Doomsday Wonderland

Pieces after pieces of snowflakes fluttered down the sky. They glinted and glittered fantastically, and caught the light from the morning sun before melting away. The scenery in Mid Mountsburg was as spectacular as always. It was a mixture of natural green and pure white. The air was cold and the wind bit strongly. Lin Sanjiu pulled her collar up and hid her face underneath the shadow of her hat. After she walked for a while and ascertained that her distance was safe, she stopped and glanced at Bliss’s convention center.

The window display at the right end of the fourth floor was the “signal” both Bliss and she had agreed on. Different colors represented different meanings. If it was glowing yellow, it meant that Bliss was inside the building. If it was blue, it meant that she had found Yu Yuan, and if it was red, it meant that she had returned after having found Yu Yuan’s corpse.

Right now, the window display remained grayed out which meant Bliss had not made any progress yet.

“No news is good news,” Lin Sanjiu consoled herself. Then, she turned around and walked away. “Let’s give her some more time…”

Right now, she needed nothing but only food, warmth, and sleep. Due to her hunger and exhaustion, her ten fingernails had taken on the unwholesome gray phosphorescence, and people were pulling themselves away from her. When she passed by a window, she looked up and was shocked by her own reflection. Her complexion was as pale as a ghost while her lips were bloodless, and there were two heavy eyebags sitting below her bloodshot eyes. If she were to stand beside a drug addict, nobody would be able to tell the difference.

By the time she got back to Exodus, she was already on the verge of passing out. She had no idea how she finished her meal or when she threw herself on the bed. Silas had turned off all the lights and shut all the windows. Her room was so dark that it seemed as if it were a little box floating around in the depth of the universe. She slipped into a deep slumber as soon as she touched the bed. She could not tell how long she had been sleeping or where she was. As her dreams pulled her down with an inexorable force, many faces flitted across her eyes.

She felt she was screaming although she did not know why. She stretched her arm to reach out for the people beside her, but her fingers found air. The apocalypse was coming, and everybody was running helter-skelter for their life. Bliss, Yu Yuan, Ji Shanqing, Puppeteer, and Magus, who was holding the cat doctor…She kept screaming and screaming, pleading for them to wait for her to figure out a way to save them, but they soon vanished out of her sight.

When Lin Sanjiu cracked her eyes opened, her chest heaved up and down in labored breaths. She ran her fingers across her face and found tears at the corner of her eyes.

Just as she fumbled to get up and was about to call her [Ability Polishing Agent] because it was too dark, she suddenly realized that she had returned to Exodus. She clapped her hands and a night light beside her feet lit up.

Cupping a handful of warm water, she splashed it all over her face. It did wake her up a little, but her brain was still fuzzy as if it was filled with fog. As Silas adjusted the light to a comfortable level, she watched her own reflection in the mirror, falling into thought.

“Silas,” she said, her voice hoarse and still laced with exhaustion, “What time is it now?”

“You have been sleeping for 4 hours and 20 minutes. There are still another 13 hours to go before your next check-in.”

‘I just slept for 4 hours and 20 minutes. No wonder I still feel so sleepy.’

When people were asleep, they usually went through several cycles, one of which was called “rapid eye movement”, otherwise known as REM sleep. It was the phase where dreams were created. Some of the researchers felt that REM sleep was especially crucial as it was the phase where brain activity increased and learning was promoted. If somebody woke up during REM sleep, their brain would go into a hypersensitive state and demonstrate fascinating creativity in certain areas.

Lin Sanjiu remembered being pulled out of her sleep by a paroxysmal wave of anxiety and fear. She woke up not because of a nightmare, but because she forced herself to. Anyway, she doubted if there were any nightmares that were more brutal than her real life. The dream she had just now helped her understand several things, several things that she had to do, and she had to jot them down as soon as possible. Otherwise, she would forget everything the next day when she woke up if she allowed herself to continue sleeping.

“Silas,” she ordered, “Pull up a memorandum for me.”

A ding rang out and a memorandum appeared in the mirror. “First, try to find a way to return to the Astral Plane and look for Magus.” As she spoke, she paced back and forth in front of the hand basin. “Find someone like Bohemia and have him pull me into the Astral Plane.”

Just like how animals always often acted atypically before an earthquake, if a pocket dimension became sentient because it wanted to run away from the deluge, she was certain that Nüwa must not be the only one who knew about the deluge. In the Astral Plane, news usually spread a lot faster. Besides, the inhabitants there were one stronger than the last, so if she wanted to know more about the deluge, the Astral Plane would be her best bet.

Besides, she had to inform Bohemia and J7 about the deluge as well.

“Second, find a Consular Officer to issue me a visa to Coconut Island, and hire someone to return Lucy’s corpse back to her hometown.” It was not difficult to get these two things done since all she needed was money. If she was able to hire a suitable Consular Officer, then she could solve the problem of being separated from her friends every time. However, was there any way to bribe a Consular Officer?

After all, they were at the top level of the chain. They lacked nothing and feared none.

Lin Sanjiu remembered that she seemed to have come up with a solution to this problem when she was in the dream. However, the answer had fallen so deep into her psyche that she could not pull it out no matter how hard she tried.

“Third, contact the grand prize.” Even though she was reluctant to do so, she had to tell Ji Shanqing about the deluge. Of course, it went without saying that she must first think about what to say as well as the solution if something went sideways before she contacted him.

“Fourth, find Silvan. Then, get him to look for Puppeteer using his network. Also, remind me to publish an advertisement with the title: ‘A ton of pending confectionaries waiting to be claimed’.” She knew a lot of friends, but only a handful of them was powerful. If she wanted to get rid of those personalities and get Luther back, she had to gather all of them no matter what it took.

It seemed easy at face value, but right now, her enemy was hiding in the dark. She did not even know how Luther’s personalities looked like and how many of them there were. Worst of all, the personalities could vanish from her sight at any time. She could not track them, so she could not ask them anything. She could only think of other ways to slowly discover their identities.

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This is the most important, so remember to jot it down clearly.” Even though she was drawing her vowels out, it would be fortunate if Silas was able to catch every word she said.

“Fifth, almost half of what Septimus said is bullsh*t.”