Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1318: The Boss Lady Has Some Class

Late one night, when Wu Lun returned home from work and opened the door, Lin Sanjiu was in the midst of pulling a pair of stockings over her head.

Hearing the noise, Lin Sanjiu turned her head towards the door; before she could fully pull down the stockings, her eyebrows squished together into a triangular shape. Wu Lun lifted her head and froze in place, standing dumbly at the doorway, forgetting to remove the keys.

“You’re back,” Lin Sanjiu said.

“No… no, this isn’t right.” Wu Lun blinked hard, as if hoping that Lin Sanjiu would disappear when she opened her eyes again. But when she did open her eyes again, Lin Sanjiu had already pulled the stockings up to her neck.

“Can you recognize my face?”

Wu Lun closed the door and vigorously shook her head. “No, no, I can’t; this won’t do.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be in any danger.” Just robbing a bank.

“Absolutely not. I’m not worried about you. Take off my socks.”

Lin Sanjiu peeled off the stockings she found in the closet and asked, “Then what’s your plan? Yesterday morning, didn’t you offer to help me?”

After yesterday morning’s phone call, Wu Lun quickly realized that helping her make money for advertising to find people was the best way to prevent the world’s destruction, so this beauty advisor made a lot of grandiose promises out of excitement. But after two days of various discussions, experiments, insomnia, and working, Wu Lun’s morale and spirit deflated.

“I don’t understand,” Wu Lun muttered, opened and closed the door. “Why does a beauty advisor like me have to save the world? And why is making money the solution to save the world?”

She plopped down on the couch like an old lady, massaging her calves. “If I knew how to make money, would I still be standing here all day as a beauty advisor? And your… that thing that listens to people, can’t it come back again?”

Thinking about what might be under her butt, Wu Lun’s eyes lit up.

Lin Sanjiu shook her head, dispelling her hope. “An ability description can only be used once.”

Yesterday—or rather, in the early hours of this morning—she finally waited out the cooldown time for the Pygmalion Choker and woke up Wu Lun. Lin Sanjiu had long known where Wu Lun kept her wallet; not only did she know, but she also proactively took out the largest denomination of 100 yuan bill and instructed Wu Lun to recite a description of the ability to massively replicate a certain object for her.

Just like naturally evolved abilities, the effects produced by the Pygmalion Choker also had various limitations and were not omnipotent. For example, when it came to massively replicating objects, Lin Sanjiu quickly discovered that if she replicated something simple, like a piece of paper, its replication speed was almost unlimited. In just two or three seconds, a large amount of paper flooded Wu Lun’s bed. However, the production materials and craftsmanship of banknotes were very complex; even after using up all five minutes, the replicated cash only filled a small section of the floor.

Regarding this quantity, Mrs. Manas explained that it might be because both the choker’s effect and Potential Growth Value had weakened.

Lin Sanjiu was dissatisfied with the result, but Wu Lun’s sleepiness was completely dispelled. This girl seemed a bit obsessed with money, immediately diving into the pile of cash, grabbing handfuls of bills, and murmuring in amazement, “They look exactly the same!”

Unlike counterfeit, all the money Lin Sanjiu replicated was real, enough to pass any precision counterfeit detection machine. But the problem was, each bill was identical to the original, used as a template—slight wear and tear, minor stains, folding marks, and, most importantly, the serial numbers on the bills. If it were just two or three bills, it would be fine, but with over a thousand bills—Wu Lun counted them all night—their resemblance converged into a highly impactful image. Even a glance would immediately make ordinary people realize that something was wrong.

“It’s impossible to advertise with this pile of money,” Wu Lun said, carefully and affectionately stacking the bills neatly, securing them with a rubber band and tucking them under the sofa. “If someone sees so much cash with the same serial number, they’ll call the police on the spot. We can’t even deposit it in the bank. The ATM will detect that something’s wrong. I think the best way is to spend one bill at a time, so there won’t be any problems.”

After asking what she could do with a hundred yuan, Lin Sanjiu solely focused on illegal acquisition of wealth. Another trip to the museum was impractical; she couldn’t just focus on one target for pilfering. Even if she managed to take something, she didn’t know who to sell it to. She considered splitting the loot with Han Jun, but when she tried calling him, the line was unreachable. Fresh out of ideas, Lin Sanjiu made Wu Lun’s new stockings a victim.

“How about this, we go print small advertisements tomorrow, and I’ll take the day off,” Wu Lun sleepily suggested before bed. “We’ll find a print shop to print a hundred yuan’s worth first, and then print another hundred yuan’s worth after we’re done… since it’s all real money, right?”

The efficiency was lower, but getting the message out sooner was ultimately better than sitting at home worrying.

Lin Sanjiu spent the entire night wide awake.

During her waking hours, she spent a good portion of it continuously training, refining, and honing her Higher Consciousness. Mrs. Manas said that the intensity of this training, if done in the past, could have resulted in an upgrade in half a year or a year; but now, it could only barely maintain her Higher Consciousness level from declining. Moreover, the duration of maintaining it would gradually shorten, and the time spent on training would become longer.

One day in the future, even if she didn’t eat, drink, or sleep, she wouldn’t be able to maintain her gradually slipping Higher Consciousness level… Lin Sanjiu opened her eyes in the early morning sunlight, feeling the energetic Higher Consciousness, and pondered. What would happen to her abilities if she couldn’t find a way to transmit messages to the doomsday universe?

What if she couldn’t find a way to transmit messages?

She was lost in thought when Wu Lun stretched from her blanket, her arm’s shadow extending into the sunlight filtered through the curtains, like a peaceful painting. “Good morning. Give me half an hour, and we can leave.”

Lin Sanjiu nodded, refocusing her thoughts on how to make money.

To ensure that the small advertisements stayed up for as long as possible, the two of them put a lot of effort into the content.

Stating that she was looking for posthumans wouldn’t work, as it might be dismissed as nonsense and removed. Generally, advertisements for finding people, pets, or lost items lasted longer; Lin Sanjiu decided to print a missing person flyer.

To increase its impact and catch the attention of passersby, she also prepared a photo, modifying a picture of someone with similar features using [The Power of Word Picture].

An hour later, Wu Lun ate ice cream while watching the printer in the small shop slowly spit out a missing person flyer.

Missing: My uncle, nicknamed ‘Mad Dog.’

He owns a huge business in the twelve places, where many employees like to wear wooden puppet earrings. He usually ventures out with large company, but he was separated from his employees while going someplace with no internet. I’m currently searching for him.

The machine methodically continued to spit out more text.

Please contact me with the number below if you have any information about the twelve places and people like my uncle, or if you want to return to those twelve places. There will be a generous reward.

Next, there was a string of Han Jun’s phone number.

The printer continued to hum as Wu Lun watched on. Suddenly, her hand shook, almost dropping the ice cream. “S-shit. Who’s this? Why… why is he so… Is he really your uncle?”

“Uncle or cousin, I don’t remember. What’s the difference? It’s fake anyway,” Lin Sanjiu replied. The chubby boss lady of the print shop was sitting at another table behind them, playing a game, her ears looking like they wanted to flip back to listen to their conversation.

“It’s… it’s too scary,” Wu Lun said, pale and starting to tremble again. “He doesn’t seem to have fangs, but how…”

She even dared to take a closer look; it seems that having a real person present didn’t have the same chilling effect. Would this attract enough attention?

Lin Sanjiu sighed, picked up the first flyer, and shook it in front of the boss lady’s eyes. “Does this look okay to you?”

The boss lady’s fat jiggled as she subconsciously pushed her chair back a few inches, squinting her eyes to carefully examine the flyer.

“Wow!” she exclaimed. “He has a kind of… what’s it called? Oh, gothic beauty.”

Okay.

Lin Sanjiu held back a lot of words as she quietly collected the missing person flyers and asked, “How many of these can you print in black and white for a hundred yuan?”

“The standard price is one yuan per piece,” the boss lady said.

For the first time in a long time, Lin Sanjiu felt the warmth of [Scrooge McDuck’s Power] heating up inside her again.

The boss lady continued, “If you print a lot, I’ll give you a discount of five cents per piece.”

If Scrooge McDuck discovered that as the wealthiest person, he could only haggle for five cents, he might be upset.

After leaving the print shop with two hundred missing person flyers, following Wu Lun’s suggestion, they posted them at every bus stop and utility pole along the bus route. Lin Sanjiu, from the perspective of a posthuman, also posted some outside supermarkets, sports goods stores, pharmacies, and hardware stores—giving each store a hundred yuan as a fee for allowing them to post. Posting a few hundred a day was already quite a lot; but it was still too slow, especially since Wu Lun needed breaks along the way, buying snacks, which somewhat delayed their time.

“I’ve walked with you for at least twenty thousand steps today.” She didn’t feel slow at all and even wanted credit, saying, “My feet hurt, can you treat me to a foot massage tonight?”

Just as Lin Sanjiu was about to respond, she suddenly heard the ringtone of Han Jun’s phone in her pocket, causing her heart to skip a beat.

‘Someone noticed the advertisement so quickly?’

She quickly took out her phone to check but was surprised. It was a text message from an unknown number, with only a short sentence.

“Honey, where are you?”