by N. Heller
To calm herself, Lin Sanjiu compulsively forced herself to ignore that warning and started reading the article. Thankfully, the newspaper was also in Chinese. Even though she was unfamiliar with some words and sentences, she got the main gist of it. It turned out that this Tenebraelogist called Le Bon had a great reputation and received many accolades internationally in the past. That was until he published a paper which shocked the whole world and created mass hysteria for some time.
However, even after a few years, Le Bon's prediction did not come true. Other tenebraelogists stood out to question his theory. In the end, he became a joke. The angry mob destroyed his house, and he was fired from work. When the forty-plus-year-old Le Bon appeared on the television again, he looked like a slightly deranged old man. Even this article which featured an exclusive interview with him was written with the intention to mock him. The article ended with the famous line he uttered on tv that scared everyone.
"The dark matter invasion will occur. It is just a matter of time. When the world ends, I will only rescue my believers!"
The words on the newspaper were very clear and the newspaper had not even turned yellow. Lin Sanjiu closed the newspaper and sighed. The apocalyptic event had already descended upon this world, and that Le Bon was probably right. Lin Sanjiu wondered if he was really still alive somewhere in this world...
"But, what did he mean by 'dark matter invasion'? "
Lin Sanjiu had never even heard of the many terminologies used in the article. Naturally, she couldn't fully understand the article. After putting down the newspaper, there were still many unanswered questions in her head, but she felt a little less anxious.
The train continued traveling with the same familiar sounds as it ran on the tracks. It swept past the scenery of the city and the residential buildings... Other than the fact that no one was around, everything seemed very normal. Gradually, there were fewer and fewer buildings around. Lin Sanjiu spent two uneventful hours on the train before it finally arrived at Bamboo Grove Mountains Station.
After the train doors opened, Lin Sanjiu stood at the side of the doors and looked outside. Her heart quickly fell back to its normal pace. There weren't any buildings near the station and there weren't any people with weird expressions... The train station was clean. There were a few stalls selling souvenirs and snacks. Looking through the glass walls of the train station, she could vaguely see a mountain in the distance.
Apart from the odd silence, and the fact that no one was around, the train station seemed to be a normal station at a sightseeing location. After thinking for some time, Lin Sanjiu finally stepped out of the carriage and onto the platform. The reason why she alighted wasn't due to the warning on the paper—those words were too contradictory and came with no explanation so she couldn't rely her judgement over her situation based on that information. To Lin Sanjiu, staying on the train wasn't a long-term plan. Additionally, she had enough of the cold and wanted to look for a winter coat as soon as possible.
Lin Sanjiu couldn't help feeling uneasy as she turned back to look at the train carriage behind her. After all, the train provided her some protection previously and it was certainly difficult for her to leave that safe spot.
"I hope I made the right decision."
There was no way an empty train could respond to her. The train doors closed and the train rumbled off into the distance after a whistle. She was left alone on the platform. She looked around and easily spotted the exit. It led to a road outside, so Lin Sanjiu wasn't worried that she couldn't get out. Unfortunately, it was unbearably cold outside. She quickly ran to the stall near the exit and grabbed a few vests with the words 'Bamboo Grove Mountains' and wore a few of them on her body. However, that didn't really warm her. They were too thin and her arms were still exposed to the frigid wind. Lin Sanjiu shivered uncontrollably as she wrapped up the food and beverages she found in the stall and converted them into a card. Then, she ran out of the train station. The scenic landscape waited for her silently. The direct translation is 'dark studies expert'.
Chapter 184 - Why You Shouldn't Trespass onto Private Property
During winter, would you feel scared when you had to put on a sweater?
The short moment when you put that thick sweater over your head and before you could push your head out of the collar, you would see nothing except the dark outlines of the sweater. That would mean that you wouldn't notice if someone was standing beside you.
Lin Sanjiu never imagined that she would feel so scared when she was putting on the sweater. Twenty minutes earlier, she had just alighted from the train...
—
From the public square where the train station was situated, Lin Sanjiu could see a mountain some distance away. As it was behind a white mist, Lin Sanjiu could make out the greenish outline of that mountain. The station was quite some distance away from Bamboo Grove Mountains. This tourist attraction supported many small businesses. Outside the station, there were many haphazardly parked motorbikes. Some of the convenience stores and kiosks with half-opened doors had been ransacked. There weren't many items left behind. A few conspicuous new hotels were built right beside some old, short residential buildings. This appeared to be a very ordinary neighborhood in the small city.
The spooky incident at Mausoleum Elementary School left an extremely deep impression on her. She walked around the public square cautiously and finally heaved a sigh of relief after checking that no one was around. After she relaxed a little, she became more aware of the cold. It was so cold that her skin was starting to hurt.
"I need to look for some clothes as soon as possible, I can't even think straight in this cold." Lin Sanjiu grumbled to herself softly. She rubbed her arms non-stop. The orange-red vests were made of a poor-quality material, being thin and permeable. It was a sort of material that would feel cold in winter and warm in summer. While she thought about this, she chose a random building and ran into it.
That was an old red brick building and there was even a large metal door. However, to a posthuman, that metal door was no different from a plastic one. After Lin Sanjiu activated her [Mosaic Censorship] a few times and blasted through a few doors, she found herself in someone's home.
The floor tiles had turned yellow with age; the rooms were small; a few clotheslines were randomly tied throughout the living room. This was more than proof that this was not a well-off family. There were clean clothes on the clothesline that were already dry. Lin Sanjiu did not expect to find what she wanted this quickly when she first stepped into this apartment. However, when she looked at the clothes carefully, she was immediately disappointed.
"This family washed their summer clothes?" Lin Sanjiu questioned herself, feeling puzzled. There were only singlets and short, there wasn't even a single shirt which could keep her warm. She looked around and found it so dirty and messy that she had no interest in going into the bedrooms to look for other clothes. She turned and walked to the neighbor's apartment. Similarly, she destroyed the lock on the door with a few attacks. The fragments of the lock fell to the ground noisily, and that sound echoed through the entire building for a long time. Without a lock, the door creaked open.
This apartment was much cleaner and more comfortable. At least, clothes were strewn all around. Once she stepped in, she sprinted to the bedroom and found two large closets like she expected. One of them held the owners' summer clothes, while the other stored the owners' winter clothes. They were kept neatly but Lin Sanjiu soon sighed.
She looked at many sets of clothes and realized that they were all old people's clothes. There were male and female clothes in the closet. Not only were the clothes too big for her, but the thickest coats also had large red and green peonies prints—evidently, an old couple must have lived here in the past.
As a woman who once had quite a good fashion sense, Lin Sanjiu really wasn't keen on wearing them. However, her arms which were exposed to the cold wind were going numb soon...
"Forget it. It's okay." She made her
mind up and took the vests. "Being warm is the most important thing. I will just change out of these if I see other clothes." She wanted to convert a few more clothes into cards but quickly decided against that idea. After searching for some time, she finally found a normal-looking black sweater. She stuffed her arms impatiently into the sweater and decided to quickly put the sweater over her head.
Right now, there was a person standing in front of her—
Lin Sanjiu's arms were caught in the sleeves of the sweater. Her upper body was in a defenseless position. She wanted to scream, but she couldn't make a sound. She quickly retreated backward and pulled her arms apart. The black sweater was ripped in two. Lin Sanjiu regained an unobstructed view of her surroundings. She froze on the spot, then knitted her brows. There was no one else in the room. A pair of green cloth shoes was on the floor—but she didn't remember it being there before, when she entered the room.
She really hated this feeling.
"What the hell is wrong with this world," she had been here less than a day and the number of shocks she received was almost comparable to the total number she acc.u.mulated over the previous two worlds, "Even though there is no one here, why is it so eerie..."
Even the courage she gained from her many close shaves with death wasn't quite enough to calm herself. She grabbed the thickest jacket and wrapped it around her conveniently before she subconsciously avoided the pair of old cloth shoes and rushed towards the main door.
When she reached the main door, she paused. This apartment belonged to an old couple, so naturally, they had some old items. Lin Sanjiu spotted a simple Chinese almanac calendar which Lin Sanjiu hadn't see people using for a long time. The old couple probably tore off a page of that calendar every day, leaving a thick stack of torn pages.
This was nothing special, but Lin Sanjiu couldn't help noticing something. The first remaining page of the calendar stated, "30 May, Saturday."
She touched the page of the paper and found that the dust on it wasn't that thick. At most, only a month had passed from that date.
"It's summer?" Lin Sanjiu looked down at the thick flowery cotton-padded jacket on her body.
It wasn't unusual that the climate of an apocalyptic world would change. However, everything in this world seemed normal, aside from that incident at Mausoleum Elementary School, and this temperature could never be the cause of the apocalyptic event. Lin Sanjiu couldn't think of a reason why the temperature would suddenly drop.
Lin Sanjiu didn't want to stay in this apartment another second longer. A suspicion flashed through her mind. Then, she ran back to the passageway and left the residential building through the metal door. Even though it was foggy outside, the soft sunlight outside comforted her.
"I think I should find a safe shelter to stay right now," she said to herself encouragingly. "Fourteen months would pass very quickly..." Lin Sanjiu, sporting a flowery jacket, stood on the spot thinking for some time and headed toward the hotels. The green cloth shoes in the room had changed their direction at some unknown time and were now facing the door.
Chapter 185 - Not Alone, Finally
"That's right. No matter how strange this world is, this is an apocalyptic world. Thus, it must come with two distinctive things: posthumans and duoluozhong." Lin Sanjiu thought to herself as she looked at the thing in front of her, which was only half her height.
She saw no one on her way here, so she didn't expect to meet a duoluozhong when she walked on the second floor of this bed and breakfast hotel.
The duoluozhongs from every world had a different appearance due to the different apocalyptic events that triggered their mutation. Logically speaking, Lin Sanjiu did not know what caused the apocalypse in this world, so she didn't know what sort of duoluozhong to expect. However, the thing in front of her was clearly a duoluozhong. It couldn't be anything else...
Its body was like a twisted trunk of a tree. Its head was sharp and flat. Its sharp jagged teeth stuck out from its mouth. Lin Sanjiu could see its non-human skeletal frame jutting and bulging under its greenish skin. This was a creature which could be called a 'monster' no matter where.
Lin Sanjiu didn't know why but she let out a sigh of relief after she saw the duoluozhong. When she regained her nerves, she drew out her vibroblade, and her expression even relaxed a little.
"This is how things should be..." Lin Sanjiu held her knife and stepped forward. Seeing this familiar creature, it didn't matter whether it was friend or foe, Kisaragi Station World didn't feel as inexplicable and creepy as before. It was as if she finally gained some confidence.
To her surprise, the duoluozhong let out a sharp shriek when it saw her taking out her knife. It turned and ran toward a room on the corridor and started knocking on the door.
Huh?
Lin Sanjiu stopped and stared at it while she held her knife. The handle of the door moved and the duoluozhong instantly squeezed through the gap in the door. Next, a man's puzzled face peeked out from the door. "Greenie, what's outsid—?"
Before he could finish his sentence, he found himself staring back at Lin Sanjiu. At that moment, both people were shocked.
"Huh, huh?" Suddenly spotting another living person, Lin Sanjiu was overwhelmed with joy. Her eyes brightened as she asked, "Are you a posthuman?"
She could never imagine that seeing another human would make her so happy. The man seemed to feel the same way. He stuttered happily for some time before he finally completed his sentence, "I... I'm not imagining this, right? Are you alive? Oh gosh! I have been here for more than one month..."
While he spoke, he rubbed his short buzzcut and his round face turned red.
"I just arrived! This place gives me the creeps..." That person was just a stranger, but Lin Sanjiu couldn't resist telling him what was on her mind. Remembering something, she quickly asked, "That thing... is a duoluozhong?"
"Quick, come in..." the excited man urged. He wasn't that tall but he was well-built. Suddenly remembering that Lin Sanjiu was a female posthuman all by herself, he guessed that she might be cautious about entering his room, so he laughed hurriedly, "You mean Greenie? It is a duoluozhong. But it is just a... something in this world. I have some methods to tame any duoluozhong in any world so that I can use them."
Even though both of them didn't know each other, they already expressed enough goodwill. Besides, the man even told her about his "method". Lin Sanjiu guessed that he must have been very lonely after being alone for more than a month.
Lin Sanjiu nodded her head and told him her name. After the man recited her name a few times, he replied, "I am Douglas. Did you also board the train from Kisaragi Station?"
Lin Sanjiu had a lot to say on this topic. "Yes, this place is really weird. What sort of apocalyptic world is this? And, why isn't there any people around here?" She hesitated for a moment when she asked him these questions. In the end, she didn't mention the crazy-looking people at Mausoleum Elementary Station and the pair of old cloth shoes. She didn't feel much when she was alone, but now that she was in front of another posthuman she couldn't bring herself to admit that she had been scared by a pair of shoes.
Douglas touched his buzzcut that was so short that he almost looked bald. He threw a glance at her, and a slightly strange expression appeared on his face, "You've never heard of Kisaragi Station?
Lin Sanjiu felt like she heard that name before but she just couldn't recall it. She shook her head.
"I don't know what it is like in your original world. In my hometown, there is a country called Japan. Kisaragi Station is a famous online urban legend. The story goes like this. A young woman took a night train and realized that she boarded the wrong train. She didn't know where the train was heading. When she alighted at Kisaragi Station, she realized that she was in the middle of the wilderness. She had no choice but to walk along the tracks...
"She had been walking for a while when she suddenly saw an elderly man with only one leg. Then, she heard the drums sounds from a ceremony... All this tim
e, she had been chatting with her online friends on the forum and had been reporting what was happening. Everyone told her to leave the place quickly. In the end, the young woman wrote: 'I met a good person, he will drive me to another station.'/ 'He is driving up the mountain, and he is not responding to my questions. I plan to run away.' After this, she never replied again."
Perhaps, Douglas noticed Lin Sanjiu's fearful expression, since he sighed and nodded. "You should have guessed it by now, right? This world is named after a horror story... I think this world is related to urban legends and that sort of thing."
"Huh? But when I was on the train..." Lin Sanjiu didn't really understand, and told Douglas about the article she read, "Actually, I think this world has been invaded by something called 'dark matter'."
Douglas opened his mouth and thought for a moment but gave up, "Cough! Who knows... Anyway, I just want to spend my 14 months here peacefully. I am contented as long as nothing bad happens."
"You have a point. " Lin Sanjiu agreed silently.
After seeing another living person, Lin Sanjiu felt that she had recovered. Her usually cool-headedness and confidence had returned. After talking with Douglas for some time, she even entered the room and took a look at Greenie.
Douglas occupied a room with a large king-sized bed. There were clothes and empty noodle bowls around the bed, showing that man's typical untidiness. When Greenie saw Lin Sanjiu, it quickly hid behind a curtain, failing to notice that its feet could still be seen.
"After I 'capture' them, their intelligence falls significantly..." Douglas explained while he tidied the bed and cleared the items on it. "Its intelligence is only comparable to a five-year-old child now."
With its lowered intelligence, Lin Sanjiu didn't feel as much hatred for the duoluozhong. Douglas led Lin Sanjiu to the reception downstairs to get a key. Then, they returned to the second floor and he opened the door to another room.