner Pocket, Eli stood behind the register, barely listening as a customer handed over exact change. What caught his attention wasn't the coins it was the colorful flyer she accidentally left behind on the counter.
"Local Mart for Local People" it read in bold, cheerful type.On the back: smiling faces, a QR code, and a message: "Protect Briggon's spirit. Say no to shadow investors."
Eli frowned. He'd seen this slogan pasted on lampposts, stuck to bus stop glass, and now—here. The design was too clean, the language too rehearsed. It didn't smell like real grassroots. It smelled like something bought.
He took the flyer to the break room and scanned the QR code.
The site it led to was filled with blog posts about "The Corner Pocket losing its way." Anonymous stories accusing Mr. Duan of selling out. There were photo comparisons of sleek SuperMartX aisles beside blurry snapshots of The Corner Pocket's produce section, edited to look grimmer and sadder than reality.
The usernames were almost laughable: TrueBriggonVoice, ShopperMamaZhao, EverydayHan.No comment history. No friends. It felt like it was created artificially.
Later that evening, Eli sat at his desk, phone in one hand, fingers flying across his laptop with the other. He called a favor from an old school friend, now working in IT security who helped him peek behind the blog's hosting info.
There it was.
SMX Digital Holdings Ltd.A corporate subdomain used by… SuperMartX.
Eli leaned back. "You bastards," he whispered.
Across the store, Jin stood in front of the half-finished mural, brush limp in his hand.
The wall stretched wide and promising, but Jin felt stuck. He had dreamed of painting something bold, a dragon twined around market stalls, lanterns swaying from its tail but now? Rumors whispered in every aisle. Even a customer earlier that day had said:
"It's a shame this place is going under. I hear they're selling."
What was the point of painting something beautiful on a wall that might get bulldozed?
He sighed and turned to leave, until he saw the folded paper in his locker.Crayons. A child's sketch. The Corner Pocket with stick figures outside.Big red letters: "Please don't let it go away."
The next morning, Eli stood at a rented community center, attending a so-called "town hall" hosted by Local Mart for Local People.
He listened as "concerned residents" read statements—flawlessly worded, all strangely vague.
"We just want local stores to reflect local values," one woman said.
But when she mispronounced Briggon, Eli knew.
He stepped outside during a break and heard a man on the phone:
"Yeah, the gig's easy. Just nod and read the script. They said we get a bonus if we stir things up enough for a petition."
Eli hit record on his phone. Proof.
Back at the store, Jin worked from sunrise to sunset.
The dragon came alive first, blue-green scales arcing across the bricks, eyes calm but fierce. It coiled around a vibrant market: baskets of vegetables, glowing paper lanterns, children laughing beneath a cotton candy sky.
Above, tiny constellations dotted the mural, rice, tofu, eggs, a milk bottle with wings.
The wall sang.
By evening, a small crowd had gathered. Neighbors stared, smiling. One woman wiped her eyes. Mr. Duan stood beside Eli, speechless.
"They wanted to erase us," he finally said. "But this… this is carved into memory."
The back office of The Corner Pocket was dim, the blinds half-drawn to shield against the glare of the morning sun. The humming of the old ceiling fan was the only sound for a long minute as Eli and Mr. Duan sat across from each other, surrounded by paper trails and supplier records.
Mr. Duan rubbed the bridge of his nose, his reading glasses perched lopsided on his face.
"Milk. Rice. Instant noodles. Eggs. Detergent. Cooking oil. That's five of our top ten daily turnover items," he muttered, tapping the list with a shaking finger. "All cut off. Red Bowl, Baiyun Farms, Henxhi Oils, they all dropped us within the last five days."
"They didn't even offer to negotiate," Eli added, scrolling through the final refusal messages on his tablet. "They just stopped replying, or gave some excuse about 'restructuring.'"
Mr. Duan sighed. "We both know who's behind it. They're cornering the market. One vendor jumps, the rest get scared they'll lose shelf space at SuperMartX."
Eli looked at the screen. A blinking quote from the new emergency supplier, Yuantai Wholesale, based two districts over in Tenstone.
Delivery Window: 3 Days
Service Fee: 18%
Advance Deposit: 30,000 yuan
It was nearly double what they used to pay for the same goods. And Yuantai had no presence in Briggon, meaning longer wait times, less reliability, and zero community loyalty.
Mr. Duan leaned back and gave a hollow laugh. "We're about to sell local food from a warehouse two districts away. 'Local Mart for Local People,' right?"
Eli didn't laugh. His expression was grim, resolved.
"I'll cover it," he said, tapping the "confirm" button before Mr. Duan could argue.
Mr. Duan sat up sharply. "Eli, no. That's thirty thousand. We don't even know if we'll make that back this quarter."
"I know," Eli replied. "But if we don't stock those shelves now, we don't make it to the quarter."
A notification flickered in his system interface as the payment went through:
- 30,000 yuan
Investment stake in The Corner Pocket updated: 35%
For a moment, silence.
Then Mr. Duan looked at him, a strange mixture of pride, guilt, and something almost paternal.
"You didn't sign up for this," he said quietly. "Not this deep."
Eli stared down at the invoice.
"I didn't sign up for Jin either," he said. "But here we are. Some things are worth showing up for even if they weren't in the plan."
Outside the back window, a delivery truck rumbled by, its side painted with SuperMartX's branding.
Mr. Duan followed its movement with his eyes. "They're going to squeeze until we crack."
Eli shook his head. "Then we learn how to bend."
Eli was feeling the weight of the responsibility and could not help but sigh.