Doomsday Wonderland

The appearance of a strange figure turned Ji Shanqing’s blood to ice. A chill went up Ji Shanqing’s spine and through every nerve ending in his body before shooting up into his brain. His throat felt raw, and as he opened his mouth to scream for help, another shadow appeared behind the person in front of him. Then, through the dark, he saw something rising through the air. The next thing he knew the object made contact with the back of the neck of the speaker.

“Argh——”

A hysterical, pained scream resounded through the hallway. When the figure in front of him fell to the ground, Ji Shanqing saw his chance.

Just as he was turning around to run away, a voice called to him, “Come over here.”

“Sis?” The grand prize paused, turning his head and asked with a trembling voice.

A silvery light beamed out, and Lin Sanjiu’s grim face appeared in the midst of the light. She hurled the little shiny thing at Ji Shanqing and drew a curve through the air as she spoke calmly, “Grab it.”

Ji Shanqing’s hand fumbled to catch the gleaming [Ability Polishing Agent]. After he grabbed the [Ability Polishing Agent] in his palm, he stammered out a question, “W-what is happening?”

With the light from the [Ability Polishing Agent], Ji Shanqing’s vision grew clearer. Soon, he could see that the hallway, like before, was also loaded with cartons in various sizes. In front of the wall of cartons was a woman wearing a white dress. She wriggled, kicked, cried, and yelled on the floor; however, no matter how hard she struggled, she could not free herself from beneath Lin Sanjiu’s feet.

Ji Shanqing turned his head to take in the surrounding and he instantly understood the whole story.

The hallway was filled with so many cartons that it made the impression that all of the boxes were stacked firmly on top of one another. However, from the place where the woman in white appeared, there was a gap that revealed the entrance of a unit behind the cartons.

The gap had formerly been a door. Now half-covered by cartons, it looked more like a rat hole than a door, and it was just the right size for the woman to enter and exit.

When she appeared out from the gap, it just so happened that she appeared in the middle of the two, so Ji Shanqing had mistakenly thought she was Lin Sanjiu. Luckily, soon after the woman made her entrance Lin Sanjiu knocked her down after realizing that something was wrong and turned around.

Very soon, Lin Sanjiu had grown tired of the woman’s incessant crying and yelling that she frowned so deeply that many creases formed on her forehead. As her patience vanished, she grabbed the woman by her collar and yelled, “Stop screaming! Who are you? Why are you following us?”

The grand prize never thought one sentence from Lin Sanjiu would be all it took to turn the wailing woman into a muted statue. It looked like magic. The woman still had tears on her face, but she had stopped crying. A guttural hiccup came out from her windpipe as the scales fell from her eyes.

“Ah, I understand now,” She wiped the tears and mucus off her face and revealed her pallid complexion that almost verged on the sickly, “So you guys are like the rest of us? That explains why you guys are being so careful. Don’t be scared; I’m on the good side. Thank goodness you guys have made it safe here. Don’t worry; you two are safe now.”

Ji Shanqing and Lin Sanjiu looked at each other. Both of them shared the same bewildered expression on their faces.

“This lady looks like she’s very familiar with what’s going on around here…”  When the thought came unbidden to his mind, Ji Shanqing, who was the self-proclaimed softer side of the two, went forward and greeted the woman politely with a question, “I’m so sorry, but we have been in a state of apprehension all this time. Just now you suddenly popped out from nowhere; it gave us a shock. Did my sister hurt you? What’s your name?”

Truth to be told, Lin Sanjiu could have reaped the woman’s life with that strike. Lucky for the woman, she’d pulled her punch; otherwise, the woman in white wouldn’t be standing, rubbing her shoulder with her hand, stomping her feet, and repeating the same sentence like a well-trained parakeet, “Your sister is so strong. Your sister is so strong…”

Now that she was no longer hollering hysterically, her sweet tone returned. If it weren’t for her scaly skin and dry hair, she might look younger.

Seeing the woman had locked herself in a loop by repeating “Your sister is so strong.” for roughly six times, Ji Shanqing finally snapped as well. Grabbing the woman’s hand that she had been using to rub her neck since she was freed from Lin Sanjiu’s clutches, he forced a smile on his face as he asked again, “What’s your name? Is this place safe?”

“Ah, I,” The woman immediately closed her mouth the moment those words came out from her lips, darting her eyes between Ji Shanqing and Lin Sanjiu. After a second which seemed like a century, she opened her mouth again; albeit this time she kept her voice extremely low as if she was afraid somebody would overhear their conversation, “Shhh… Keep your voice down. I’m Melor. Although we’re absolutely safe here, we still have to be vigilant… Those monsters outside are too powerful… Come, follow me.”

“What are those monsters? Duoluozhong?”

Though both of them had plenty of questions, Melor was obviously not the best candidate for them to ask. The monsters she mentioned just now seemed to have cast an indelible shadow over her heart and kept her from answering their questions. Seeing that she had snuck into a carton like a mouse, the two had no choice but to follow her.

Nobody would believe that a human could stay in a house that was full of dust and rubbish if Melor didn’t tell them that this was her apartment unit. Under the light of the [Ability Polishing Agent], this place looked like hell. Even a staunch-hearted person like Lin Sanjiu who had dwelled in the apocalypse world for so long that hygiene was no longer a necessity for her, she still couldn’t convince herself to sit, let alone the neat-freak Ji Shanqing.

“Come, have a seat. Make yourself at home!” It was as if Melor didn’t see their predicament as she ran deeper into the apartment and yelled, “Scholar, scholar! Come out now; we have guests!”

“We have guests? That’s rare. Just a moment please, I’m coming out now.” Following the sentence, a middle-aged man came out from a room.

The man that was known as “Scholar” wore a plaid shirt. He had buttoned his shirt all the way up to the top, and if he wasn’t wearing beach shorts, he would give off the vibe of a professor. As if he had sensed his guest’s gaze, Scholar pulled on his shirt and greeted them bashfully, “I apologize for showing you the embarrassing side of me. As the apocalypse has wiped out our human civilization, I seem to have lost my etiquette as well. Anyway, welcome to my house. Let me clean up a little bit so you two can sit.”

He shoved the rubbish away. Looking at the layers of grime with the help of light from the [Ability Polishing Agent], Ji Shanqing knew he couldn’t escape from the inevitable. He picked the cleanest spot he could find and sat on it. His face was filled with hopelessness.

Unlike Ji Shanqing, Melor was high in spirits. She said, “Scholar is the doctor know-all around here. Talk with him; I’ll go and prepare our dinner.”

“Having dinner at this wee hour? Is she insane?”  However, before Lin Sanjiu could voice out her rejection, Melor had bounced herself into a black hole that seemingly was the kitchen. Ji Shanqing’s face instantly became ugly.

“Let her be. We have more than enough to eat and drink here,” Scholar said as if he had sensed Lin Sanjiu’s unwillingness. He studied the duo through his spectacles prudently, and his voice was filled with wariness “Where did you guys come from? Why would you guys come to our neighborhood at this late hour?”

Ji Shanqing’s eyes rolled in their sockets as if he was phrasing his words in his mind. Then, the actor in him took the stage. He said softly, “One of our relatives told us to come over here. However, we couldn’t find him.” Ji Shanqing paused for a moment at this point before moving on with his speech, faking as a forlorn little kid, “We’re kinda worried about him, and we have no idea what to do now.”

The scholar gave him a “hmm” in reply, seemingly accepting Ji Shanqing’s statement, “It’s good that you guys have chosen to come over here. This place is the only place that is safe in this world.”

Without waiting for the duo to talk, he sighed, “I have long prophesied this apocalypse, to be honest.”

“… What do you mean?”

“The government is the one at fault,” Scholar smacked his hand onto his thigh as he sighed in sorrow, “I have long realized that some of the people we meet in our daily life are different from the rest of us. They look just like us but they are not human beings at all! They might be aliens or some sort of new species, I don’t know. However, after running a series of studies on them, I’ve found common ground between these people: every one of them has abilities that are beyond our normal human recognition!”

Lin Sanjiu and the grand prize were stunned.

“I’m not sure why they would go so far as feign to be one of us, but one thing for sure is they must be up to no good. No matter how many times I reported this to the authorities, all my reports sank into the oblivion, as the saying goes, like a stone in water. As a result, our world was destroyed by those monsters,” Scholar sighed, “It’s all too late now.”

“Oh my god…”

Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing exchanged glances, and both of them were awed by the shocking news.

Judging from Scholar’s words, it seemed to them that the factor that destroyed this world was the posthumans.

As long as the posthuman could get the visa that allowed them to move to a world six months before the apocalypse event, they would end up in a rather safe world. There weren’t any written rules in black and white for the posthuman’s conduct. Hence, they could do whatever they wanted once they landed in a new world. If a group of posthumans went to a world to destroy the civilization of the world, they could and had the ability to wipe out a planet before the government of each country could come up with a countermeasure.

Without looking at the two’s faces, Scholar continued to say, “The community had already fallen apart by the time government realized something wasn’t right. Many people died every day. Perhaps they remembered my proposal as the government quickly gathered all the survivors and relocated us into a neighborhood as you guys see right now. Then, they sent more-than-enough of resources to sustain our daily needs.”

“Since you guys are here, I presume you had seen our defensive measures outside, right?” Melor called to Scholar just before he could finish his sentence.

He rose to his feet and said, “Impressive in my opinion, don’t you think? Well, I guess dinner is ready, so if you’ll excuse me, I have to help Melor set the table.”

“A splendid scene? He mustn’t be talking about the glass shards and wire at the entrance gate. Mayhap the entire neighborhood was built as a large refugee district, and a military force was sent here to protect them from the invasion of posthumans. I f that’s the case, we might need extra effort if we want to get out.”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Lin Sanjiu’s thought was interrupted by Melor, who was now holding a wooden slab in her hand. After she placed the wooden slab down, which Lin Sanjiu surmised as their dining plates, she said, shyly, “I just whipped up whatever I had in the kitchen. It’s not much, but please enjoy it while it’s hot.”

“Why not turn on the light?” Lin Sanjiu asked. It was such a silly that the power supply was still running, but all of them had chosen to talk in the dark.

“Melor doesn’t like the light. She has poor vision, and her eyes are very sensitive to strong light.” Scholar replied indifferently, “Besides, is there any reason to turn on the light when we have your little thing over here?”

Under the light provided by the [Ability Polishing Agent], they could see the pile of soggy wafers on top of the dirty and old wooden slab. On the side of the plate of wafers were a bowl of instant noodles and a bowl of chips, serving as the main dish of the night. Melor then gave each of them an empty bowl and a set of chopsticks. Scholar didn’t wait for them, ladling a spoonful of noodles into his bowl first and grabbing a piece of a wafer to dump into the soup.

The grand prize’s grimaced, and his face turned sour at the sight of bowl, chopstick, and dishes Melor served them with. Even Lin Sanjiu was also reluctant to eat the food as well. After pondering for a while, Lin Sanjiu took out the food she purchased in Red Nautilus and shoved a piece of bread into Ji Shanqing’s hand.

Initially, she was worried that Scholar and Melor might see their actions; however, to her surprise, they finished the dinner without much of a fuss. Melor’s and Scholar’s mind seemed to be occupied by something such that they only focused on eating. Even if they saw the bread in Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing’s hand, the room was too dim to allow them to realize that it wasn’t the food prepared by Melor.

“Where are you guys going to spend the night?” Scholar wiped his mouth clean and asked, “I remember we have quite a few vacant rooms in the neighborhood.”

The grand prize looked over to his master. Ever since they had finished the dinner, Lin Sanjiu had been frowning, seemingly bugged by something in her mind. She gave a half smile, forced herself to be civil as they had received hospitality from Scholar and Melor.

“We’ll look around later.”

Then, she rose to her feet.

“She’s right. We don’t have to stay here now as we have the information we need,” Ji Shanqing murmured.

Scholar walked them to the door. Just as Ji Shanqing bowed down to fit himself through the gap, he suddenly felt a tug at his shirt. He looked over to his shoulders and sensed Scholar and Melor staring in the darkness.

“Your clothes are weird. I have never seen the like before around here,” The light from the [Ability Polishing Agent] had caused a reflection on Scholar’s spectacles. His face was gloomy and the question he asked caused Ji Shanqing’s hairs to stand on end, “Could it be that you two are one of those monsters?”

“Of course not,” the grand prize’s heart skipped a beat. Then, Lin Sanjiu, who was a step ahead of him interjected before dragging him out, “When we have found a room for ourselves, we’ll invite you two over.”

Hearing what Lin Sanjiu had said, Scholar’s expression turned mild. Melor snuck her head out from a small gap in between the carton and watched them leave. Their gazes were so intense that Ji Shanqing couldn’t shrug them off until he turned the corner.

Huffing, he hastened his steps to catch up to Lin Sanjiu to have a discussion with her regarding their next move. However, when he saw her expression, his words were stuck in his throat.

Lin Sanjiu’s complexion was terrible. Ji Shanqing had never seen such an ugly expression on her face before, not even when she was on the verge of death.

“Shanqing,” When both of them arrived beside a parterre, Lin Sanjiu stopped moving. She said, “Don’t look back and listen to me.”

As ordered by Lin Sanjiu, the grand prize didn’t turn his head; instead, he slowly came to a halt as if he was admiring the flowers on the flowerbed.

“I suspect they are not ordinary humans,” Lin Sanjiu’s voice was that of a whisper. Her voice instantly dissipated into the air as soon as it came out from her mouth.

“Not ordinary people?” Ji Shanqing was perplexed by her remark. He asked, “But I didn’t sense any ability from them.”

“I can explain this. Because—” Lin Sanjiu breathed a heavy puff, “I can not use my ability either.”