Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  From the description on the card, mermaids are unable to process any sort of negative feelings. Lin Sanjiu wanted to see how Shen Lianqi’s remaining human side would deal with the situation. The hanging merman looked at her vacantly, without saying a word.

  "I don’t believe you. Is she really dead?" Shen Lianqi asked after quite a while.

  "Do you want me to retrieve one of their remains from the sea? Oh, but that won’t do. They were frozen then defrost by the warm sea so they probably already dissolved into the seawater." Lin Sanjiu answered descriptively without any sense of discretion. At the same time, she stared hard at Shen Lianqi, not knowing how he would react.

  —

  Despite how scheming the three duoluozhongs were, they probably didn’t have much practical fighting experience once they awakened in the New World, so she settled the three duoluozhongs within half of that 5-minutes limitation that her Pygmalion Choker had, leaving them as broken fragments rolling around on the deck.

  This ‘instant freeze’ ability described by B.Rabbit was really quite powerful and Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help feeling envious of the people who had practical combat abilities from the start. Even now, whenever she needed to fight, she had to engage in hand-to-hand combat. How can she still be considered a Posthuman?

  Luckily, he had his fish body so his body floated up to the surface when he fainted. Otherwise, it would be hard to say if he could still survive...

  Lin Sanjiu spent quite a lot of effort trying to pull him back up on the ship as she did not really know how to swim and because she couldn’t touch his skin. After thinking about the problem for some time, she wrapped her hands with some cloth and found some ropes, which were used for tying the dr.a.p.e curtains in the ship. She tied the ropes tightly around Shen Lianqi, pulled him out and then hung him from a beam.

  She did this also as a preventive measure as she didn’t know if Shen Lianqi would suddenly react emotionally if he heard that Hannah was dead.

  —

  However, Lin Sanjiu did not expect the following reaction. Shen Lianqi remained silent for some time with his head lowered, then he sighed and actually smiled, "Anyway, nothing can be done about it now. Everyone must die someday. Non-mermaids can’t live long. That’s why being a merman is great."

  [That was it?] Lin Sanjiu was stunned. [That isn’t optimism, that is being totally heartless!] Although she knew that Hannah wasn’t a saint, Lin Sanjiu didn’t know why she felt a little indignant on her behalf, "Hey, let me tell you something. I don’t plan on untying you. I already decided that you will stay on the wall for the remaining of the 14 months here."

  "What should I do if I need to eat?" Shen Lianqi asked, crooking his head. He was neither worried nor angry.

  "I’ll feed you."

  "Oh, thank you! I’ll be counting on you!" Shen Lianqi laughed with ease, showing not even a bit of hatred for Lin Sanjiu.

  "Don’t talk to me. I’m afraid that I would punch you," she warned acerbically as she turned to leave.

  Shen Lianqi’s thought process, at that point, was basically very different from a normal human. Lin Sanjiu couldn't help feeling angry just looking at him. Ignoring him, she went deeper into the ship. Now, she faced a new problem. She had to find for potable water.

  There was no way they were going to drink any more of that ‘cultivation drink’. Logically speaking, there should be potable water stored in such a large ship. She raised her [Ability Polishing Agent] like a flashlight and searched every inch of the ship that was not underwater. She found nothing other than a big mess. She only found the storage room of ship after diving into the water.

  Every cloud has a silver lining. Even though all the glass bottles have been shattered, there were still many crates of plastic mineral water bottle. Though the plastic bottles have already become soft after being soaked in warm water for such a long time, the crates provided some protection so they were still somewhat intact. From the amount of water, it should last them for a few months if they did some careful rationing.

  After she made multiple trips to the storage room to bring out the potable water, Lin Sanjiu sighed as she walked past the bridge of the ship once more. Suddenly, she had an idea and she walked in.

  She looked around the bridge with her 'flashlight' and realized that the cardboard box used for storing the ‘Mermaid Cultivating Drink’ was undamaged. On the exterior of the box, there was a picture of a pair of peculiar-looking merman and mermaid swimming while holding each other hands...

  She actually considered herself quite lucky because the drink was only effective if consumed in large amounts. Furthermore, it was slow-acting. Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help shuddering when she remembered finding a patch of dangling fish scales on her elbow.

  She really did not like that item but she stuffed the remaining 68 bottles of mermaid cultivation drink back into the cardboard box and stored everything into a card.

  After fully exploring the ship, she fed Shen Lianqi a bit of water and suddenly found that she had nothing to do. This was the first time she actually felt this way ever since the New World descended.

  After contemplating for a while, she looked for a place where she couldn’t hear Shen Lian nagging, then she sat down cross-legged and quietly examined her abilities and items. She realized that she had quite a few special items.

  [That spring, when the cherry blossoms fell, your sweet laughter melted my world]: The author uses this to acc.u.mulate word count and males who hear it will lose all ill intentions. The number of times this item can be used is dependent on how many times the user had been in love.

  [A bag of cat litter]: Even though it is bright orange, it is a great tool to cover user’s tracks.

  [Oh My God! My wallet is missing!]: This will freeze the target’s Special Items for 1 hour. The target will not be able to use their Special Items for 1 hour. [1]

  [Teru Teru Bozu Defense System]: Once hung on a ceiling, it will watch over the user like a security guard, but the noise it makes is horrible.

  [Tape Recorder]: It is basically what it is.

  [Another/Way - A Mermaid Cultivation Drink]: Long-term consumption will cause a human to turn into a mermaid, but not a beautiful one...

  [Ability Polishing Agent]: It only states that it can polish abilities and the rest of the description is incomprehensible. It is now relegated to Lin Sanjiu’s flashlight.

  She gave the remaining prizes that she won from the Red vs. White Challenge to Hai Tianqing and the others, giving them two items each. With eight items in hand, she suddenly felt like a Nouveau Riche. In stark contrast to her line-up of special items, her abilities really look quite insignificant.

  She had three active ability.

  Lin Sanjiu can control the speed and direction of the converted card if it is within 35m from her hand. The card is bound by the law of gravity once it is further than 35m.

  Planar World also allows Lin Sanjiu to summon one Diary card. The Diary card would record everything that happens within a five-meter radius for up to three hours. Once it has recorded up to three hours of information, it has to be retrieved and erase before it can start a new recording.

  Lin Sanjiu counted the cards she had in her deck. Other than her special items, she had a [Mouthpart] card. It was extraordinarily long and very sharp. Lately, this has become the item she used most frequently and one of her most useful weapons. Even though she liked using the whip-like weapon, she was unwilling to take it out unless a situation was too dire. After all, it was part of a duoluozhong’s face so it was starting to smell bad as the remaining internal tissues within the mouthpart was rotting. It was also not that easy to use as it had no handle.

  Lin Sanjiu had thrown away the police baton, small knives, and other makeshift weapons long ago as she did not need them anymore. There was also a [Rob the Poor to feed the Rich box] card in her deck, it was a one-time use item. The rest of her cards are all her daily necessities: an extra pair of combat pants, the remaining coffee and chocolate, some sa
nitary items and u.n.d.e.r.w.e.a.r, and Ren Nan’s corpse...

  "Wait! That is not a daily necessity!" Lin Sanjiu drew out her [Ren Nan's Corpse] card. She had nearly forgotten that this card even exists. Looking at it now, she had a vague feeling as if the events happened in another lifetime.

  Apart from her Planar World, her two other active abilities were [No coincidence. No story] and [A Twinkle in the Sky] — it was that latter ability which allowed her to sent her companions flying so they all managed to escape from Puppeteer.

  Even though the combat value of her abilities was quite low, she wasn’t worried about them. Instead, when she thought of her [School of Higher Consciousness], she couldn’t help frowning.

  "Should I just meditate and enter that mindscape to see what is going on?" she sighed, "I need to find a way to activate it agai— "

  Before she finished her mumbling, she heard a buzzing sound from afar, it radiated out quickly like water ripples.

  She got her answer very quickly.

  She spotted a bird-like thing which was only about the size of a palm. It flapped its wings at high speed and flew toward her at a rapidly, growing from a small dot in a distance to its actual size, until it was just before her eyes. It was only then that Lin Sanjiu had a clear view of it. It was a small white paper crane.

  The paper crane stopped in front of her, almost as if it was using its two hand-drawn eyes to confirm Lin Sanjiu’s identity. After that, she heard an unfamiliar female voice, "It's all because I want to be with Brother Hai. Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste one of my paper cranes to look for a woman I don’t know! Do you know how expensive this paper crane is? It uses a pay-per-use model. In the Twelve World Centrum...Oh no? It is already recording! No! Brother Hai can’t speak to her! Alright, B.Rabbit. Ok. Quick! You can talk to— "

  [What the hell is this?]

  Just when Lin Sanjiu was feeling very puzzled, she suddenly heard B.Rabbit’s voice coming from the paper crane: "Xiao Jiu, where the hell are you? Finding you is so hard! Hey, let me tell you something. I've already found and eaten some fresh vegetables, what about you? Are you still l.i.c.k.i.n.g that melted chocolate? HAHAHA!"

  "Get to the point!" Hu Changzai shouted impatiently from the background.

  "Oh, yeah… This, uh, this paper crane will record your voice and we will hear it when it comes back to us. If you are not unconscious or dead, please leave a message after the ‘beep’! There is so much I want to tell you! Hehehe! Did you know that Hai Tianqing…"

  "Shut up!"

  Hai Tianqing’s furious voice rang out and B.rabbit’s voice was immediately cut off. Then, the paper crane made a "beep".

  Chapter 107 - Nearing Farewell

  The palm-sized, white paper crane almost vanished into the sunlight when it flew up into the blue sky. Sayo only noticed it when she heard the buzzing of its wings as it circled down from mid-air.

  "The paper crane is back!" she shouted excitedly, stretching out her palm. The paper crane stretched out its wing and landed on her palm as if it was alive. Her sentence caught the attention of Hai Tianqing and the others, they stopped and quickly surrounded her.

  "It’s finally back. I thought that it was already damaged by the elements out there. It has nearly been two months, I was worried…"Hu Changzai blurted out ruefully as he couldn’t help feeling nervous when he thought of that possibility.

  Sayo rolled her eyes at him before leaning against Hai Tianqing’s body. She pouted her lips coquettishly as she looked up at him, "Brother Hai, I wonder where your friend is. This type of paper crane usually works extremely fast, it must be due to the distance…"

  "Fine! Fine! Play the recording! Quick!" B.Rabbit said as he thumped his hind foot impatiently.

  After being separated from Lin Sanjiu for over two months, her companions heard her cool, collected voice once again. The paper crane could only record for a short time of two minutes. However, they did not expect that Lin Sanjiu used less than half of that time. Her message finished very quickly, leaving them looking at each other, momentarily at a loss of what to do.

  "Somewhere very far away? Can’t get out? Is she locked up by someone?" Hu Changzai was the first to speak, feeling a little unsettled by her message.

  "Locked up? If she is locked up, do you think she can still send this message?! She wouldn’t even tell us clearly where she is! She obviously doesn’t want us to look for her! She even told us to find for a Consular Officer without her! Bah! Who wants her to come along anyway! She thinks too highly of herself. I will go to a comfortable New World and not bring her along!" B.Rabbit was furious after he heard the recording and his veins were definitely popping under the fur of his.

  "Enough. Come on, stop it." Hai Tianqing frowned, trying to ignore Sayo’s unrestrained ogling. "I guess where Xiao Jiu is, probably isn’t that safe. Or as she mentioned, it is a place where you can enter but not escape, so she doesn’t want us to know where she is exactly…"

  "That’s right," Hu Changzai sighed, "B.Rabbit, if we know where she is, we would definitely go look for her. If we get trapped there and we have no visas, who knows when we will ever meet again once we are sent to random worlds. So just cut it out, we need to think about what we should do next."

  "What else can you do?" Sayo interjected. Among the four of them, she was the only one who was in a good mood. She smiled widely as she clung on to Hai Tianqing’s arm, "Just as your friend said, we should go get our visas! Once you have a visa, she might be able to look for you in the future…"

  Hai Tianqing quickly pulled back his arm, looking at her sternly, "If you continue touching me, you don’t have to follow us anymore. Our problem here is finding a Consular Officer."

  On top of that, if they actually manage to find a Consular Officer, Hu Changzai and B.Rabbit cannot show their faces. Who knows if Puppeteer already publicized their names and faces? It would be troublesome if someone reported their whereabouts to him.

  Sayo chuckled and suddenly said to Hu Changzai and B.Rabbit, "You two can enter my shell."

  Even though the beautiful white house was not physically attached to Sayo, it moved forward slowly with Sayo. Once she stopped, the house stopped at the same time, some distance away from her.

  "Huh, what’s going on?" Hu Changzai said as he carried B.Rabbit and entered the house cooperatively.

  As she saw the door close behind him, Sayo smiled at Hai Tianqing and whispered, "Brother Hai, you have to reward me." Before he reacted, she suddenly raised her arms and shouted, "Mr. Ark! Ms Meihuan!"

  Both human and rabbit in the house were shocked.

  Hai Tianqing widened his eyes, puzzled— because he could not see anyone in front of them, it was still the same vast stretch of yellow sand and ruins.

  However, after Sayo shouted for a few times, two people indeed appeared behind a desolated half-collapsed building.

  "Who called me?"

  A short fat young man who looked rather unhappy poked his head out from behind the building, he looked a little guarded. Without even asking, Hai Tianqing could tell from one look that this man was not originally from this world. There was a unique black ink marking on Sian’s forehead. It looked like an abstract drawing of a bird preparing to fly. He wore ten over earrings on one of his ears and nothing on the other.

  Having a resting sad face, Sian appeared unhappy even when he spotted Sayo’s familiar face, "It’s you. No wonder you can find me immediately." He probably knew how slow Sayo was, so he walked toward the two of them impatiently as he said that.

  Sayo looked behind him and questioned in surprised, "Who’s she? Where is Ms. Meihuan?"

  "She spoke without thinking and nearly implicated me. Who knows where she is right now." Sian replied with the same bland expression as if he was talking about a stranger. He clearly had no intention of introducing the tall and slender woman behind him. "Hey, regarding this [sleeping bag] you gave me… How many people can recognize it other than you? If someone can find me every time I am resting, wouldn’t I
die from overworking?"

  "Nah, no one else." Sayo quickly smiled, "Mr. Ark, I need four visas from you."

  "Umm.." Sian took in a sharp breath of air as he eyed the two people in front of him.

  —

  While Hai Tianqing and the rest waited anxiously for the answer from the Consular Officer, Lin Sanjiu, who was a few thousand meters below sea level, was thinking about the same thing. A fearful howl rang out and scared her.

  The howl seemed to come from a person scared out of his wits, that was none other than Shen Lianqi who was still hanging on the wall, "Ah! Aghhhh! Is there anyone around! Help! Help me!"

  "Splat." Lin Sanjiu threw down a fish which she was descaling and took out her [Ability Polishing Agent]. She flashed the silver light on his face and asked grumpily, "Why are you shouting? Did you have a nightmare?"

  Once the light hit his face, Shen Lianqi narrowed his eyes involuntarily. He only recognized Lin Sanjiu after a few seconds, "Miss Lin?! Why...why are you here? Wait, where am I?" He looked down and saw that he was tightly bounded, he quickly complained, "Why did you tie me up?"

  Lin Sanjiu wasn’t even a bit surprised by Shen Lianqi’s reaction.

  After sending off the paper crane, she did not allow Shen Lianqi to touch even a drop of that Mermaid Cultivation Drink in the following two months. The first few weeks were alright but recently he had started showing signs of such bewildered behavior— it was as if whatever was possessing his mind was losing grip due to the lack of the cultivation drink. Occasionally, Shen Lianqi would even forget that he was once a merman.

  But this was the first time he actually seemed lucid as if he had woken up from a long dream.

  "Look at your own feet." Lin Sanjiu sat down and continued descaling the fish.

  The patches of scales on Shen Lianqi’s legs have lessened by quite a bit, the gills on his cheeks were also starting to seal. However, his feet were still in a tail-like form. Thus, when he saw them, he screamed again, "Ah! My legs! My… how did it become like this? Hey?"