Doomsday Wonderland

“A new place to call home?”

The forlorn, monotonous wind came and went. Only the billowing sand responded by leaping into the air. The interaction between the wind and the sand continued on the odd occasion, and there seemed to be no end to it. Naturally, death was inconsequential in a place where life did not even exist, to begin with.

Soulsqn was lurking in the distance. Suddenly, she ducked and hid in one of the sand dunes, leaving only Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing sitting shoulder to shoulder in the wind.

Lin Sanjiu looked over at the grand prize to see that his sparkling eyes resembled the flickering stars in the night sky. He still looked the same as he was in her memories. Originally, she thought the grand prize was born with a fully matured mind, but now it did not seem to be the case.

Like a sprout that slowly grew into a tree, Ji Shanqing had been changing during the time when they were together. Lin Sanjiu simply did not notice it at all.

“What do you mean?” Like always, she reached a hand out and helped him to gather his hair behind his ears.

“What else did you think your native land was? Sis, this will be your new home,” said Ji Shanqing with a smile. He snuggled up to Lin Sanjiu and continued, “Sis, you can’t spend your whole life hopping from one apocalyptic world to another. The Data Stream Library is different from any other world out there. You see, even on this planet, life will surely develop and doomsday will eventually arrive. However, neither of those will ever happen in the Data Stream Library. It is a universe, a void, and it’s the gap between apocalypse worlds.”

As he said, he leaned his head on Lin Sanjiu’s arm. “This is the final answer if we wish to extricate ourselves from the loop.”

He was right. There would be no enemies or danger here, and they did not have to vie for the necessities and supplies they needed. There was really no better place if they really wanted to cast off the chain that bound them to the cycle.

Lin Sanjiu remained silent for a while. It took several seconds for his words to sink in. Then, she asked through a low voice, “So, you want me to…stay here forever?”

Frowning, the grand prize thought for a moment and shook his head, causing Lin Sanjiu to heave a sigh of relief. It went without saying that if there was an opportunity to free herself from the shackles of the doomsday, she would certainly seize it. For some unknown reason, she could not imagine herself floating in this universe with her grand prize, forever cut off from the rest of the world.

“Not yet, Sis,” the grand prize said vehemently, “The war with the Veda is still going on, and it’s too dangerous for you to stay here. After the war has ended, then you…”

The grand prize came to a sudden halt. He had always been the advisor of the team, so it took him no more than a split second to figure out that something was amiss. He narrowed his eyes and stared fixedly at Lin Sanjiu as the word tumbled from his lips, “Sis?”

“Yeah?” Lin Sanjiu’s heart gave a little start.

“You want to live with me here.” He reached out for Lin Sanjiu and grabbed her tightly with his elegant hand. The chill of his skin invaded her senses as he enunciated, “Don’t you?”

It was difficult for Lin Sanjiu to provide a description of the odd emotions that suddenly swelled in her heart. She wanted to hold him in her embrace, yet at the same time, she wanted to run away. Eventually, she returned his grip and let out a sigh.

She did not say anything, but Ji Shanqing’s muscles suddenly slackened as if he had accepted a promise from her. People were particularly credulous and easy to be beguiled about what they wanted to believe, and the situation was way more serious for those who claimed to be smart. This was because the smarter the person was, the likelier they were to actively search for details to support their views.

“I can cook for you, and we can play games together. There’s a surfeit of games from different planets loaded inside the database. You know, surfing for data in the database is just like browsing for merchandise on eBay. There are a lot of things to see, and it’s fun,” the grand prize chirped while grinning. His teeth were white and his red lips contrasted starkly. “There will only be two of us. We don’t have to worry about a single thing, and we can do whatever we want! It’s like a utopia!”

“That sounds really nice,” Lin Sanjiu mumbled as a smile unknowingly crawled upon the corner of her lips. The grand prize’s words were too adamant and pleasant to be true, but somehow, she could not help but begin to picture it inside her brain.

“Of course, it is!” Ji Shanqing smiled as he looked at the direction where the queen had disappeared to. Seeing his reaction, Lin Sanjiu snapped out of her reverie.

She had been overwhelmed by the whole idea of the homeland that she had forgotten about Puppeteer and Soulsqn. When she thought about them, she wanted to ask the grand prize about the other people that they met, but she held her sentence back. She glanced at him, but she was not able to see through his true feelings that were well-hidden underneath his pristine and flawless profile.

Lin Sanjiu knew her grand prize would never harm her, and she was very certain that she was the only one who possessed such a privilege. After all, considering everything that he had done inside the Data Stream Library, she was convinced that other than destroying the Veda, he was trying to get rid of Puppeteer and Soulsqn as well.

Right now, Puppeteer posed little to no threat to him anymore. However, the terror he had brought upon him when he was still a grand prize was reason enough for the grand prize to eliminate him. Meanwhile, Soulsqn might just have been collateral damage.

The grand prize had once explained to her that since the speed of the data exchange was exceedingly fast inside the database, although she felt like a long time had passed, it had actually only been 1.7 seconds. However, when they got out of the database, the Veda told her that they had stayed inside the database for more than 10 seconds.

Using the 1.7 seconds as her basis of measurement, Lin Sanjiu felt that, at most, she had only stayed in the database for 1.8 seconds. She could not explain why time was being so erratic. Perhaps there was no time difference between the cord and the database, to begin with.

After mulling over this, she felt that this might be one of the grand prize’s lies to prevent her from going out so that the Veda could get rid of Puppeteer and Soulsqn in time.

Nevertheless, even the most intelligent futurists could not foresee all circumstances. It turned out that instead of deleting them, the Veda had thrown both Puppeteer and Soulsqn into this plane which was something the grand prize failed to envisage.

“Can you let them go?” Lin Sanjiu pitched her voice low and asked, “They won’t come here anymore. Isn’t that the same?”

This place might be the single safe haven in the doomsday, but that only applied to Lin Sanjiu. The cat doctor, Hu Changzai, Rabbit…even Qing Jiuliu might not have a chance of coming here. Then, on second thought, Lin Sanjiu thought it might be best for them not to come as something unpleasant might happen to them.

Stunned, the grand prize turned his head over.

Lin Sanjiu could feel his gaze boring right through her skull. The sand-laced wind buffeted her skin, numbing her senses. The grand prize sighed, but with the rustling wind that kept sliding into her ears, she could not hear him properly.

He did not ask anything like, “Do you know something, Sister?” or “What do you mean?”. He just sighed and said simply, “Okay.”

Lin Sanjiu gulped hard. She wanted to trust her grand prize but could not quite manage to do so.

“Sis.” Ji Shanqing went closer to her. His long hair caressed her shoulder as he said, “I have to go now.”

“Huh?”

“The barrier I set up is not going to last long.” He looked skyward as a watery sheen covered his eyes as if he was suppressing some kind of feelings. “I can’t let you stay here. I can promise you that this planet will be safe to stay on within this period before you are transferred away, but when can you return here?”

Lin Sanjiu stared at him vacantly, lost for words. She pondered for a moment before replying, “I’ll only be able to get a visa to the Salvation of God or the Olympics in the next two worlds.” She was telling the truth.

Nevertheless, the grand prize accepted it anyhow. After doing the math in his heart and making Lin Sanjiu promise him that she would return here after 14 months, he nodded.

“I really should get going now.” He paused for a moment and looked in the direction where Soulsqn had gone. “Sis, which world do you want to go next? No matter what kind of world you wish to go, I can issue you a visa now.”