Doomsday Wonderland

Lin Sanjiu’s vision turned black, and the headlights disappeared the moment she jolted up from the ground. The rain continued to fall while the road was dark. There was nobody around, let alone vehicles.

“Was that an illusion? Or was that a gimmick of this Pocket Dimension?” 

Lin Sanjiu could not remember when the automobile was invented. Were there any vehicles running on the road at the end of the 19-century?

Huffing, Lin Sanjiu raised her hand to wipe the rainwater off her face. However, the torrential downpour rendered her attempt futile. Huge drops of rain continued to fall from the sky, blurring her vision as she could barely open her eyes.

It was at this moment that she heard footsteps coming from her side, bringing her back into reality. She raised her head, and as she stood up, she knew she had made a wrong decision. Instantly, the murderer saw her. The shadowy figure quickly charged at her with his blade gleaming wickedly in the rainy night.

Without wasting a second, she spread her legs and turned to run. Her shoulder was screaming in burning pain as the rain fell on her wound. She did not want to confront Jack the Ripper in her current state. As she ran, she screamed with all her might, hoping somebody would come to her aid.

She was fast, so Jack the Ripper could not catch up to her. After she continued to sprint for a few minutes, she realized that something was amiss.

She had been running on full tilt for almost eight minutes, yet the heavy footfalls were still following closely behind her. It seemed that the shadowy figure was not afraid of being discovered, but that was not what Lin Sanjiu feared the most.

She could clearly hear the footsteps from a dozen meters away, but why was there nobody responding to her call for help even though she was shouting so loudly?

Her surroundings were getting darker as the street lamps and the buildings were all engulfed into the great maw of darkness. Lin Sanjiu could not see anything else aside from the small bit of cobbled road in front of her. Her ears were filled with the sound of rain, water, footsteps, and panting.

She knew the man was getting closer and closer. The hair on the nape of her neck bristled, and her breathing became heavier.

Lin Sanjiu did not know whether she was getting slower or if the man was getting faster. She made a sharp turn and swerved into an alley next to her. Her heart pumped more blood into her muscles so that she could move faster. Nevertheless, the man was still a tad faster than her. She heard the man giggle behind her, and the next thing she knew, he stretched his arm forward, aiming for her shoulder.

She did not know why he did not use the knife.

Lin Sanjiu was both fast and agile. By right, she should be able to dodge the strike, but the man somehow managed to clamp his hand onto her shoulder. Then, he yanked his arm backward, causing her to lose her balance and fell to the ground. Her head hit the ground, and for a second, she saw stars.

When her vision cleared, she was pinned to the ground. The shadowy figure was standing next to her. He looked even taller and more massive from a worm’s-eye view. His blade flashed silver in the dull light, but there was no blood on it as it had been washed off by the rain.

The shadowy figure said something, but Lin Sanjiu could not hear him well. The man hunkered down, applying more force through his palm on her shoulder and pushed her face into a puddle.

Lin Sanjiu turned her neck as hard as she could to look at the man’s face through her side-eye, but her strain had minimal effect. The murderer was wearing the same hat that was now sodden with rain. It drooped over his eyes and shrouded his face in its shadow, preventing anyone from seeing his features.

“Fifth.” His voice came out in ragged heaves, knife held high. But before he could thrust it down, Lin Sanjiu jerked up and rammed her head as hard as she could into his chin. He yelped in pain and staggered back, loosening his grip in the process. Seizing the chance, Lin Sanjiu pushed herself up from the ground.

She had used all the strength she had into the headbutt, but it seemed like she could inflict nothing more than a little pain to the man.

Not only that, the shadowy figure effortlessly neutralized all her attacks. Her kicks were weak, and her punches powerless. It was as if she had become a normal woman that did not have much strength.

The rain continued to fall, and everything was drowned in darkness. There were no people around, and all the buildings were gone. Lin Sanjiu was trapped in this dark corner, facing the tall and ruthless killer alone. Nobody would come to her aid.

Right after she received a mighty punch in her stomach, Lin Sanjiu felt her blood rush up to her head, and her eyes bulged.

‘This is what those poor girls had experienced before they died, isn’t it? Am I going to die in the same way too?’

Just as the thought surfaced in her mind, a faint glow appeared before her. It gradually grew stronger with every passing second. Lin Sanjiu squinted her eyes to adjust her eyes to the dazzling light. As the sound of an engine tore through the air, the shadowy figure gave a start and leaped back.

“Quick! Hop in!”

The young man’s desperate scream came from behind the two beams of light. Through her narrowed eyes, Lin Sanjiu could vaguely see two blinding headlights and the slightly slanting, tiny threads of rain.

“So, it’s not an illusion. This guy is driving the car…”

“Hurry up! He is coming!” the young man yelled again, pulling Lin Sanjiu out from her thoughts.

She darted a glance at the shadowy figure, and when she saw him charging at her once more, she forced herself up from the ground and bolted headlong in the direction of the light. She yanked the door open and went into the vintage vehicle.

The engine screeched loudly like a beast as the young man reversed the car out from the alley. He yanked the steering wheel hard and performed a 90-degree turn with the vehicle, positioning the driver seat right at the alley. Then, he did not drive away instantly. Instead, he stared blankly at the shadowy figure in the alley.

“Go! What are you waiting for?” Lin Sanjiu was in a lot of agonies. Her muscles were shaking while her body was trembling. She felt so weak as if her body had regressed to before the apocalypse arrived. No, her physical fitness at that time might have been even better than now.

“Ah, oh yeah.” The young man finally came around to his senses. He stepped on the accelerator hard and the car shot forward like an arrow leaving its bowstring. As he drove the car, he kept shouting in a voice that was thick with excitement, “I saw him! I saw him! I finally know who Jack the Ripper is!”

Stunned, Lin Sanjiu turned her head around. However, the car had already gone off into the distance. She could only see the shadowy figure run out from the alley, but she could not see his face.

“Who is he?” The moment she relaxed, only then did she realize that she had shouted her throat hoarse. “Is he somebody we know?”

The young man paid no mind to her question. Lin Sanjiu asked again, but the young man did not give any response either. Suddenly, something came up in her mind, and she asked, “Where did you find this car? Did the automobile exists in the 19th-century?”

“Yeah, it did,” the young man replied this time. His voice was trembling with joy. “Cars were invented in the 19th century.”

Lin Sanjiu had given all the knowledge she learned during her schooling days back to her teacher, so she could not tell if the young man telling her the truth or if he was giving her a shallow answer. She bit her lower lip and remained silent for a few seconds. After that, she sighed. “It seems like finding out the true identity of the murderer isn’t enough to end the game. Where are we heading now?”

While they talked, the car continued to move forward. The darkness was ebbing away, and the buildings began to appear. While Lin Sanjiu was observing their surroundings, the young man replied, “We are now heading to the intersection of Chatham Road and Princess Margaret Road.”

Lin Sanjiu froze. Although she had never heard of these two places before, her fingers began to tremble.

It was not well-lit in the car, so she squinted her eyes to see better in the dim light, and when she slowly adjusted to the low lighting, the thing that met her glance was something very familiar to her: oil gauges, odometers, the handbrake…

A Buddha idol and a charm were swinging in front of the dashboard. She sat in the co-driver’s seat and stared at the taxi driver’s identity card in front of her. The words on the card were blurred, but she could still vaguely see the facial features of the man in the black-and-white photo. The man had a pair of phoenix eyes with double eyelids just like the young man sitting next to her.

Lin Sanjiu turned her head around and met the glance of a similar pair of phoenix eyes in the photo.

“We’ve known each other for so long, but I never told you my name.” The young man gave Lin Sanjiu a toothy grin. “I’m Lin, and my full name is Lin Guoyu. Nice to meet you.”

The car doors were locked with a click.

“But then, I changed my name. I now go by the name Lin Guoyun. As the saying goes, life is as transient and ephemeral as a fleeting cloud.” The young man paused, but his smile did not go away. “In Hong Kong, they call me ‘The Rainy Night Butcher’.”