Doomsday Wonderland

Following behind the staff wearing the black jumpsuit, Lin Sanjiu slowly but steadily wedged herself through the crowd. As she traversed across the Mokugyo Encyclopedic Forum, she noticed something strange. There was a series of huge transparent tubes about a meter wide each stretching from the ceiling and hovering above the ground at waist height. From time to time, several posthumans crouched or stood with folded arms next to a transparent tube.

‘What are they doing over there?’

She soon got the answer to the question in her heart. Right after she turned around the corner and stepped into an antechamber, a transparent tube that was installed in the corner of the ceiling began to tremble vigorously as a strong gust of air began to form inside the tube.

“Make way! Make way!”

Suddenly, Lin Sanjiu heard somebody yelling from afar. Soon enough, a young woman appeared in her bathrobe at the end of Lin Sanjiu’s vision. She barged through the crowd so violently that many people cursed as she barrelled headlong towards the quivering tube.

As soon as she got near to the tube, a jet of stream gushed out from the tube along with a two-year-old kid. The young mother quickly grabbed hold of the kid and pulled him closer to her shoulder. She patted his back as she comforted him, “Don’t worry, honey. This will be the last time.”

As the young mother patted the kid’s back, she moved towards the back of the crowd and slowly vanished from Lin Sanjiu’s sight.

Lin Sanjiu stared slack-jawed at the transparent tube for two seconds before realizing that the staff had already gone quite far away, so she made a few quick steps to catch up with him. After walking for a while, she saw somebody receive a loaf of bread, a pack of condoms, and a huge chunk of gum from the tube. Apparently, after you struck a bargain, you could wait beside the tube to receive your parcel.

When they were at level B2, the transparent tubes had all disappeared and were replaced by what seemed to be row upon row of cubicles, each of which was connected to a separate pipe for transferring items. If level B1 of the Mokugyo Encyclopedic Forum looked more like an amusement arcade or an underground market, then level B2 was starting to look more like an information trading center.

“You can pick either one.” The staff stopped and said dejectedly, “One cubicle is 50 Rondes per hour.”

There was no cloud of smoke in the air, and the light on level B2 was much brighter. It was only now that Lin Sanjiu realized he had a tiny line of words emblazoned on the chest area of his shirt: Happy is at your service.

‘His name is Happy? What an irony.’

“Can I pay with red crystals?” Lin Sanjiu had no idea how she should respond to the name. She forcibly peeled her eyes away from the man to examine the personal operating pod.

The pod was as wide as a single bed. Without the tube conveyor that was connected to the end of the pod, it looked just like an oval metal cocoon. In the distance, there was an occasional light rap on the metal cocoon as the staff passed the drink on the tray to the person inside, their conversation too low to be heard. The thin ceiling overhead did little to stop the cacophony and footsteps from spreading into level B2, giving Lin Sanjiu a slight insight into what was happening upstairs.

“Yes, sure. Including the 10% exchange fee and 25 medium crystals for the operational instruction fee, this brings you to 50 medium crystals.”

Lin Sanjiu took out her bag. Just as she rummaged through her bag for the red crystals, she heard Happy sigh again as his shoulders slouched even lower. Without flipping his eyelids, he said weakly, “Don’t give it to me. Put it into the tube.”

The small pouch of red crystals disappeared into the tube with a whizz. After waiting for two minutes, a slight ding rang out from the rounded surface of the metal cocoon followed by the appearance of a lock.

“Here, take these,” said Lin Sanjiu as she shoved a few medium crystals into Happy’s hand. She did so not because she wanted to thank him for his service whatsoever, but she just wanted to see what kind of expression and reaction the man would give. After all, the last thing she lacked right now was red crystals, so she was more than willing to carry out a small experiment.

“Keep them as your tip.”

The expression on the face of the man when he took the red crystals reminded Lin Sanjiu of the bereaved when they were given money at a funeral.

Inside the operating pod was a time-worn recliner wrapped in leather. It seemed like a recycled product as Lin Sanjiu found a line of words in small fonts at the bottom of the seat that read: Greenforest Human Comfort Management Center. After she switched the screen on, the Mokugyo Forum’s system started whirling sluggishly to life. It was as if the pages in the system were too large and heavy for it to load.

According to the instructions of the staff, Lin Sanjiu soon adapted to the old system. Aside from being a little laggy, she found that it was not that much different from the Red Nautilus.

“When you are using the Mokugyo Forum, you are deemed to have agreed to the following terms,” said the staff. It seemed as if every word that escaped his lips was sapping away his life force. “Firstly, under no circumstances are users allowed to publish any prohibited information. Secondly, users must accept a mandatory review if any sensitive content is detected…”

Lin Sanjiu listened absent-mindedly to the man going on about the terms and conditions. After she had had enough of the man mumbling beside her ears like an annoying fly, she interrupted, “I agree, I agree. Thank you for your help. You can leave now.”

However, Happy did not go away. He went to the side of the recliner and squatted down.

“You have paid for an hour of my service,” said the man with heavy-lidded eyes, “The time isn’t up yet. Besides, what if you suddenly need my assistance? It’s too tiring to make two trips. Just treat me as if I’m not here and do whatever you want. I won’t even bat an eyelid even if you want to let off your steam by watching some sexually explicit videos.”

If this sentence had come out from the mouth of another man, Lin Sanjiu might not have believed him. However, since it was this man who made such a claim, she found it oddly convincing.

Lin Sanjiu examined the screen in front of her and decided to throw the question “Can this really play pornography?” to the back of her mind. She browsed through the list and found the announcement submenu called “Craigslist”. There, she found that the number of sub-categories in the Heaven Underworld far exceeded that of the Red Nautilus, reaching an astonishing 1,200 categories. The categories were extremely diverse and each was stranger than the last—”Revenge and Salvage”, “Detective Enquiry”, “Home Carer”, “Hunting for a Home Carer”, “Breeding of Living and Non-living Organisms”, “Trust Building”…

Lin Sanjiu was so confounded by the sheer amount of categories that she began to feel giddy. She browsed through category after category, yet she had no idea where she should publish her message. With no other choices left, she threw a distressful stare at the boring staff.

Happy remained indifferent towards her gaze. He looked to the front with a pair of vacant eyes. Lin Sanjiu continued to stare at him for six seconds straight. Then, he sighed dejectedly as if he had resigned to his fate and asked, “What kind of message do you wish to publish?”

Lin Sanjiu believed that if she were to say that she was going to blow up the Mokugyo Forum, she would not be able to stir up even the slightest emotion from this man. Happy angled his head up and said listlessly, “Open the Wanted category.”

Although the name of the category sounded fearsome, Lin Sanjiu soon found the sub-category “Search and Special Search”.

For every message that cost 10 medium crystals, she could input the description of one of her friends. Concurrently, she had to input all the search information into the consular officer’s special channel thread that cost 50 medium crystals. It was only after she had spurged tons of crystals that she realized that she had a lot of friends.

Lin Sanjiu decided to start with Polva and Maxin. However, she crossed Puppeteer out from her list as bringing him back amounted to luring a wolf into a den of rabbits. As she was inputting Polva’s information, she asked, “Is Happy really your name?”

“Of course not. That is the nickname they gave me.”

“Then, what’s your real name?” She finished inputting Polva and was now inputting Maxin’s.

“Ryuji.”

“Hey, what a coincidence! There’s a number in my name too! By the way, why would they give you such a nickname?” Ryuji paused for a moment. Then, he asked, “How about I return the red crystal you paid me back? I just don’t feel like talking right now.”

“I wonder why you look so down,” Lin Sanjiu said without turning her head. She moved to the third message.

Ryuji let out a long sigh. “The question should be ‘I wonder why you guys don’t look down every day’.”

Even though he sounded as if he was about to die, he replied to every question that Lin Sanjiu threw at him. When she finally finished inputting the comrades she met in the Hyperthermal Hell, Ryuji’s face had already turned dark.

Finally, she ended her messages with a text: “So long as you can bring any one of my friends back to the Twelve Worlds, you can request whatever reward you want, be it red crystals, resources, assets in the Twelve Worlds, Special Items, or even if you have a specific request, I will do my best to fulfill it.”

The bag which she used to carry her red crystals became empty in the blink of an eye.

Right now, all Lin Sanjiu could do was wait for the reply of the consular officer. Even if something went down the wrong pipe, she still had her grand prize as her back-up. However, she would not contact her grand prize until the situation really called for it.

“It is really disappointing knowing you.” Lin Sanjiu had gotten a weight off her mind, and she felt extremely light right now. She tried to joke with Ryuji, but it seemed that her opponent did not appreciate her joke. “Anyway, thanks for your help. Bye!”

With a dark face, Ryuji saw Lin Sanjiu up the stairs. Seeing that there was still some time left, Ryuji then snuggled into the recliner and rested his chin on his hand as he stared blankly at the screen. He remained in his half-conscious state for a long time, and if it were not for the ding that rang out from the screen, he would have sat there for even longer.

The screen suddenly lit up although nobody was using it. The ten or so messages that took Lin Sanjiu an hour to finish began to appear on the screen, waiting to be reviewed. Lifting his eyelids, Ryuji looked for a moment and a slight surprise expression dawned upon this expressionless man’s face. Under his gaze, four messages were deleted from the consular officer’s special channel by someone unknown.