by N. Heller
His words suddenly became sluggish.
"So, you remembered?" Lin Sanjiu threw him a sidelong glance.
Shen Lianqi’s face instantly turned pale green, his lips even started to tremble. He was completely different from his past optimistic and carefree merman self. "How did I… I become a merman?"
Apparently, the effects of the Mermaid Cultivation Drink was finally wearing off. Lin Sanjiu guessed that he would probably remember everything soon so she released him from the bindings. He immediately slid to the floor probably because his limbs were too numb from being tied up for such a long time.
"How do you feel now?" Lin Sanjiu asked, feeling slightly curious.
Shen Lianqi was in a bewildered daze. He seemed to be at a loss after his memories started flooding back to him. After quite a long time, he responded, muttering, "It feels like I’m watching a movie. I can still remember what happened… but it is like I’m watching a doc.u.mentary...Uh, wait?"
His face suddenly turned white and he looked on the verge of vomiting, " What are those three bloated, rotting things? Duoluozhongs? Corpses? Ah, I actually use this hand to hold that dead female arm?"
[This is how a normal person would react.] Lin Sanjiu was pleased to see that but an impish thought suddenly crossed her mind, "You didn’t only hold her arm, you were even quite fond of her. I apologize for breaking up your relationship."
After a long time, he gradually calmed down. He wiped his face before he spoke to Lin Sanjiu in a serious tone, "Miss Lin, you saved my life and I don’t know how to return the favor. But I’m indebted to you, I won’t forget this. Don’t worry. In the future, if you need help, you just have to tell me and I’ll definitely…"
"Alright, alright. I didn’t really do much." Lin Sanjiu felt rather embarrassed by his display of gratitude so she wanted to change the subject quickly, "You should be hungry, right? I just caught a fish. We can eat it together."
Shen Lianqi looked at the fish and his face turned pale again, "Ugh… Are we going to eat…that?"
"What’s wrong?"
"That looks quite...quite gross…"
Gross was really an understatement. If Lin Sanjiu didn’t identify it as a fish, he would never have thought that it was a fish.
"Don’t be so squeamish," Lin Sanjiu shook the fish in her hand, a dozen legs around its belly started swaying with the momentum. "You have been eating this for the past two months."
Just when he felt his gastric juice rushing toward his throat, he stopped when he suddenly realized something. His nausea even abated. "Miss Lin, how long have we stayed at the bottom of the ocean?"
"It is too dark here. I can’t tell you the exact number of days. But I think it could be around three months."
Shen Lianqi looked upward, trying to count the number of days. After a long time, he suddenly exclaimed, "Ah!"
"What?" Lin Sanjiu asked. Seeing him constantly frightened and fl.u.s.tered after he turned back to human, she felt, in some sense, that he was a little more affable when he was a merman.
"It is almost time…" Shen Lianqi frowned as she looked at her, his face was still a little pale, "I would probably leave this world tomorrow night. Miss Lin, it should be about time for you too?"
Lin Sanjiu took quite a while before she understood what he meant.
Chapter 108 - The Second World
Lin Sanjiu could still remember the first day of Hyperthermal Hell clearly.
She could still remember the sticky sensation between her fingers when her hands were covered in her ex-boyfriend’s blood and how she couldn’t wash away the bloodstain under her nails no matter how hard she tried. She remembered the heat wave which lunged at her when she stepped into the carpark. She could remember how her heart raced the first time she saw a duoluozhong. It was as clear to her as yesterday.
"14 months passed so quickly." she knew that she was dreaming yet she was still lucid, so she couldn’t help lamenting.
Everything around her looked so realistic that Lin Sanjiu doubted if she was really dreaming. She looked around but she couldn’t tell how large this place was. The darkness around her seemed to extend forever, with no boundary. The only eye-catching thing in this space was the large white cube not far from her. It was about her height and its width could probably fit three to four people. On the upward face, she could see the black words: Hyperthermal Hell.
This was the dice that Luther mentioned about.
When Lin Sanjiu stepped forward, she suddenly thought of Luther. [How are Luther and Marcie now? 12 should have already taken on his corporeal form. With such a scary person like 12 beside them, will they still have peaceful days ahead?]
Thinking about her old companions, she couldn’t help think about her new companions. [Have B.Rabbit and the others received their visas? If so, to which world would they go next?]
In these 14 months, Lin Sanjiu met so many people, companions, enemies, and acquaintances… Yet, in the end, she didn’t expect that she would continue alone.
Knowing that she will wake up from her dream alone in a new world, she sighed softly. For a split second, she suddenly felt a lingering attachment toward Hyperthermal Hell.
"Alright, I have to go." Lin Sanjiu said as if to encourage herself, as she rubbed her hands and walked forward.
The large dice in front of her suddenly started vibrating as if it were alive. Shortly after, it shot to the sky as if it were tossed by an invisible hand. In the darkness, it grew smaller and smaller, rotating as it disappeared upward.
Even though she knew that the dice would not fall on her, she couldn’t help stepping backward. She looked upward as the white dice spun. Every now and then, she could see a line of word appearing. The dice gradually appeared larger and larger until it landed on the ground soundlessly.
She rushed forward and looked at the words facing her, her heart was pounding.
The next world was simply named, "Garden of Eden".
Lin Sanjiu was a little taken aback. That name didn’t seem suitable for an apocalyptic world. With the names like Hyperthermal Hell, Whiteout Blizzard, and Black Death City, she could imagine what sort of world they were. But Garden of Eden...
Just as she was feeling puzzled, she felt a sudden exhaustion from deep within her consciousness. It quickly enveloped her mind and she suddenly felt that she could no longer keep her eyes opened. She felt as though she hasn’t slept for many days so she didn’t even have a chance to resist. Darkness quickly crept into her consciousness.
Lin Sanjiu did not know how long she slept. Before she could open her eyes, the first thing Lin Sanjiu noticed was the refreshing breeze brushing across her exposed skin. The breeze was gentle and did not carry even a grain of sand. It was cooling, and she even felt a little cold compared to where she once was.
Lin Sanjiu rubbed her eyes as she propped herself up with one arm. When she opened her eyes, she was dumbfounded. If Garden of Eden meant this, Lin Sanjiu wished that all the New Worlds she encounters in the future would have such a nice, peaceful sounding name!
Even before Hyperthermal Hell descended on her homeworld, she had never seen such a clean, beautiful city.
[Wait. This is a city, right?] Lin Sanjiu was a little unsure. This place was novel to her and felt exactly like a foreign world. The ‘city’ was filled with conch-shaped buildings, with flowing lines and structure. They were about 70 to 80 stories high and were in a row of three to five. Meanwhile, the residential houses were two to three stories tall and were all covered by thick greenery that their structures were not very visible.
She saw a tall black tower in the distance. The oddly shaped building stood like a guardian overlooking the entire city.
There were travelators on what Lin Sanjiu assumed were sidewalks and they looked rather comfortable to stand on. She saw a mother and her two children on a travelator. They chatted and laughed as they were quickly transported to some location. Not far from her, she saw a young man digging out a large handful of sparkling bright thing
s from what seemed to be a vending machine and putting them directly into his mouth. As she looked further, she saw that everyone seemed rather serene and natural.
[Didn’t Luther say that we would be sent to another doomed world? Could Luther’s information be wrong?]
If she thought about it carefully, Luther and Marcie had only experienced two worlds. Perhaps, they only had some incomplete information…
Comparing herself to the residents in the city, Lin Sanjiu tugged at her shirt awkward and dusted off the sand on her body. When she felt that she had pretty much tidied up herself, she walked toward the city. The young man, who was eating, looked at her for a second. His expression remained unchanged as he lowered his head and grabbed another handful of sparkling, red little balls and continued eating.
Next, Lin Sanjiu heard an unexpected "thud" as she hit her head against something. She looked up, feeling a little confused. There was nothing in front of her.
She reacted on hindsight. [Why is there a screen of glass here?]
Lin Sanjiu used her hands to feel the screen of glass and realized that it was very large, she wondered who would even install a wall of glass here. The young man who was chewing on the little balls looked at her again.
Stepping forward from her previous spot to the glass, she was now very near to the man. "Hey, hi. It’s my first time here so I’m not quite familiar…"
The young man seemed to understand her. He crooked his head and observed her for a while before he pointed toward her back.
[Is the entrance behind?]
Lin Sanjiu quickly turned behind and was stunned. She took a quite a few seconds before she could comprehend the situation in front of her.
Purgatory probably looked like this.
From where she stood till the edge of the horizon, she could see a boundless land of black soil. The plants which dotted the landscape were not a lovely bright green but a murky greenish black. They were like the skin of a dying old man.
Heavy lead-gray clouds hung from the sky, making the sky seem so much closer to the ground. It was as if the sky was pressing down on the earth, exerting a gloomy pressure on a person’s heart.
Even though Lin Sanjiu had already seen quite a lot of disgusting creatures living at the bottom of the ocean, she couldn’t help shuddering as goosebumps appeared on her skin.
[What’s wrong with this world?]
She turned back quickly. Just as she was about to shout, she realized the young man eating the small round balls was nowhere to be seen. Lin Sanjiu scanned her surroundings and found no one around her. She hit the glass screen while she shouted loudly, "Hey! Is anyone around? Can anyone tell me where the entrance is?"
No one answered her. She searched around the glass screen trying to find the edge of the screen in front of her. But she quickly became disappointed.
This clean, beautiful city seemed to be enclosed in a glass globe. She could not feel the top edge of the glass nor any gap near the ground. Worst of all, she was outside its protection.
At this point, even an idiot could tell what was going on. Some sort of scary disaster surely devastated this world and wiped out a majority of the population and habitable land. However, the technical expertise of the residents here was higher than that of Hyperthermal Hell. This probably resulted in the creation of this "snow globe city" to protect the remaining human population.
The problem here was figuring out what that disaster was.
Lin Sanjiu knocked on the glass and continued shouting. Eventually, she sighed and stopped after no one responded to her. It was impossible for her to smash this protective glass. Even though the material was a lot like glass, it was nothing like the glass she knew, because the material was so strong that there was no hope of breaking it.
"Come on! You could at least hang a banner around here to tell us, newcomers, what’s going on outside!"
At the same time, she felt more and more dispirited, as her steps got heavy-laden.
"Plop." Lin Sanjiu’s entire body felt weak as she fell to the ground. The black soil on the ground landed on her body following the impact. Before she lost consciousness, she suddenly understood what the ‘snow globe’ was shielding those people from.
It was radiation.
Chapter 109 - Lin Sanjiu Doesn’t have Radiation Immunity
In terms of radiation immunity, Lin Sanjiu was no different from an ordinary person. From the time she arrived at Garden of Eden, it took less than ten minutes for her body functions to start failing.
One could only imagine how high the radiation level was for her body to reach such a critical condition within the span of ten minutes. Every fiber of muscle in her body wrung with pain; her body temperature spiked without warning, leaving her with a high fever and skin hot to the touch. Each time she turned her head, a tuft of hair fell off her head. Blood was dripping from her nose, ears, and mouth, but she didn’t even notice.
Having Heat Resistance Adaptation and Overall Physical Enhancement did nothing to help her condition. Lin Sanjiu violently coughed up another mouthful of blood and fell unconscious.
She remembered that the duoluozhongs, the masterminds behind Oasis, were actually humans before they were sent to Hyperthermal Hell. They only became duoluozhongs because they couldn’t develop Heat Resistance Adaptation.
Now, Lin Sanjiu found herself in the same situation because there was no way her body could develop Radiation Immunity. Lin Sanjiu did not know how long she had been unconscious. She slowly opened her eyes but they quickly closed again. As she felt her body shutting down, she understood one thing in her hazy mind: she would never develop radiation immunity.
Despite being on the verge of death, her body still sent a clear message to her brain: Lin Sanjiu will not gain this ability, not because her Potential Growth Value isn't high enough, but due to the natural limitations of her genetics.
Everyone had hundreds of DNA flaws, but she didn't know that hers would affect her so quickly. It was almost as if she could see Death drawing closer like when she was young, standing by her mother’s bedside.
Lin Sanjiu wasn’t afraid of death.
She was only worried that it would not be her end. She was afraid that even after she died, her corpse would eventually stand up unsteadily, using a radiated, mutated, ghoulish face to roam this totally unfamiliar world.
[If I were a female lead character in a novel, that person would come over to save me, right?]
She spent her last bit of energy joking with herself before she fainted again.
The person who drew closer to her was wearing something like a motorcycle helmet. The pair of eyes behind the glass visor of the helmet quickly evaluated the woman on the ground.
It was obvious to the person that Lin Sanjiu just arrived.
This was a highly irradiated world, yet the woman on the floor wasn’t wearing any form of anti-radiation protection. She was even wearing a short and tight singlet which left large areas of her skin exposed to the radiation-laced air. Lin Sanjiu’s death certainly held no meaning for anyone here in this world, much less for the person who approached her with his own agenda.
The stranger in a helmet crouched down to examine her body more closely. When he saw the bandage on her neck, his eyes suddenly lit up.
"I know you’re not dead yet so I’m going to apologize first," the man suddenly mumbled. His voice was muffled because of his helmet. "Anyway, a dead person doesn’t need any Special Items, right?"
While he spoke, he took off his glove and lifted Lin Sanjiu’s chin. He pressed around her bandage and felt the solid surface of her Pygmalion Choker just as he expected.
The man wasn’t in a hurry to retrieve that item, instead, he held her shoulders and flipped her, then he reached for her back pocket, trying to look for more items.
After a few seconds, he fell onto her body heavily with a "thud" drawing his last breath. Meanwhile, a sharp breath escaped Lin Sanjiu as the man’s weight pressed down on her.
Due to the effects
of [Versu Poison], blood oozed out from the pores of the man’s face and body. Drops of blood rolled down the glass visor, dripping out of the helmet.
Two motionless bodies laid on the vast, open, charred land.
Both bodies were actually quite close to the glass globe—as Lin Sanjiu’s body deteriorated quickly due to the radiation, she fell to the ground without walking far previously.
Within the glass globe, a few healthy looking, well-kempt people stopped when they saw the two bodies outside. They pointed and discussed something before they dispersed.
The only sound which remained in this quiet, desolate, blackened field was the soft whistling of a breeze. A few hideous, critters with the size of a human head crawled out from the ground and headed toward the two people. They crawled around impatiently and just as they were about to crawl closer, they suddenly heard the sound of someone taking a long, deep breath. Scared by this, they scurried underground very quickly.
This breath sounded parched and dry, as if the owner was injured and her lungs were longing for the moisture from a refreshing breath. Lin Sanjiu finally opened her eyes. After a few seconds, she became aware that, despite her exhaustion, her body was feeling a little better. When she coughed after being choked by her own blood, she realized that she had stopped bleeding. Her body was still in pain, but her fever was subsiding.
Strangely, Lin Sanjiu knew that she did not develop radiation immunity.
[What’s going on?] She thought hazily, feeling convinced that the reason she was pulled back from the jaws of Death was due to the dead man lying on her. She laid in the same spot for some time feeling her heart working its best to keep her alive, trying to pump a little energy back to her body. When she started getting back some movement in her hands, she struggled to get the man’s backpack off his shoulders. As the opening of the backpack was not secured, a handful of red, shining, transparent balls rolled out from the backpack, falling to the ground. It was the same thing that the young man grabbed from the vending machine.