by N. Heller
Not even the sea could escape its fate of being gobbled up by the dimensional rift. With that in mind, perhaps Irezumi and Cyrus who traveled by sea might have already—
When Lin Sanjiu thought about it, she felt as if somebody had punched her in the gut.
"Alright, we, indeed, have to rest and reorganize," she sighed and said after a short while.
So far they had not stumbled into any psychos. Although the town itself seemed somewhat safe, Lin Sanjiu still felt the need to turn the entire town upside down for any lurking dangers. After that, they settled down in city hall. They swept the bones out and stole a few mattresses from a house nearby, laying them side by side in the corridor behind the main hall.
The water of the town came from a reservoir on the outskirts of the town. Contaminated by an innumerable amount of decomposed bodies, the reservoir had become a gooey, non-consumable pool of dead water. Perhaps the psychos had resided in this town for quite some time, they couldn't find any clean water and food after searching the town a couple of times. The biggest reward of their search was the tobacco & liquor store that had remained intact.
All of them had had a rather peaceful life surviving on the clean water in Lin Sanjiu's card and the [Military Compressed Energy]. The only hiccup they had during their undisturbed days was that the "visa agent" from [eBay] remained unresponsive to their inquiry.
"Nothing," Lin Sanjiu returned the red plastic letter to her card and sighed disappointedly. She had left many inquiries to the "visa agent" in the last few days, yet her all requests fell on deaf ears.
"Could it be that the agent has also been s.u.c.k.e.d into the dimensional rift? That perhaps might be the explanation why all your queries have remained unanswered," Mrs. Manas suggested in her mind.
Lin Sanjiu didn't make any remarks to Mrs. Manas' conjecture; her brows remained furrowed. She had thought about that probability as well. If that were the case, then the path ahead would be harder now.
Where else could she go to find visas?
After a few seconds, Lin Sanjiu dispelled the thought. She changed the topic and asked, "How's the thing with the Astral Plane? Can I go in now?"
As soon as Lin Sanjiu picked up this topic, Mrs. Manas let out a long sigh and spoke with a voice full of irritation, "Had I not make it clear enough for you? Your [School of Higher Consciousness] is not at that stage yet so even I have returned, you still cannot go into the Astral Plane. To be honest, I came up with this idea based on the news you told me. If it wasn't for you, I do not even have the faintest idea about the existence of the Astral Plane."
Lin Sanjiu yelled out in surprise, "What? You didn't know about the Astral Plane?"
"Why do you think I would know about the Astral Plane?" Mrs. Manas retorted firmly, "I'm merely a counselor set up by the [School of Higher Consciousness]. I can only tell and teach you about things when you reach a certain stage. Nothing more and nothing less. I'm not a Bodhisattva who leads a stupid monkey on a pilgrimage for Buddhist scripture, so don't expect me to spoon feed everything to you."
Lin Sanjiu still couldn't come around from her shock. She remained silent for a long time. The air was filled with the mumbling of a conversation from the hall outside.
After she thought for a moment, she asked, "What should I do now, then?"
Mrs. Manas sighed again. If she had a body, she would have blown Lin Sanjiu's brain out already.
"Right now, we can only do what we can do. There's no point of rushing things. If what Nüwa has said is the truth, I believe you can enter the Astral Plane once you have honed your ability to the maximum."
"When will I be able to reach that stage? I cannot afford to wait for so long," Lin Sanjiu was aggrieved, "I haven't even entered the secondary school… Can't you do something about it? Can't you do something like Nüwa did and send me into the Astral Plane in advance?"
"Go find your Nüwa, then," Mrs. Manas grumbled, though Lin Sanjiu didn't make out the rest of what she said.
"... Alright, listen," Mrs. Manas began to talk again after a few minutes of silence. She started to sound a bit weary, "If the [School of Higher Consciousness] is an application, then I am the user interface. I can assist you in developing and upgrading your new abilities into a newer version, but as a user interface, there are some things I can't do, and cheating is one of them. This has no relation to my identity or my ability as an ultra-intelligent artificial intelligence. It's just the limitations of the application had set upon me."
Lin Sanjiu finally understood.
"However," Mrs. Manas said again, "... Don't feel discouraged. The reason your growth is so slow is that too many things have popped up in the past. First, you were locked away; then, you lost your body. When you finally got your body back, there came Nüwa who kept on bugging and attacking you. The good thing is that she's gone now, so you can rest assured and concentrate on your training. I believe your development will certainly be greatly accelerated."
However, her words didn't light up the darkness in Lin Sanjiu.
"Can Magus wait until then?" She rubbed her face after an interval, "... She should've survived, but I stole her chance. It makes me feels bad like I owe her a life."
With that, she rose to her feet. Her grand prize and Qing Jiuliu had moved Magus out from the hall on the basis that she needed some sunlight. They had been outside for quite some time, and Lin Sanjiu was worried about them. She walked out towards the source of the sound.
The weather was great, and the sky was blue. Sunrays like spears of flowing, molten gold pierced through the cloudless sky, casting the particles in the air a gold-like sheen. She allowed her gaze to travel out, and then—
Her jaw dropped to the ground.
"That's the right feeling there. You're pretty talented," Holding a cigarette in between his teeth, Qing Jiuliu was so absorbed into the thing he was doing now that he didn't realize Lin Sanjiu was standing behind him. Right now, he was talking to the grand prize with a frown and a serious expression dawned his face, "... But I'm not fond of the Stanislavsky system. Putting yourself in the shoe of the role you're playing merely paints the overall casting experience in bright colors. It creates a lot of restrictions on an actor… Of course, in your case..."
Having no idea what to say, Lin Sanjiu merely walked in front. Her eyes were vacant, and her mind was blank.
"I'm more apt to the Brechtian style developed by Bertolt Brecht. Rather than investing in or becoming the character yourself, you must emotionally distance yourself and demonstrate the role with cool, witty, and skillful self-critique so the audience can see the relationsh.i.p.s in a new way."
Lin Sanjiu saw her grand prize nodding incessantly as if he understood Qing Jiuliu's long-winded and Daedalian lecture. A moment later, he cleared his throat and spun to face Magus who was sitting listlessly in the wheelchair behind him. His expression turned grave.
"You don't have a mother. Try to imagine she's the woman who brought you to this world, and also the one who abandoned you…"
Following which, a myriad of expressions flashed across the grand prize's delicate face. He looked as if a broken child who put on an adamant front in front of people.
"Yes, that's the expression I want; keep it going. Picture that she is now sitting in front of you, telling you that she abandoned you because she had a few skeletons in her closet."
Lin Sanjiu couldn't take it anymore. Caught between laughter and tears, she strode towards them and hollered out, "Hey guys, what're you doing?"
The two jumped and turned around, startled by her sudden appearance. They were too immersed in their lesson that neither of them heard her footfalls.
"Sis'!" Her grand prize raised his head and offered her a wide grin, exposing his row of pearl-white teeth, "Qing Jiuliu is teaching me how to be an actor."
"Why would you want to be an actor?" Lin Sanjiu looked behind them to see that they had wrapped Magus' head with a whimple like something a female peasant would wear in ancient times. With her elegant
and silky golden hair buried under the headdress, she looked somewhat simple and unadorned.
Lin Sanjiu was relieved that Magus, who wore Jimmy Choo and was in the Astral Plane right now didn't know what had they done to her body; otherwise, she might not be pleased.
Exhaling a puff of smoke, Qing Jiuliu spoke lazily, "... I'm telling you, the art of performance is a great skill to have. You can do a lot of things once you've mastered it."
"Oh? Enlighten me, then."
"Think about it, sis'," the grand prize answered, his eyes glowed brightly in jubilation, "If I manage to excel in acting, then I could convince people much easier. Don't you think that would make our journey safer?"
With locked brows, Lin Sanjiu eyed the two people in front of her. She spoke only after she came out from her thoughts after a few seconds, "... I guess so?"
"To be honest, I'm just too lazy to act," Qing Jiuliu said. He exuded an air that gave the message that he was doing them a big favor by not acting in front of them, "Otherwise, I could play you fools all I want."
The grand prize was averse to what he said, "... I'm not the fool you're talking about, right?"
The grand prize's question remained unanswered as Qing Jiuliu moved on, "... So I think you should take on a class to brush up your acting skill as well."
"Alright, stop it right there. You this surprised expression is a little bit pompous," Qing Jiuliu evaluated, "The inner—"
Before he could finish talking, the grand prize had hit him in his arm. Qing Jiuliu came to a mental halt as he realized something wasn't right and he quickly turned around.
Magus was still sitting on the wheelchair behind them; her eyes remained closed. Everything about her seemed normal, were it not for her body that appeared to be growing more faint with each passing second. She looked as if she would dissipate into the air at any moment.
"Shit! She's transferring!" Lin Sanjiu bellowed out. She darted towards Magus and grabbed her sleeves with the knowledge that such action would not help things at all. Seeing that Magus was getting paler and she couldn't do anything, she was so anxious that she felt as if there was a fire burning in her c.h.e.s.t—
Magus was the first among them to transfer. That meant that she would be transferred to another world alone, without anybody protecting her.
"Throw the Criminal Suspect Suit on her!" Qing Jiuliu's roar cut through her muddled thought. Without wasting a second, she tapped at Magus' shoulder and the [Criminal Suspect Suit] appeared. It instantly turned into a black suit and wrapped around her body.
Before Magus could completely envelop in the suit, Lin Sanjiu suddenly felt a slip in her hand. She lowered her head to see that the sleeve was already gone from her palm.
It was as if Magus had evaporated into the air without any traces, leaving only the wheelchair to roll on itself out of the inertia towards the front.
Three of them quieted down, staring at the place where Magus had just sat. For a moment, nobody spoke.
After a short while, Lin Sanjiu threw herself to the ground as she pressed on her temples. The last thing that she wished to happen happened. Right now, she needed to find the visa to the world where Magus was sent.
"Erm, guys," Qing Jiuliu said, shattering the silence.
"Yeah, spit it out?" Lin Sanjiu replied without raising her head.
"It seems like I'm also transferring…"
As if a needle had pricked them, Lin Sanjiu and the grand prize jerked up. The moment the thing that was happening met her eyes, she almost blacked out.
Qing Jiuliu was studying his fainting hand with a weird expression. The gold-like sun rays fell on his body; they pierced through his crystal-like body and cast a kaleidoscopic of colors in the air. He now looked like foam on the beach that was soon to disappear—
Foam!
Lin Sanjiu startled by her thought, her body broke into gooseflesh. Part of her felt relieved while the other part of her wondered why she didn't think of that just now. Since their time was of the essence now, she quickly summoned a card and shoved it into Qing Jiuliu's hand.
That card contained the visa issued by her grand prize using his [Spumous Visa] ability. Since the visa couldn't last very long, she didn't hold much hope for it. At that time, she just stole a glance at it and kept it away. Then, she had totally forgotten about it.
It was still a visa issued by Ji Shanqing, although the visa couldn't last very long, it was more than enough.
The type of visas Ji Shanqing had issued were the same before and after his ability had evolved. The visa that she gave to Ji Shanqing was a visa to a lower level world "Sandwich Cookie."
"Remember!" Lin Sanjiu shoved the card containing [My Hand Which Ran Through Your Black Hair] into the hand of the faint figure and yelled with all her might, "You have to protect Magus at all costs, even if you have to sacrifice your chastity. If we have the chance, let's meet at the Twelve World Centrum!"
Chapter 505 - The Next World
The planet had become a large piece of barren land.
This was what Lin Sanjiu had concluded after she had journeyed on the continent for a few months.
Mile after mile, for months she crossed the continent that had been destroyed by humanity. She traversed through a deep stratum which seemed to have once been the sea. She climbed over the glaciers and the highlands that appeared to have no end. She came across a lot of things, yet in the end, the only thing she never saw was other living organisms.
Compared to her first arrival on this world, the Meat Elysium now looked so still, as if every bit of evidence that symbolized the existence of civilization had been entirely wiped clean of the surface of the planet.
When neither of them spoke, there was only the whistle of the wind blowing through the space between the sky and the earth. Nobody knew where the wind came from, and nobody knew where it would end.
… Just like her.
There were times when she was able to catch a faint murmur, wrapped in the wind before scattering to the four corners of the world. More often than not, she felt she was hallucinating. Even the cries of the lunatics, in retrospect, seemed to pulsate with great vitality. She missed the noise a lot. And the more she missed, the more lonely she felt.
If Ji Shanqing wasn't by her side, Lin Sanjiu felt she might have gone crazy.
Initially, she thought the dimensional rift only affected a small area. Now that she had walked across the continent, she found that she had been so wrong. The dimensional rift seemed to have appeared multiple times in multiple places. Some of them were large while some of them were small, yet all of them were catastrophic with power enough to destroy a planet, leaving only nothingness behind whenever they appeared.
They went on the journey to look for the consular officer. However, with human civilization stripped from the surface of Meat Elysium, their journey held no more meaning aside from traveling from one place to another.
Sometimes, Lin Sanjiu felt the very existence of Meat Elysium was wrong from the start, and the dimensional rift had come to right the wrong. There was a voice inside her heart telling her that this sounded absurd, but as time passed, the voice started to diminish, ebbing away, and the notion was getting more and more profound in her heart.
Compared to Lin Sanjiu, Ji Shanqing seemed more relaxed.
"Where should we go tomorrow, sis'?"
As the sun set in the west, the sky grew darker. Peering into the turquoise-colored sky, the grand prize lay beside Lin Sanjiu and asked the question.
They were now lying on top of a vast rocky area with the sky as their coverlet. Lin Sanjiu decided to sojourn on this stone was because she was interested in the pattern of the stone. As if melting granite was frozen in time before it completely melted away, the giant rock beneath them was formed of multiple layers of ring-shaped motifs that spread from the center of the stone.
"Anywhere would do," Lin Sanjiu answered as she took out a thick book from her card. The book was the one she found in the corpse that she bought
from a vulture in Red Nautilus, "... After all, there's little hope of finding the consular officer. Tell me if you found a spot you would like to visit, and we'll go there."
The grand prize's face turned solemn as he began to think where he should go to see next.
Listening to the crackling of the flame, Lin Sanjiu leafed through the handbook. Ever since she had obtained the [Battle Item], she had attained a new habit. She would often flip through the content after she had finished her Higher Consciousness training with Mrs. Manas. Using the perfect depiction in aiding the memorization process, she had successfully ingrained several Special Items in her mind. If she had to put a number to it, it was roughly twenty to thirty items.
The handbook contained a wealth of information on the Special Items from the Twelve Worlds, and she wondered how the author managed to gather so much data. Even after she had flipped through so many pages of ill.u.s.tration, she was always surprised to find that there were a lot more pages to go.
"Eh?"
Stopping at the "Special Item Ill.u.s.tration," Lin Sanjiu came to a mental halt. She closed the handbook and looked at its spine. Then, a somewhat quizzical expression crawled upon her face.
"What's wrong?" Her grand prize turned his gaze to Lin Sanjiu and asked while he remained in his prone position.
Lin Sanjiu didn't reply to her grand prize's concern. Her brows knit together in a tight frown as she flipped the handbook in her hand.
"This handbook came into my possession when I was in Red Nautilus, and I haven't had time to take a good look at it. I have been going through it page by page recently, so…" She paused for a moment before continuing hesitantly, "I wondered if this was just my mind playing a trick on me, but I felt the book has become… thicker."
"Wasn't that normal?" Ji Shanqing answered as he found her concern unsubstantial, "Flipping a book would leave some creases or sort on the pages, so an old book would naturally be thicker than a new—Eh?"