Doomsday Wonderland

When their eyes fell on the goose’s bills, although they could hardly see it clearly, they still couldn’t help but feel excited.

“Quick! Bring it to me!” Her anxiousness and zeal had gotten the best of her, causing her to talk so fast that the words clumped together in her throat in a log jam. However, the moment the words were spoken, Lin Sanjiu suddenly realized that the goose could not come into the lane. If the goose got caught by the hands, they would be as good as dead.

“The goose said it’s a piece of folded note,” Puppeteer said.

“A note?” Lin Sanjiu quickly asked, “What’s on it?”

“Words.”

“So? Hurry up and ask the goose to read it out!” Lin Sanjiu yelled. She almost fainted from the adrenaline rush and Puppeteer’s nonchalant attitude. Even though she had an abundance of Higher Consciousness, it still put plenty of strain on her. If she continued like this, she might not have enough to move, let alone maintain the Higher Consciousness Mimicry.

“Have you ever seen a goose that can read?” Puppeteer asked matter of factly.

“It—I—” Lin Sanjiu stammered, “How did it know that Coke Zero is out of stock, then?”

“It heard about it from a voice near the register machine.”

‘What is so special about this Special Item if it’s illiterate?’ Lin Sanjiu did not speak out the thought in her mind. She forced down her exasperation and said, “Ask the goose to stay there. I’ll go.”

Moving through pile after pile of snacks seemed harder than Lin Sanjiu expected. The feeling was akin to being in the ball-pit she used to play in when she was a child. There was no place for her to grasp, not to mention she was now a packet of chips that was soon to lose her mobility. It was merely a short distance, yet it had consumed a large portion of her Higher Consciousness.

When Lin Sanjiu finally arrived in front of the goose, the bird’s eyes lit up slightly. It opened its bills, and the note fluttered down. The next thing it did was peck Lin Sanjiu a few times. Lin Sanjiu did not mind the goose going ballistic on her since it did not hurt at all, and she went forward to spread the note out on the floor. At first, she blinked her eyes, thinking that her eyes were playing a trick on her. However, when she clearly saw the two large words on top of the note, she almost cried. For the first time, she could not articulate her mind properly into words. All she managed to force through her lips was a whimper of excitement.

“Puppeteer.” When she finally found her voice, her tone had changed. “This is a shopping list!”

Be that as it may, Lin Sanjiu could not help but sigh when she read further down.

It appeared to her that the Pocket Dimension was not going to let them pass so easily. There were only four items listed, and Lin Sanjiu could understand none of them. She knew the meaning of every single word written on the list, but when they were all combined, it made no sense to her.

1.) Lactose Intolerance (What a bother!)

2.) I’m gonna give that brat Ralo some lessons!

3.) Don’t buy any beer. Brown has put on quite some weight lately.

4.) A teenager is a bag full of walking hormones.

“What are these? Riddles?” Lin Sanjiu sighed after she had finished reading the list. “It seems like if we don’t solve the riddle, we won’t be able to know what to buy. I hope there’ll be an extra clue when the next announcement comes.”

After she had finished speaking, she fell quiet. There was no reply from Puppeteer.

The hundreds of thousands of hands on the shelves continued to thrash about in the air in the deadly silence. Only then did Lin Sanjiu realize that from the moment they found the shopping list, she had not heard from Puppeteer anymore. She felt a tingling crawl through her scalp as she asked softly, “Hey, Puppeteer. What are you doing? Why are you not talking?”

Puppeteer remained silent.

Lin Sanjiu’s heart was getting colder. She tried to turn around and look at the goose standing next to her. Unbeknownst to her, the goose had lost the liveliness that it portrayed earlier on. It stood blankly on the spot, flapping its wings occasionally, just like an ordinary goose.

‘Puppeteer… Has he been completely turned into a package of chips?’

When the thought barged into Lin Sanjiu’s mind with crystal clear clarity, a sense of fear quickly welled up in her heart. She was alone in this convenience store now.

There would be no one to discuss and analyze the situation with her. The goose would not go and find clues under her command. In this horrifying, dark, spacious, and vacant convenience store, she only had her Higher Consciousness that was depleting with every ticking second and her body that was slowly losing itself to the paralysis.

Lin Sanjiu realized she was getting more nervous and that she could not calm herself down. She hastily turned off the Higher Consciousness Mimicry. Her usual self retook the stage. She let out a breath, and her fluttering heart began to calm down.

The grand prize was good at everything. The only flaw he had was that he could be easily frightened.

Lin Sanjiu took a break, but knowing that she was running short of time, she quickly restarted the mimicry again. However, this time, she forced herself to focus on figuring out a solution to keep the nervousness at bay.

Right now, it was known that she was pulled into the shelf because she walked through the lane. If she wanted to leave, she had to find the correct chips. Although the Veda might have already altered this requirement, in any case, the correct answer should be a package of snacks on this shelf.

So, now, the real question was, did she have to find the answer based on Mrs. Cleveland’s shopping list, or did she have to repeat this again and again whenever she walked past a shelf? Was the shopping list the criterion for choosing the right answer?

If Puppeteer was still around, she could have made him walk outside the lane to see what would happen. However, now that he had completely turned into a package of chips, Lin Sanjiu suspected that nothing would happen even if she threw him outside with her Higher Consciousness.

Staring at the goose, Lin Sanjiu was fraught with anxiety as she felt her way around entirely in the dark. The goose would not be able to help her find any clues anymore.

Puppeteer entered the convenience store at the same time as her. Lin Sanjiu wondered why the stronger one would succumb faster than the weaker one. Time was running short, and she had to settle on a plan quickly.

‘Should I find the answer by referring to the shopping list, or I should go and gather more clues before making a decision?’

Once she picked the wrong plan, she would be doomed and forever trapped in here.

As time passed by, the silence in the lane got heavier and darker. The sea of snacks looked like, one after another, pairs of soulless eyes. They were all staring woodenly at the ceiling and the crowd of hands that colonized the shelf.

Any sound would be amplified in a perfectly silent atmosphere. A tiny rustle rose into the air as a yellowish-green packet of chicken onion-flavored chips was flipped into the mountain of chips by an invisible force.

After Lin Sanjiu had settled on a plan, the first thing she did was to pick Puppeteer out and hurl it next to the goose.

Then, it was all up to her luck.