by N. Heller
[A World History of Art]: This book allows the recreation of the scenery as well as the background origin of random famous art pieces. It would enforce the situation on the target and could work like a mini pocket dimension.
With a mentality that having an additional ally would be more beneficial than another foe, Lin Sanjiu showed her courteous side and offered Silvan the opportunity to choose a book of his liking. She was slightly astonished when the latter smiled and chose [A Detailed Guide to Forensic Reconstruction of Dinosaur Fossils]. He left the more powerful books for them.
With the remaining books, each of them could get one book. As suggested by the siblings, Lin Sanjiu decided to sell off the last book at Red Nautilus to earn her "living expenses" there. Lin Sanjiu was quite shocked when she heard this because she couldn't imagine that she would actually need money in an apocalyptic world.
"Actually… Even though older brother Silvan killed all those people," Rena said suddenly as they were walking, "He doesn't seem like a bad person… Didn't he bury that person called Peach?"
Lin Sanjiu did not know why the two children had such an exceptional impression of Silvan. She did not reply. Instead, she listened silently to the siblings' discussion as they continued walking. After some time, the three of them stopped all at once, spontaneously.
This was because they had spotted a very familiar face peering from the window of a two-story building. He had a very shocked expression.
Chapter 276 - Fan Service For Cat Lovers
Wafts of meat fragrance accompanied the faint white steam coming out from a small metal container atop an open fire. The fire created an interplay of light and shadow upon the faces of the people surrounding it. The fire lit their faces and their bright, sparkling eyes.
Lin Sanjiu didn't know how long it had been since she had seen hot, sizzling food. Though she craved for a bite, she could only sit beside the food and stare.
Just moments ago, she refused to accept her condition and insisted on trying a bite of that meat. The meat literally "went through her body undigested" and fell to the floor. Because of that, the siblings reproached her for quite a long while.
"I think the meat should be done?" When Rena said those words, Lin Sanjiu could hear the saliva in the girl's mouth, the girl was almost gurgling her salvia, "I think it is ready!"
Before she finished her sentence, she rapidly brought her chopsticks to the side of the metal container—
Thwack. Her chopsticks were smacked away from the metal container, this was followed by a loud, furious reprimanding, "You can only eat when I say so!"
Even though his voice sounded very sweet, it was still very domineering when he was stern, "The cheese inside hasn't fully melted, and the rice at the bottom is still hard! It obviously isn't ready!"
As Rena had rarely seen him being so strict, she immediately nodded and bowed before returning to her seat. She was very ashamed of herself and quickly apologized, "Sir, please don't be angry. Don't be angry."
At that moment, the cat doctor, always well-respected by everyone, twitched his white whiskers and stared at all of them disdainfully with his green eyes showing a "you're-all-not-worthy-to-be-called-humans" attitude.
Lin Sanjiu and the siblings had accidentally stumbled upon the cat doctor's territory earlier that day in the afternoon.
—
Even though the face they saw from the window of the second floor belonged to a furry cat, it did not hinder his display of shock. After the two parties stared at each other for a few seconds, the bicolor cat spoke to the humans in a polite, reserved but extremely unwelcoming tone, "Oh, we meet again. My fr- friends."
He said the word 'friend' with much difficulty as if it troubled him greatly. Lin Sanjiu couldn't help feeling impressed by his self-control when the cat finally finished that sentence.
The moment the siblings saw the cat doctor, they were instantly spell-bound. This particular charm that the cat possessed seemed to affect everyone except Lin Sanjiu, even without the cat specifically targeting anyone. The two teenagers immediately showed their extreme delight and greeted the cat doctor warmly, "Dr. Hu! We didn't know we'd meet you here! You are not working at the provincial hospital today?"
Meowie Hu shifted his eyes left and then right before answering, "Yes, erm, many people came to the provincial hospital recently, so it is difficult for me to work there…"
Lin Sanjiu wanted very badly to ask the cat about the nature of his work. However, she changed her question at the very last minute, "Did the provincial hospital also turned into a mutated building?"
The cat doctor let out a somewhat troubled sigh and nodded his head.
"If you don't mind, why don't you come along with us!" The current Reno had forgotten about cat phobia entirely, and invited Meowie with a voice full of sincerity, "Who knows? We might be able to assist you or even get rid of possible problems you may encounter..."
Meowie Hu almost seemed like he wanted to reject instinctively, but for some reasons, he turned to the interior of the building and suddenly asked bashfully, "Previously, you mentioned that you would get some corpses for me… how is it…"
"Isn't there more than enough dead bodies in that building for you to use?" Lin Sanjiu thought to herself.
Reno and Rena were now basically blind even with their eyes wide open. However, Lin Sanjiu could see everything very clearly. There were many human-shaped black shadows hanging in the room that the bicolor cat was in, and it was a creepy sight to behold.
When the siblings heard the cat, they immediately felt ashamed of themselves. They had racked up quite a kill count, but neither of them remembered to bring a corpse back for the cat doctor. Thinking about it, they felt extremely apologetic. To make up for their oversight, the two children were even more determined to persuade the cat doctor to join them with the justification that they wanted to find "the perfect corpse" for the doctor.
"Only one?" the bicolor asked coyly.
"We will get you any amount you need!" The siblings guaranteed as if they were talking about radishes.
Momentarily, the little cat appeared seemingly perplexed by the situation. The children persuaded him, one after the other, with unyielding enthusiasm and hospitality. Finally, the cat shot a quick glance at Lin Sanjiu— seeing that she didn't have much of a reaction— he suddenly sighed and nodded courteously toward them, "If that is the case, please let me tidy up my humble abode before I invite you in for a discussion."
With that, the cat brought them into the building after fifteen minutes.
Lin Sanjiu didn't mind the way that it rubbed its body on each wall while it was leading them. After all, there was certainly no sign of those corpses after he cleaned up the place. However, Lin Sanjiu felt that it could be better if blood would stop seeping out from under the doors.
The three humans and a cat sat around a round table. After they exchanged glances with each other, they found that they didn't have anything to say. There was a sudden awkwardness in the atmosphere.
"Since my friends are here," the cat doctor wrapped his tail elegantly around his body, "I'll need to treat you guys to a meal. Thankfully, a family member of a patient of mine brought some cans of food for me today. If you don't mind, I could cook a meal for you. Nowadays, the living conditions here are rather lacking, forgive me for any negligence."
"But… the food here have all been corroded by black matter, isn't it?" Reno asked cautiously.
The cat immediately looked up at Reno and replied calmly, "Both of you have already been fully corroded."
The siblings were stunned and suddenly found themselves speechless.
It was evident that the cat doctor often cooked for himself because he had a full set of cooking utensils and his actions showed his cooking proficiency. In the beginning, Lin Sanjiu actually had doubts about the cat's ability to cook, but she was stupefied a few minutes after his ethanol stove was lit.
The scariest part of it was that Meowie Hu did not tolerate any opposing
opinions when he was cooking.
Seeing that the food was almost ready, the cat doctor acted a little milder. He wore two mittens on his paw and took the metal container away from the fire. "Even though the food supply in this world cannot be compared to what it was before, with a bit of effort, the food can taste pretty good. Go ahead and taste this. Does this rice with seaweed bits and cheese-filled luncheon meat taste good?"
As the siblings accepted the food from the cat, they were almost going to cry. After they arrived at Kisaragi Station, they had been eating that yellowish-green army ration without any warmth. When the smell of meat hit them, they felt a sense of salvation.
While the kids gorged themselves, the cat doctor restrained himself and stopped only after taking too fussy bites of the food.
Lin Sanjiu tried her best to avert her gaze from the food. Perhaps, in an attempt to distract herself, she asked quietly, "By the way, are you a duoluozhong?"
The cat, who had been l.i.c.k.i.n.g his fur, paused suddenly.
Chapter 277 - A Small Problem
The hospital that the cat doctor worked at wasn't initially called Kitty Provincial Hospital. Its original name was Citizen Lake First Hospital—though that isn't important. More importantly, there was an old residential area behind the hospital where the dormitory apartments were likely built for the hospital staff. Meowie Hu once lived there.
"Embarrassingly, I once was a prominent character in this small residential area," the cat nodded his head modestly. "Everyone respected me."
Lin Sanjiu looked at the cat, puzzled. After she asked him that question, the cat doctor denied it flatly and decided that he needed to explain his story from the beginning. Once he started, Lin Sanjiu already found it a little hard to understand.
Even though she was bewildered, she finally understood his story after a while.
Most of the people living in that residential area were the hospital's retired staff. To "pay their respect" to him, quite a few elderly men and ladies would often place cat food, or small cooked fishes under a long bench in the residential area to feed Meowie Hu.
Perhaps, the elderly people were too lonely, or maybe Meowie Hu was too cute, so he was "well-respected" in that area. With the exception of the times that he had been caught to be vaccinated, he had an easy life… until one dark, stormy night.
Even before that night, Meowie Hu already had some inkling that something was wrong. The few elderly people, who often prepared food for the cat, began to wander around the residential area frequently, involuntarily and expressionlessly. The cat didn't know what they were doing. The food bowl under the long bench had already been empty for two to three days and that had never happened before.
Consequently, when Meowie Hu spotted a familiar figure in the darkness while he was hiding in a bush, he quickly rushed toward the person, mewing in relief. In the residential area, this elderly lady "respected" him the most and visited him most frequently. Like every other night, the elderly lady brought a mix of cat food and fish as well as a bowl of clean water for the cat. The woman sat on the long bench before bending over and placing the food on the floor.
Just as Meowie Hu was about to approach the food, he immediately froze because there was a stench of sour, rotting food coming from his food bowl. It might not be that obvious to humans but it was torture for him when he caught a whiff of that pungent stench.
The bicolor cat sat down. He looked up and mewed.
"Why aren't you eating?' the elderly lady lowered her head. Compared to before, her voice sounded a little strange, as if she wasn't breathing properly, "Don't you like sardines?"
"But, it is really smelly." Meowie Hu wanted to mew again to communicate that he didn't dare to eat the food. Just as he was mewing, he was suddenly interrupted by a shadow of something which fell to the ground. Thud, thud, thud. The little cat was startled and quickly leaped to one side. It was only then that he saw what that thing, which had fallen and rolled a few meters away from him, was. It was the elderly lady's head.
"I was terrified then," the cat doctor sighed at this point and looked at his audience who were listening intently. He took a few sips of water from the tea cup that Rena had prepared for him before continuing, "The fallen head could still talk…"
Meowie Hu was still a normal cat then so he only felt that there was something very, very wrong. He stared blankly at the woman's moving lips, "Eat. Why aren't you eating? Aren't you hungry?"
"Should, should I help her?"
Faced with the options to "push the woman's head back to her" or "turn and run", Meowie Hu's animal instincts finally kicked in. The fur on his back stand on end and he started running for his life, not knowing what had happened to the normal old lady he once knew. The human head seemed unwilling to let him escape, horrifyingly, it started rolling on the ground, "Why aren't you eating? Why aren't you eating?"
The woman's head chased after the cat relentlessly as she said those words over and over again.
After darting about like a headless fly, Meowie Hu finally lost sight of the human head after he jumped over the wall surrounding the hospital. He seemed to have shaken her off.
He looked behind him with a lingering fear. While he hesitated whether to return the next day to observe the situation, he froze involuntarily when he turned his head back.
"Apparently, the hospital was the fastest place to be fully corroded by black matter. It had completely turned into a haunted location of an urban legend."
After the cat doctor drank some water, he yawned as Reno stroked his fur gently and continued, "But I was considerably lucky because the lead role of that urban legend was a cat—"
And animals cannot become duoluozhongs.
Meowie Hu did not know what particular changes happened to his body when he entered the hospital after a series of coincidental events. Even the siblings who were from the Twelve World Centrum didn't have a clue.
The apocalyptic worlds themselves were strange and erratic, let alone an unpredictable B-level world like Kisaragi Station. Thus, it wasn't surprising that there existed changes and evolutions in the various worlds that even residents from the Twelve World Centrum are unaware of.
"If you are keen to get an explanation, the hospital needed to hire a doctor and I was incidentally very suitable for the position." The cat doctor lifted its chin slightly. His rather haughty attitude distracted them from asking him about his lack of medical background. "In short, after I finished my internship, I became an official doctor there.
From his story, it was as if Kitty Provincial Hospital had a life of its own.
After Meowie Hu gained sentience and the ability to charm humans, he could no longer return to his normal cat life.
Lin Sanjiu couldn't help thinking of B.Rabbit. Even though they were both animals, their lives turned out quite different. Lin Sanjiu thought about the situation and started examining the cat's back. The fact that there wasn't any number on the cat's smooth fur seemed to prove that what Meowie Hu said was true.
After hearing the cat doctor's story, the siblings finished their meal and waited upon the bicolor, little cat until it was happy and satisfied without much trouble. After losing successively at rock-paper-scissor against his sister and the cat doctor, Reno took the plates and metal container and washed them obediently.
Lin Sanjiu could not comprehend how he could lose to an opponent who could only throw out "paper".
When the night gradually grew dark, the siblings felt that it was almost time for them to go out to get some corpses for the cat doctor. At that time, Mrs. Manas's voice suddenly rang out in Lin Sanjiu's mind without any warning.
Ever since Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness body had fully been developed, Mrs. Manas had not shown herself for a couple of days. Lin Sanjiu quickly gathered her focus. She did not know why Mrs. Manas would suddenly appear this time.
"About that," Mrs. Manas mumbled her words a little, speaking rather hesitantly, "actually, I want to tell you something…"
"What?" Lin Sanjiu asked. The cat doctor immediately perked his ears and looked around as if he was trying to figure out where that sudden voice came from…
"Well, regarding the matter of you regaining your physical body, there is a small little problem…"
Chapter 278 - Cells
If Mrs. Manas were to appear as a real person in front of her right now, Lin Sanjiu wasn't sure if she could hold herself back from punching that woman.
The was a heavy atmosphere in the room.
The siblings who had initially decided to "take a stroll" outside noticed something amiss when they saw Lin Sanjiu's serious expression. They stood to one side of the room feeling at a loss. Meanwhile, the cat doctor, who had heard the earlier conversation between Lin Sanjiu and Mrs. Manas, sat on a table looking up at her with his head tilted.
"So, what the matter now?" Lin Sanjiu held back her anger as she questioned Mrs. Manas in her head, "What is this so-called little problem… Didn't you consider that before?"
Mrs. Manas spoke very softly because she felt guilty, "Erm… Actually… well…"
Lin Sanjiu let out a heavy sigh and pulled out the card holding her dead body. Accompanying her mood which had reached rock bottom, Lin Sanjiu's dead body fell to the ground with a thud as it was converted back to its original form.
A woman with a pallid face lay on the ground with her eyes shut. Her gray skin and her unnatural, stiff limbs already showed signs of rigor mortis. Though there weren't any wounds on her body, she didn't look like she was 'just sleeping', anybody could see that she was most positively dead. Though their faces looked the same, it was hard to imagine that the dead body and the person standing beside it were one and the same person.
Even though this was not the first time Reno had seen that body, and Rena had heard about the situation, they couldn't help staring at the corpse, turning slightly pale. Reno let out a long sigh suddenly and averted his gaze. It was as if he couldn't really bear witnessing a situation where Lin Sanjiu was dead.