Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1320: The Donkey with an Eye Mask

Whether ordinary people or posthumans, they are all donkeys wearing black blindfolds on their eyes. Destiny allows you to see only this small piece in front of you.

What people can do is only make a seemingly correct choice at the moment, but what will happen in the future, whether the decision you made is good or bad, after that moment, you can only wait anxiously for destiny to reveal the answer.

In the world, how many things come down to just one ‘if only I had known earlier.’

In this bullshit-like game of life, what is most unbearable is not knowing whether the choices you made at a certain moment will be inconsequential or seriously affect the future.

For example, at 6:18 PM today, Lin Sanjiu asked Wu Lun to take the car home first, while she chose to chase another taxi.

At that moment, she didn’t think about the significance of this move, and Wu Lun didn’t realize the impact of this decision either; at 6:18 PM, both thought it was just a temporary parting.

Until 11:54 PM that night, Lin Sanjiu still hadn’t seen Wu Lun return home.

The clock on the table ticked mechanically, clearly, and indifferently.

She glanced hastily at the moment of parting, not noticing the taxi number plate about to stop beside Wu Lun. She couldn’t track it from the taxi plate; in fact, Lin Sanjiu didn’t even know if she got into the car later. Around 7:30 PM, she continuously knocked on Wu Lun’s door for ten minutes. Even the neighbors opened their doors and looked out, but Wu Lun didn’t come out to answer. When she called her phone, it remained switched off.

At 8:30 PM, Lin Sanjiu, who had torn off the security bars and crawled into the house, decided to go along the route they had returned to find someone. She took Wu Lun’s photo from the house and asked everyone she met along the way, including pedestrians and shopkeepers. She asked them all.

The phone remained off.

At 10:30 PM, she searched again using the same method.

Although the second search ended in vain, she clung to the hope that maybe Wu Lun had already returned home. She returned to the cramped single room again, waiting until now. As the night deepened, the city became quieter, and the lights outside drifted away as if the world had always been like this without Wu Lun’s existence.

‘You’re a posthuman, so what can you even do?’

Lin Sanjiu buried her face deeply in her palms, thinking for a long time in place, but finally didn’t call the police.

As a posthuman, she naturally distrusts the abilities of ordinary people. When something goes wrong, she prefers to solve it herself—but that’s not the main reason.

How to call the police? Do you need a phone? After hearing Wu Lun’s explanation, can she still use Han Jun’s phone, who has already fled, to call the police? Even if no one discovers this, if the police really come to investigate, what would she be at that time? Legally, she doesn’t exist in this world.

On the other hand, if another socially recognized person who knows Wu Lun reports it, they can call the police.

Thinking of this, Lin Sanjiu slowly raised her head.

Wu Lun has a legitimate job. If something really happened to her, her colleagues would realize something was wrong after she missed work and couldn’t be contacted.

No, it won’t work. It might take several days, and there’s too much luck involved—her colleagues might think she suddenly returned to her hometown and quit without informing anyone. She works alone outside, and it might be too late when her mother at home realizes what has happened.

Lin Sanjiu stood up and irritably paced around the cramped single room.

Even though this goes against her instincts, she has to admit that in a modern society, the police have far more resources and power than a newcomer posthuman when it comes to finding a citizen. The problem is, how can Wu Lun’s disappearance be investigated?

Wait, she’s thinking the wrong way.

Lin Sanjiu rushed to the window in a few steps and looked out from the torn security net. The community is old and small, with a few lonely streetlights in the darkness, some of them with broken light bulbs.

She has been wandering freely in the doomsday universe for too long. For a moment, she didn’t think of it—aren’t the surveillance cameras visible everywhere on the streets and in the community one of the police’s major resources? If she could get the surveillance video of the road where Wu Lun took the taxi, at least she would know where to start looking.

The problem is, is that stretch of road covered by surveillance cameras? There should be, but she still needs to go and check it out.

Before going out, Lin Sanjiu hesitated momentarily but still rummaged through her things and found a duckbill hat to wear. Apart from the bandage on her neck that couldn’t be removed, she changed her clothes and shoes—she stole a set of men’s clothes from her neighbor’s clothesline, tucking away the extra hair under the hat and covering her shoes with the pant legs; luckily, Wu Lun had a sun protection concept, so there was a mask at home, which she also put on. When everything changed, she even startled herself.

Everything she just did was subconscious, without much thought. But now, thinking about it again, why did she change her outfit? The street isn’t like a museum, so there seems to be no need to hide her face.

That being said, taking off the hat and mask made her feel uncomfortable, so she still went out heavily wrapped up. Wearing men’s clothing with her height, anyone who glanced at her from a distance would probably think she was a man—just a bit slender.

After midnight, there were still many people and cars on the road. Most roadside shops were already closed; only restaurants, convenience stores, and the like were still lit up. Cars passed by one after another on the road, most of the taxis with their vacancy lights on.

Lin Sanjiu hesitated for a moment but didn’t wave down a taxi. She just walked slowly along the street, carefully observing the surveillance cameras on the street from under the brim of her hat; at first, she would count how many were installed in a certain area but soon stopped counting. Once, when she was about to cross the road to the pedestrian bridge, she raised her head from the stairs and found three book-binding-shaped surveillance cameras hanging in the air, staring directly at the stairway from various angles. By the time she was halfway across the pedestrian bridge, she suddenly realized that she had unknowingly changed her walking posture, even her knees slightly bent in the loose pants with each step; this made her look shorter than usual.

Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath under her mask.

A person’s gait is as unique as fingerprints and iris recognition, and even the most experienced posthuman cannot change the lightness, tilt, coordination, and shape of their walking.

Because gait involves the use of the entire body, more than 600 muscles, and more than 200 bones, even if you pretend to be limping or having a pigeon-toed walk, it’s hard to change your overall physiological conditions—and this is even more stubborn and hard to change in posthumans. When a posthuman finds the most suitable and efficient way to use their body, they will consciously reinforce this way of self-improvement, resulting in a deeply ingrained behavioral posture.

She could do this all because of the training she received from Hei Zejiu many years ago.

Hei Zejiu’s fighting style, rather than having a fixed combat trajectory, is more like water flowing, able to adapt to the situation and change accordingly. Influenced by him, Lin Sanjiu also pursued this ‘every muscle is alive’ effect. When she needed to change her gait, she could adjust the force status of her body’s muscles and bones like flicking a switch—looking from afar, it seemed like a different person.

However, Lin Sanjiu didn’t know why she did this—she didn’t even know if there was technology in this world to identify gaits.

Judging from the density of surveillance cameras she found along the way, the place where she and Wu Lun parted ways must undoubtedly be under surveillance. The next question was, where could she see the surveillance video?

After changing her gait, Lin Sanjiu’s speed visibly slowed down, and she even took a night bus halfway, finally returning to the place where she and Wu Lun parted ways after half an hour.

This area is about forty to fifty minutes’ drive from Wu Lun’s home. As it is already close to the city center, it is quite lively, even at two or three o’clock in the morning. Doors that were dim and tightly closed during the day are now open, turning into bars with colorful signs and booming music. Men and women dressed smartly, with flushed cheeks, stand on the roadside smoking and chatting, none giving the silent ‘man’ wearing a duckbill hat an extra glance.

Logically, the local police station should be able to access the surveillance video in this area, right?

Should she go and look for it?

Lin Sanjiu was lost in thought as she walked. Suddenly, she froze, stopping in her tracks. After standing silently for a few seconds, she turned around and strode towards a nearby telephone pole. When she arrived, she asked in her mind: “Mrs. Manas? Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Mrs. Manas replied softly. Today, she hadn’t had time to practice Higher Consciousness, and after just half an evening, Mrs. Manas sounded a bit tired.

Without waiting for Lin Sanjiu to ask, Mrs. Manas continued, “Today, you two posted a missing person flyer on this telephone pole.”

‘Indeed.’

Lin Sanjiu leaned in and carefully examined it. After the missing person notice was torn off, a small piece of white paper attached to the pole with transparent tape remained.

The cleaners couldn’t have cleaned it because small ads for ‘rapid cash withdrawal with credit cards’ were still stuck next to the scraps of paper.

A posthuman has been here.