Doomsday Wonderland

After settling on a plan using Ji Shanqing’s brilliant brain, Lin Sanjiu shut down the mimicry. After her adamant self took the stage once more, she shrugged off every doubt and fear she had and began to make her move.

The correct answer must be inside the mountain of snacks.

Although she was very clear that choosing the shopping list was the correct path, flipping through the mountain of chips one by one was too time-consuming. It would take too long, and she would end up following in Puppeteer’s footsteps before she could go through more than half of the chips.

‘Well, it’s now or never. I’ve gotta do what I gotta do,’ Lin Sanjiu thought to herself. She gathered every ounce of the Higher Consciousness in her body. Then, with a flick of her mind, she discharged the amassed Higher Consciousness into her surroundings.

As if it were a ravaging storm, the Higher Consciousness swept across the lane with a mighty force and rammed into the mountain of snacks, sending them into the air. Before the snacks could land on the floor, another wave of Higher Consciousness surged over and shoved them out of the lane.

Riding on the momentum, the snacks slid a long way across the floor, and only came to a halt when they hit the cash register. The entire floor of the convenience store was swamped with many kinds of snacks in different brands.

As the rustling of the packaged snacks clashing with each other disappeared into the air, the final hope in Lin Sanjiu’s heart faded as well. As predicted by the grand prize, pushing the snacks out of the lane did not mean that she had gotten the correct answer.

“Oh, my good Lord!” The Indian accent rang out. He sounded shocked. “What the hell is going on here?!”

‘Great! The Pocket Dimension being is responding!’

Without wasting any second, Lin Sanjiu glided across the floor to the back of the shelf. Then, she pulled Puppeteer to her side. Using her Higher Consciousness, she tried to climb up the shelf to the highest level. She waited until a hand retreated to the back of the shelf before darting forward to claim the spot. The moment she stopped at the spot, the hand did not shoot out anymore.

Before executing the last step of her plan, Lin Sanjiu told herself not to use the Higher Consciousness anymore, as it was running a little low now. She had to keep some of it should anything go sideways.

The goose did not move since it had not received any command from its master. Lin Sanjiu had no other choice but to leave it standing there.

“How come the items in A lane are all over the floor?” The Indian accent grumbled on and on. “Mrs. Cleveland? Mr. Griffin? Where are you? Why are you not answering me? Jeez, I should go and check what’s going on.”

Lin Sanjiu’s heart seized.

Ever since they entered the convenience store, they had only heard the voice of the Pocket Dimension being but had never seen its real face. Right now, Lin Sanjiu managed to force it out of its hiding spot.

‘What could it be?’

Sitting at the top level, Lin Sanjiu waited anxiously as she used her Higher Consciousness to fight off the paralysis that was slowly eating into her body.

Suddenly, a noise came from the direction of the cash register. Lin Sanjiu’s eyes lit up slightly. Somebody was coming. He was pulling his feet to cross the sea of snacks on the floor. The rustling he made when he kicked the packages was loud. For a moment, the entire convenience store was filled with those noises.

When the commotion finally arrived at the lane, Lin Sanjiu raised her eyes and was stunned.

The lane was empty. There was nobody there.

“Oh, my Holy Mamma Mia! Who the hell did this?!” The Indian accent, this time filled with astonishment, came from the speaker. “Why are people nowadays so ill-mannered and thoughtless?!”

Lin Sanjiu stared at the lane. Her eyes were wide open in shock, but she could not see anything besides the floor of snacks behind her.

“How could they throw everything off the shelves?! Oh wait, they left one out, but this is unforgivable!”

The Indian accent continued to rant. Lin Sanjiu slowly rolled her eyes, staring at her front. She had no idea why, but she had a hunch that something was standing right before her. She just could not see it.

“I remember the price of these chips is about $6,” the voice mumbled. “Why is it here in the $15 section? You’re one aspirational package of chips.”

As the sentence spread out from the speaker, Lin Sanjiu felt a chill creep down her spine. She could not activate her Hypersensory, but just like anybody who could sense in their sleep when somebody was watching them, she clearly felt that in an indescribable way, the invisible Pocket Dimension being was reaching out for her.

“Is he trying to move me away?” Her heart was in her throat.

This was the best spot that could give her the best view coverage of the entire lane. If the invisible man moved her away, then all of her efforts would be for naught.

Just when Lin Sanjiu waited in horror for the imminent to come, the airflow changed again. The invisible man stopped.

“Ah, forget about it. It’s too troublesome to move them packet by packet back to their original spot,” he muttered, “I’ll just change the price tag later on.”

Lin Sanjiu heaved a long sigh of relief. Everything then went quiet as silence once again reigned over the convenience store.

After a few seconds, another cacophony of plastic bags rustling rang out in the air, followed by the muffled sound of rolling wheels. A few shopping carts were pushed into the lane by the invisible man, and they stopped in front of the shelf.

All of the snacks Lin Sanjiu had pushed off were now piled inside the shopping carts. As if somebody was holding a bag of snacks, there were a few pits on the surface of the baggy chips. They floated in the air and were put back on the shelves.

It all happened within two seconds, and Lin Sanjiu saw everything with her eyes. Her heart was brimming with jubilation. “Great! The grand prize’s plan worked!”

Ji Shanqing’s idea was straightforward. Since she did not have the energy and the time to flip through the chips one by one, she just needed to get somebody to do it for her. It was as simple as that.

Classically, there should be an employee maintaining cleanliness in a convenience store. However, Lin Sanjiu had no idea if this rule was applicable in a Pocket Dimension or not, as the Pocket Dimension was too unpredictable, after all. Even if there was such a person in this convenience store, the aspirant Veda might have deleted it already. It would have never occurred to Lin Sanjiu in her wildest dreams that the grand prize’s plan would hit the bullseye!

Nevertheless, what came next was the real challenge.

Lin Sanjiu’s Higher Consciousness was running low. She had to reserve a major part of it to cast the Higher Consciousness Mimicry for one last time. Seizing the opportunity as the invisible employee was arranging the snacks back onto the shelf, Lin Sanjiu strained her eyes wide to study every packaging, trying to search for clues in the shortest amount of time. Above all, she had to memorize the location and information of every suspicious target.

For an ordinary person, this was by no means a piece of cake. In addition to being an exceptional observer and having a clear mind, the person also needed to have a superb memory and a strong heart. Well, at least he could not be nervous if he accidentally missed out an item. Although Lin Sanjiu did not have all of them, the good thing was that she did not need to memorize every single item. She only had to take note of the suspicious ones.

The real difficulty was those items being in her blind spot. In order not to miss any items, there were times she threw herself down from the shelf.

After struggling for what it seemed like an eternity, Lin Sanjiu was finally able to pinpoint a few snacks that might be the answer out of the thousands of merchandise.

While she was in the midway of doing this, the third announcement came. The invisible employee stopped for a while. Lin Sanjiu heaved a relieved sigh, as she did not have to split her concentration and end up missing something critical that might ruin her. “Mrs. Cleveland, I heard from the wind that you don’t agree with the idea that I’m going to set up a snack vending machine around the school. Well, I understand you’re just worried about the health of your children, but don’t you think you have gone a little over when you go around and tell everybody that I’m feeding junk food to children? Oh yeah, Mr. Griffin, before I forget, your wife, Mrs. Lois, came to search for you just now. She looks furious. Oh, but don’t worry, I got your back. I said I didn’t see you anywhere around. Did I say it right?”

This time the announcement had added a clue specifically for Puppeteer. Unfortunately, he could not hear it any longer.

Lin Sanjiu jotted down the two clues and threw a surreptitious gaze at the goose and the packet of chips behind the goose’s hindquarters. The goose flapped its wings dumbly. It seemed that it had no idea its master was already gone.

The invisible employee was a speedy worker. He soon finished arranging the snacks back in their original places. There was one extra packet of chips, so he just left it inside the shopping cart. In the end, keeping up with high-intensity mental concentration began to take its toll as her eyes felt strained. She just hoped that she did not miss out on anything. Lin Sanjiu remained frozen in her spot even after the invisible employee had pushed the shopping carts away. She waited for a short while before she flipped herself over and fell from the shelf.

The extra packet of chips that’s spot she had claimed on the shelf seemed to be a goner.

Seizing the time while her memories were still fresh, Lin Sanjiu hit the few suspicious items with her Higher Consciousness before activating her Higher Consciousness Mimicry. When she fell into thought, silence revisited the lane. The goose peered blankly into the front to see a few bags of chips on the floor.

A few minutes had passed, yet nothing happened.

On the shopping list, it was clear that the first and the third items had no relationship with snacks. So, she crossed them out. Right now, Lin Sanjiu was oscillating between the second and fourth items, as both of them were pretty close to the correct answer.

‘What if I just find out the correct answer based on Mrs. Cleveland?’

Her title suggested that Mrs. Cleveland was a married woman. Everything on the shopping list must be things she wanted to buy for herself or her family. From there, “Brown who drinks beer” might be her grown-up son or her husband. Judging from the word “teenager”, she should have at least one adolescent child, as the legal drinking age was 21, and the final year to be considered as a teenager was 19 years old. It was difficult to deduce Brown’s identity from the difference between the two figures.

However, looking from how passionate Mrs. Cleveland was in primary school affairs, it was very likely that she had a kid that was still studying in an elementary school. Most of the children graduated from primary school at age 12, hence, the likelihood of the age of the teenager below 19 years old was pretty high. The larger the gap between the age of the teenager with Brown, the more likely that “Brown who drinks beer” was her husband.

In conclusion, Mrs. Cleveland was a married woman with a husband that was still alive, at least one child in the adolescent stage, and a primary schooler.

The teenager was undoubtedly not “Ralo”. So, “Ralo”, who needed to learn a lesson, must be Mrs. Cleveland’s kid who was still studying in elementary school.

Lin Sanjiu had a pretty decent grasp over the entire situation when she deduced that Ralo was the primary schooler. She studied the few snacks in front of her for one last time.

These few snacks had some weird packaging. Looking at the pattern of the packaging, the dates, and the descriptions, it was as if the manufacturer was making fun of the users. One of them had a description to remind the user to consume it after the expiry date while another was manufactured in the year 716462. There was even one with a poisonous sign printed on top of it. Their flavors made no sense as well. Among the flavors, there was a deadly wasabi flavor, icy blade, poopy, cumin and bromhidrosis, and siphon.

Indeed, each of them looked evil enough to give people an unforgettable lesson.

Lin Sanjiu thought for a while. She returned a few that she felt were not the correct answer back to the shelf to block the hands from popping out. Then, she used her final bit of Higher Consciousness and wrapped it around the remaining snack.

“This is my last chance…” She gritted her teeth, threw everything to the wind, and hurled the snack into the shopping basket she put in the lane.