Doomsday Wonderland

Perhaps because Lin Sanjiu accidentally made some noise when she was scurrying around, the figure in front of her stopped chomping on Lucy’s flesh and raised his large, rounded head.

“Who’s there?”

Eggy’s voice sounded muffled because his mouth was full of human flesh. He got up from the floor with the help of his four tiny limbs while his white bulging eyes glimmered in the dark. He soon picked up Lin Sanjiu’s scent and turned his head towards the row of cabinets where she was hiding.

“Have you returned, Sister?” Eggy asked softly, “I can smell your scent.”

A chunk of meat fell from the corner of his lips. He caught it midair and stuffed it back into his mouth.

‘He can smell my scent?’

The thought made her pause and lose her concentration. By the time she returned to her senses, Eggy had already come up to her and was staring at her through the slit.

Just as she froze in fear, Eggy stretched his hand into the slit, trying to reach for her. It was only at this second that Lin Sanjiu snapped out of her trance. Her hair all stood on their ends. She immediately took out the Tranquilizer Gun for the Foot Soldier and fired at the incoming palm.

Her aim was a success. Eggy stumbled back and knocked several furniture down, causing a slight stir. He let out a faint whimper and dropped to the floor with a thud as Lin Sanjiu sighed relievedly.

She had obtained this gun from the Garden of Eden. The amount of tranquilizer it contained was enough to put an elephant to sleep. Hence, regardless of whether Eggy was an imposter or a walking corpse, she was certain that he would be unable to move for a certain period of time.

The chest of the figure on the floor continued to rise and fall, albeit barely perceptibly.

It was only when she retracted her gaze that Mrs. Manas asked, “What the hell is that thing?”

“Who knows?” replied Lin Sanjiu halfheartedly. She wiped the beads of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. Her mind relaxed when she heard Mrs. Manas’s voice. As she explained the whole thing to Mrs. Manas, she squeezed herself through a piece of furniture. “How is my Higher Consciousness right now? Was it enough to cover my ears?”

“Yeah, it’s enough.” Mrs. Manas had read her memory, so she had a solid grasp of the entire situation. “But you can only use your Higher Consciousness to do one thing. Do you want to use it to cover your ears or to activate the mimicry?”

Lin Sanjiu came to a sudden froze. Then, she laughed bitterly.

Did she even have a choice?

She could not figure out what had happened to her comrades, and she was even more worried about Puppeteer. She did not even know was he still alive or dead. In order for her to understand the situation, she needed Ji Shanqing’s brain.

She let out a long sigh. Since Eggy was already out of her sight, she picked a spot in front of a bed and crouched down. She stuffed the paper rolls back into her ears and closed her eyes. After her grand prize vanished, this was her first time recalling the days she spent together with him.

They used to sleep under the stars waiting for dawn or crouch by the roadside to share a pot of hot soup. Lin Sanjiu had once kept half of a bookstore into her card as a gift for her grand prize. Some times, he would snuggle up against her, nestling his head on her shoulder as he flipped through the book in his hand. Occasionally, when he found an interesting passage from the book, he would read it out for her. She still remembered how soothing and clear his voice was. It sounded like a clear stream that gurgled through cobblestones. Whenever the breeze blew, it would deliver the fragrance of his hair and his clean body scent into Lin Sanjiu’s nostrils.

It was difficult for Lin Sanjiu to accept that the entire time when they only had each other, her grand prize had been keeping a secret from her.

“You can’t let those memories get in your way,” Mrs. Manas interrupted, “Stay focused. Try to mimic his way of thinking. Put yourself in his shoes and imagine how he would solve this situation.”

Lin Sanjiu let out a breath and nodded. “Okay, let’s try one more time.”

However, the moment she closed her eyes, the grand prize’s voice rang out clearly in her ears once more. “Sis.”

Ji Shanqing sat on the edge of a rooftop, his hair fluttering gracefully in the wind. He rolled the book up and rested his chin on it. With a smile on his face, he asked, “Did you ever think that we might be separated one day?”

Lin Sanjiu had forgotten the answer she had given him at that time. It should have been something along the lines of, “We should try our best effort to stick together”.

“How can you be so thoughtless, Sis? Things are constantly changing in the Doomsday. Maybe we are talking right now, but who knows what will happen next?” Ji Shanqing sneered, sounding very disappointed in Lin Sanjiu’s indifference towards their situation.

“So, what do you say we should do?” Lin Sanjiu giggled, tickled pink by his reaction. She stretched her arm to support his back so that he would not fall.

“I have no idea,” replied Ji Shanqing sullenly, his lips pouting slightly. His cherry red lips were a stark contrast against his pale complexion. “If only we could anchor one of us at a location, then the other would know where to look when we’re separated.”

Lin Sanjiu could not help burst into laughter.

Perhaps, being excluded from the world leaping loop was the dream of every posthuman…

“Student Lin!” Mrs. Manas shouted exasperatedly, snapping Lin Sanjiu out from her reverie. She peeled her eyes opened. “Did I not say that reminiscing won’t help you to activate the mimicry? Hurry, you’re running out of time.”

“I’m sorry. I just couldn’t control it.” Lin Sanjiu was a little upset as she did not expect that it would be so hard to activate the Consciousness Mimicry. Then, she took a few deep breaths as she tried to activate the skill for the third time. Before that, she scanned around to make sure that there were no signs of slits.

However, when she was taking her surroundings in, something caught her attention. She shifted her eyes back and her gaze stopped on a large closet. Even in the dim of the night, she could still see the large mark that she left on the door of the closet.

That was the closet that Eggy said Puppeteer had walked into.

“What’s wrong?” Mrs. Manas’s voice rang out in her mind.

“Nothing.” Lin Sanjiu continued to look at the closet for a long period of time. It took her several minutes before she finally peeled her eyes away. She lowered her head and said, “I’ll try again.”

As she spoke, she closed her eyes. However, after roughly two seconds, Lin Sanjiu found herself staring at the closet again.

‘Why do I keep looking at the closet? What’s so special about it?’ she asked herself. Eggy was not a living person, so how could she believe whatever he said?

Be that as it may, Lin Sanjiu felt a tugging at the depth of her mind. The feeling was odd and uncomfortable; it was as if there was a stone in your shoe but you could not get it out.

‘According to Eggy’s description, Puppeteer dragged his feet and walked into the closet with his head held low. Polva’s head, the Matryoshka Doll, could be taken down and worn it back…’

In the end, she still failed to activate the Consciousness Mimicry. Mrs. Manas sighed with disappointment thick in her voice. “What happened to you today? You seem so…”

“I knew it!” Lin Sanjiu shouted, spreading her voice far into the dark sky. It was only then that she realized she had yelled out loud. She hastily covered her mouth with her hand and spoke to Mrs. Manas in her mind, “Although I didn’t get to activate the mimicry, I’ve already figured it out!”

“What did you figure out?”

Lin Sanjiu jerked up from the floor and knocked over a coffee table next to her. She did not need to mimic the grand prize as the entire thing was actually very simple. It was like Scrabble, the word game she used to play during her childhood. Every letter was right in front of her, and all she had to do was put them together in the correct order.

“I know what’s going on with Puppeteer!” The words tumbled out from her lips in a short burst. “Puppeteer is still alive, and Eggy didn’t lie to me. At least, he didn’t lie about the part about Puppeteer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll just read your mind instead,” Mrs. Manas grumbled. Then, after a few seconds, Lin Sanjiu heard Mrs. Manas exclaim in her mind, “So, that’s how it is!”

She could make out a word from the pile of letters once she found the correct order. Therefore, she was able to restore the correct sequence to the entire story once she put everything she knew in the correct order.

1. Before entering the furniture cemetery, Polva had already removed several layers of the Matryoshka Doll.

2. After entering the furniture cemetery, Polva had removed at least one layer of the Matryoshka Doll. This could be proven by the head that Lin Sanjiu saw earlier on.

3. Every time Polva removed a layer, he would become smaller in size.

4. However, Puppeteer was even taller than Lin Sanjiu.

5. Puppeteer was unconscious due to his injury, so Polva had to carry him on his back.

6. During the footrace, Lin Sanjiu knew that Polva had to find a place where nobody could see him putting his “shells” back on, and Soulsqn laughed at him for this.

“His body was terribly small, so when he was carrying Puppeteer on his back, Eggy could only see Puppeteer from a distance. This was also why Eggy said Puppeteer was dragging his feet on the ground and walked into the closet with his head held low. It was because Puppeteer wasn’t walking at that time,” Mrs. Manas explained, “Who would have thought that the truth turned out to be as simple as that? If you had realized it earlier, then you wouldn’t have to have gone so far.”

“However, I wouldn’t have realized it if I didn’t go that far.”

“Then, what do you plan to do now?”

Lin Sanjiu exhaled once before placing her hand on the closet handle. She carefully pulled the door slightly ajar. The darkness waiting within the closet almost seemed like an abyss that could swallow everything. According to Eggy, they did not step out of the closet this whole time. Lin Sanjiu could not verify it, but what else could she do other than take his words as they were?

As the mildew odor from the time-worn closet wafted into her nose, the darkness enveloped her whole.

“I’m going in.”