Doomsday Wonderland

The searching operation lasted for three days. By the afternoon on the fourth day, the location of the woman in the sportswear remained unclear. Nobody had come across her, so they couldn’t snatch her number tag.

The final day of the maturation stage was drawing near. They had merely six days left yet they barely had any furtherance in their plan. When everybody was sitting together, Lin Sanjiu could feel the dense tension in the air, and amongst them, cluster 4 had the most ants in their pant.

Therefore, to prevent cluster 4 from committing any dirty low-down tricks, cluster 5 had been gathering around, sitting in front of them to keep an eye on them.

“I can’t understand what that person can gain from this situation,” Number 46 sighed dejectedly. His eyebrows under his bang kissed each other in the center of his forehead, “We have pushed cluster 4 to the bottom of the rank yet the woman in sportswear has refused to show herself. I guess the traitor is not with cluster 4.”

“That means our target has been narrowed to cluster 2 and 3,”  Lin Sanjiu thought inwardly as she swept a glance at the two clusters.

Aside from Spring Bean and the girl with spectacles, the other two members of cluster 3 were a man with a menacing physical build but a soft heart and a youngster. Even though the youngster had ventured through two apocalyptic worlds, her appearance told Lin Sanjiu that she was not more than 16-years-old.

Cluster 2 was the largest cluster with seven members in total. Even until today, Lin Sanjiu still didn’t have all their names memorized. She only knew aside from the three people who acted as the diplomats to broker the alliance between them, the remaining four members consisted of a pair of fraternal twins, an elementary school teacher who seemed to have a habit of lecturing people, and a young girl who still maintained her heavy black eyeliner even though she was in a pocket dimension.

Truth to be told, neither of them gave off the vibe of a traitor to Lin Sanjiu.

Clap! Clap! 

Baldhead’s hand clapping cut into and snapped Lin Sanjiu out from her thoughts. Not only her, but everybody on the leaf focused their gaze on Baldhead.

“Guys, may I have your full attention please?” Baldhead waited until absolute silence had fallen. He patted his shiny scalp, talking with a clear voice, “Cluster 5 and I have come up with a new idea. I personally think that’s quite a good plan, but I need advice from you all. If it’s suitable, then we’ll execute it immediately.”

Lin Sanjiu peered at Number 46, only to see that the latter supported his chin with his hand while looking at Baldhead expressionlessly as if the idea was not his.

Baldhead had everything prepared for this meeting. In the area in front of them, a few crumbled papers were patched together, forming a sort of map. After everybody had gathered up, he took out a pencil from his backpack and handed it to Number 46. He asked, “Can you do me a favor, bro?

“… The idea is like this: we have started our search by splitting our members to hunt for that woman of cluster 1. Though we didn’t find her in the end, we did gain something else: we have fully explored the greenhouse fully, and our friend here, Number 46, will help us to sketch the map. After that, we’ll divide the map into a few zones, and we’ll resume our searching from one zone to the other.”

At the same time as Baldhead was giving the brief, Number 46 had begun to do his assigned task. Within the span of minutes, he already sketched out the aerial view of the greenhouse. Lin Sanjiu craned her neck and looked at the map, and to her surprise, the map drawn by Number 46 matched the map in her mind almost perfectly.

“When did he find out the landform?”

“For example, this piece is the first zone,” as Baldhead spoke, he traced a figure of a circle around the zone he was pointing to, “All of us will search the first zone since the area is quite large, but that isn’t the main thing. The main thing is that once we are done searching a region, we must demolish the region, completely.”

“D-demolish it completely?” Somebody parroted in awe.

“After you have searched the leaf, cut it off; after you searched a whole plant, chop the whole plant down,” Number 46 said without raising his head, his voice was thick with ice, “We have to make sure that every place and every corner we have passed through will be left with nothing but a bare land, so that she didn’t have a place to hide.”

“That’s right! Hey bro, you explained better than me. Anyway, just clear the whole zone, then we’ll go to the second zone. If we have reduced every zone to the ground, we’ll contour along the flower pot.”

“Will Harry allow us to do that?”

Hearing this, Number 46 threw a glance at Lin Sanjiu and turned to that her, “… Of course, she has done it before.”

Lin Sanjiu nodded at everybody. A scene suddenly floated in the members from cluster 4’s mind, and they winced at the debacle.

“What happens to the indigo flower, then?” The pony-tailed elementary school teacher asked.

“The flowers grow from the soil,” Baldhead answered, “… Chopping the plants down will not affect the growth of the flower in any possible way.”

Everybody nodded in relief at Baldhead’s explanation. Although the possession of indigo flower was no longer the primary thing since the alliance was formed, when those without the flower saw somebody bringing the flower into their discussion, they felt uneasy. Hence, they had made a pact: whenever it was time to gather, they would collect all the flowers on the other leaf below their assembly point.

The leaf was very near to their rendezvous point, so they would know if somebody tried to go near it. Looking from another angle, it also acted as a bait to lure the woman out from her hiding spot.

The map was born the moment they finished their meeting.

The map showed the full aerial view of greenhouse, partitioned into ten zones. With their current workforce, it was more than easy to raze the whole greenhouse to the ground before the tenth day arrived.

This time, Lin Sanjiu, who had not yet recovered from her injuries, Sunny, and the youngster from the cluster 3 were left behind. The bulge-eyed man was not part of the group anymore and the person who took his previous role was a man with whom Lin Sanjiu felt somewhat familiar.

Lin Sanjiu searched her memories for a while, and it rang the bell in her mind. She realized that man was the only one who managed to escape with his [retractive mobility gear] when she sliced the leaf.

Soon after four of them sat for a while, the sound of explosion burst forward from the other side of the greenhouse. An all-out onslaught ensued. A cluster of large, prolific plants trembled fiercely in the blazing flame, smoke, and explosion. The plants screamed a plaintive wail, fighting their deathly throes as they descend and were engulfed by the endless void below the greenhouse.

None of them had expected that the speed of clearing would be so fast.

If the current trend went on, the first zone would soon be cleared. Harry had been sighing and pleading after they had begun their demolishing project.

“Stop, please. I beg you all.”

His sorrowful voice sounded more like a celestial song in their ears, filling them with exhilaration to the gills. It didn’t stop the posthumans instead, working like an adrenaline shot, it boosted up their speed.

The faces of the four people at the assembly point were getting brighter as they wallowed in Harry’s sobs. Lin Sanjiu averted her gaze from the plants that keep falling in the distance, turning to the man from cluster 4 and smiled, “Seems like clearing two to three zones by today is not a problem.”

The man whose hairline seemed to be receding didn’t expect Lin Sanjiu to talk to him. He was so surprised that all he could manage to reply was a vowel, “ah?”

“Where did your group get the [retractive mobility gear] from?” Lin Sanjiu asked with gusto, “It’s pretty convenient and good to use, and you got so many on your hand.”

“Ah?” The man parroted, lost for words. He replied only after a few seconds, “Is Lee— Oh, the singlet guy gave it to us. I have no idea where he got these from.”

Lin Sanjiu nodded in acceptance. Then, sitting as stiff as a ramrod, she pointed to the control valve at her midriff and asked, “What is the use of this button? Mine seems not to be very responsive; can you show me how you do it?”

“Ah?” The man was stunned, again. He didn’t see this question coming. With a face full of abhorrence, he inched his body away from Lin Sanjiu and answered, his voice thick with disdain and anger, “I have given mine to another member of my cluster since they need it more than me. Don’t you have a few more? Take one out and figured it out yourself, then.”

Lin Sanjiu cast him a glance and didn’t make any remark at his insolence. She switched the [retractive mobility gear] to a new one.

“Can we see?” The girl asked, her eyes filled with curiosity. Both Sunny and her approached Lin Sanjiu crouched beside her and looked at the device pinning at Lin Sanjiu’s waist, “I have never seen this kind of gadget before, it’s really—”

A shadow loomed over them and cut off whatever Sunny was going to say next. As the familiar machine and wheel whirred to life in the air, Lin Sanjiu had already made her move. The moment the shadow dove down, Lin Sanjiu had shot up.

Lin Sanjiu had to confess that the reaction of the woman was ultra fast. Even though she was airborne, she still managed to twist her body to evade Lin Sanjiu’s ambush. However, Lin Sanjiu wasn’t somebody that could be easily dealt with. Before the woman fell to the ground, she stretched her hand and swiped at the [retractive mobility gear] of the woman. The rope snapped into two and the tracksuit woman fell beside the middle-aged man.

The middle-aged man was startled. He turned and ran. The woman followed after, trailed by Lin Sanjiu. Nobody could defeat Lin Sanjiu in terms of speed, even if she were injured. As expected, she was gaining fast on the woman, and as she touched the woman’s arm, something happened—

The woman’s newly grown right arm fell off again. However, the arm didn’t fall straight to the ground this time instead shot out straightly toward the young girl not far behind. The moment Lin Sanjiu had gripped the woman’s neck, the amputated arm rammed into the young girl, sending her reeling. The pile of number tags fell from her embrace during the collision, and they were all snatched by the amputated arm.

Everything happened within a few seconds, and Sunny still couldn’t come back to her senses. Due to the sudden shock, Lin Sanjiu had subconsciously exerted more force on her hand and accidentally slammed the woman onto the leaf surface. In the next second, Lin Sanjiu was flung to aside by an unknown force.

Then, Harry apathetic voice rang out, “… Ah, that’s an attack.”

Although Lin Sanjiu was stopped for merely a few seconds, it was enough for the woman to make her getaway. She jumped down from the leaf and soon disappeared into the thick foliage. Lin Sanjiu turned her head to see the amputated arm was gone into the ether as well.

“Fuck!” She cursed out loud. Her eyes spewed fire when she looked at the middle-aged man. And as she strode over to the man with an angry gait, the man yelled in a pleading voice, as if he knew he was going to meet with disaster, “Don’t hit me! We gave her that device far before we settled on our alliance!”

Lin Sanjiu didn’t expect the answer. She squinted her eyes in disbelief.

“It’s true! We planned to eliminate Lee at that time. It’s just that both of our indigo flowers were in his possession… He’d grown suspicious of us, so he kept both the flowers in his necklace and refused to let us see the flowers,” said the middle-aged man as sweat oozed from his forehead, “Then, we happened to come across the woman from cluster 1. She suggested trading her indigo flower for our mobility gear… So, we exchanged them.”

“That’s mean you guys knew her location all along?” Lin Sanjiu asked cooly.

“Of course not!” The middle-aged man refuted, eager to redeem himself, “We hoped to capture her more than anybody else, so we went to the place where we met her last time, but we couldn’t find her there, I swear.”

Lin Sanjiu needed to use all her strength to suppress herself from kicking the man in front of her to vent the anger in her heart. She let out a breath and went back to sit at her usual place.

The night fell, so the people all returned. The exhilarated expressions on their faces after clearing two zones were quelled by the news of the ambush of that tracksuit woman. All of their faces were red in fury.

“That’s the whole story,” Lin Sanjiu sighed as she explained, “We have checked; aside from cluster 3, the rest of us lost some number tags. Cluster 2 lost two, and cluster 4 and 5 lost one each.”

Since Number 45 could replenish her energy by consuming her human flesh stock, she was the most unfazed amongst those who had lost their number tags. However, it wasn’t the same case for Baldhead. He was incensed through the roof, and he demolished cluster 4 for roughly ten minutes before he was pulled aside by Sunny.

Although Lin Sanjiu had also gotten the woman’s number tag, she didn’t expect that the number tag was actually the woman’s number tag. If it weren’t for Number 46 who kept bugging her, she wouldn’t even ask for clarity from Harry.

But Harry’s answer did shock them, “The absorption rate per capita of cluster 1 is 0. They are last now.”

Lin Sanjiu blinked her eyes, unable to accept the truth. As the other people shouted in excitement, she looked over to Number 46.

The woman was gone for more than a half day and she should have put her own number tag back on by now. However, the absorption rate for cluster 1 had dropped to 0…

“Could it be this number tag really be hers?”