Doomsday Wonderland

The atmosphere became still. For a few long seconds, everyone nursed their shock in silence.

The carpet was empty. The pair of black cloth shoes disappeared without a single trace.

Considering how the old lady was sucked upward with her body stretched, it seemed logical to expect that she would be stuck to the ceiling or something. However, when they looked up, the ceiling was empty. A living person had just disappeared from the building right before their eyes.

Qing Jiuliu blinked. His long eyelashes shivered. He would probably assume that he was dreaming if it weren’t for the fact that he could not feel any sensation below his neck. Puzzled, he turned to look at Ji Shanqing and was stunned.

At that moment, the grand prize was staring at the spot behind Qing Jiuliu. His face seemed full of disbelief. He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something but he received another blow to his abdomen. Before an astonished expression graced his face, he winced painfully. Startled, Qing Jiuliu twisted his head around.

Lin Sanjiu was not far from him. She was standing by the pool ladder. She held her nose tightly with one of her hands while there was a card in the other. Her lips were tightly pursed, almost as if she was afraid to inhale a single breath. Her face was red from the lack of oxygen and the veins of her forehead started to show.

It was very obvious that she had already held her breath for some time.

“You’ve recovered?” Qing Jiuliu blurted.

“When you breathe, you’ll be afflicted by depression.” Logically speaking, Lin Sanjiu could temporarily escape her depression if she held her breath. Though he figured that out, he was still puzzled, “Wh-what happened? If you can think of this, why could you only recover now? And… where is that old lady?”

Lin Sanjiu pinched her nose and shook her head vigorously. No one knew what she was trying to convey. She waved her hand and threw some paper and a pen on the floor. She pointed a few times at the corridor and drew a few circles with her finger around her face.

Qing Jiuliu stared at her, confused. Even though he understood the situation, the atmosphere had lightened significantly.

Without oxygen, a posthuman couldn’t live much longer than a normal person. Consequently, every single second was agonizing for Lin Sanjiu but also very precious. Apparently, Lin Sanjiu wasn’t quite certain that she could stop herself from breathing if she talked. She pointed swiftly to the corridor again and drew circles desperately around her face. This time, she added another gesture. She covered her mouth.

Qing Jiuliu was tired after raising his head for such a long time. In the end, he decided to just place his head flat on the floor. He seemed like a dog which was staring at a group of humans doing stupid things. His expression was still vacant.

The veins on Lin Sanjiu’s forehead pulsated a few times. Just as Lin Sanjiu grew nervous inwardly, her grand prize finally made a remark which saved her. “Ah, I understand now!”

Before Qing Jiuliu could turn his head to question him, Ji Shanqing shouted urgently at the corridor, repeating the same line several times, “Irezumi! Irezumi! Come in!”

There was a moment of hesitation from Irezumi before he finally replied, “I’m not going in!”

Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes as if she was trying her best to control herself.

“Come in! It’s alright now. I’m not lying!”

“It’s alright?” Irezumi mumbled softly. He seemed to be getting an opinion from the communicator. After a few seconds, he asked loudly, “Where is the old lady?”

The grand prize seemed to find himself speechless for a second. Sidestepping that question, he assured, “Don’t worry. It is safe now! Quick, come in! We need your help!”

After a short while, which absurdly seemed like ten-year span, a pair of yellow eyes peered out from the corner of the corridor cautiously. He looked left then right. After checking that the old lady wasn’t around, the pair of eyes shifted upward as the man revealed his doubtful face.

“What help do you need?”

“Go to my sis… Strongman Lin. Cover her nose and mouth and don’t let her breathe,” the grand prize said quickly.

Qing Jiuliu finally reacted and quickly added, “If you want to fight with her, at least, you should wait till…”

Irezumi shook his hand interrupting him. “Aw, I don’t have to do that now. It was just a misunderstanding. She can continue as a candidate,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed.

“Okay. Okay. Alright. Just be quick…” Before Ji Shanqing could finish his sentence, he was hit again.

Irezumi frowned. He stuck his head out and looked at Lin Sanjiu. It was obvious that he was still reluctant to walk in. He gestured his hand toward her. Lin Sanjiu placed her hands down as if she felt something. Almost immediately, her face seemed constricted by something such that even her nose was flattened.

“That’s just the tail of my [Bashful Python],” Irezumi explained to the other two people, “I’m not exerting any strength.”

Finally relieved, Lin Sanjiu rushed to the paper and pen on the floor. She pressed the paper down as she held a card in her left hand. Meanwhile, she scribbled line after line on the paper with her right hand. As she was too anxious, her pen tip went through the paper several times.

After she wrote a paragraph, Lin Sanjiu stretched her arm out to Qing Jiuliu and pushed the card and the paper to him.

“I heard your discussion. One of the options on her menu was ‘schizophrenia symptoms’. Does that mean she caused the apocalypse in this world? So, I decided to take the risk.” Qing Jiuliu read the words and looked at Ji Shanqing. Seeing the latter’s somber face, he turned around and said, “Well, just as what your grand prize said, the old lady needs to see her target before she can activate her ability. She probably isn’t… Okay, fine! I’ll continue.”

He placed his chin on the paper and looked like an immobile greedy snake.

“I summoned my [Nostradamus’s Card] just now. It specifically absorbs apocalypse-causing elements. If the old lady was responsible for the apocalypse, I thought that it could be possible to absorb her.”

Reading this, Qing Jiuliu paused for a moment. Staring at the second half of the sentence which was scribed hard into the paper, he read, “I didn’t expect to actually capture her with my card!”

There was a large exclamation mark at the end of her messy handwriting. When Lin Sanjiu wrote that, it was apparent that she was also startled. The exclamation mark was way darker than her words.

Qing Jiuliu slowly shifted his gaze to the card beside the paper. He looked at the 23% on the battery icon with his mouth wide open.

“The old lady is in that card?”

Momentarily, none of them could say a word. There was pin-drop silence. A few pairs of eyes were on Lin Sanjiu’s [Nostradamus’s Card]. No one said anything even after some time.

Lin Sanjiu snatched the paper and scribbled another sentence. She pushed the paper back to Qing Jiuliu expressionlessly. As her face was constricted by the python’s tail, it was very flat so it was hard for her to make any expression. She could only communicate through writing.

“What is it about her needing to see her target? Didn’t you guys suspect that she caused the apocalypse?”

After Qing Jiuliu read that, he remembered that he made an effort to whisper when he was discussing with Ji Shanqing. Back then, Lin Sanjiu was standing and wallowing in her depression so she probably didn’t hear what they said.

Remembering this, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief. Thankfully, she didn’t hear what they said!

“That is a suspicious point. But, we can make one thing clear. The apocalypse in this world is man-made.” Qing Jiuliu couldn’t resist looking at the card again as he asked, “Let’s talk about this later… Didn’t you say that you can’t convert living things into cards?”

“If she can be captured by your card,” Ji Shanqing suddenly spoke, “it proves that she isn’t human!”

Lin Sanjiu wanted to nod instinctively but she couldn’t move her neck. It was only then that she remembered that the python’s tail was still wrapped around her face. She blinked.

“It all makes sense now,” the grand prize said breathlessly. “Many things about that old lady are way too fishy. When she sat on me, I almost couldn’t feel her weight or any heat from her body. Furthermore, how can a human survive that sort of pressure from that python?”

“If she isn’t human, what is she? A duoluozhong?”

While they weren’t noticing, Irezumi walked out from the corner of the corridor. He was carrying the communicator in one hand. 46 showed an inquisitive expression from the communicator with a poor screen resolution. The only person among them who could probably identify the true nature of that old lady was Lin Sanjiu. After all, she existed as something similar to that old lady when she was at Kisaragi Station.

In fact, that moment the old lady was captured in her card, Lin Sanjiu had a vague conjecture in her head as she stared at the card in her hand.

“Could that old lady be something created from a person’s higher consciousness?”

Thinking back on her conjecture now, it wasn’t inconceivable.

Firstly, the old lady needed to fulfill two requirements. She needed to be a “non-living thing” and an “apocalypse-causing element”. The Souls were a great counter-example.

The “apocalypse-causing element” was very obvious; it was the ability that the old lady displayed. For the other requirement, what “non-living thing” could use a posthuman’s ability?

Even though Lin Sanjiu couldn’t use her evolved abilities in her higher consciousness form when she was at Kisaragi Station, the main issue was because she didn’t have a physical body as a “foundation”. Once her physical body changed, be it her higher consciousness form or her hen form, she basically couldn’t use her ability.

However, what happened if a person’s evolved abilities were totally irrelevant to their physical body?

Once Lin Sanjiu thought of this premise, the situation made logical sense. The old lady’s [Concept Mishmash] was actually the ability of her unknown owner rather than her own ability. The “old lady” was just a construct made from her owner’s higher consciousness.

Unlike Lin Sanjiu when she was in Kisaragi Station, the ‘old lady’ had been thoughtfully designed. She was like an unmanned ground vehicle without any unnecessary parts or functions. She was specifically designed to deliver and discharge the owner’s most powerful weapon.

To Lin Sanjiu, the most disturbing thing about that old lady was that after absorbing her, despite the woman’s size, her card’s battery only charged up to 23%.

“Does this mean that her owner only uses a very small fraction of his or her higher consciousness to create the old lady? In other words, a mastermind caused the apocalypse and made everyone crazy. After that, he or she created a construct with a bit of higher consciousness and send that construct back here…”

Various thoughts raced through Lin Sanjiu’s mind. She still had many questions in her mind but her train of thought was finally interrupted by number 46’s prying eyes. Lin Sanjiu looked at the paper but did not write her thoughts down, instead, she wrote, “I’m at my limit. I need to breathe.”

Amidst the conjecture, that was an undeniable fact. If she didn’t breathe now, she felt that her brain would explode.

Irezumi waved his hands, and his bashful python quickly withdrew its tail. Lin Sanjiu gasped for air, gulping large mouthfuls of air. When fresh air gushed into her lungs, the few minutes of lighthearted bliss evaporated. Melancholy overtook her quickly and her expression stiffened.

The “depression” that the old lady bestowed on her was severe. Her depression was at a stage where she was just a few inches in front of death’s door. Once the depression returned, Lin Sanjiu’s thought process slowed down significantly as if it was dragging a leaden weight. She stared blankly at her own hands. Momentarily, she even forgot all the questions in her head.

As Lin Sanjiu’s face gradually became less red, she looked as if she was desperate to quickly hide somewhere. The bashful python immediately wrapped its tail around her nose and mouth. It dragged her back successfully.

Lin Sanjiu couldn’t breathe again. Lin Sanjiu took her pen only after almost one minute.

“Why didn’t you hold your breath earlier?” Qing Jiuliu asked a little callously.

“The depression was too severe. I couldn’t help myself,” Lin Sanjiu wrote. “Even though I knew that I wouldn’t have depression if I didn’t breathe, I couldn’t bring myself to do something even that simple.

“Then, you—”

“That old lady wanted me to kill myself, right?” Her pen flew across the paper, “I decided that I would kill myself that way. If the symptoms of depression disappeared, I’d let it be. If they didn’t, I would just kill myself. When I’m out of breath, I already decided to jump into the pool.”

Her grand prize gasped. Lin Sanjiu tossed a glance at him before she took her [Nostradamus’s Card] from the floor and wrote on the paper, “I can release the apocalypse-causing element that had been absorbed by this card. Using this, perhaps, I can change the effects affecting everyone now.”

When Qing Jiuliu read out those words, Ji Shanqing almost cried out. After being beaten for such a long time, his face was badly swollen and covered with bruises. He couldn’t tolerate the punishment much longer. He couldn’t even stay at one spot for any amount of time. He was kicked like a ball, rolling everywhere as the invisible force hit him. Once he knew there was a glimpse of hope, his eyes turned red instantly.

Lin Sanjiu didn’t waste any time and quickly held up her [Nostradamus’s Card]

With a single thought, a menu with two rows suddenly appeared by her fingertip.

When Ji Shanqing and Qing Jiuliu saw the menu, the two people couldn’t help heaving a sigh of relief. They smiled. Perhaps, they were lucky. The consequences available on the menu were quite insignificant, such as, “you’re hungry now”, “Sleep for three days”, etc.

“Sis! Sis! Choose me first! Choose me first!” her grand prize fell on the floor after being hit again. He looked at the menu and suddenly leaped up again, “I’m going crazy!”

Lin Sanjiu sighed inwardly. She tapped twice on a random requirement. After she tapped that option, her grand prize’s bob hair started growing suddenly. It slowly grew past his chest. Now, he really looked like a girl.

Ji Shanqing was stunned. He waited cautiously almost as if he couldn’t believe what had happened. When he was sure that the invisible force had stopped hitting him, he beamed. However, when he looked up again, he realized Lin Sanjiu frowning. The menu had disappeared.

“What’s wrong?”

Lin Sanjiu raised her hand and showed her [Nostradamus’s Card] to them. The number on the battery had fallen from 23% to 16%.

“Oh,” Number 46’s remarked before Irezumi could react.

“This is bad,” Lin Sanjiu grabbed her paper and wrote, “Every time I use [Concept Mishmash], it will reduce the battery by 7%. It means that, among the four of us, one won’t be able to recover.”