Doomsday Wonderland

Lin Sanjiu crouched on the ground looking at the girl who was standing not far from her. She crooked her head. In her fuzzy mind, the apocalyptic event in her world and her experience in Red Nautilus, one of the Twelve Worlds, were all just distant memories. There were a million thoughts in her head but she couldn’t even properly process a single one. She could only stand helplessly as the thoughts raced meaningless around her mind before fading into emptiness.

Lin Sanjiu could only attribute the cause of her disorganized thoughts to one thing. Everyone was just too bloody noisy.

“Shut up! All of you!” Lin Sanjiu waved her arm as she shouted at the dozen of familiar and unfamiliar faces behind her. “Don’t speak all at the same time. Can’t you see? She’s trying to talk to me.”

The short-haired woman was already very close to her but when Lin Sanjiu suddenly swung her arm, she stopped. She observed Lin Sanjiu from head to toe for a while. After confirming her suspicion that Lin Sanjiu was still mentally unsound, a smile crept across her face.

“Sis…”

“Didn’t I tell you to shut up!” Lin Sanjiu shouted back frustratedly. She couldn’t help scratching her hair. She looked up at the girl and continued, “Go ahead.”

The girl looked different from before. Her chin seemed slightly sharper. To be honest, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t even remember what she looked like originally. However, no matter how her looks changed, Lin Sanjiu just seemed to know that she was still the same girl.

But, who was she exactly?

“Can’t you remember me?” the girl seemed to have noticed Lin Sanjiu was perplexed over her identity. “You’ve seen me at the Garden of Eden.”

Lin Sanjiu heard shrieking laughter coming from a distance. Shortly after, she heard Ji Shanqing yelling.

A gust of wind brushed her face and she suddenly looked up and shouted neurotically, “My grand prize?!”

The moment she looked up, she suddenly forgot what she wanted to say. She frowned and couldn’t understand why she would suddenly shout for a “grand prize”. Meanwhile, she suddenly remembered something. Recognizing the girl, she turned to the girl and acknowledged her with a nod, “That’s right, you’re Li Tao.”

“You finally remember me,” Li Tao gave her a sweet smile. She pointed behind Lin Sanjiu and added, “Look, I brought Nüwa with me.”

Bewildered, Lin Sanjiu turned around. A black shadow flew above her at the same time and landed in the opposite direction.

“Get away from me!” Ji Shanqing yelled as he breathed laboriously. He crouched down and grabbed a brick from the ground. However, whatever happened, in reality, seemed to be filtered through Lin Sanjiu’s retinas. Lin Sanjiu continued crouching on the ground as she stared squarely at the person behind her.

Nüwa’s face was hidden in the shadows. Moonlight poured through the french windows of the black tower and Nüwa’s folded arms. When Lin Sanjiu turned back to Li Tao again, the girl had already vanished. Outside the window, the city of Garden of Eden was in a state of carnage. Thick smoke rose from the city.

“When did I return?” Whenever Lin Sanjiu tried to focus on a thought, her head hurt. She couldn’t help massaging her forehead before she mumbled, “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I just want to see you.” Even though Lin Sanjiu couldn’t see Nüwa’s face, her voice sounded exactly like in her memory.

“Do your legs hurt?” Nüwa asked coldly.

“My legs?”

Lin Sanjiu gave that question a serious thought. “I don’t think they hurt.”

The figure under the moonlight nodded. The outline of her figure faded into the shadows. An old-fashioned parterre suddenly appeared in the middle of the top floor of the black tower. The moonlight cast a silvery outline around Nüwa’s arm. Her voice slowly drifted into Lin Sanjiu’s ears, “You know where I am, right?”

Lin Sanjiu nodded. She heard a disturbing clamor behind her. That noise was so loud that she felt that she was going deaf. It was almost as if the noise was right inside her mind. She couldn’t help but cover her ear and she moaned softly.

“Will you look for me or will you stay here?”

“Will you look for me or will you stay here?”

“Will you look for me or will you stay here?”

While the few dozen people stared at her silently, Nüwa’s question repeated over and over again in Lin Sanjiu’s head, assaulting her mind. For a moment, Lin Sanjiu could only hear that single question. She couldn’t explain why she suddenly started panicking. “I’m not leaving!” she roared back at Nüwa’s angrily.

Her vision blurred for a second and Nüwa’s outline suddenly faded. She suddenly saw a slightly familiar face in front of her. The short-haired woman’s face was just inches away from her. Lin Sanjiu could even see the freckles on the woman’s skin. The pungent and fishy stench the woman exuded also gushed into her nostrils.

“Don’t worry, you can’t go anywhere now,” the short-haired woman grinned widely, showing her blood-stained teeth. Once again, there was blood between her teeth. “If it weren’t for your companion, I would let you live a few more days. I would let you gain a few more pounds…”

Following her gaze, Lin Sanjiu turned and saw a motionless person lying on the ground. After Ji Shanqing lost all his strength and his consciousness, both his hands lay limply on top of his chest. It was as if he was using his last bit of strength to hold on to the pieces of torn fabric near his chest.

Compared to the dozen of faces behind her, she had a vague inkling that she had only known the person lying on the ground for a short time. While she was partially puzzled by the situation, she also felt her anger boiling. She couldn’t explain her fury but her amber eyes gradually turned red. She glared at the short-haired woman in front of her.

Her legs did not hurt.

A glint of silver light flashed in the darkness before her. It headed directly toward Lin Sanjiu’s chest. A twisted smile danced across the short-haired woman’s face while she screamed, “I love eating organs the most!” Leaning forward, she lunged at Lin Sanjiu.

Nüwa and Li Tao watched the events that unfolded like the audience of a soccer match.

Lin Sanjiu couldn’t even comprehend how she could react so quickly. She twisted her body to one side and evaded the knife. It was as if all her muscles had woken up from a deep slumber. A jolt of energy shot through her whole body. Lin Sanjiu felt as if another her was controlling her body. The short-haired woman stumbled forward after missing her attack. While her body was slumped forward, Lin Sanjiu delivered a powerful kick to that woman’s shin.

The woman cried out in pain and fell to the ground. Then, Lin Sanjiu stopped. She looked at the woman beneath her with confusion. Suddenly, she remembered that Zhu Mei was alone at home. She wondered if her air-conditioning unit was damaged… Just when Lin Sanjiu was about to walk away, Nüwa’s shadowy figure suddenly stepped forward and looked at the floor in front of Lin Sanjiu.

“If you won’t look for me, you better think carefully,” her lukewarm voice caressed Lin Sanjiu’s ears like a hand. “I’ve already told you the truth about this world.”

“Damn it. She’s fucking crazy but why are her reflexes so quick?”

The short-haired woman spat on the floor. There was blood in her saliva. Lin Sanjiu stared vacantly at the strands of black blood in her spittle. A strange thought suddenly surfaced in her mind. “Vitamin deficiency caused by the consumption of a single type of meat.”

“Don’t worry, after I skin you, I promised I will let every single passerby try your flesh…” The short-haired woman wrenched her face into a threatening humorless smile. She lowered her body and laid her limbs flat on the ground just like a large gecko or spider. She turned her neck upward.

Lin Sanjiu stared at her blankly as if that didn’t bother her one bit and as if she didn’t see that woman at all.

“I know,” she nodded to the empty space beside her with a serious expression. “You did mention to me that a person potential growth value was a sort ofmental strength. ¹

“A lunatic is a lunatic,” the short-haired chuckled coldly. Her limbs shifted. She did not move forward but instead created some distance between herself and Lin Sanjiu before charging…

When Ji Shanqing slowly opened his heavy eyelids, he saw a large black shadow within his blurry vision. Shortly after, he heard a loud thud. The ground shook a little. He quickly lay supine on the ground and pressed both his hands against the lapel on his chest. After half a second, he turned his head.

The short-haired woman’s four limbs seemed to be dislocated. She gasped as she slowly climbed up again. After struggling, waving her limbs in the air like an insect, she finally stood up again with some effort.

This time, the blood pouring from her mouth wasn’t just from her bleeding gums. Gasping for air, the short-haired woman did not even look once at Ji Shanqing who was lying on the ground. Instead, she stared in the opposite direction with fury and fear in her eyes.

Following her gaze, Ji Shanqing saw Lin Sanjiu’s tall figure right in the middle of his clouded vision. Once again, he felt a mixture of happiness and disappointment. He moved his lips a little but he prudently decided to keep quiet. However, as Lin Sanjiu stepped closer and closer to him, his eyes brightened.

“In essence, a potential growth value is a sort of mental strength.” Lin Sanjiu lowered her head and said to him when she came close. After that, she stepped over her grand prize expressionlessly.

The smile on Ji Shanqing’s face froze.

“In essence, a potential growth value is a sort of mental strength.” Lin Sanjiu repeated that statement once again. The short-haired woman was not far from her now.

Ji Shanqing tried to press down his clothes as he sat up. He stared at Lin Sanjiu’s back. The phrase she mumbled suddenly struck him like a tsunami.

“That is also the reason why posthumans who had lost their sanity can’t use their evolved ability!”

As a posthuman’s evolved ability was dependent on their potential growth value, if the value disappeared for some reason, they naturally couldn’t use any of their abilities.

However…

Ji Shanqing looked at Lin Sanjiu, confused.

Lin Sanjiu stared at the short-haired woman, who was charging at her with fingers in a claw-like position. With an oddly calm voice, Lin Sanjiu declared, “I really, really hate you.”

Before the woman’s vein-covered hand could touch Lin Sanjiu, the latter already grabbed on to the former’s arm tightly. As Lin Sanjiu’s hand tightened around the short-haired woman’s arm, shock and horror filled her eyes. With a stoic expression, Lin Sanjiu’s twisted that woman’s arm.

Even though Ji Shanqing was lying more than ten meters away, he could hear a spine-chilling crack the moment Lin Sanjiu broke the woman’s shoulder joint with a twist.

The woman shrieked in pain. Her arm was now dangling from her shoulder. A layer of dense perspiration appeared on her forehead. When she looked at Lin Sanjiu again, her attitude was visibly different. It was obvious that she could not understand how the lunatic in front of her could fight so well…

Ji Shanqing did not expect that either. The short-haired woman suddenly turned and ran away. Lin Sanjiu watched quietly as the woman’s figure gradually grew smaller. Finally, the woman disappeared behind a residential building but Lin Sanjiu remained motionless.

Nüwa had disappeared even before Lin Sanjiu noticed. Li Tao flashed a smile at Lin Sanjiu before she disappeared into the crowd. The crowd had grown bigger but at least they were quiet now. They had stopped clouding her mind with their various voices…

Lin Sanjiu looked down at her boots. She had a slight impression that she had just jumped down from the third floor.

“Sis! Sis!”

Lin Sanjiu suddenly heard a rather familiar voice. The person must have been calling her for some time. Lin Sanjiu turned her head slowly.

“Sis, take this kitchen knife. Go to that car and cut a few safety belts down for me,” Ji Shanqing panted as he smiled at her either because of his excitement or his exhaustion, “Do you understand what I say? I need to tie up my clothes now.”

“Yes,” Lin Sanjiu gave a one-word reply. She immediately took the kitchen knife. Her mouth moved rapidly. “You clothes must not be damaged. Your clothes must not be damaged…”

As he watched her walking toward the car, Ji Shanqing finally lowered his head. He couldn’t help heaving a deep sigh. All the food which had been exposed in this environment develop psychosis. Once a posthuman lost his or her sanity, his or her abilities would be fundamentally nullified.

“Does this mean that there would be no chance of developing ‘Anti-psychosis Adaptation’? Since all the posthumans who arrive in this world would lose their potential growth value, how could they evolve?”

However, Lin Sanjiu was a growth-type.

When Ji Shanqing saw his owner holding a few safety belts from the car, he fell to the ground and started laughing.

Every second they spent in “Meat Elysium” meant that Lin Sanjiu would gain a little potential growth value. Ji Shanqing wasn’t sure how long this slight bit of potential growth value would last. Would they disappear as her psychosis progressed? In any case, as long as Lin Sanjiu had that bit of potential growth value, there was a chance of her developing an ability to counter those crypt particles.

If… they could survive.