by N. Heller
The rift was larger than it previously was. Lin Sanjiu had clawed at the wall whilst the other two had picked their respective life-saving straw. Magus was the only one who relied on the support of her pair of stilettos. She stood firmly in the center of the room with her arms crossed in front of her c.h.e.s.t.
The whirlwind had impeded them from communicating with each other. Four of them struggled for a few moments in the brutal turbulence until they sensed that the intensity of the suction force of the rift was ticking away. Yet, none of them was audacious enough to let their guard down as they all knew this could just be the beginning.
The wind had finally ceased away, and the rift disappeared.
The room was a shambolic mess of destroyed furniture. All kinds of furniture littered around the bottom of the wall. Three of them stretched their sore fingers as they glanced at each other before once again clenching their fingers at the corner of the wall. All of their countenances were white as a sheet as they waited.
… Would the rift follow them? It was a question without an answer. As if it was a massive boulder, the issue weighed heavily on their hearts, except for Magus.
She turned around and flicked her finger, dragging Qing Jiuliu across the floor to her side with her Higher Consciousness. Since she knew his ability, she didn't touch him. She pinned him on the floor next to her using her Higher Consciousness. Then, she spun her head over to look at Lin Sanjiu, whose face was ghastly pale. She said, "...Please don't blame me."
Her words sent a chill down Lin Sanjiu's spine, and her lips quivered. Lin Sanjiu immediately formed a dome shield around the hotel with her [Higher Consciousness Scan]. With that, she would be the first one to notice if the rift appeared in the hotel.
The minutes ticked away. Nobody moved and nobody talked. Their hearts fluttered wildly beneath their ribs. Even their minds went blank.
Suddenly, a cracking sound reverberated through the suite. Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing's heart tightened, skipping a beat as they looked at the source of the noise to see that Qing Jiuliu, who was held fast by Magus on the ground in a prone position, was playing with his lighter. He took a long pull at the cigarette and exhaled a ring of white smoke into the air. He said casually, "I guess… It won't appear already, right?"
Magus cast a sidelong glance at him before giving a loud snort. Moments later, she waved her hand and Qing Jiuliu felt that the force at his back had disappeared. He quickly clambered up from the floor.
Seeing this, Lin Sanjiu heaved a long sigh of relief. She leaned herself at the wall as a drop of cold sweat trickled down her forehead.
Ji Shanqing had swathed a ribbon around his body to cover the proliferation on his c.h.e.s.t. Sitting with his legs crossed, his gaze jumped from Lin Sanjiu to Qing Jiuliu before it finally stopped at Magus. Driven by his curiosity, he took the first step and fired the question in his mind, shattering the silence, "...So, what's a dimensional rift?"
Magus rolled her eyes but said nothing.
"Where would we end up with after getting s.u.c.k.e.d into the rift?" The grand prize pressed on and asked again, "How do you know about the dimensional rift? Why is it here, and why would it move along with posthuman?"
Slap . The grand prize's mouth was shut as well.
Magus looked around the room but she couldn't find the single sofa that she had been sitting all the time, "...Go and find me a sofa. I'm tired."
Even though she didn't explicitly instigate who should do the errand, Lin Sanjiu was the first one to jump into action. She spread her legs and darted toward the door. Before she could leave the room, Magus' indifferent voice came from behind her and halted her advance, "Stop right there. Let both of them go."
Qing Jiuliu exhaled a mouthful of smoke. He exchanged glances with Ji Shanqing and walked outside.
"Get over here," Magus spun her body and said softly to Lin Sanjiu.
It had nothing to do with her ability. Magus had a special kind of magnetism that would entice you to do as she asked. Without saying anything, Lin Sanjiu inched one step at a time toward Magus, with the fear that the latter was going to get even on her.
"I have over-exploited my Higher Consciousness," Magus said openly, "So I won't be able to help you reactivate your [School of Higher Consciousness] for the time being."
When Lin Sanjiu recalled the excruciating pain, she let out a sigh of relief.
"... Put on your game face," Magus berated. She narrowed her pair of grayish azure eyes, staring menacingly at Lin Sanjiu, "...Have you not realized yet? There's now a hole in your gene as the foreign cells have done much more damage to your body than you could've imagined. See, you still couldn't withdraw your bone whip until now."
Lin Sanjiu was stunned as she also realized something was amiss. She then tried to keep the bone whip into her body but the whip that she had been commanding with practiced ease did not react to her order. She needed more times before she could finally retract the bone whip back into her body. Her expression turned sour.
"So am I…"
Magus waved her hand and cut into her speech.
"Don't alter your body configuration anymore, unless the situation calls for it. That's my first advice. After I have obtained the segment of cells, you can reconsolidate your gene."
Lin Sanjiu nodded in assent, pouting.
Magus lifted her eyes and threw a glance at Lin Sanjiu, wondering if she should tell her the thing in her mind. After much contemplation, Magus decided not to tell her the whole story, "The second point is… I guess the dimensional rift is somehow related to the formation of 'Meat Elysium.' If that's the case, I might need to go the Astral Plane once more."
"You have drained your Higher Consciousness, haven't you?" Lin Sanjiu asked, "It's not safe to go into Astral Plane in your current state, right?"
As if she had heard a joke, a smile tugged at the corner of Magus' lips as she lifted her chin, "...Owh, How lovely. Are you worried about me?"
Lin Sanjiu didn't know how to reply. Magus turned around and continued to walk to the door. As her stilettos clicked on the ground, her rasp yet gentle voice drifted clearly into Lin Sanjiu's ears, "I'll leave a few things to aid you in polishing your Higher Consciousness… When I'm not around, you all must under no circ.u.mstances leave this hotel. Don't simply wander to another place. I won't be responsible for anything that happened to you. Capeesh?"
Lin Sanjiu blinked her eyes. Just when Magus reached the door, she released an "ah" through her lips and made Magus freeze in place.
"Understood," Lin Sanjiu nodded, "Don't worry. You've saved us, so we'll protect your body at all cost."
Magus' eyes widened, for she was not expecting the answer. There was a silence for a brief moment, then she chuckled. She didn't say anything and went out of the room.
Chapter 479 - Qing Jiuliu The National Husband
Once again, Lin Sanjiu checked through the hotel meticulously with her [Higher Consciousness Scan] as she did for the past couple of days.
Today was the third day Magus went into the Astral Plane. Her body was now in the room one floor above Lin Sanjiu, sealed with a special force field.
Before Magus left for the Astral Plane, she had especially advised that nobody should go upstairs and nobody should touch the force field. "Those who do not listen to my advice... may beg me to kill them when I'm back." This was what she told them before leaving.
At that time, the way Magus squinted her eyes and how her lips curved up had caused a huge impact on the trio and made their hearts shudder.
It looked as if she could take care of herself just fine and needed no protection from Lin Sanjiu at all. However, Lin Sanjiu was going to fulfill her promise anyway. Every day she would sit at the room underneath Magus' room and patrol the building daily. Of course, whenever she did that she would earn herself a sarcastic remark from Qing Jiuliu. He scoffed, "You're just wasting your energy."
He was right. The days went by peacefully.
Lin Sanjiu let out a breath before retracti
ng her head from the window. Then, she heard the door to the room open.
"Sis," the grand prize came into sight. He had wrapped around five layers of clothes after his previous clothes were punctured. The layers of clothes rustled as he moved, and he looked more like a gift ball than a present. They usually would catch the susurration of his clothes before actually seeing his figure, "...Is everything going well for today?"
"Yeah, everything is fine," Lin Sanjiu threw him a smile. Then, her brows furrowed, "...I don't understand why Number 46 didn't come to us after we killed his candidates."
"Perhaps that guy is chary of getting head-on with Magus," the grand prize mumbled. He took a chair next to her. As he struggled to bend over to sit on the chair, he grunted under his breath, sounding a little bit aggrieved, "Did I wear too many layers of clothes?"
"Has Qing Jiuliu gone out yet?" Lin Sanjiu spun to Ji Shanqing and asked. The days had been too quiet as if it was the eve before a tempest, and because of that Lin Sanjiu felt very edgy. She had a feeling that something was going to happen.
"Yeah, he's out," the grand prize answered as he struggled to pull his arm out from his layers of clothes.
Since they still had the trial to clear and also to prevent Irezumi from getting angry with them, they had to venture out to search for Consular Officer now and then. However, due to a safety concern, it was always Qing Jiuliu who was tasked with the assignment while Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing rarely went out to look for Consular Officer.
…Meanwhile, Qing Jiuliu did make justice to the statement that he had survived through six worlds in an inebriated state.
One day after he went out, he did not return until late at night. Just as the two had run out of patience and decided to go look out for him, they saw him walking out from the darkness, yawning. With the help of the candlelight, they saw his arm was crowded with teeth marks.
It turned out that he had come across a duoluozhong on his way to search for the Consular Officer. The duoluozhong wanted to eat him, but he stank to high heaven of booze and tobacco. After munched on him several times while tousling with its inner self, the duoluozhong decided to let him go at last.
"...I took a nap in the woods after I walked a few more steps. I just woke up a little while ago," Qing Jiuliu said matter-of-factly.
In the end, Qing Jiuliu didn't bump into any Consular Officer. Instead, he had found six more cartons of alcoholic drink and beverage, and they were now piled in the corner of the room.
"It's such a shame that Irezumi knows you aren't a Consular Officer," Lin Sanjiu sighed. "On second thought, we don't know is your ability reliable or not either… Otherwise, we might not need to busy ourselves with searching a Consular Officer."
Since nobody knew whether the visa issued by Ji Shanqing was usable or not, they conducted a small experiment on it and thus found a very crucial weakness on those visas. His ability was known as the [Spumous Visa]. Like bubbles, the visas could last for merely three to five seconds. In other words, even if they had the visa, everything would be for naught if the timing of transferring to the other world did not fall in between the three to five seconds before the visa disappeared, and Ji Shanqing would burst his guise as a Consular officer.
On the other hand, it was considered pretty accurate if a posthuman could fix up the date one or two days before the transfer. This was because a different world had a different almanac system, and some of them didn't even have a military time clock. Also, the flow of time was different in each pocket dimension, so the saying of 14 months transferring period could only be used as a reference.
In the end, it was Lin Sanjiu who barely managed to put the not-so-useful ability of Ji Shanqing into good use. She first asked Ji Shanqing to issue her a [Spumous Visa] and then she immediately turned it into a card. She was going to call it out when it was time for her to travel to another world. However, would it work out as she intended? Lin Sanjiu didn't know.
As she chewed the fat with Ji Shanqing to while away the time, she took out six colored balls that Magus had left for her.
There was nothing special about the balls. The only thing that gave Lin Sanjiu a headache was Magus' instruction. She wanted her to levitate all six balls with her Higher Consciousness at the same time while moving the balls around the room back and forth in multiple directions with different speed. On top of that, she had to make sure that no balls fell onto the floor and the balls had to stay in their track all the time.
"...You will have to keep trying and trying until you can trace a figure of the logo LOEWE in the air with these balls while simultaneously engaging in a convo. Only then will I give you the pass. You copy?" Magus said before leaving. She even showed Lin Sanjiu the logo on her purse, and the latter almost fainted when seeing how complicated it was.
Right now, Lin Sanjiu could only keep at most four balls in a stable hover, let alone trace an emblem of such complexity.
Ji Shanqing looked at the two balls that remained on the ground first before shifting his gaze over to Lin Sanjiu, who was struggling with all her might to keep four balls floating in the air. He sighed, "Sis, the Astral Plane is a different dimension constructed by posthuman who have Higher Consciousness?"
"Yes..." The moment Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth, two balls dropped from the air. Shocked, she immediately used her Higher Consciousness to keep the two balls afloat. As she elevated the two balls to their previous height, she continued to say, "...That's an incredible place. It never entered my mind that Higher Consciousness could work just like the 'internet.' There, everyone exists in their Higher Consciousness form, and everyone looks like stars. Unless you took the initiative and changed your own outlook."
Gaping his mouth, Ji Shanqing was bedazzled by Lin Sanjiu's story.
Although he looked like a human, deep down inside he was still an item. Hence, he didn't have Potential Growth Value as any other human did. Overwhelmed by the sadness of not being able to step into such a wondrous place in his entire life no matter how much he yearned to, the grand prize sighed regretfully, "...It's amazing to create such a dimension."
"Yeah," Lin Sanjiu replied, "The Astral Plane is huge. I haven't had a chance to look around, and Magus had already dragged me out from the Astral Plane. Before that, I was in an online gaming platform."
"Online gaming platform?" The grand prize asked.
Lin Sanjiu filled Ji Shanqing in with the details J7 told her. She paused for a second, tilted her head and mumbled to herself, "...I wonder if I would make a spurt of progress in enhancing my Higher Consciousness if I stayed in that gaming platform."
"That J7… It is a bionic automaton?" The grand prize parroted, "What kind of game were you guys playing at that time?"
"It's called… Wait, let me think first. I just took a glance at the name, and I was forced out from the Astral Plane… Oh, it's called the "Three-Legged Prison Break." Once Lin Sanjiu had stabilized the four balls in the air, she then proceeds to lift the fifth ball from the ground, "It's been a while and J7 has probably finished the game already. That's the only tie between us and I don't know where I could find him in the future… It's such a shame I didn't have the chance to bid him farewell."
Ji Shanqing was stunned. He blinked his eyes and asked, "Three-legged race?"
"Oh no, it's a prison break, three-legged prison break," Lin Sanjiu added. She averted her gaze, and she yelled in a theatrical exhilaration, "The fifth one! Finally!"
Ji Shanqing fell into deep thought. With furrowed brows, he scrutinized Lin Sanjiu in a peculiar expression as he struggled with the growing realization that Lin Sanjiu hadn't been able to read between the lines. He couldn't help but open his mouth, wanting to say something.
"What's wrong?" Lin Sanjiu looked at him before averting her gaze toward the last ball.
"Uhm, nothing," Ji Shanqing gulped down the words that formed at the tip of his tongue. He turned over to the window, "...Why hasn't Qing Jiuliu returned yet?"
"I don't think he will return so soon," Lin S
anjiu said without turning her head. "I guess he must be drinking or taking a nap elsewhere. He probably won't show up until late at night."
Seeing that Lin Sanjiu was trying to pull a ball toward herself bit by bit, Ji Shanqing returned his gaze to the window, looking ahead with a guilt-laden face.
Since the rooms that faced the hotel's front garden, where the few of them had resided previously, had been destroyed by the dimensional rift, they had no choice but to move to the other side of the floor. Looking out from the window, they would see a wide street, with many London plane tree planted on both sides. It seemed that it was a shopping district home to a multitude of luxury stores before the apocalypse arrived. It was no wonder that Magus would settle there.
Right now, something or someone was phasing in and out under the l.u.s.trous and thick vegetation. Ji Shanqing narrowed his eyes to have a better view, and when the shadow came out a little, he realized that he was Qing Jiuliu.
"...Speak of the devil, there he is," he mumbled at Lin Sanjiu. Both of them then gazed out.
Even though they couldn't see his face, they were certain that he must have soaked himself thoroughly in booze. His steps were groggy, and he was hauling a large gunny sack at his back, plodding along the street toward them. Then, he suddenly stopped at the junction, as if he thought which path he should take. After a few seconds, he swerved into another road.
Lin Sanjiu smacked her forehead, "...Call him."
There was another person who was walking toward Qing Jiuliu.
"Who's coming?" Lin Sanjiu asked, squinting her eyes.
"I don't know," the grand prize answered, staring fixedly at the person who was getting closer to Qing Jiuliu, "Whoever it is, he doesn't seem like a lunatic."
At this moment, Qing Jiuliu finally realized somebody was walking toward him.
It was hard to see Qing Jiuliu's figure through the thick foliage. When he walked into the opening gap in between two trees, both of them saw him turning his head. He studied the stranger for a few seconds, then continued to move forward when he realized he couldn't match the person's face with the faces in his mind.