Doomsday Wonderland

A series of slurps echoed in the air as a few drops of soup splattered onto the grand prize’s shirt. Ji Shanqing was sitting in a lotus position under the umbrella. He had gathered his long hair at the back of his head. His cheeks were rosy, and his lips were red and bee-stung as he buried his head in the bowl and stuffed the piping hot noodles into his mouth.

“Is it good?” Lin Sanjiu watched him like a mother looking at her son as she wiped at the soup stain on his trousers.

The resting zone plunged into a deep silence the moment Puppeteer and the grand prize showed up. It took a considerable amount of time before the atmosphere gradually became lively again, except for one spot. The area where Lin Sanjiu and her group sat was still as quiet as before. The cries from the stall owners, the steam from the snacks, and the whisper from the tarot stall were all blocked out by a group of people that surrounded them.

The group of people was, in fact, “posthumans” who had been turned into puppets. Under their steely, emotionless gazes, Lin Sanjiu had lost all interest in selling the noodles. Since she had nothing else to do, she rested her chin on her hand as she admired her grand prize wolfing down the bowl of noodles.

After guzzling a clump of noodles and half a bowl of soup down his throat, Ji Shanqing wiped his mouth and gave a satisfied burp. The burp instantly tainted the air around him with the smell of beef noodles. He turned to Lin Sanjiu, giving her a toothy grin. “It’s great, sis! I feel so refreshed! But I feel that it’s missing something. If we added some chives and egg, the overall taste would be elevated…”

“Enough! Get to the point!” Interrupted Puppeteer, who had been sitting aside in the dark.

“Why the fuss? We can talk while we eat,” Lin Sanjiu refuted with a frown after she saw her grand prize jolt up and put the bowl down. “Are you sure you don’t want one? I’ve heard that when people are hungry, their blood sugar level will be lower. And when their blood sugar level is lower, they’ll feel angry more easily than usual.”

Puppeteer gave a cold smile. Lin Sanjiu did not know whether he was angry or not, as his face was pallid and bereft of any form of emotion. Half of his face was scrunched up as he softly said, “If you love to eat noodles so much, I can do you a favor and turn your blood into noodle soup.”

Upon hearing this, Soulsqn, who had been staring at the Demae Iccho Beef Noodles, lowered her head.

Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to put the Special Item back into her card. When she raised her head, she found that Ji Shanqing was measuring the birdcage on her back. His two delicate eyebrows knitted together in a frown.

The grand prize happened to have met the bald man once in the Meat Elysium before, albeit just briefly. At that time, the wind caused by the dimensional rift had obscured their vision, and they were far away from the bald man. Although Lin Sanjiu fully knew that her grand prize could not recognize the man, to avoid any contingencies, she tilted her body a little to block the birdcage from her grand prize. She smiled and said, “A little token of appreciation for my friend since he helped me in the game. Anyway, what did you want to tell me?”

The question snapped Ji Shanqing back to reality. He returned Lin Sanjiu with a smile, “Sis, you already know the reason we chose the Red Nautilus zone, don’t you? The Data Streams Library is a universe. Do you still remember that?”

Lin Sanjiu nodded. The idea of two apocalyptic worlds co-existing in one single universe was not hard to understand. It made sense to her, especially right after her grand prize had explained it to her in detail. Nevertheless, without her grand prize, Lin Sanjiu was confident that the concept would never have come to her.

“I have briefly explained my idea to…” the grand prize paused, “Mr. Puppeteer, but I did not have enough time to elaborate more extensively on it. Now that everyone is here, let’s pool our thoughts together.”

He cleared his throat, looking at the trio before continuing in a low voice, “Okay, first things first, we already know that the Veda has made changes to this piece of the universe so that they can live in it. Besides that, we also know that they have modified at least two planets in this universe, one of which is the Salvation of God while the other is the Olympics.”

Three of them listened attentively to Ji Shanqing. The symphony of voices of the crowd and the constant holler of the stall owners were carried away by the wind into the distance.

“Right now, we’ve spent four days at the Olympics.” Fearing that the trio could not hear him well, Ji Shanqing held four fingers in the air before moving on. “Initially, I was worried that the Veda would come after us. If that happened, they would most likely go to the Salvation of God zone first. That is the reason why I picked the Red Nautilus zone in the first place, but now it seems like my worries were totally uncalled for. There are so few contenders in the Salvation of God zone that the Veda would’ve spotted you instantly the moment they came. Since you are here with us now, that could only mean one thing—they didn’t come in the end.”

Puppeteer gave another cold laugh.

The grand prize felt a little bit awkward. He looked at Lin Sanjiu, but upon realizing that the latter remained nonchalant towards what he had said, he continued, “Although I don’t know the reason why, since the Veda isn’t coming for us, there’s one more option we could undertake.”

“What do you mean?”

“According to my speculation, you—” The grand prize suddenly stopped when he realized he had made the same mistake again and quickly corrected himself, “According to my speculation, our time in the Olympics won’t be reset. That is to say, the number of days we have left in the Salvation of God is the same number of days we will be staying in the Olympics. Thus, we can stay here until we transfer to another world and say goodbye to the Veda forever. What do you think?”

“I disagree!” Lin Sanjiu was the first to speak up. She pointed an accusing finger at Puppeteer and said, “He left my friends in the Salvation of God, so I have to go back to them.”

Soulsqn raised her upper torso, replying, “I believe that cat can take care of himself. Why do you have to worry about him?”

For Soulsqn, it was not a hard task to return to the Salvation of God to look for her clansmen. All she needed to do was find herself a suitable human pouch and get a visa, but the premise was that she had to get out of here alive first.

Ji Shanqing’s face turned sour. “Sis, why do you have so many friends?”

“Put your damned finger down,” Puppeteer commanded. He turned over to the grand prize and said, “I don’t agree with this plan either. I must go back and give those Vedas a lesson.”

Soulsqn turned silent.

The grand prize’s expression turned even uglier, but he did not say anything. Pointing at the dark sky above them, he said, “If that’s the case, we have to go up.”

The other two nodded while only the flesh worm remained frozen.

“This is going to be a little bit tricky.” The grand prize sighed.

Before the apocalypse arrived, going outer space was something that could only be done with the wealth of a country and a staggering amount of resources. Even in the apocalypse era where most posthumans had a wide array of Special Items with different abilities, it was still by no means an easy feat. Lin Sanjiu and Soulsqn were probably well aware of this more than anybody else as they almost died when the elder brother forcibly pulled them out from the Salvation of God into the Data Stream Library last time.

Although they knew where they should be going, they did not know how to reach there.

“What should we do?” Lin Sanjiu asked.

The grand prize sighed, his shoulders sagged in defeat, “First, we have to analyze this planet.”

“We can help with that…” Soulsqn was nodding, and before Lin Sanjiu could finish her sentence, Ji Shanqing raised his hand to interrupt her, “That’s not necessary. I already have a plan.”

“What’s on your mind?”

“The Veda must have done something to the Olympics with their power. Otherwise, a normal planet would never look like this. Since they didn’t come after us, there’s only one person on this planet who might be a Veda, or is related to the Veda,” Ji Shanqing paused, glancing at the trio with his bright eyes, “Zeus, the highest god.

“There’s a high probability that Zeus knows the way to return to the Data Stream Library,” the grand prize continued, “As long as we can find him, we can return to the Data Stream Library. At that time, you can do whatever you want, be it teach the Veda a lesson or return to the Salvation of God. It’s all up to you.”

“In other words, to meet Zeus, we have to win the match.” Lin Sanjiu frowned. “I remember that only the winner who wins the most matches in a zone will get to…”

“Yes, only the winner who won the most games will get to meet Zeus. I remember that,” Ji Shanqing finished the second half of Lin Sanjiu’s sentence. “The only thing that I’m not sure about is if there’s any time restriction imposed on us to collect our winnings. Is it a month or a year? But the wall in the resting zone has already been shut down, so we can only find out tomorrow.”

“In that case…” Lin Sanjiu’s expression changed as she delved deeper into her thoughts. She let out a long sigh and said in a tired voice, “We cannot rest for three days after each game.”

Ji Shanqing nodded. With an apologetic look, he went closer to Lin Sanjiu, assaulting her nose with the smell of beef noodles that lingered on his breath as he said, “Sis, you mustn’t choose racing again. Next time, pick another lighter competition.”

Lin Sanjiu could not help burying her face in her palms at the thought that she had to go through hell at least once every day. Seeing her reaction, the grand prize became restless. He tried to find words to comfort her, “Try to look on the brighter side, sis. You and Puppeteer are in different zones, so you two won’t be competing with each other. Once you two get first place, both of you can each bring one more person to meet Zeus. That way, four of us will be seeing Zeus, so we can leave this place together.”