by N. Heller
She wasn't in her most zenith form, yet she was still able to draw much strength when she mustered all her strength from her body. Drawing a curve in the air, the [Female Slave Bondage Rope] flung Number 43 to the other side of the tunnel with a loud thump.
"You all sprouted!" Almost at the same time, Harry's voice echoed in the chamber.
Before Lin Sanjiu could take a breath, the tunnel under her feet rumbled and the ground she was standing lifted upward. She quickly crouched down and stabilized herself amongst the rumbling ground. In the meantime, she took around and she was relieved when she saw Number 43 was beside her.
"As a group of seeds of excellent quality, you all have germinated, " Harry announced, "I have to say though you all might not like it, the ordeal during the seed stage is merely a beginning."
As his voice died down, the ceiling of the chamber creaked open. Then, a cl.u.s.ter of soil rained down around them as a dazzling light filtered through the gaping crease. The light assaulted Lin Sanjiu's eyes relentlessly as they had become accustomed to a lack of sunlight. She squinted and couldn't open them any wider than that.
The tunnel continued to rumble, and she felt she was getting higher and higher until a fresh and warm breeze fondled her cheeks. The lances of light from the celestial fireball in the sky filtered through her eyelids and dyed her blackened vision a tangerine red.
Lin Sanjiu had almost forgotten how it smelled outside.
Bit by bit, she unglued her eyelids. The first thing that appeared in her vision was the aquarium-blue sky. Under her feet was farmland that stretched into the horizon. The open gap had closed unbeknownst to her. She was now standing on top of a "soil bridge" that resembled an overpass from modern days.
Lin Sanjiu's entire body from her hair to the gaps between her fingernails were all covered in a thick layer of soil. When the wind blew past her, it filled her nostrils with the earthy smell that came from her body.
Gazing around, she saw roughly a hundred meter away stand another soil bridge. Likewise, on top of the soil bridge was a group of four people caked in grime. She was surprised to see all four of them had chosen the same chamber.
Clearly, neither of them noticed Lin Sanjiu as they were fully absorbed by something in the other direction. Driven by her curiosity, she followed their gaze and she was too astounded by what reached her eyes.
She saw a large pair of shoes, standing at the other end of the farmland.
Even with her current height, she could only reach the toecap of the shoe. Lifting her head upward, on top of the hill-like shoelaces were two even more spectacular columns that shot straight up into the sky. Up ahead, she could see no more as it was shrouded by the clouds.
"Th-thank you so much, you saved me," Number 43's trembling voice came from the other end of the soil bridge, sounding like a lucky survivor from a holocaust. Lin Sanjiu looked at him as he sat up, wiping off the dirt on his face, "If it weren't for you, I would be as good as dead."
"You're welcome," Lin Sanjiu gave him a big smile, "I just didn't wish to see any unnecessary casualties. Since it's something I could do, I might as well do it."
Number 43 didn't say anything but merely nodded hesitantly in return. He looked as if he wished to say something but a second thought was holding him back.
After a short while, a murmur escaped his lips, "Thank you."
"Anyway, what should we do now?" Lin Sanjiu didn't wish to hold the matter on the tip of her tongue as she swiftly changed the topic. She looked around and asked, "What is going on with that pair of shoes?"
Suddenly, as if aroused by her question, Harry's voice rang out in the air. His voice seemed much louder than it was in the chamber and their ears went numb from the intensity of the frequencies, "Congratulation everybody. You have successfully come to the germination stage."
The voice seemingly came from above the shoes.
"Now, I have an announcement to make, please listen closely," Harry's voice boomed in their ears, "The first thing, please don't go leave the soil bridge. All the water, fertilizer, and nutrients will be transferred to your body via the soil bridge… Oh yeah, if you remove your shoes, you might regain your energy faster, so please try it out. Also, you all are now a seedling that has been planted on the ridge, that's the soil bridge under your feet. Hence, don't walk off the soil bridge or else you will be regarded as an uprooted seedling. In other words, you will be considered dead."
He paused at this point and Lin Sanjiu heard herself gasp.
"All young shoots are prone to pest issues. Since I wish to have all-natural, non-polluted produce, I won't issue any insecticide or pesticide. Likewise, your germination stage is ten days. If you wish to enter the next round, you must survive the pest invasion for the next ten days."
"Pest invasion?" Lin Sanjiu frowned at the words.
Up until now, she hadn't seen anything that looked like an insect, but anything that could be solved through the use force would not be any problem, so—
"Oh yeah, before I forget. Since you all are practically young sprouts, you can't attack the pests," Harry's announcement came in in the nick of time and snapped Lin Sanjiu out of her thought.
"We can not attack the pests?" Lin Sanjiu was stunned as Number 45's voice sounded from the other soil bridge.
"Did you guys ever see a plant that attacks? You think you guys are the plant from the game playing Plants vs. Zombies?" Harry replied innocently.
"He's right. This pocket dimension always does the unexpected."
"How can we avoid being bitten by the pest, then?" Number 46 asked. His voice filled with desperation, "What do you mean by pest invasion?"
"That means the pest will come to eat you. After being bitten by the pest, aside from sustaining some superficial wound, you would lose some vitality as well. You will feel like you have been starved for a month. Anyway, since you will regain your vitality along the time, I guess this is not much of a problem. As for how to avoid the pest invasion, you have divided into two groups, right? Each group will have a chance to have a conversation with the pest, so cherish the only opportunity as you have to protect yourself from the pest!"
Chapter 432 - Fighting Against the Grand Prize?
It wasn't long before everybody realized that Harry had finished his announcement and his voice disappeared.
The enormous shoes in the distance remained standing staunchly. Apparently, the end of Harry's announcement heralded the beginning of their germination stage.
"So… What should we do now?" asked Number 48. His voice faded into the wind.
Lin Sanjiu looked over to see that the four-person group on the other soil bridge had gathered up, seemingly discussing the matter at hand. Letting out a breath, Lin Sanjiu walked back to Number 43 and sat beside him.
There were two low walls along the side of the soil bridge which Lin Sanjiu assumed were the preventive measure to protect them from falling from the bridge. Once she sat down, she couldn't see anything outside anymore.
The chamber was only lightly lit, so they couldn't see clearly. When they were outside where the sunlight had exposed everything, Lin Sanjiu realized that Number 43 was pretty young. The black spot below his nose which she initially thought was dirt was, in fact, a nose ring. On the left side of his neck was covered with a strange patterned tattoo that stretched all the way to his collar.
Right after Harry's announcement, he removed his shoe and pressed his dirt-laden feet into the soil. Sensing Lin Sanjiu's gaze, he gave her a shy smile, "I want to regain my vitality faster."
Lin Sanjiu nodded, "How does it feel?"
"It's hard to say," He frowned, looking at his feet before continuing, "I can't tell if my vitality returned, or if it's merely all in my head—maybe it's still too early to make any conclusions, but the flow felt really weak, almost non-existent."
"So you feel the same," Lin Sanjiu patted away the dirt on her body, "I thought the effect wasn't as good is because I had my shoes on."
"I hope the pest wo
n't be here too soon," After being saved by Lin Sanjiu, Number 43 had grown attached to her, "... Do you have any idea what we should do in this round?"
Lin Sanjiu shook her head; she was in the dark as well. She couldn't activate her [Consciousness Mimicry] so openly with Number 43 staring at her. However, she wondered if mimicking Ji Shanqing would be able to help her in her current condition where not much information was available. Both of them continued to chit-chat but they remained vigilant, not daring to lower their guard fearing that the pest would attack them at any time. Soon, Number 43 began to feel sleepy as lethargy had taken the best of him.
"I'm a bit overwhelmed now, so I want to rest for a while," he paused for a moment before moving on, "Can we take turns on sentry duty?"
"Sure, there's no need for two people to do the job anyway," Lin Sanjiu couldn't agree more to his suggestion as she needed some alone time as well, "You take a rest first; I'll have a look around."
Looking at the weather, it had to be around three to four o'clock in the evening. Though the sunlight was still strong, the faded tone on the edge of the sky insinuated the arrival of dawn.
Under the harsh sunlight, Fang Dan looked like an old, soaked photo—ambiguous and blurry.
"You can tell me the rest of the contents now," Lin Sanjiu mouthed without making any expression.
"Of course. He stayed longer time at the center part of the card, so we can sort out more information than before," Fang Dan was wearing a set of pajamas that didn't go very well with her age. Her expression was a happy one as she said, "The interesting part is here."
"The words on that line were rare, trial, female posthuman, PM, 46, last, and no shortage of candidates."
It was considered a miracle that she could extract so much information just by reading the reflection of a person's irises. However, it was still far from constructing a sentence with those words.
Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath as she tried to form the scattered words into a sentence.
The "PM" and "46" should be the separator for the first half and the second half sentence. Number 42 should have been the speaker for the first half of the sentence while the second half was spoken by Number 46.
"Before this, Number 46 had mentioned that this was a trial, so could it be that "rare trial" was what he was speaking of? But what did it have to do with a"female posthuman?" The second half is easier to decipher. Though I can not tell what the word "last" means, the whole sentence should be saying that this trial had more than enough candidates and Number 42 wasn't the only one."
"What is the next line?" Lin Sanjiu asked again after she thought for a while.
"PM, 46, search, concurrently, PM, 42, unfair."
The term "PM" and the numbers appeared twice in this line and occupied half of the message. Before Lin Sanjiu could curse her luck, the memory of when Number 42 gestured his arms in the air in front of Number 46 and Number 48 swam into her mind. At that time, Number 42 seemed agitated.
When Lin Sanjiu linked the last term "unfair" to Number 42's action, she could tell from the connection between the two that Number 42 was protesting something that Number 46 said. And the thing he was protesting was probably the thing in the sentence which had the words "search" and "concurrently."
"Though I'm still missing some concrete details I guess I can make an initial guess based on the information I have now," Lin Sanjiu mumbled to herself as the fog in her brain started to fade away, "So, first thing first: there is a trial. The objective and the initiator remain unclear, but one thing for sure is that Number 42 was the candidate while Number 46 is the arbiter. Number 48, well, we'll disregard him for now. The next thing is that Number 42 isn't the only candidate, and he has some conflict with Number 46. Perhaps the vendetta had been there since the beginning, so when I revealed the card saying that I recorded everything they said, Number 46 swiftly eliminated Number 42 without any scruples."
Lin Sanjiu felt she was on the right track and the only thing that concerned her the most was the true nature of the trial.
"Just what kind of trial required the candidate to kill everybody around him? It felt so ridiculous. Anyway, i f I want to know the truth, I can either ask Number 46 or Number 48..."
When she reached this point, she subconsciously looked over to the soil bridge at the other side.
Right now, she could only see the back of Number 47 and the others had gone missing. But judging from Number 47's posture and his direction, he seemed to be listening from somebody on the ground.
"Looks like they all are resting on the ground too," murmured Lin Sanjiu.
After all, they had used up too much of their energy in the previous round, so all of them were seizing every minute they had to regain their energy before the pest arrived.
Lin Sanjiu opened her ears and listened, tried to catch their voices from the wind. But the voices were merely a murmur, a low rumbling sound that her ears had failed to discern clearly, so she gave up.
Just when she wanted to turn around and have a look at the other side, she was petrified.
"Did Number 47 have a whip?"
"No, that's not a whip."
"I have a whip—"
There was no whip in this world that was so thin and long and could be brandished in the air on its own without anybody holding it...
Suddenly, it all made sense as Lin Sanjiu realized what's going on at the other side of the soil bridge. She crouched down and cursed in her heart as she darted toward Number 43.
"What happened?" Number 43 was a posthuman too, he opened his eyes very soon, and before he jerked up, Lin Sanjiu pushed him down on the ground.
"The pest is here!" She said hastily.
Number 43 was stunned, and his face went pale.
"You bastard, Number 46," She thought Number 43 still didn't know what happened, "I don't know why on earth he would do that. If it weren't for me seeing those antennae, I wouldn't know that pest had already arrived on their side—Hey, are you listening to—"
Lin Sanjiu couldn't finish her sentence as she realized that Number 43 wasn't paying attention to her but something behind her.
As a shadow loomed over, a male voice that caused her to have a goosebump rang out, "Are you talking about my antennae?"
Lin Sanjiu gulped. She slowly turned around.
She finally understood the statement "You can't attack the pest." No matter how weak she had become, even if she still had her schizophrenia, it was impossible that she couldn't sense a thing when somebody got near her.
"Hi,"
It was a giant beetle standing at the height of half a meter taller than Lin Sanjiu. It wore a shiny brownish carapace at its back, and its two long antennae wriggled in the air. Its abdomen was covered with many fine feet, and whenever it spoke, the feet would jiggle according to his tempo, making the hairs on Lin Sanjiu to stand on their ends. However, no matter how hair-raising its body was, it couldn't be compared to the insect-like humanoid face below the two antennae.
"Woo-hoo! I'm so excited to meet new people."
On the flat and elongated face of that beetle had two large and round eyes that resembled the compound eyes of an insect. When the beetle smiled at Lin Sanjiu, it sent a chill down her spine.
"So, which one of you gonna to talk to me first?" The beetle said as it rubbed the first pair of its feet like a human. It seemed very excited.
"You… you are the pest?" asked Number 43 with a trembling voice. Anyone would be startled when facing a monster, even a man. Number 43's face was so pale that it looked like he would throw up there and then.
Surprisingly, the beetle clicked its tongue as he expressed its disdain in how Number 43 addressed it.
"You're so rude. I did not call you a "villain" the moment I saw you, did I?" It then turned to Lin Sanjiu. Its carapace rustled when it was turning, "As a gentleman, I should talk with the beautiful lady here first."
Truth to be told, Lin Sanjiu was covered in dirt, and it was hard to tell her true gender. As her stomach
gurgled, she quickly calmed her raging mind.
"Err… I'm not a lady…"
While Lin Sanjiu had no idea how to reply to a beetle that called her a "beautiful lady," she didn't know that Ji Shanqing had just said those words to the man in front of him in a building outside Harry's Farm.
"This man, he's too fast." the grand prize cried inwardly.
A second ago, the man with a pair of snake eyes was standing outside the window, but in the next second, he had arrived in front of Ji Shanqing. Every time he took a breath, the cold and fishy stench in the air intensified.
The man had killed Ji Shanqing's only escape route, but he also suspected that he could outrun the man in a chase.
There had to be a reason for the man to traverse all the way from a kilometer away just to look for him. From how the man addressed him, Ji Shanqing surmised that the man came because he thought Ji Shanqing was a lady.
As a myriad of thoughts flashed across his mind, Ji Shanqing realized that the moment he mentioned he wasn't a lady, the face of that man became mild.
"Oh? You're not a lady?"
As the yellowish snake eyes narrowed into two thin lines, the man scrutinized Ji Shanqing from his head to his toe. Obviously, he didn't believe Ji Shanqing at all. When his gaze fell on Ji Shanqing's flat c.h.e.s.t, the man then opened his mouth, seemingly accepting Ji Shanqing as he spoke with a parched voice, "I've never seen such a sissy boy like you anywhere. You even have such a girlish hairstyle."
"Of course I'm not a boy either, Ji Shanqing thought to himself but he didn't say it out. He purposely held his breath, and his face turned red like he wanted it to be. Then, he thrust his hand into his trousers, looking as if he tried to pull his trousers down as he bawled, "You don't believe me? Do you need me to show you the proof?"
"No, that's not necessary," The man frowned as he gestured a no to Ji Shanqing, seemingly losing his interest in Ji Shanqing. However, before Ji Shanqing could relax, the man spoke again, "Are you alone here?"
"Ah?" Ji Shanqing was at lost how he should reply. The man didn't leave much time for him to think as he followed up with another question, "Did you see any female posthumans around?"