by N. Heller
After the segment which showed the audience ended, a large closeup view of a contestant appeared on the screen while a tsunami of cheers erupted from the audience.
From the angle, the image on the screen was a direct feed from a camera in a capsule. The young girl who appeared on the screen was leaning against the wall of her capsule. She had a withered look as her eyelids drooped. It was as if she had already lost the will to fight. Even when she saw her face blown up on the screen in the center of the arena, her eyes only shifted a little.
She was only eighteen or nineteen. Even though she couldn’t be considered beautiful, her age gave her an edge, giving her a certain appeal.
"This is Contestant 14, she is only 18 and her name is Xinyi. She has the lucky privilege of being the first female mutate with a sponsor. Please give her a round of applause!" Once the host said this, a beam was cast at the audience and an animated projection of blooming flowers appeared midair. After that, the words "The CEO of Garden of Eden Crop Sticky Cloning Technique Pte Ltd., Li Caiguang wishes everyone a Happy Lunar New Year" was shown, there was a small line of words which seemed to be the company’s address.
It was only then that Xinyi glanced at the projection in midair with a slightly confused face.
"The future fate of Contestant 14 is in the hands of Li Caiguang, the CEO of Garden of Eden Crop Sticky Cloning Technique Pte Ltd. He chooses—" the host intentionally dragged his words to draw the attention of the audience. Then, he announced loudly, "Before she dies under the hands of duoluozhongs who have been fed aphrodisiac, Contestant 14 would be beheaded!"
Through the large screen, everyone could see Xinyi’s facial features freezing up. Her previously apathetic expression fell off her face like a shattered mask.
For a second, the audience was absolutely silent.
Suddenly, from a corner, someone started clapping. The sound spread like a contagion among the audience and soon the arena was assaulted by the sound of applause. Lin Sanjiu thought that she might have misheard something as she looked in a daze at the screen.
Xinyi covered her mouth and suddenly vomited. Light yellow gastric fluid seeped through her fingers and then the screen cut over to another contestant.
This was a fair woman whose age was around 35. She had a m.a.t.u.r.e elegance and was well endowed. She would have looked more alluring if the camera wasn’t shaking so much due to her pounding insanely on the walls of the capsule.
"The famous gourmet, the host of the popular food show ‘Gentle Eats’, the author, Woden wishes everyone a happy festive season. The fate he has chosen for Contestant 70 is…"
"...for both her b.r.e.a.s.ts and her tender inner t.h.i.g.hs to be cut off while she is still alive. Using these parts, Woden would personally create a dish called ‘Milky Mounds’. This will be shown later in the program… Anyone who is interested in collecting the taxidermy model of Contestant 70, please note that those parts will be modeled…"
Lin Sanjiu confirmed that what she heard was true. Lin Sanjiu clenched her fists. She could feel her temples pulsing as if a wild beast would climb out from her head any moment and eat up those people. She didn’t know which of her emotions made her react so strongly that her body began to tremble and her teeth began to chatter. She tried her best to control her muscles, but they wouldn’t stop convulsing.
For today’s match, only two out of the five women had the ‘lucky privilege’ of being sponsored. The host paused for a moment before he introduced the next segment, "There are three predictions for the amount of time that Contestant 14 would last under the hands of those duoluozhongs, they are 3-5 minutes; 6-9 minutes; and over 10 minutes. The experts tentatively classified her ability as a type of increased agility…"
The capsule Xinyi was in started sliding toward the battle arena. Lin Sanjiu couldn’t even imagine the expression on that girl’s face.
When the chosen capsules stopped in the middle of the battle arena, the screen showed the bets by the residents placed on Contestant 14’s survival time. The first two options were very popular and the amount wagered just kept climbing whereas only a few took a gamble on the third option.
Soon, the segment for the bets to be placed on Contestant 14 and Contestant 70 ended. The black van, so familiar to Lin Sanjiu, stopped outside the arena.
As the battle arena was fully covered by blood and flesh of the casualties, the prison van was parked outside, probably to prevent the vehicle from skidding.
The duoluozhongs which came out from the van were visibly different from those used in the past three days. The duoluozhongs which were currently in the arena barely looked like humans and seemed to only have a violent intent to kill. However, the duoluozhongs that just arrived, though hairless, retained their most important appendages. From the looks of it, Garden of Eden Laboratories definitely strengthened...
The appendages were almost as long as a man’s lower leg, swung between their knees as the duoluozhongs walked, evoking the image of a male horse. There was an indescribable expression on each of the duoluozhongs’ twisted faces, but the growing excitement in their eyes was undeniable and their appendages were also getting tenser.
Lin Sanjiu collapsed in her capsule. Her fingers clawed the walls of the capsule. As she used too much strength, her nails were almost about to flip. The nerves in her nails were sending pain signals like mad but Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes, panting as if she couldn’t feel anything.
Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help feeling confused at her current condition. Her body was shaking uncontrollably, her muscles ached and her vision was blurry. This reminded her of the feeling she had when she was lying on the grass when she just arrived in this New World. She did not have any anti-radiation protection then, but she was now protected by the glass walls, so logically the level of surrounding radiation shouldn’t be lethal to her...
Lin Sanjiu tried to watch the events unfolding with her bloodshot eyes. She tried to forget the discomfort she was feeling. She wanted to watch and remember everything. She wanted to avenge those women she barely knew...
Through her hazy vision, she spotted a member of the audience in the first row who was sitting closest to the capsule containment area. The person looked at the capsules and hesitated for a moment, then looked at the duoluozhongs, before finally taking out a small bag and pouring out some anti-radiation gummies. The person slowly placed the gummies into a tube under his or her hood.
Lin Sanjiu understood instantly what was happening to her. A familiar darkness overtook her consciousness, she closed her eyes unwillingly and fainted.
Chapter 119 - Night Security Guard
The protective glass shield could not block off 100% of the surrounding radiation. The glass could block the radioactive particles in the air, the effects from the radioactive clouds, and radiation-contaminated creatures, etc. However, no matter what methods the residents tried, they were unable to decontaminate the soil under their feet.
The residents of Garden of Eden could not eat soil grown crops, instead, they had to ration their crops which were grown via aeroponics. It took twenty years of research before the "Crop Sticky Cloning Technique" was developed. It was only then that sufficient food was produced to support the city. In the past, women who haven’t had children could never have a full meal.
Due to low-grade terrestrial radiation from the ground, all the residents were recommended to consume a certain dosage of anti-radiation gummies every month to maintain their health. In fact, only low-income residents lived in small buildings or on the first or second floor. The rich people in the city all owned sky villas and their own advanced technologies to reduce their radiation exposure.
Unfortunately, Lin Sanjiu was naively unaware of this information. After she killed Sandwhale, there was no one around to feed her any anti-radiation gummies. Sandwhale was just the head of a gang which kidnapped female Posthumans. Even though he had quite a few men under him, there was no reason for them to work together once he died. If it weren’t because Garden
of Eden wanted more contestants and set a condition that people who bring in the winning contestant could stand to win some of the prize money from the wagers, those men that came would have scattered like birds. Thus, they wouldn’t bother spending any effort on the person brought in by Sandwhale.
In a normal world, the natural background radiation that humans are exposed to is only a few millisieverts per year. The radiation delivered by a CT scan or a c.h.e.s.t x-ray also doesn’t cause much harm to a human body. But when radiation had to be measured in sieverts, it would be dangerous.
If a normal person was exposed 3 to 4 sieverts of radiation, they would have already died or ended up half-dead. When Lin Sanjiu first arrived in Garden of Eden, her body already absorbed up to 15 to 16 sieverts of radiation. Without her physical enhancements, she would have died long ago. Even though she was saved by Er Dao’s blood and by eating the anti-radiation gummies, she was still exposed to constant radiation. The only difference was it went from a few sieverts per hour to a slower rate of a few hundred millisieverts. This did not apply only to her, but everything that existed in this world, except the duoluozhongs. Passive abilities like Radiation Immunity and anti-radiation gummies only helped to reduce the acc.u.mulated radiation in a person’s body to a safe level. This was also the reason why those anti-radiation gummies, which had addictive effects, were still very popular outside the snow globe city.
Since Lin Sanjiu had not consumed any anti-radiation gummies for almost a week, the radiation in her body had already reached 10 sieverts. If she wasn’t so tense and focused on the tournament, she would have noticed her growing discomfort much earlier.
The image of her body smashing against the wall of her capsule and slowly sliding down was captured by the mini camera inside the capsule. Lin Sanjiu did not wake up even when the matches for the fourth day of the tournament ended. However, the news that Contestant 97 had fell into a coma only took up a very small corner on a page of entertainment news that day. It didn’t raise much interest other than stopping a few rich men from "sponsoring" her.
Xinyi, the well-endowed Contestant 70 and three other "sponsored" women in the afternoon match died that day, living up to the ‘expectations’ that Garden of Eden had of them. This was nothing extraordinary. Ever since someone had thought up of the brilliant plan to limit the contestants to all female posthumans, it just became a common acceptable practice in the Garden of Eden.
Now, there were only 60 contestants who had not participated in the matches. Out of all the matches in the past four days, there were only two survivors. Apart from the physical injuries they sustained, they were both totally traumatized. The contestant who was in the same match as Xinyi already went crazy after witnessing the 12 minutes Xinyi had suffered at the hands of those duoluozhongs. Every now and then, incoherent singing could be heard from her capsule. The other contestant was in a slightly better state. When the organizers gave her a choice to "continue participating or stop", she withdrew into her capsule without any hesitation.
On the night after the fourth day of the tournament, all the women in the capsules, except Lin Sanjiu, became very desperate. It was one thing to participate and fight with duoluozhongs because they still had a winning chance, but they realized that killing themselves might be a better fate than being tortured and humiliated to death like Xinyi and the others. Yet, once they had the intention to do so, they were already unable to implement their plan.
The organizers were already very familiar with such antics after holding so many rounds of tournaments. As the female contestants started to realize their circ.u.mstances, rebel, or try to kill themselves, the measures used against them also become more sophisticated. The nozzles installed in the capsules, used for spraying the pheromones, now sprayed a different gas.
It was very expensive to manufacture this particular gas so the organizers would only use it at this point in the tournament. The women suddenly felt very weak. Although they couldn't move their limbs and couldn’t even move their eyes, their five senses were still sharp and their brains were still working fine. Well, except for the portion that controlled their movements.
When it was time for a contestant to enter the arena, she will be doused with a sour liquid. Once she could move her body, the capsule would open and a machine would untie her. By then, anyone in that position would know that it was their match.
The "sponsorsh.i.p.s" and bets for the fifth day were just as horrendous. During this time, many normal women in Garden of Eden would switch off their television and wait in fear for their husbands to return. From the fifth day onward, watching the tournament would evoke the greatest brutality, insanity, and l.u.s.t from their men. This would continue until the end of the tournament and many normal women were also tortured to death during this period.
The families who had daughters were usually very alert during this period. Even if they had sold their daughters, they were still their children. So they were entitled to some compensation if their daughters died. For that reason, some families refuse to raise sons, they specifically raised daughters so that they could sell them and hope to earn more during the Lunar New Year Tournament.
Those parents were certainly not disappointed by the tournament this year. At the end of the fifth day, there was still a lingering aura of tension and brutality in the empty arena. With the lighting effects and applause, the arena seemed dead. A few duoluozhongs that refused to sleep would occasionally let out some grumbling sounds as they walked around the bloodied floor. The electric net, which segregated the battle arena from the audience seats, would make a snapping sound and emit a flash of light every so often. These sounds made the atmosphere of dead silence in the capsule containment area even weirder and more desolate.
Fifty women laid at the bottom of their capsules. Most of them had their eyes wide opened. Lin Sanjiu wasn’t sprayed with that gas but her condition was poorer than the others. She slipped in and out of her coma. She had a high fever and though it was not as bad as the previous time, she could not stay conscious and her body ached all over. Despite that, she was unable to do much. She wanted to revert her [Er Dao’s Corpse] card back to its original form to obtain more of his blood but somehow, she failed even after trying a few times. She suspected that her high fever affected her ability but she did manage to pull out her mouthpart weapon without any issue.
Within the rare few minutes which she was conscious, she inferred that the space around her might be too tight. There just wasn’t enough space for Er Dao’s large body to corporealize, so naturally she couldn’t summon the card. She heard the sound of heavy breathing walking towards the containment area. This was accompanied by the light from multiple flashlights.
"Are you sure this is alright?" a man spoke with a rough voice and let out a dry cough as though it would calm his nerve. "I have lots of experience f*cking women, but are these even considered women…"
"Hehe. There is something you don’t know." The flashlights came closer and when a beam of light sweep across the floor, it revealed a scrawny man. Even though he was short and appeared skinny, he had an attention-grabbing, large spare-tire belly.
"I have been a night security guard for this tournament for a few years now. This is not even my first time doing this." The scrawny man patted the gun attached to his waist. "They are not different from ordinary women. I would say that it feels even better! Maybe they run a lot out there, so their t.h.i.g.hs are so firm..."
As he said this, he gulped a mouthful of saliva noisily.
The man with the rough voice stopped for a moment. He seemed convinced but he had a new question, "But the radiation…"
"Don’t worry. I brought some gummies and anti-radiation after gel! If it was dangerous, would I join you?" The skinny security guard scoffed. He pointed to the others and said, "They all paid good money before I brought them here. If you weren’t my relative, I wouldn’t tell you this good deal…"
One of the men who had paid him laughed, "That’s right. This is so m
uch cheaper than getting a taxidermied model or souvenirs after the tournament. It’s great value! Anyway, they’ll be dead tomorrow. Why not let us guys enjoy them?
A wave of dizziness washed over Lin Sanjiu so she immediately bit her own lips. The pain kept her conscious as she swallowed the salty taste in her mouth. Now, the men’s voice was just nearby.
There were six men in total, and some of them were wearing those anti-radiation robes, while others were not. After all, they wanted excitement when they decided to sneak into the arena to have some fun with these women. What could be more exciting than taking risks while f*cking women? Those that didn’t wear their robes were obviously experienced men, they even went their own ways, pointing their flashlights into the capsules.
One of the men who was wearing a robe was still very worried, "Are you sure they can’t fight back?
The scrawny security guard sounded annoyed when he replied again, "Of course! I have done this for years. Did I ever get into any trouble? Don’t worry!"
A man, some distance away, pulled out a young girl from a capsule. He panted heavily while he laughed, "Have you heard of event flags? Haha! If this was a television drama, your words would have triggered a death flag…"
The scrawny security guard responded with a half-hearted laugh and ignored his relative. He held the flashlight in his mouth as he unbuckled his belt. A man without robes walked around a few rounds as if he was unsatisfied with what he saw.
"I did a busty woman and an eight-year-old last year. I am so sick of those pure, pitiful types…" he mumbled, "They always choose the same few types, it just gets a little boring."