Doomsday Wonderland

“I know, I know.”

When Timo pushed the door open, he pitched his voice low and waved his hand at Lin Sanjiu. “I promised the landlord to keep him in the loop by letting him observe you from the sidelines. I know this isn’t right, but I hope you can understand that I have my own reasons.”

“And what kind of reason is that?” Lin Sanjiu countered with a question before stepping into the bar.

“Well, he paid me some money.”

With those words, Timo took a few quick steps and walked into the dimly-lit bar. Raising her head, Lin Sanjiu realized that the waiter was looking at them. Pushing her anger back to the pits of her stomach, she put on an indifferent mask and sat next to Timo at the counter.

“What brings you guys back?” the waiter asked. He was obviously stunned by their sudden return. Upon closer inspection, Lin Sanjiu found that he had a square face and seemed like he was in his mid-thirties. There was a thin layer of stubble on his chin and crow’s feet were deepening at the corner of his eyes. Indeed, he did not look like a bartender.

‘He seems rather decent.’

“Look here.” Timo turned his head and pointed at the wound at the back of his head. The wound had already stopped bleeding and the dried blood had caked around it. “Somebody tried to kill me when I was on my way home. If it weren’t for her, I would be a lump of dead meat right now.”

“Is that so?” The waiter glanced at Lin Sanjiu, then said to Timo, “Well, the Goddess of Luck seems to be on your side today.”

“Yeah, so I’m here to have a drink to celebrate it. What do you want? It’s on me.”

He shook his head. After filling two glasses with a golden-red liquid, he then retreated to the other side of the counter.

“Try it. This is the Kiss of The Maiden.” Timo pushed a glass to Lin Sanjiu. He took a sip from his own and said, “One of the best wines in the Twelve Worlds.”

The wine tasted sweet when it touched the tip of her tongue, but the flavor soon turned mellow like a young girl who had just reached her adolescence as the liquid rolled down her tongue. The freezing crushed ice that grated her nerves felt like the nails of a woman, and by the time the wine reached her throat, a spicy flavor exploded. It made her feel like she had just exchanged a long, fiery kiss with a woman.

Lin Sanjiu gasped. She fanned her face with her hand to cool herself down.

“Not bad, isn’t it?” Timo giggled as he observed Lin Sanjiu’s expression. “But strange enough. This wine is more popular amongst the female population.”

Lin Sanjiu still could not quite right come around from the wonderful sensation brought forth by the wine, but she somehow could understand why the wine was popular among the women. She lifted the glass and took another sip. When the wine coursed through her tongue to her throat and finally descended to her stomach, only then she began talking, “About the unit…”

“Yeah?”

“To be honest, I’m very interested.” She raised her head to look at the waiter. Since he was facing her with his back, she could not see his expression. “The unit fits all my criteria. However…”

“However?” Timo placed the glass down. “Is there something wrong?”

“The price is too steep.”

“Yeah, I agree, but on second thought, for such a near-perfect house that practically has everything you need, it’s actually pretty reasonable.”

“Really?” Like a girl who was bargaining in a market, Lin Sanjiu began nitpicking the bad side of the house. “I don’t know how perfect the unit is. After all, the length of the holograph was too short, so I only got to view several major areas, and there was still a large area I haven’t seen yet.”

“It is a 300 acres unit! It would take a whole day to view the entire unit!”

“I know that, but the price is still too high for me. Besides, I am not very fond of the house’s outlook as well,” Lin Sanjiu said, “The design is too conspicuous. It is not safe to stay.”

“But normally, this kind of house is equipped with the camouflage barrier. So your…”

Timo did not get to finish his sentence as he saw Lin Sanjiu shook her head. He sighed deeply and asked, “Well then. Name your price, I will try to help you negotiate with the house owner.”

Lin Sanjiu then stood up. Holding the empty glass in her hand, she walked closer to the waiter. After handing the glass to him, instead of going back, she leaned against the counter and offered Timo a wide grin. “I’ll only accept it if the house owner gives me 60 percent off.”

Even Mrs. Manas was shocked by Lin Sanjiu’s unreasonable offer.

This was the number she got after she worked it out with her Scrooge McDuck Power. Truth to be told, Lin Sanjiu was more surprised than anybody else. Soon after that, she was a little regretful after making such an adamant request. She feared that the house owner might think she was playing around and would decide not to sell to her. Right now, she was a stone’s throw away from the waiter, and logically speaking, he should have fallen into the Scrooge McDuck Power’s effect already. Then, when she saw the expression on Timo’s face, her heart skipped a beat.

“60 percent off?” Timo raised his voice. This was not what they had rehearsed before.

“Do you know what that means? It means if the price of an item is $100, I’ll have to sell it to you at $40.”

Lin Sanjiu could not soften her heart yet. As her actor side took the stage, she straightened her face and said, “This is an elementary school level math. Of course, I know. How about this? You contact the house owner now, and if the house owner takes up my offer, I’ll pay you immediately. Meanwhile, as for your brokerage fee, I’ll still pay you based on the original price. What do you think?”

The expression on the real estate broker’s face was so bizarre that made Lin Sanjiu thought she was a lunatic. Both of them stared at each other in dismayed silence for a long while. The bar was quiet, save for the music that played in the background. After a moment that felt like an eternity, Timo nodded reluctantly. “I…I will try, but you have to go out first. That’s the rule.”

“Okay.” Lin Sanjiu knocked on the counter and stole a glance at the waiter, who had not made any movement ever since, so she had no idea what kind of expression he had. With a fretful heart, she coughed. “Then, how soon should I be back?”

After roughly ten minutes, Lin Sanjiu pushed the door open again.

Initially, she was a little perturbed that the Scrooge McDuck Power might lose its effect if she went too far away. However, when she saw the expression on Timo’s face, all her worries dissolved away and she let out a long sigh of relief.

“I…I have never seen anything like this before.” There was mixed expressions on Timo’s face. He seemed surprised, yet, at the same time, a little dumbfounded. “I’ve never met a stingy buyer like you, and I’ve never come across an easy-talking seller like him.”

“He agreed?” Lin Sanjiu asked disbelievingly.

“No, but more or less,” Timo glanced furtively at Lin Sanjiu as if she was a phantom crawling out from a drawing. “He doesn’t agree to a 60 percent reduction, but he can cut the price by 50 percent. That’s like half the price!”

The goal of the Scrooge McDuck Power was to get every deal at its best price, and not ruin it. Looking from this perspective, the price she quoted using Scrooge McDuck was essentially the lowest price under the premise of guaranteeing the transaction. However, it was still hard for Lin Sanjiu to believe she had actually succeeded in securing the white ring at half of its original price. After all, as Timo mentioned, from the holograph and the pictures, it was indeed a near-perfect house.

Hence, when the owner slashed the price to half, Lin Sanjiu became worried. ‘What is wrong with this house? Was it noisy? Was it old and lacked repair? Does it come with water, electricity, and light?’

“I can’t believe that!” Even after both of them had come out from the bar, Timo was still blabbering next to her, “You actually succeeded in cutting the price to half.”

“I hope you are right about the owner,” Lin Sanjiu said lowly, “It’s fine if he came to see the buyer out of caution. It’d better not for any other reasons.”

“What else can the reason be?” Timo asked. He frowned and thought for a moment before saying, “You don’t know him, and he doesn’t know you. Both of you have never come across each other in both of your life. You pay the money, and he gives you the house…What else could it be?”

There was only one white ring. Lin Sanjiu knew she was just being oversensitive, so she nodded.

After that, she was finally exposed to how complicated things could get under the circumstance whereby both parties could not meet with each other and the real estate broker had no idea about the exact location of the house. First, Timo led Lin Sanjiu to an office outside of the Heaven zone, where it was said that there was an agency specialized in managing property transactions in the Heaven Underworld. There, she once again came across a similar tattoo that she had once seen on the tattoo man’s arm.

However, this time, in addition to the line “We rule the Twelve Worlds” that appeared in Lin Sanjiu’s mind, there was an insignia depicted by a naked female foot next to it.

Even though the real estate broker did not enter the agency due to their own safety reasons, they were very familiar with how things ran inside. While hiding in a weapon shop, Timo told Lin Sanjiu everything she needed to take care of step-by-step. After that, she handed the payment and the handling fee to a suspicious-looking fatty and got herself a receipt and a 27-digit serial number in return.

Truth to be told, pinching at the two thin and dubious paper, Lin Sanjiu felt she would not be surprised if she woke up the next day and realized that both the agency and Timo were gone, and everything was just a scheme to get her money.

Luckily, that did not happen.

According to Timo, the buyer had to inform the broker the 27-digit serial number, and the broker would relay the serial number to the seller.

After the owner of the ring or the waiter had confirmed the 27-digit serial number and that the amount of payment was correct, he would then send the location of the house, the keys, and all information that the buyer needed to know to the serial number within 15 days. A document would then be generated. At the same time, the seller would receive a receipt and a serial number of his own.

After that, the buyer had to go to the agency and retrieve the document using the similar serial number. The buyer had to keep both things in a safe place. This was because in the future if the buyer wished to sell the house, he or she had to present the previous document as well. In a sense, the document was merely the compilation of the house information. It did not have the information about the owner. Hence, if somebody stole the document, Lin Sanjiu would not be able to prove that she was the rightful owner of the house.

The process was not finished yet even after the buyer had retrieved the document. The agency was very considerate. It had set up a one-month appeal period for the buyer. The buyer could make an appeal within that month if he or she found out there was something wrong with the house, or if there was any doubt. When everything sailed smoothly after the appeal period, only then would the amount of the house be credited into the seller’s account.

This way, the seller did not have to meet up personally with the buyer. Even though the seller knew the location of the house, he would not know who the buyer was or when he would move into the house. Besides, the security system would change with every owner. Hence, although the buying and selling process was a tad complicated, it ran quite smoothly and they rarely faced any hiccups.

“Trust is the cornerstone that kept human society from falling apart.” Even in a post-apocalyptic human society, trust remained an essential aspect to keep everything running smoothly. Even in such a tedious process, it actually required trust from both parties as well. No matter where, if humans could not sustain even the basic level of trust, nothing would be done.

Right now, Lin Sanjiu was the owner of the white ring.

One afternoon, Lin Sanjiu took a deep sigh as she looked at the document in her hand. Suppressing the excitement inside her heart, she strode towards the forest.

Like the Veda had become the grand prize’s anchor, she hoped that this place would become the anchor of her other comrades.