by N. Heller
"Should I ask him for some information?"
Biting her lower lip, Lin Sanjiu didn't make any sound. After having a good time of tousling with herself in her mind, she moved aside.
Perhaps she was just paranoid, but her gut feeling told her that if there was a person she should never pry for more information, that person had to be the young lad in front of her.
Right now, the mirror was very near to Lin Sanjiu. If the intruder was somebody with trust issues, he might have asked her to move away a little bit more, but the young lad wasn't. With a bright, beaming smile, he nodded politely to Lin Sanjiu and walked toward the mirror, confidently.
This was the kind of confidence that flowed naturally from a perennial winner.
"He must be pretty full of himself," thought Lin Sanjiu.
In the mirror, a portly version of that young lad walked in the opposite direction toward him. Very soon, they met each other.
The room inside the mirror chamber wasn't large. When the young lad passed by Lin Sanjiu, he stopped, turning his head to face Lin Sanjiu and said, "Since destiny has brought us together, why don't we do fate a favor and exchange names? I'm Ji Shanqing, and you?"
It was the kind of normal request that nobody would say no to. After pondering for a while in her heart, she then replied, "I'm Lin San—"
Much to her surprise, she couldn't utter the word "Jiu," from her mouth regardless of how hard she tried. The word just stuck in her throat refused to come out as if something bad would happen if the word ever slipped from her lips. The young lad was a bit blown away. Apparently, he couldn't understand why a girl like her would take on a name like "Lin San." Despite that, he maintained his civility and responded, nodding in the process, "Well, nice to meet you. And, good luck!"
Then, Ji Shanqing touched the mirror and vanished.
" Oh , he's gone."
"You're Lin San?" Mrs. Manas popped out as soon as the young lad disappeared into the mirror, "May I ask when Miss Lin San changed her name?"
"Oh please," Lin Sanjiu was caught in between laughter and tears, "Do you still remember the [Scrooge McDuck Power]? Anyway, I haven't the faintest idea how it happened, but the word "exchange" seems to have triggered the effect 1, the one about I'll be getting a discount on any trade. Thanks to the effect, I couldn't even spell out my name completely. What a joke."
Mrs. Manas couldn't hold herself and burst into a peal of laughter. She even choked on her saliva—as if she really had some—and coughed twice.
"Judging from how happy you are," Lin Sanjiu let out a breath, "I can assume that the experiment went pretty well?"
"Well, I won't say it's bad, but the result is favorable to us." Mrs. Manas calmed herself down and moved on, "I didn't expect it to be so successful on our first trial, to be frank. Anyway, the whole process of atomization has been successfully recorded."
"So what should I do next?"
"Nothing; you don't have to do anything at this moment," said Mrs. Manas confidently, "Right now, let me analyze the data. I'll extract the changes and process of the atomization and reconstruction processes. Next, you may use your consciousness to stimulate the process. Of course, you can't stimulate the atomization process, but I think it's enough if you at least could learn how to control the mutation caused by the "Neuhume" genome."
"Okey-dokey," replied Lin Sanjiu halfheartedly since the task wasn't truly tough, and she was quite confident with herself in controlling the "Neuhume" genome.
As if she'd sensed a change of attitude in Lin Sanjiu, Mrs. Manas continued, with a stern tone, "But first, you have to put away your skeletal wings. The mirror chamber is too small for them, and we'll be in trouble if they accidentally crush any mirrors here," She wasn't happy with her, so she tried to talk even more seriously to knock the thing into Lin Sanjiu's head, "I believe that at this point you should see the light why Horse-Face wanted you to break the mirror, no? Try to think about it; each of these mirrors is a particle reconfiguration transmitter, and they can be activated simply by touching them. This means that if you want to break them, you have to touch them, so here comes the question: What would happen to you when the atomization took place as the mirror shattered into pieces? Have you ever consider your chance of surviving? Even if, for God's sake, you have survived the atomization process, what would you be at that time? Would you be still considered a human?"
Lin Sanjiu folded her wings even tighter after listening to what Mrs. Manas had said.
When Lin Sanjiu finally realized that a mirror controlled her fate of staying a human or turning into meat pulp, all her hair stood on end.
"Better that Horse-Face prays to God that he will not meet me again," Lin Sanjiu cussed under her breath, "Otherwise, I swear the next time I see him, I'll crush him through the mirror."
Back to the story, aside from putting her wings away, she still had to look for the mirror chamber that holds the grand prize.
She was clueless as to where to find the grand prize, and all she knew was that the grand prize resided in one of the mirror chambers. If she continued to roam through the mirror chamber without proper planning, she thought after a year; she might still be here, running like a headless chicken locating the grand prize.
"I can't employ the [Higher-Consciousness Mimicry] now, can I?" Lin Sanjiu asked. Although she knew full well that it was impossible, in her heart, she was hoping for a green light from Mrs. Manas.
"Are you kidding? Of course, you can't! After one time mimicking Nüwa, your consciousness and vitality are dropped to zero. Put aside other things, what would you do if you were in your weakest state and something bad happened? So, no. Never you think about it." Mrs. Manas refuted.
"Guess I have to depend on my pathetic tiny brain to think of a way, then." Lin Sanjiu sighed as her eyes swept across her surroundings.
Similar to the previous three mirror chambers, she couldn't tell the exact shape of this particular mirror chamber. Aside from the three mirrors overhead and the two under her feet, there were sixteen other mirrors that formed the walls.
When she first time came across the diamond building, she found that the building wasn't quite a perfectly crafted diamond. Rather, it was more like a zagged, shapeless, and twisted ball.
"So I can assume that the mirror chambers inside the building were built according to the irregular ball?" Her brows knitted together tightly as she seemed to have caught something useful.
She lifted her eyes and studied the mirror which Ji Shanqing used to leave just now.
The young lad pointed to the mirror behind Lin Sanjiu the second he arrived in this mirror chamber, and he hadn't in the least considered going through any of the other mirrors. Wasn't that just weird? With the knowledge that you would turn into what you had gone through, a healthy man would've thought twice before choosing the one he favored the most, right?
Not to mention that somebody was standing in his way to the mirror he had chosen. However, Ji Shanqing did the unthinkable; he didn't change to another mirror and instead braved through the possibility of getting into a fight by asking Lin Sanjiu to move aside.
Why would he go as far as that? Unless he had a solid reason that he must go through this mirror.
Lin Sanjiu's gaze jumped back and forth in between the "exit" Ji Shanqing had chosen and the mirror that he came from. Suddenly, she realized that the two mirrors weren't quite facing each other directly. Nevertheless, that mirror Ji Shanqing went through was the only mirror that could be counted as the opposite of the mirror where he came in.
"Could it be!"
Suddenly, the scales fell from Lin Sanjiu's eyes, but she didn't have enough time to think about it. A female voice resounded in the silent mirror chamber, startling her.
"10,9,8,7,6..."
"Damn it, the countdown!"
The time was running out fast, and she didn't have enough time to do her marking with her blood. Hence, she attempted a different tack. She crouched down and punched the mirror under her feet. When she
saw the crack on the mirror, she hastily charged toward the mirror that Ji Shanqing had gone through.
It was only a blink of an eye, and she fell out from the mirror on the other side. This time, she had turned into a stumpy and plumpy ball.
After she had enough taking in the structure of this mirror chamber, she strode, without any hesitation, toward the mirror opposite of her. As she walked, she didn't forget to put on her shoes.
She already had a good grasp of Ji Shanqing's method. It could even say that she thought in the same way as Ji Shanqing.
Although all the mirror chambers had different shapes, their structures were limited by the area and space of the "container" outside. Hence, they could only line in the shape of a sphere, albeit it might not be perfectly round.
At the same time, being "s.u.c.k.e.d" into the inner region from outside insinuated that the first mirror chamber, which was the starting point, must be near the outer wall of the building while the first mirror she came in should be pointing directly at the center of the diamond building.
At this time, all she needed to do was to figure out which of the mirrors had the largest angle with the "entrance mirror." Then, by following the angle, she would find the first "corner." When she found the first corner, that meant that she had located the mirror that had the highest possibilities of aligning on the same side as the "entrance mirror."
However, there was a deadly flaw in this method, and she couldn't apply the same method after she entered the second mirror chamber. Although tracing the "edge" was the golden rule of this method, if she was no longer walking by the edge, it meant that she had lost her only guideline and the consequence was that she would definitely lose her way in the mirror chamber.
When Lin Sanjiu finally returned to the mirror room she first entered, she knew that she had walked around the diamond building already. Indeed, this method was a bit tedious its was the best method she knew in existence if she wanted to find out more about the diamond building.
Regardless of the consequences, she should go through the mirror opposite of the "exit mirror" starting from the second mirror chamber.
Back then, she didn't think that much when she first entered, and she basically randomly picked any mirror based on her gut feeling. By right, she shouldn't be able to return to the first mirror chamber anymore, and she shouldn't know about the angle theory; however, the fortune goddess hadn't abandoned her and smiled upon her because she met Ji Shanqing.
Then, once she arrived there, she would be on her own.
Since the shape of the mirror chamber was asymmetrical, it was tough to find the mirror that sat perfectly opposite of the "exit mirror." There were times where she had to take out her [Female Bondage Rope] to measure and figure out the correct angle. At this point, Lin Sanjiu felt relieved that the person who had lost his or her dog leash had refused to buy her bondage rope.
After she had bitten her finger a few times, she suddenly had realized something.
"Why don't I use the knife!" Lin Sanjiu suspected that the idea of using the knife to do her marking never came across her mind was that her brain had been occupied by the maze-like mirror chamber, "Jesus, I almost run out of blood…"
After she drew a crooked "13" on a mirror, she marched toward the mirror opposite her.
After familiar darkness had engulfed her, she was stunned when she opened her eyes.
Ji Shanqing's exquisite yet androgynous face swam into her sight. He no longer had the amiable expression and his face was clouded with anxiety and worry.
"Seems like both of us are using the same method, huh," He understood everything the moment he saw Lin Sanjiu. Then, he sighed, "We're both wrong. The path ends here and we can't proceed any further. Look at it yourself."
This was a mirror chamber built in an isosceles shape, and Lin Sanjiu came out from the bottom of this triangular shaped mirror.
Chapter 389 - The Golden Rule in Winning a Fight: Find Yourself a Powerful Companion!
Pure and untainted: those were the only two words Lin Sanjiu could think of to describe the young lad whenever she saw him. His gaze was gentle and affectionate, which reminded her of clear waves. His posture was straight as fresh bamboo, which made his two overly-long arms that reached his knees a bit less awkward.
Raising one of his arms that were as long as half of his body, Ji Shanqing pointed to another mirror.
"Right on time," He said, as always, with a placid tone. When viewing his profile from a certain angle, she found that compared to masculine features, feminine traits were expressed more dominantly in his face. "I suggest we work together. What do you think?"
"How?" Lin Sanjiu asked as she studied the mirrors on her two sides.
She couldn't differentiate the shape of the previous mirror houses, but this one was different. This mirror house was a perfect triangle, and even without the use of her bondage rope, she could easily see that the angles of the mirrors on two sides were exactly equal.
"Neither of us knows which mirrors line the edge of the building, and since there are two of us now, I suggest we cooperate to survey the building. I'll go to the left and you go the right, okay?"
Even though both of them came in from the same mirror, Lin Sanjiu had taken on a different form from him. She had turned into a pear shape. She looked at her stumpy legs, and her eyebrows were brought together tightly when her gaze fell on the mirror on her left side, "Then? Are you suggesting that we should sacrifice for the greater good of the other? If we follow your plan, one of us will end up losing his or her way in the mirror labyrinth."
"I suppose you left some marks along the way, didn't you?" Ji Shanqing tilted his head, giving Lin Sanjiu a smile that was as gentle as a spring breeze, "We should leave marks as we venture through the mirror chambers. After that, we'll return to this triangular chamber and sketch out the shape of the mirror chambers we've seen."
"Why would I do that?" Lin Sanjiu couldn't understand. Her brows were knitted together even tighter in confusion.
"Words pale in action, let me show you," Then, he took out a piece of paper and a pen from his trench coat before continuing, "I'm sure you already know this mirror chamber is an isosceles triangle, right? So when we warp out from the two mirrors nearest to the angle, one of us will end up on the left side while the other will fall on the right side of this mirror chamber. Before you got here, I had already gone through the right triangle. The shape of the next mirror chamber is like this…"
As he bent over, he laid his two apelike long arms on the ground and drew a heptagon on the paper. Looking at the geometric pattern, if she had to describe the drawing, it had to be a flat heart shape.
"Here is where I came out and here is the mirror that is right in front of me," Ji Shanqing pointed two dots on either side of the "waist" of the asymmetrical heart, "If I go out from here, I can draw the shape of the next mirror chamber behind the heart-shaped chamber."
Lin Sanjiu replied, looking wide-awake, "Ah, I can see what are you talking about: so you're creating a floor plan!"
"Exactly," Ji Shanqing nodded, his glossy hair slipped beside his ears, "Look, if we can sketch out the whole floor plan, we can more or less know the location of the edge."
"Not only the edge," Lin Sanjiu thought, feeling a little bit uplifted, "With a floorplan of this area as our starting point, figuring out the whole internal structure of the diamond building is no longer a pie in the sky!"
"I have a question," After giving it a run in her brain, she questioned Ji Shanqing, "How can you be so sure that there are no mirror chambers behind the apex of this triangular mirror chamber? After all, judging from the angle, this apex is most likely situated at the edge."
Ji Shanqing didn't rush to reply to her and offered her an agreeable smile. Then, he went on, "I'm not sure about this, but I have a thought of my own. Would you like to listen to it? All the mirror chambers have no fixed shape and each of them is different; hence, no matter the arrangement, there is no way they could fit closely
together in a straight line, and there must be a gap amongst two mirror chambers. Also, we must jump to the corresponding mirror when we warp. I think that's why the amount of the mirrors is the same in each mirror chamber. For example, if you warp from mirror 5 in this mirror chamber, you would come out from mirror 5 of the next mirror chamber. As for the size of the gap in the middle, be it small or large, it doesn't affect our progress.
"Moving on, the apex of this triangular mirror chamber isn't exactly a mirror; in fact, it's an angle formed when two mirrors are placed together, so we can't warp through it. In other words, the apex has no corresponding mirror. If there is another mirror chamber behind the apex, then there must be a corresponding mirror to either of the mirror in this chamber or the next chamber."
As Ji Shanqing spoke, Lin Sanjiu pictured the shape of the chamber in her heart. She couldn't help but marvel at the quirkiness of his mind.
At the same time, she realized something else.
It was clear to her that Ji Shanqing was an extremely bright person as he could come up with this plan not long after he arrived in this isosceles triangle mirror chamber. Besides, like Lin Sanjiu, he was walking on the edge which implied that he probably entered into the diamond building at the same time as her. Though there might be some deviation, it wouldn't be too large.
Before entering the diamond building, she had never met him at the final pitstop nor had she heard of him before. This could only point to one thing: Ji Shanqing came from another apocalyptic world.
The thought frightened Lin Sanjiu.
People from a different apocalyptic world were able to enter this diamond building with ease. This indicated that what Lin Sanjiu had seen and experienced in this diamond building was merely the tip of an iceberg, and there was more to come; perhaps, this building could even transverse across time and space. Hence, would a strategy that was formulated based on the location of the mirror chambers and the edge work according to what they had planned?