Doomsday Wonderland

“She’s one of the combat personnel from the Munitions Factory?”

After a few minutes, Yu Yuan looked at Lin Sanjiu with uncertainty. As he dusted his shirt, he asked, “Is everyone from the Munitions Factory so weak?”

The clearing was now peppered with droplets of blood. A girl wearing an umbrella skirt with a red and white pattern was lying on the ground with her arms tied behind her back, puffing like a bulldog.

It was never in Lin Sanjiu’s wildest dream that they could subdue Lollipop in less than two minutes. Frowning, she measured the girl and answered, “She seems a lot weaker than I first met her…”

Hearing her words, Lollipop jerked her head up, her face was caked with bloodied mud. She stared at the duo and spoke disjointedly, “I… If I hadn’t wounded myself… there is no way you two could have defeated me!”

“You were wounded because you did not check-in?” Lin Sanjiu asked. Only now did she remember that something bad might befall those who failed to check in daily. “Mind telling me what kind of accident you got yourself into?”

Lollipop spat a wad of bloodied phlegm on the ground. Her voice became weaker as she hissed out, “Why do you care? You… You…” She was hit by a sudden wave of grief and her sentence was broken off as she stifled a sob. She then continued in a nasally voice after she’d recollected herself, her voice rising again, “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t trapped us with a check-in pocket dimension, then none of this would’ve happened! You wanna know what kind of accidents I got myself into, huh? Well, I’m not going to tell you anything! Just wait and see with your own eyes when I die!”

After that, she buried her face into the ground and curled herself into a ball.

After a long while, Lollipop hesitantly raised her head from the ground and looked at Lin Sanjiu. Confusion dotted her gaze as she wondered why Lin Sanjiu didn’t say anything even after so long. Sighing, Lin Sanjiu squatted down beside her and said, “How long do you have before you are transferred to the next world?”

Lollipop’s makeup was smudged by her tears. Her face now looked like a messed up canvas with black and green colors mashed together.

“Four months,” she replied in a low voice.

“Well, I guess that works.” Without giving Lollipop a chance to say anything, Lin Sanjiu hoisted her up from the ground.

“What are you doing?” Lollipop shouted. She tried to wriggle her way to freedom with all her worth but to no avail. The rope that bound her was Yu Yuan’s Special Item, and no matter how hard she struggled, it wouldn’t budge.

Lin Sanjiu tossed her over her shoulder. She turned around to Yu Yuan and said, “Let’s go. I might need you to help me cover her eyes later.”

“Wait, what are you going to do with me?”

Lin Sanjiu ignored Lollipop’s shouting and reactivated her camouflage barrier. After that, she brought Yu Yuan to the edge of the canyon. Under the projection of the camouflage barrier, it looked like a huge river. The sky was blue with a tint of grey. Foam sprayed high into the air as the river roared like a mighty beast.

After she covered Lollipop’s face with clothes, Lin Sanjiu then walked into the “river”. It was Yu Yuan’s first time coming across a holographic device like this, so he was astounded when he realized his shirt was still dry even after he followed Lin Sanjiu into the river.

For safety reasons, Lin Sanjiu did not deactivate the camouflage barrier of the canyon. Using the river to cover themselves, they walked deeper and deeper towards the bottom. The light was dwindling away. Sunlight danced and glittered through the water, casting shadows and making an ever-changing scene of light and dark. Very soon, Lin Sanjiu saw Exodus.

The annular building was still as pure white as when she first saw it. It was sitting quietly at the bottom of the river like a faithful dog waiting for its master to return. It appeared to her that Exodus would be here forever, waiting for her to return and tell it everything she had been through. She reached out and touched its wall. A sense of exhaustion flooded through her as she felt her heart finally find a place to land. It was hard for her to imagine, but she was finally home.

“Welcome back, administrator,” Silas’s soft voice rang out. “Do we have guests today?”

“Yes,” Lin Sanjiu replied. A smile hopped onto her face as she continued, “But only one is a guest, while the other one is going to jail.”

“Understood. How about our last prisoner?”

‘Oh yeah, Woyu was still locked up in his cell.’

“I will bring him out,” Lin Sanjiu answered. She turned around to look at Yu Yuan. She was expecting a question like “there is a prison in this house?” from him and was prepared with an answer. However, all the young man did was dart his eyes around, examining Exodus as if he had not heard Silas’s voice.

“What’s wrong?”

Yu Yuan retracted his gaze and looked at Lin Sanjiu. There was a pronounced confusion on his face as he asked, “This… is your house?”

“Yeah. Hard to imagine, right?” Lin Sanjiu patted the wall and laughed. “I was surprised as well when I first saw Exodus.”

Yu Yuan opened his mouth, words forming in his throat, but he did not spurt them out. He closed his mouth and began measuring Exodus once more.

Two maglev pods glided across the hall and stopped in front of them. After they hopped into their respective pods, they then drove towards the jail under Silas’s guidance.

Silas was indeed thoughtful. The doors slid into the wall and a path opened up automatically for them. After they passed through the door, several metal cubes appeared from the wall and moved in a geometrical pattern to form a door behind them. Yu Yuan was indeed very proficient in operating machinery. Even though this was his first time driving a maglev pod, he still managed to navigate it with practiced ease.

When they arrived at the long passageway in the prison area, light spilled out from one of the cells. Lin Sanjiu stepped down from her pod and placed her palm on the door. The door moved smoothly into the wall, and a burst of cold light sprayed out from within.

“I’m back,” she called out, “You can come out now.”

The cell was narrow and long. There was nothing inside aside from a single bed at the corner. A man shot up from the bed. When Woyu’s brain finally connected, he frantically wrapped himself in a blanket and pounced at the door. “Finally! Why did you lock me up? What is going on? And give me back my belongings!”

His cheeks looked sunken after staying in the cell for two days. To prevent him from doing anything impulsive, Lin Sanjiu took away all his belongings and Special Items before she went away.

“Here.” She summoned a few cards and shoved them toward him. Turning around and grabbing Lollipop by the collar, she said to Woyu, “Stay here. Don’t do anything rash. I am going to lock her up first and then we’ll talk.”

The girl’s face reddened to the point that it seemed like it would burst at any moment. However, there was little she could do against Lin Sanjiu. After Lin Sanjiu settled her down in one of the cells, Woyu finally saw the umbrella skirt the girl was wearing. His eyes opened wide in astonishment as he shouted, “This girl… she’s one of the people who attacked us that night!”

“You’re right,” Lin Sanjiu answered simply and threw Lollipop on the bed. She called out the [Cornetto, Freeze The Fun Time] and laid it on the ground. She took one step back and then said to the girl, “Here, check-in now.”

“What do you mean by this?” Lollipop queried, disbelief thick in her voice. Since both her hands were tied up, she could not help herself up from the door. Darting her eyes between the check-in pocket dimension and the door, she asked, “Why did you bring me here?”

“No reason. I just don’t want to watch you die.”

“Don’t want to watch me die?” The girl was baffled by the answer. “Why?”

This time, Lin Sanjiu was stumped.

“For you, we should fight each other to our deaths, right?” Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh as she rubbed the center of her brows.

Lollipop set her jaw tight. Her lipstick had faded and smeared into her chin. She lowered her head and her hair draped over her face, masking her facial expression invisible. “That is how the world runs, isn’t it? All of us kill to survive. Since you managed to come to the Twelve Worlds, then you’re no exception. Like us, your hands must be drenched with blood. Besides, I’ve tried to kill you once, so I see no reason for you to keep me alive.”

“You were just following orders.”

The girl smirked coldly.

“Hah! Who do you think you are? Jesus?” Lollipop’s voice was full of derision. “Alright, alright, you can drop the act now, Ms. Jesus. You might as well be frank with me about what you want from me, and maybe we can still work out a deal.”

“I will give you five seconds,” Lin Sanjiu urged as she forced herself not to turn away. “Take it or leave it.”

Lollipop hesitated for a brief second. She made her decision very soon as she leaped from the bed and stepped on the brick marked with the word “Checkpoint”.

Lin Sanjiu retrieved the [Cornetto, Freeze The Fun Time] the moment she checked-in. Similarly, she took away all of Lollipop’s belongings and Special Items. After she threw a pair of pajamas to her, she turned around and left.

“Hey! Untie me!” Lollipop shouted. “Hey! Don’t go! Untie me!”

Lin Sanjiu ignored her shouts. The door closed and then she jumped into her maglev pod.

Woyu stared unblinkingly at the door. A series of emotions, subtle and conflicting, flowed behind the surface of his face.

“What’s wrong?” Lin Sanjiu asked.

“Where did you find her?” Woyu hopped into the maglev pod after rubbing his face. Half of his body dangled out of the pod as he clutched tightly to the chair. “Where were her comrades? And who is this guy?”

Yu Yuan turned around and looked at him.

“This is what I am going to tell you,” Lin Sanjiu replied as she drove the pod towards the dining area, “For now, you don’t have to worry about those people. But the Munitions Factory will be looking for me everywhere, so both of us decided to stay here for the time being.

Woyu uttered a guttural sound from his throat. Lin Sanjiu did not know what it meant, so she just took it as a yes.

“So you have to stay here too.”

“What? Why?

“I told you already, right? The Munitions Factory is looking for us, so I can’t let you out now.” Lin Sanjiu stopped her pod beside the door. She hopped out and then opened the door. As if chasing a goat, she pushed Woyu into a seat in the dining area. Then, she took her seat and laughed. “Well, let’s start by getting to know each other. After all, we are going to stay here together for a long time.”