by N. Heller
The very next second, her pursuers scrambled in a panic, escaping with any means they had, as if they were rabbits that had been targeted by a gigantic beast. They quickly disappeared from her sight.
Lin Sanjiu felt a sense of relief.
She waited for a few seconds and after she was sure that the main lobby was empty, she wasted no time rushing back to Zone A on the second floor. When she pushed open the door to room A218, a flat black shadow suddenly flew toward her. Lin Sanjiu shifted her body to one side and evaded an almanac page. She quickly shouted, "It's me!" Reno and Rena, who had been readying themselves for battle, quickly let out long sighs of relief.
"How is it going?" Lin Sanjiu asked hurriedly as she sprinted to her body.
Without any words from the others, Lin Sanjiu was stunned when she saw her own body.
"I could never anticipate this situation in a million years," the bicolor cat sighed. He hit the machine heavily with his paw and continued dejectedly, "The cells are too aggressive. Once I created that pseudo-environment, their activity level exploded…"
The original appearance of the person lying on the surgery table had changed completely.
The body's honey-colored skin was now somewhat translucent and even had a tinge of green. That color reminded Lin Sanjiu of dolphins. On top of that, Lin Sanjiu's physical body was visibly growing taller. In one minute, her height had grown from 1.7m to 1.8m. Lin Sanjiu almost couldn't recognize herself if not for the fact that her facial features were still the same.
"After these invasive cells merged with your original cells, they multiplied very quickly. Right now, those invasive cells have already taken over 50% of your body…"
Before the cat doctor finished his sentence, Mrs. Manas suddenly bellowed in Lin Sanjiu's mind, "What are you waiting for? Quick, go back to your body. Those cells possess Higher Consciousness, there is no way any doctor can control them, you're the only one who can do it!"
"But, how am I supposed to go back—" Lin Sanjiu barely uttered those words. Suddenly, with a single thought, she leaned toward her own physical body as if she had practiced it many times before.
Her higher consciousness body which had accompanied her through multiple battles, which had annihilated countless enemies, which was as hard as a diamond… The moment it touched her physical body, her higher consciousness body dissipated into small gentle dots of light, as if it was snow melting with the arrival of a spring breeze. The light disappeared into every inch of her physical body, from her skin, muscles, and flesh. With every breath, the light gradually faded from the air.
The siblings and the cat doctor froze and watched in a daze as the physical body absorbed the dots of lights which filled the room. After some time, there wasn't a single trace of Lin Sanjiu's higher consciousness body in the room. After the spots of lights fully disappeared, the body on the surgery table stopped growing. The greenish tinge had also dimmed. The cat doctor stared at Lin Sanjiu's body very closely. He made his breathing lighter as if he was afraid that he would affect the battle within the woman's body.
"Is it succ-successful?" Reno choked, he looked at his sister and then at the cat. "When she wakes up, who will she be?"
After he said that, the person on the surgery table suddenly opened her eyes.
Chapter 284 - Way Back Home 3
Half a minute after the person on the surgery table opened her eyes; there was absolute silence in the room. No one moved.
Reno only realized at this point that he and his sister had been too rash. If anything went wrong with the "cell activation" process, the person that would wake up would not be the original Lin Sanjiu they knew. Considering Lin Sanjiu's combat capabilities, there was no way they could win against her.
Reno's palms turned slightly sweaty. The teenager controlled his breathing as he watched the woman slowly getting up. Her current body was very different from her previous appearance as a higher consciousness entity.
Her arms and legs had been lengthened. When she stood up, her slender, flowy figure was breathtakingly beautiful. She was taller than Reno by a head. Her body figure seemed perfectly sculpted as if specifically designed to encompass a boundless amount of strength and speed. Unfortunately, her skin still had a greenish tinge as if the battle within her body was still ongoing.
The singlet and the combat pants she wore now appeared shorter on her current body, so her well-defined abs were now exposed. The white bandage around her neck was covered with dirt and dust. Somehow, it contrasted with her pair of amber eyes which were now lighter than before. They were almost crystal clear.
Reno froze for a moment. He examined Lin Sanjiu's eyes closely for a few seconds and came to the conclusion that Lin Sanjiu's irises had indeed become lighter.
At that moment, he could not see any confusion or puzzlement in her eyes. They seemed soulless as if it belonged to a robot without thoughts.
The woman—the siblings didn't know if they should call her Lin Sanjiu—looked around. Her gaze was empty. Reno immediately pulled his sister to one side, intuitively trying to avoid the woman's empty, meaningless gaze.
The cat doctor was standing behind Lin Sanjiu. He seemed to suddenly sense that something was wrong. He narrowed his eyes and stared at her back for some time and couldn't help making a "huh?". At the same time, the woman shifted her empty gaze. Before Reno and Rena saw her movements clearly, they heard a loud boom. A large hole replaced the spot where the cat doctor was standing just a moment ago.
The siblings were so shocked that they nearly cried out. Thankfully, they spotted the small figure of the bicolor cat flashing past. The usually very elegant cat doctor crawled out from the bottom of the surgery table in a rather embarrassing manner.
Lin Sanjiu did not follow up with an attack. She frowned and appeared to be in pain. In the end, she didn't move.
Even though everything appeared calm on the surface, Lin Sanjiu was fighting the hardest and riskiest battle she ever faced within her own body. As her original cells were already dead, her revival was only possible because of the merger between the resilient invasive cells and her original cells, and the propagation of these hybrid cells. In other words, Lin Sanjiu was considered a 'foreign invader' in this particular body. If she wanted to regain control over her body under such circ.u.mstances… first, she would have to deal with Nüwa's higher consciousness.
Even though she only had to deal with the very small amount of higher consciousness that Nüwa left in her body, that bit of higher consciousness was still alarmingly pure and powerful. Nüwa's higher consciousness had a totally different nature in contrast with Lin Sanjiu's diamond-like higher consciousness. Nüwa's higher consciousness was like a raging fire and possessed an aggression that almost seemed to aim for mutual destruction. They created havoc in Lin Sanjiu's every single blood vessels. They tore at Lin Sanjiu's sanity almost as if they wanted just to tear her apart.
Surrounded by this extremely destructive fire-like higher consciousness, Lin Sanjiu struggled to prevent her own higher consciousness from unraveling while launching her own attacks at Nüwa's higher consciousness. Each time she clashed with that foreign higher consciousness, the pain she felt was so intense that her higher consciousness could almost break. Unfortunately, she had no other choice. After she recovered her strength, she would charge at that vast ember red which represented Nüwa's higher consciousness.
As the battle within Lin Sanjiu's body was still ongoing, externally, she started behaving very erratically. Most of the time, she would just stand still with a vacant look on her face. Occasionally, when one party was winning, it would take a few stiff steps. However, no one could predict whether she wouldn't suddenly lose control and start attacking if she was disturbed by an external sound.
When the cat doctor saw the siblings' face turning paler and paler as they grew nervous, he waved his paws to the siblings as if he was hinting at something. However, the siblings simply did not understand what the cat's gestures meant.
The cat d
octor sighed soundlessly. Just when he was feeling troubled, they heard a loud, hoarse voice from the nurse downstairs once again: "The rules have changed! There will be no transfer of lives when patients and family members attack each other. The current Patient Zero would exist until one side loses. This is your last chance! Attack Patient Zero, she is in A218!"
Lin Sanjiu was startled by the voice. All her muscles quivered. The cat doctor and the siblings quickly retreated a few steps away from her. Noticing that she wasn't about to attack them, and realizing that Lin Sanjiu no longer looked like Patient Zero, they were somewhat relieved.
Unfortunately, this tranquility did not last for long. After the nurse screeched those words, they heard the faint sounds of people' voices coming from one end of the corridor outside. Lin Sanjiu's threat was certainly vicious but considering the more dire situation that their lives were in immediate danger, the posthumans had to accept the risk of attacking her.
The siblings and the cat watched as Lin Sanjiu frowned harder. Cold sweat slid down her forehead profusely. She seemed to be in deep agony. There was no way she could fight right now, and even defending herself seemed questionable. As the footsteps grew closer and closer, Rena grabbed the cat doctor's shoulder before he could escape. When the cat doctor turned to look at the girl, he saw the teenage girl's hopeful face as she said, "Dr. Hu, you will fight together with us, right?"
"Oh, well, regarding that… I am actually very busy, and I don't have any fighting abilities…" Meowie Hu tried to make excuses as his large eyes blinked. The siblings dragged him to the entrance, almost as if they couldn't hear what he just said. Just when the bicolor cat felt his paws turning cold from sweat, a crescent-like beam shot through the door. The cat felt a slight warmth from the tip of his ear. Then, the beam of light hit Lin Sanjiu's body. A white light exploded in the room.
"It's successful!"
Someone in the corridor yelled out suddenly. Before the light faded, a few posthumans rushed into the room. As white lights flashed in the room, the figure of a tall, slender woman caught everyone's attention.
The white light in the room dyed Lin Sanjiu's skin. She slowly looked up and revealed her row of teeth faintly.
"You wanted to see me?"
It was as if an ancient behemoth had awoken from its sleep.
Chapter 285 - The Last Day Of The Provincial Hospital
Rip. Lin Sanjiu tore a piece of dark green fabric off her pants and threw it aside casually. It fell on top of the pile of clothes she previous wore with her higher consciousness body. The pair of combat pants on her physical body was now ill-fitting. Without much consideration, she tore off the legs of her pants, effectively modifying it into a pair of hot shorts. From her "devil-may-care" attitude, it was obvious that she didn't think much of the over twenty posthumans there.
Extraordinarily, none of those posthumans moved during that time. Lin Sanjiu stretched her stiff neck before smiling faintly at them. Before she wasn't smiling, it didn't seem so serious. However, now that she was staring straight at them, some of them immediately felt a chill down their bodies because the woman that was standing in front of them didn't seem that… human.
It was clear that the woman wasn't a duoluozhong. However, she certainly didn't possess the distinct sense of vitality that normal, living humans had. No one could put a finger on exactly what was wrong with her. The impression she gave was somewhat indescribable: she had an aura of death from head to toe as if she was some sort of behemoth that had just escaped from hell. When she looked at the group of posthumans, it was as if she was trying to curb her voracious hunger.
Anyone who was still alive and had been to the Twelve Worlds Centrum based on their own capabilities definitely possessed something more than reckless courage. For any posthumans, especially the people from the Twelve Worlds Centrum, there was one single characteristic that would determine their survival. It was not their evolved ability or how powerful their attacks were. Rather, it was their ability to judge an opponent's strength and capabilities, and thus, avoid offending and challenging people like Puppeteer. That was the key to survival in the Twelve Worlds Centrum.
Even though they were bound by the new rules in the hospital, no one was willing to make the first move even after a long time. Everyone was on the edge, almost as if they were trying to find a win-win solution for their survival. Anyone placed in a situation where you would have to choose between dying immediately and dying ten days later would similar exhaust any means available.
Lin Sanjiu suddenly exhaled softly. She closed her eyes and flexed her ten fingers. It was really difficult for her to hold herself back.
The countless cells in her body, which weren't even really hers to begin with, were infused with Nüwa's fiery higher consciousness that continued raging through her body. Its attacks did not weaken as it invaded over and over again. Lin Sanjiu finally understood the Neuhumes a little.
Even though she didn't feel any particular emotions right now, she could oddly sense that if she didn't control herself and walked over, she would erase all traces of those posthumans from the face of this planet without even batting an eye.
Perhaps, this might be an inappropriate analogy. However, it felt as casual as a housewife wiping off dirt on a table with a washcloth.
"You must control yourself," Mrs. Manas warned. "If you really fight them and lose control, that thing in your body might just take the opportunity…"
Lin Sanjiu already knew this. If it wasn't because of that faint inkling that there would be serious consequences if she just let herself go like that, she wouldn't hold herself back right now. She exhaled. Crooking her head, she eyed the posthumans in front of her.
"Filth."
A single word suddenly appeared in her mind.
"When can I clean this up…"
Lin Sanjiu was alarmed when she realized that she had these thoughts in her head. Before she could even make sense of her thoughts, a delicate sweet voice ranged out, "Say, if you don't want to fight, why don't you guys just move aside."
That voice instantly caught everyone's attention. They saw a bicolor cat sitting on the floor facing them with its back as if it wasn't too pleased. Both his tone of voice and the aura he exuded was extremely solemn, except for his ears with slight bald patches that revealed his gloomy mood.
The cat doctor's amazing ability was immediately effective. The expressions of the first few posthumans who had seen him quickly changed. They quickly displayed their respect to the cat, with no awareness that the people behind them still had expressions as if they had seen a ghost. One of the men bowed and sought Dr. Hu's opinion earnestly, "As you know, we don't wish to create any trouble but…"
"You don't have a choice due to the rules of this hospital," Dr. Hu nodded before trying to educate them patiently. "As a doctor, I care about my patients. I don't wish for the patients in this hospital to be harmed. There is actually a solution to this situation even if you don't fight."
"What... what solution?" one of the people in the crowd asked and immediately explained, "We don't wish to bully this lady just because we have more people on our side…"
Before the person could finish his sentence, a person beside him threw something at him that muted his voice. If Lin Sanjiu felt that she had been belittled and became angry, this situation would be even harder to settle.
"All of you are really stupid," Dr. Hu laughed drily. "I can't believe you didn't think of something so simple."
The crowd exchanged glances, feeling at a loss.
"All of you entered this mutated building and got bound by the rules of this place. If you want to get out of this situation, what should you do?" The cat frisked his tail on the ground. From the perspective of the siblings who were more familiar with him, they could tell that the cat doctor was planning something.
"You can just demolish the building!"
The cat doctor's words sounded very authoritative, perhaps because he was a doctor in the hospital. When Lin Sanjiu saw
the expressions on the posthumans' faces, she felt an immediate sense of relief.
To be honest, she wasn't keen on fighting with these people especially when the condition of her body was still unstable. It certainly wasn't a problem for her to defeat this rag-tag group of posthumans, but she was more worried about the possible side effects.
All the humans in the room ought to be ashamed of themselves because none of them could match the eloquence of the bicolor cat. After the cat doctor said those very convincing words in his charming way, the crowd immediately opened a path for him. They watched as the cat doctor led the lethal human weapon and the pair of siblings out of the hospital.
Once they got out of the hospital, the cat doctor, with sparkling eyes, gestured to his group members with his paws.
"Come, let's hide here and watch them demolish the building," Meowie Hu leaped into some shrubs nearby. Then, he stuck his little cat head out from the shrubs showing his gleeful face, "I was just bullsh*tting just now. I don't really know what would happen!"
The three people beside him turned silent for a moment.
Lin Sanjiu let out a faint sigh. Meanwhile, they heard the sound of an explosion. Thick smoke rose from the second floor of the hospital and the fire from the hospital cast a red light over their faces.
"This started back in my hometown," she said rather helplessly. "Everywhere I go, buildings are bound to collapse…"
Chapter 286 - Parting
The huge fire in the Provincial Hospital raged until that afternoon before it gradually abated. By that time, Lin Sanjiu and her group had already left the hospital and were making plans for the remaining days in this world as they walked around aimlessly.
After they had gone through yet another round of life-earning event at Mausoleum Elementary School, the lives deducted from them and their current lives finally added up to 108. In other words, they could finally complete this long-lasting pocket dimension with a large active area which had descended on them many days before.