by N. Heller
"Yes," Sunny drawled as she shrugged her shoulders. She had let her hair down, allowing it to cascade so her satin hair dr.a.p.ed obediently over her shoulders. With that minor change, she looked like an entirely different person, "Our friendship dates back to our junior high school. That's probably why we even developed very similar Evolving Abilities."
"As for the reason why I did it," A smile crawled into the corner of Sunny's lips as she walked closer to Lin Sanjiu, leaning her beautiful face nearer to the latter. Her fair skin brightened up with every small angle her lips curved.
"Don't you think it's boring-g-g-g?"
Sunny had a crispy, baby voice, which gave people an impression of her being a young teenage girl when she dragged out the last letter of her sentence.
"Even before the apocalypse, nothing aroused my interest. Everything was so dull and bland. Food was delectable only for a few minutes and a good movie could only last an hour or so. When everything has come to an end, our life just got even more empty and boring…"
Not only Lin Sanjiu, but those who had not jumped down looked at Sunny.
"I wonder how those humans live the so-called fulfilling life they were told. Graduate, find a job, get married, have kids: all of these alleged milestones of life just make no sense to me," Sunny suddenly smiled as if she could see the expression on Baldhead's face, "Even when the apocalypse arrived, my happiness was short-lived… But fortunately, God has not forsaken me yet. Just when I thought the boredom was going to last for eternity until I was pushing up the daisies, I found something fun and interesting that I could reminisce over in my heart even when it's over."
Lin Sanjiu's expression became colder.
"It was totally out of my expectation that you bunch of nudniks would be able to burst out with such an interesting and fantastic reaction when you all found out that your lives were about to disappear. Yes, I'm the one responsible for the impasse of your cl.u.s.ter in the beginning. Anyway, I have to thank you all for putting up such marvelous retaliation. If it weren't for you all, the days here would be boring as beans," Sunny giggled. It seemed that she had finished talking, she spun around, walked toward the edge and said, "And now, it's time for me to try my luck."
"That's not necessary."
Just when Sunny stopped to spun around, a strong puff of gust shoved right on her head and before she knew, she was shrouded under a shadow. Lin Sanjiu had decided that she had to keep Sunny in this pocket dimension forever. Hence she activated her [A Twinkle in the Sky Dark Version: Mosaic Censorship]. With that Special Item, Lin Sanjiu could reduce anything she touched into a pixelated mess. Sunny would not be able to reconstruct her body even with her ability that granted her intangibility.
As expected, Lin Sanjiu's hands made contact on a person's belly—the most vulnerable spot of any living organism. Then, in the next second, blood and flesh splattered everywhere, drenching her from her head to toe with that sanguinary liquid like a torrential downpour. Seeing this, Number 46, who was standing right beside her jumped aside yet the blood still found its way and doused half of his body.
Nevertheless, it wasn't Sunny's belly that had exploded.
"Go, now! Quickly!" Queenie coughed and growled with a heavy huff. Her body below her c.h.e.s.t had been decimated into meat pulp and bloody froth. Her legs, which was blown away by the explosion hopped around on the leaf, "I will be…"
Before she could finish her sentence, Sunny had already split her body into countless pieces and plunged into the abyss like a meteor shower. With Queenie halting her pursuit, Lin Sanjiu had lost her chance to catch Sunny.
"Three minutes will soon be up, please hurry up," Harry's voice filled the air, "...For those who remain in the greenhouse after three minutes, you all will be regarded as the losers in the maturation stage."
The people who remained on the leaf became restless by this announcement. Since they had no other options left, and they felt that Harry would not deceive them anymore as the pocket dimension had ended, they began to jump, one after another, into the abyss. Number 46 dashed forward, grabbed Lin Sanjiu by her arm and yelled at her, "Don't care about these people anymore; let's go!"
Lin Sanjiu didn't have the time to deal with Queenie, nor she could look at Baldhead's reaction, she quickly followed after Number 46, kicked off the leaf, and thrust her body into the air.
Wind roared beside her ears and the gravitational force had pulled her straight to the bottom of the abyss. In the blink of an eye, there was only darkness in her vision. Sunny, Number 46, and other people who had hopped from the leaf had vanished without a trance into the darkness as if they had never existed.
Never once had she thought that Bounce, by its very nature, turned all of them into small metal balls!
Lin Sanjiu grasped some comprehension of how to reduce the damage after she had been smacked a few times. Hugging her legs, she curled herself into a ball. Whenever she felt there was an obstacle below her, she would land first on the tip of her feet and rolled a bit forward just like a real ball. With that, the impact she endured became much smaller.
She didn't know how long she fell; then, a dim light finally appeared in front of her.
"That should be the exit," the moment the thought surfaced in her mind, the dim light intensified, pounced forward, and devoured her whole.
When the sunlight outside of the pocket dimension once again grazed her cheeks, Lin Sanjiu, who had been trapped inside the pocket dimension for a month still couldn't come back to her senses. She groggily blinked her eyes and looked around.
The sky was turquoise blue. There were a few wisps of cloud. The dilapidated high-rise was barely standing against the assaulting wind of death, and it looked like it was going to collapse sooner rather than later. Eye-widened, Lin Sanjiu turned around to see that she was now standing at the corner of a street, above her was an archway with the word that read: "weed."
"Where are the others? Am I the first one here?" Lin Sanjiu walked around yet she saw no people. "Where is Sunny, Number 46, and the other? Are they all dead?"
Just when her heart began to pick up its pace, she heard somebody screaming from the archway behind her. Lin Sanjiu immediately spun around, and she saw Number 46 appearing from within the white darkness. It seemed that somebody had banged into him as both of them had rolled out from the air. Number 47 hurriedly scrambled up from the ground as he apologized to the sullen Number 46.
Perhaps due to them having fought together in the maturation stage, both of them waited beside the street with Lin Sanjiu after they saw her. However, their endeavor was in vain as nobody else appeared.
"It seems like Number 45 fell into the wrong exit," Number 46 said, his voice was soft as if he was unfazed by the realization, "This exit is named "weed," and we, who exited this door, survived. I suppose that the other two exits should be either "grains" or "greens"... Yeah, that's right; after all, all m.a.t.u.r.ed crops should belong to the farmer."
Lin Sanjiu's blood turned cold, "So, are you saying that this pocket dimension is a trap?"
"It seems that the Goddess of Luck has not abandoned us," Number 46 cast a sidelong glance at Lin Sanjiu, "Since we've come out from the pocket dimension, I suggest we should part ways now."
He paused and the next words he said left Lin Sanjiu confused, "I hope we won't see each other again."
With that, Number 46 turned around and walked away without any hesitation. Very soon, his figure disappeared into the wasteland.
"If you don't mind," Number 47 said, "I wish we could continue our journey together. After all, we have gotten to know each other pretty well…"
"Indeed. I know you very well," Lin Sanjiu interjected him with a cool voice which gave Number 47 a fright. She looked at Number 47's somewhat confused face and sneered, "... For example, I know you're a Jaeger."
"Wh-what?"
"You can drop the act now," Lin Sanjiu waved her hand impatiently, "I don't care if you still call yourself that, but you feed on posthumans and duolu
ozhong , right? The reason you're still sane is that you have eaten the flesh of a duoluozhong before entering the pocket dimension. Number 45, Number 46, and I have long since discovered your true identity."
"B-But when did you all find out?" Number 47 stammered as he subconsciously recoiled two steps back.
"When, you ask?" Lin Sanjiu scoffed, her voice took on a somber tone, "We discovered that when Military singlet held you hostage. The reason you maintained a deadpan expression is that you didn't want the muscle on your face to show up, but little did you know that those muscles of yours that you desperately tried to hide away from us had come to light when the man grabbed you by your neck… Okay, enough talking. If you can disappear from my vision before I counted to ten, I'll spare your life. Since we fought together in the pocket dimension."
Number 47's hand found its way to his cheek and before he could think any further, he turned around and darted away.
Lin Sanjiu sighed after she had waited until he had gone from her vision.
"It's been a while now; I guess both Sunny and Queenie are probably dead,"
After she thought for a while, she walked around and headed toward the high-rise that Ji Shanqing had told her about.
Chapter 453 - Information That Reeked With Booze
The rendezvous point that Ji Shanqing told her about was a commercial building not far away from Harry's Farm. It would not take more than 10 minutes on foot, yet, after Lin Sanjiu had roamed around the wilderness under the night sky for almost two hours, passing the entrance of Harry's farm for a dozen of times, she found herself unable to locate the high-rise that both of them had taken cover in before she entered the pocket dimension.
"Is it possible that I misremembered the location?" She mumbled to herself.
The building was probably a newly built establishment before the apocalypse. Although it looked grimy and ruined, its overall condition was not half bad. Besides, she had stayed in the building for a week, and she was sure that the edifice was here, yet on the spot where the building should have been was now a shop governed by dirt and darkness, full of broken windows, and a door. Behind the shop was a large parking lot caked with layers of grimes and black gooey substances which could have been motor oil. No matter how she looked, she couldn't find any evidence regarding the existence of the building.
If the symptoms of schizophrenia had not almost disappeared, Lin Sanjiu might think the scene in front of her was yet another illusion created by her brain.
"I can't be wrong."
She weighed the consequences of the thing she was going to do next and clenched her teeth tightly. She was going to take the risk anyway.
"Ji Shanqing——!" She raised her voice, and yelled at the top of her lungs, "Answer me, Ji Shanqing!"
The orotund female voice bounced in between the walls of high-rises and ruined shop lots, creating echoes of "Ji Shanqing" that reverberated further into the dust bowl. Even though Lin Sanjiu kept her ears opened and waited until her voice had utterly dissipated, she received no reply from the dark.
Ji Shanqing had gone missing.
Though "parting" with her friends was her everyday thing, losing Ji Shanqing was the last thing she'd welcome. After all, he was her grand prize.
Besides, Ji Shanqing was as sly and as cautious as a fox, if the situation didn't call for it, he would never take the risk and leave the building while waiting for Lin Sanjiu.
"In every sense of the word, he's fundamentally an item," Lin Sanjiu tried to organize her thought, "What might happen to him?"
More importantly, the thing that worried her the most was the question of if she couldn't locate Ji Shanqing, would he be still able to follow her when it was the time for her to go to the next world?
Ji Shanqing was a rare and weird specimen himself, and Lin Sanjiu doubted she could use common sense to define him. All in all, if he had the same attribution as the other items, she would've turned him into a card already... The overwhelming fear had struck her good, sending her into another frenzy search through the badland again.
Amongst the rubbles and dirt, she saw no fresh bloodstains or pieces of clothing around. Were these findings considered good news? She didn't know. Besides, she didn't receive any "compensation" either.
But of course, she didn't receive any rewards might be because she had lost her grand prize; the possibilities were there.
"F*ck."
Lin Sanjiu cursed herself for her bad luck as she had unknowingly returned to the shop she had come across earlier.
There was a deep crack in the wall of the shop which caused the shop sign to fall from the wall onto the ground, split in half, and block the main entrance. Standing in front of the shop, Lin Sanjiu was greeted with greyish grime and dirt, layers upon layers, as far as her vision could stretch. Gone was the lively notes of what it could have been.
The scenario inside the shop was even worse than its facade—half of the ceiling had collapsed, lay haphazardly in front of the only window. Since the collapsed roof had obstructed moonlight from entering, it was all dark inside, and she couldn't even see herself. Emboldening herself against the onslaught of the familiar assaulting smell, Lin Sanjiu called upon her [Ability Polishing Agent]. A beam of silvery light instantly filled every inch of the confined space, and she sighed disappointedly at what she saw.
Not even she could say what was she expecting; however, it was clear that the shelves of liquor, tobacco, and tea leaves carried no meaning to her.
After she resisted and pushed down the consternation that suddenly surged in her heart, she turned around and prepared to leave. Before she could leave the shop, however, she suddenly stopped because the shop stank to high heaven.
She spun around, pacing slowly toward the counter in front of her.
Unopened, brand-new alcohol and tobacco would not release such severe stench. There had to be a better explanation behind the malodor. If Lin Sanjiu had to describe the smell, it smelled like a human, a drunkard to be precise, who had soaked himself completely in booze and tobacco for a night.
Lin Sanjiu propped herself up from the counter and looked down as she raised her [Ability Polishing Agent] high in the air.
Perhaps it was due to the strong beam of light that shone directly on his eyelids, that the dirt-laden, disheveled hair and dirty-faced vagabond who looked nothing close to a breathing human humphed. He drew his eyebrows together and without ungluing his eyelids, he flipped over.
Obviously, the main culprit of the foul smell was this man. He looked and smelled as if he hadn't had a proper bath or cleaned his body for a good long time. There were various empty bottles and cigar-boxes sprawled chaotically around him on the ground. Judging from the few empty shelves, it had to be the merchandises from the shop.
Lin Sanjiu was filled with delight. She put the light source nearer and called out to him, "Hey! Wake up!"
Slowly that green-eyed monster, jealousy, began to creep in. Looking at how the man was living perfectly fine in the apocalyptic world given his unconcerned and thoughtless demeanor, Lin Sanjiu felt her way of life was stupid.
"Why I have to fight and stay vigilant at all costs to keep myself alive while this person could live so well in the days of apocalypse without doing anything?!"
She raised her voice and shouted at the man, "Wake up! Your beer is here!"
"Huh? What? What beer?" The drunkard immediately shot up. His eyelids were half-closed, his head swung from left to right. The world was spinning in his vision, "Give me the beer! I want more!"
It was hard for Lin Sanjiu to believe that the man was adamant enough to allow himself to get drunk to this extent in a perilous place like the one they were in right now. She chided him under her breath as she coated her hand with [Defense Forcefield]. Bending over, she grabbed the man by his collar and dragged him out from the counter.
"W-What the hell were you doing?!" The man did a double take before he realized he should be angry. Brandishing his arm, he attempted to wiggle himself free
from Lin Sanjiu's clutches, "Let go of me!"
His attempt did little good to free him from Lin Sanjiu's grasp and his strength was not even stronger than the landing of a fly on Lin Sanjiu's hand.
When she raised her brows and scoffed at his futile retaliation, Lin Sanjiu suddenly saw the [Defense Forcefield] around her hand flicker like a flashlight running out of battery. Then, no sooner had the [Defense Forcefield] completely vanished did she feel a strong, cold feeling, as if her right hand had lost too much blood.
On instinct, Lin Sanjiu pushed the drunkard away and loosened her grip. With fury-filled eyes, she scrutinized her hand, and to her dismay, she realized that her right hand was few tones paler that the other parts of her body. The veins on the back of her hand bulged as if they were screaming for more blood supply.
"W—W—Why?" The drunkard struggled a few times before the proper words escaped from his lips, "Why is it so little? Ah, let, let it be."
He gestured with his hand and threw himself to the ground with a loud thud. Lin Sanjiu couldn't hear very clearly what he wanted to say, "... my power, so don't bother me. Your right hand would be filled with blood again in a jiff."
He was telling the truth as Lin Sanjiu could feel her blood rushing toward her right hand, and color began to return.
"His ability…"
Lin Sanjiu didn't dare to do anything else reckless as she studied the man that lay like a worm on the ground. Then, she looked around.
Because she was too overwhelmed by the delight of seeing a living human, she had overlooked that none of the empty bottles on the ground were actually open. Besides, she knew her action just now was sort of brusque.
Lin Sanjiu recoiled two steps back before crouching down. Then, she slackened her tone and spoke to the drunkard, "... I don't want to hurt you; I just want to ask something of you."
The man raised his head to her voice, exposing his two unfocused and misted eyes. Eyes and his nose were the only things Lin Sanjiu could distinguish from his face as the other part of his features were either hidden by his tangled and messy hair or his thick and grubby beard.