Doomsday Wonderland

Lying in a pile of rubble, Lin Sanjiu did not move. It was not that she couldn’t move due to being injured, but just that she was too stunned to respond at the moment. There was a large hole in the ceiling, and the smoke was ebbing away. Very soon, the clear blue sky appeared in her vision once again.

Like diluted black ink or a plume of smoke in the teeth of the foul wind, the black mountain began dissipating. Its color slowly faded in the wind until there was nothing left.

Lin Sanjiu still could not believe that she really killed Mayor Orlean with her gun.

In the piles of crumbling walls and ruined curbs, there was a plump man with short limbs lying eagle-sprayed amongst the stones. Blood pooled underneath his body. Even after the black mountain had absorbed so much energy, all it granted Mayor Orlean was the ability to “pull something out of the air”.

She lowered her head and looked at her wrist. The phrase “freedom” was gone, yet her libretto went on.

‘I have defeated the main villain, shouldn’t the storyline be over?’

“Oh shoot!” It was only now that she realized her comrade had been too quiet. She sprang up from the ground and darted where she last saw him fly off. “Yu Yuan! Yu Yuan! Are you alright? Answer me!”

Yu Yuan had rammed into the wall when he was hit by Mayor Orlean. Right now, he was embedded into a corner of the wall, with plenty of rubble and broken bricks piled on his body. Lin Sanjiu went on and moved those pieces of rubble away. She realized his condition was far worse than she originally imagined; his remaining arm was crippled and there was blood seeping out of his battered body here and there. She pressed her finger to his neck, and after a second of fumbling, she let out a sigh when she sensed the imperceptible pulse throbbing under his pale skin.

‘That’s good. He is still alive.’

She carefully helped Yu Yuan to his feet. When her gaze rolled past the area below his knee, her heart leaped. Her strength was not as great as it was in the real world, so moving him to the corridor was all she could manage at the moment. Then, Yu Yuan slowly cracked his eyelids open as he regained his consciousness. “…How is everything going? Is he dead?”

“I think it is over.” Be that as it may, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t be sure of that as well. She lifted her wrist for him to see and continued, “I have killed Mayor Orlean and the phrase you gave me is gone. Maybe we still have to wait a little while before the Reverie Libretto pushes us out.”

Yu Yuan did not make any comment. He raised his eyes sluggishly and stared behind her. After a short while, he sighed. “He isn’t dead yet.”

“What?”

“He… tripped just now.”

Lin Sanjiu shot up from the ground. She held her rifle, which had run out of ammo, and went close to Mayor Orlean. He was still lying prone on the ground, so she flipped him over with the tip of her rifle. Then, she saw the flak jacket underneath his shirt.

It was only now that Lin Sanjiu saw the reason why he looked so confident just now. Even though the flak jacket could not protect him from the deadly deluge of bullets she showered on him, it still saved his life.

“Should we kill him now? Otherwise, we might not get out of the Reverie Libretto,” Lin Sanjiu asked Yu Yuan as she aimed her rifle and pointed at Mayor Orlean’s forehead.

“No, don’t kill him,” Yu Yuan panted, his voice weak. “He’s just fallen unconscious. He is not the reason… Anyway, don’t do anything to him for now.”

“Why?”

“If we kill him right now, it will affect our libretto and I don’t want that to happen. Come, help me up,” Yu Yuan wheezed again, his breathing ragged.

When Lin Sanjiu went forward to help him up, she accidentally saw his right arm, which dangled feebly by his side, and saw something that was not right. She looked closer and then she exclaimed, “Hey, look! Your phrase has changed!”

“What?” Yu Yuan was stunned as well.

“The phrase on your wrist is not ‘pusher’ anymore,” Lin Sanjiu said, disbelief laced thick in her voice, “It is ‘straw’ now. What does that mean?”

Stunned, Yu Yuan had no idea what was going on either despite him being more experienced than Lin Sanjiu.

“The Reverie Libretto is still going on even after we defeated him…” He looked at Mayor Orlean, frowning. “Could it be… Come, help me out. I want to take a look outside.”

After that, both of them staggered down the stairs and returned to the first floor. Fearing that there would be some remaining police officers outside, after putting Yu Yuan down, Lin Sanjiu went back to get his rifle. After all, if something bad really happened, with his rifle, they could still hold out a little bit longer.

Holding the rifle, she pried the door open and scanned outside through the slit.

It occurred to her that a great deal of time had passed after their fight. The fire had burned out, and the smoke had disappeared. Everywhere she looked, there were only blackened buildings greeting her eyes. The electric fence had lost its functionality and it seemed that nobody had bothered to repair it after they set it aflame. It rattled, giving off a soft yet ear-grating metallic moan whenever the wind blew past.

The town seemed to have fallen overnight.

Patches of dried blood and rubbish colonized the once clean and wide streets. The buildings were each dirtier and shabbier than the last. There were electric wires coiled around some of the buildings’ doors and the windows were mostly missing. Lin Sanjiu couldn’t understand how her setting one street ablaze sent the entire Peanut Town looking as if it had been razed by wars.

Just as she was about to holler to Yu Yuan, she saw a man scurrying around in the corner of her eyes. Her eyes widened. The man was wearing one of the uniforms distributed by the town hall, but it looked torn and its color wasn’t as brilliant as it was before; however, that wasn’t what stunned Lin Sanjiu the most. It occurred to her that he had taken off a lot of weight, as his cheeks were deeply sunken and he looked undernourished.

“What do you see?” Yu Yuan asked lowly.

“It seems that the time in the Reverie Libretto has leaped again,” Lin Sanjiu replied. “Those citizens… they look so skinny.”

The citizens of Peanut Town got their food and living resources from Mayor Orlean. Hence, once they lost the black mountain and Mayor Orlean, they were not able to feed themselves.

The skinny guy crouched down next to the electric fence. He stared silently at a ditch underneath the electric fence, as if he was anticipating the appearance of a mouse.

On top of him, there was a depiction of the black mountain, now half-destroyed, caught up by the hook of the electric fence and fluttering noisily in the wind. The skinny guy raised his head, pulled the drawing down, rolled it into a ball and threw it aside.

It seemed that the so-called sacred mountain that had existed for a thousand years to protect them could no longer affect the man anymore.

“Since the black mountain is gone, they should be freed already,” Lin Sanjiu sighed. Being free did not equate to a lavish lifestyle. You could be a poor wretch, yet you still had your freedom. She wasn’t going to restore Peanut Town to its original state, but she couldn’t stop feeling puzzled. “Why is my libretto still going on? And your ‘straw’… what does it mean?”

Yu Yuan did not reply, as he did not have an answer either.

Lin Sanjiu clipped the rifle to her belt and went forward to lift Yu Yuan. Even though they were in a dream now, she was hoping that she could find some medication so that she could tend to his injuries. Half carrying, half dragging her companion, she heard Yu Yuan suddenly say, “Heart.”

“What?”

“Orlean said it before. They do not have hearts,” Yu Yuan continued. “You have given them freedom, but I suspect that we have just finished a part of my storyline.”

In other words, “fight against Mayor Orlean and liberate the citizens in Peanut Town” was Yu Yuan’s storyline all along? And she was just a character in his storyline?

“You are the one who dreamed of them.” Lin Sanjiu could sense that Yu Yuan’s body was getting colder and colder. “Perhaps, you should begin in that way.”

“What does that mean? Are you saying that I have to give every one of them a heart?” Lin Sanjiu asked, but she received no reply from Yu Yuan. She turned her head and her face turned grim. Yu Yuan’s condition was getting worse; his face was strikingly pale. She laid him down carefully on the side of the road, as she planned to get a bowl of water for him. Yu Yuan soon closed his eyes, and nobody knew if he had fallen unconscious or if he was just sleeping.

She pushed the door open and walked into the building. After a short while, she suddenly had a bad feeling and rushed out of the building.

She was right on time. There was a group of citizens crowding around Yu Yuan like a swarm of flies. As if they had seen the rifle at her waist, all of them quickly dispersed and went out of sight.

Lin Sanjiu forwent the attempt to go after them and went to look at Yu Yuan. There were many cuts all around his body and face, and more blood was seeping out. Startled, she hurriedly helped him up from the ground. After a few seconds, Yu Yuan gasped and opened his eyes.

Hissing out in pain, he frowned and said, “What… what is going on?”

Lin Sanjiu had no idea what she should tell him.

‘Should I tell him that he almost became the food of the citizens, or should I say that they were just cutting him for fun?’

Suddenly, Lin Sanjiu had a moment of t.enlightenment.

“Yu Yuan.” She held the young man with one of her arms as she tightly gripped her rifle. “I think I know how to end our dreams. Can you hold up for a little longer?”

“How?”

“They don’t have hearts, and I don’t think it is possible for me to put a heart into their chest one by one. That is too impractical,” Lin Sanjiu said. She glanced across the street, pretending that she didn’t see the ashen faces that poked out of the corner, and continued, “Since you could give me a phrase, can you give them one as well? Heart. That is the word. Can you do that?”