by N. Heller
'Great! The Pocket Dimension being is responding!'
Without wasting any second, Lin Sanjiu glided across the floor to the back of the shelf. Then, she pulled Puppeteer to her side. Using her Higher Consciousness, she tried to climb up the shelf to the highest level. She waited until a hand retreated to the back of the shelf before darting forward to claim the spot. The moment she stopped at the spot, the hand did not shoot out anymore.
Before executing the last step of her plan, Lin Sanjiu told herself not to use the Higher Consciousness anymore, as it was running a little low now. She had to keep some of it should anything go sideways.
The goose did not move since it had not received any command from its master. Lin Sanjiu had no other choice but to leave it standing there.
"How come the items in A lane are all over the floor?" The Indian accent grumbled on and on. "Mrs. Cleveland? Mr. Griffin? Where are you? Why are you not answering me? Jeez, I should go and check what's going on."
Lin Sanjiu's heart seized.
'What could it be?'
Sitting at the top level, Lin Sanjiu waited anxiously as she used her Higher Consciousness to fight off the paralysis that was slowly eating into her body.
Suddenly, a noise came from the direction of the cash register. Lin Sanjiu's eyes lit up slightly. Somebody was coming. He was pulling his feet to cross the sea of snacks on the floor. The rustling he made when he kicked the packages was loud. For a moment, the entire convenience store was filled with those noises.
When the commotion finally arrived at the lane, Lin Sanjiu raised her eyes and was stunned.
The lane was empty. There was nobody there.
"Oh, my Holy Mamma Mia! Who the hell did this?!" The Indian accent, this time filled with astonishment, came from the speaker. "Why are people nowadays so ill-mannered and thoughtless?!"
Lin Sanjiu stared at the lane. Her eyes were wide open in shock, but she could not see anything besides the floor of snacks behind her.
"How could they throw everything off the shelves?! Oh wait, they left one out, but this is unforgivable!"
The Indian accent continued to rant. Lin Sanjiu slowly rolled her eyes, staring at her front. She had no idea why, but she had a hunch that something was standing right before her. She just could not see it.
"I remember the price of these ch.i.p.s is about $6," the voice mumbled. "Why is it here in the $15 section? You're one aspirational package of ch.i.p.s."
As the sentence spread out from the speaker, Lin Sanjiu felt a chill creep down her spine. She could not activate her Hypersensory, but just like anybody who could sense in their sleep when somebody was watching them, she clearly felt that in an indescribable way, the invisible Pocket Dimension being was reaching out for her.
"Is he trying to move me away?" Her heart was in her throat.
This was the best spot that could give her the best view coverage of the entire lane. If the invisible man moved her away, then all of her efforts would be for naught.
Just when Lin Sanjiu waited in horror for the imminent to come, the airflow changed again. The invisible man stopped.
"Ah, forget about it. It's too troublesome to move them packet by packet back to their original spot," he muttered, "I'll just change the price tag later on."
Lin Sanjiu heaved a long sigh of relief. Everything then went quiet as silence once again reigned over the convenience store.
After a few seconds, another cacophony of plastic bags rustling rang out in the air, followed by the muffled sound of rolling wheels. A few shopping carts were pushed into the lane by the invisible man, and they stopped in front of the shelf.
All of the snacks Lin Sanjiu had pushed off were now piled inside the shopping carts. As if somebody was holding a bag of snacks, there were a few pits on the surface of the baggy ch.i.p.s. They floated in the air and were put back on the shelves.
It all happened within two seconds, and Lin Sanjiu saw everything with her eyes. Her heart was brimming with jubilation. "Great! The grand prize's plan worked!"
Ji Shanqing's idea was straightforward. Since she did not have the energy and the time to flip through the ch.i.p.s one by one, she just needed to get somebody to do it for her. It was as simple as that.
Classically, there should be an employee maintaining cleanliness in a convenience store. However, Lin Sanjiu had no idea if this rule was applicable in a Pocket Dimension or not, as the Pocket Dimension was too unpredictable, after all. Even if there was such a person in this convenience store, the aspirant Veda might have deleted it already. It would have never occurred to Lin Sanjiu in her wildest dreams that the grand prize's plan would hit the bullseye!
Nevertheless, what came next was the real challenge.
Lin Sanjiu's Higher Consciousness was running low. She had to reserve a major part of it to cast the Higher Consciousness Mimicry for one last time. Seizing the opportunity as the invisible employee was arranging the snacks back onto the shelf, Lin Sanjiu strained her eyes wide to study every packaging, trying to search for clues in the shortest amount of time. Above all, she had to memorize the location and information of every suspicious target.
For an ordinary person, this was by no means a piece of cake. In addition to being an exceptional observer and having a clear mind, the person also needed to have a superb memory and a strong heart. Well, at least he could not be nervous if he accidentally missed out an item. Although Lin Sanjiu did not have all of them, the good thing was that she did not need to memorize every single item. She only had to take note of the suspicious ones.
The real difficulty was those items being in her blind spot. In order not to miss any items, there were times she threw herself down from the shelf.
After struggling for what it seemed like an eternity, Lin Sanjiu was finally able to pinpoint a few snacks that might be the answer out of the thousands of merchandise.
While she was in the midway of doing this, the third announcement came. The invisible employee stopped for a while. Lin Sanjiu heaved a relieved sigh, as she did not have to split her concentration and end up missing something critical that might ruin her. "Mrs. Cleveland, I heard from the wind that you don't agree with the idea that I'm going to set up a snack vending machine around the school. Well, I understand you're just worried about the health of your children, but don't you think you have gone a little over when you go around and tell everybody that I'm feeding junk food to children? Oh yeah, Mr. Griffin, before I forget, your wife, Mrs. Lois, came to search for you just now. She looks furious. Oh, but don't worry, I got your back. I said I didn't see you anywhere around. Did I say it right?"
This time the announcement had added a clue specifically for Puppeteer. Unfortunately, he could not hear it any longer.
Lin Sanjiu jotted down the two clues and threw a surreptitious gaze at the goose and the packet of ch.i.p.s behind the goose's hindquarters. The goose flapped its wings dumbly. It seemed that it had no idea its master was already gone.
The extra packet of ch.i.p.s that's spot she had claimed on the shelf seemed to be a goner.
Seizing the time while her memories were still fresh, Lin Sanjiu hit the few suspicious items with her Higher Consciousness before activating her Higher Consciousness Mimicry. When she fell into thought, silence revisited the lane. The goose peered blankly into the front to see a few bags of ch.i.p.s on the floor.
A few minutes had passed, yet nothing happened.
On the shopping list, it was clear that the first and the third items had no relationship with snacks. So, she crossed them out. Right now, Lin Sanjiu was oscillating between the second and fourth items, as both of them were pretty close to the correct answer.
'What if I just find out the correct answer based on Mrs. Cleveland?'
Her title suggested that Mrs. Cleveland was a married woman. Everything on the shopping list must be things she wanted to buy for herself or her family. From there, "Brown who drinks beer" might be her grown-up son or her husband. Judging from the word "teenager", she sho
uld have at least one adolescent child, as the legal drinking age was 21, and the final year to be considered as a teenager was 19 years old. It was difficult to deduce Brown's identity from the difference between the two figures.
However, looking from how passionate Mrs. Cleveland was in primary school affairs, it was very likely that she had a kid that was still studying in an elementary school. Most of the children graduated from primary school at age 12, hence, the likelihood of the age of the teenager below 19 years old was pretty high. The larger the gap between the age of the teenager with Brown, the more likely that "Brown who drinks beer" was her husband.
In conclusion, Mrs. Cleveland was a married woman with a husband that was still alive, at least one child in the adolescent stage, and a primary schooler.
The teenager was undoubtedly not "Ralo". So, "Ralo", who needed to learn a lesson, must be Mrs. Cleveland's kid who was still studying in elementary school.
These few snacks had some weird packaging. Looking at the pattern of the packaging, the dates, and the descriptions, it was as if the manufacturer was making fun of the users. One of them had a description to remind the user to consume it after the expiry date while another was manufactured in the year 716462. There was even one with a poisonous sign printed on top of it. Their flavors made no sense as well. Among the flavors, there was a deadly wasabi flavor, icy blade, poopy, c.u.min and bromhidrosis, and siphon.
Indeed, each of them looked evil enough to give people an unforgettable lesson.
Lin Sanjiu thought for a while. She returned a few that she felt were not the correct answer back to the shelf to block the hands from popping out. Then, she used her final bit of Higher Consciousness and wrapped it around the remaining snack.
"This is my last chance…" She gritted her teeth, threw everything to the wind, and hurled the snack into the shopping basket she put in the lane.
Chapter 579 - A Sudden Change
It felt so great to be able to stand with her feet again.
Right now, Lin Sanjiu looked like a psycho who had escaped from an asylum. She jumped and hopped around like a bunny until her calf felt numbing pain and the floor rumbled. She clenched her fist many times, reveling in the sensation of being able to feel the contraction and relaxation of her muscles and tendons once more. She could not help but smile the kind of smile that Puppeteer hated the most.
"Everything will be fine now that I have my body back."
She let out a contented sigh until she saw the goose. Then, her smile faded.
The goose was still standing woodenly in the same spot. It looked straight into Lin Sanjiu's eyes. Gone was its liveliness. Behind the goose, a packet of ch.i.p.s was lying quietly on the floor.
'Has Puppeteer not turned back into a human yet? Is it already too late? Isn't he coming back?"
Lin Sanjiu walked a few steps forward and crouched down beside the goose. Just when she stretched her arm to reach out to the potato ch.i.p.s, she froze.
'What am I doing?' A question popped up in her mind. 'Am I still gonna take him along with me? Can I still save him? I've exhausted all my Higher Consciousness. There's no way I can help Puppeteer now.'
After a short amount of time tousling within herself, Lin Sanjiu began to slowly and reluctantly realize that these were, in fact, excuses she created to deceive herself.
If Puppeteer died in this Pocket Dimension, then she could save Ji Shanqing, the cat doctor, and Hu Changzai from his clutches.
One was the grand prize that kept calling her "sister" and following her around like a little tail. There was Meowie Hu, whose two emerald eyes would light up if he had something to ask, and Hu Changzai, whose face always turned crimson red whenever he was telling lies.
It was such a tempting option. Lin Sanjiu's fingers trembled incessantly. Sacrificing one life for the lives of three… Were there any other better options?
As far as Lin Sanjiu knew, Puppeteer was the kind of person who would never appreciate the good things one did to him but would definitely hunt you down for your entire life if you did something terrible to him. If she helped him turn back into a human, as long as he did not reach his objective, he would never give up hounding the grand prize.
However, looking from another angle, only Mrs. Cleveland needed to buy ch.i.p.s. Puppeteer did not have to do anything. The reason he was dragged into this mess was that he realized Lin Sanjiu had turned into a packet of ch.i.p.s and he wanted to offer help.
In that case, the reason Puppeteer did not turn back was probably that he still had not cleared a mission of his own. Perhaps, he could still be saved.
Crouching beside the goose, she stared at the potato ch.i.p.s for a moment. Then, she extended her arm and picked up the shopping list on the floor.
While Lin Sanjiu rose to her feet, she never looked away from the bag of ch.i.p.s. She clenched her fists tightly while her entire body was shaking so hard that the note inside her palm screamed and susurrated just like the dead leaves fluttering in the autumn wind.
Maybe the person could still see and hear after they had turned into a bag of ch.i.p.s, but Lin Sanjiu did not say anything. She did not know what to say.
Her heart suddenly fluttered and raced in a gallop. She did not know what she feared. She took a step back, then two, then three, and finally turned into a sprint. She ran and ran until she reached the goose and the shelf disappeared from her vision.
Pressing a nervous palm on the cash register, Lin Sanjiu could not help but take a few long breaths. She knew full well that Puppeteer and the goose could no longer see her, but Lin Sanjiu could not shrug off the feeling that she was being stared at by somebody.
She never expected that one day, she would feel so much guilt about Puppeteer. In addition to that, she was confident that she would forever be living in her sins for the rest of her life.
When the thought flitted across her mind, Lin Sanjiu raised her head abruptly. Her fine hairs on her back bristled up.
It was not the guilt that was playing tricks on her mind. In the air behind the empty cash register, something was looking at her.
Lin Sanjiu took two steps back, but she never tore her gaze away from the space.
'What he's gonna do?'
"Mrs. Cleveland." The same Indian accent rang out, causing Lin Sanjiu to frown. She felt like something was different. "It is good to see you again."
At this moment, understanding suddenly dawned upon Lin Sanjiu.
This time, the Indian accent did not come from the speaker. As if he were talking to somebody face-to-face, the Indian accent drifted into her ears with sparkling clarity from a distance not far away.
Just when Lin Sanjiu was caught in her hesitation as to whether or not she should reply to the calling, the invisible man continued to talk, "Our time is drawing short."
'Is this another clue? But there's still a long time before the fourth hour arrives.'
"What time?" Lin Sanjiu asked.
"Don't talk. Just listen to me," the voice interrupted her, "I've been running this convenience store for a long time. I can't remember my past ever since I came here. Every time I open my eyes, I'd be standing in the same spot, looking at the different people outside the door that walk into this store. My job is to welcome them, assist them in finding the products they want to buy, and maintain the store… But this time, when I opened my eyes, I saw you and Mr. Griffin."
It seemed like the pocket dimension being had taken on a different persona. Unlike the enthusiastic voice from the announcement, the voice now was flat and devoid of any emotion. It was as if a wizened old man was narrating a story from the past.
'No, this can't be right.' Lin Sanjiu's face began to turn pale. 'He shouldn't be telling me all this.'
"I wish I could continue to work normally, but this time, it's different. When I opened my eyes, I knew… somebody has done something to this convenience store. And that somebody is observing this store and me from the dark.
"I've no idea who they are and what they want,
but I can tell you that a moment ago, the gaze vanished. I can feel that it's not over yet, but this might be the last time I open my eyes. It feels excellent to see you again, Mrs. Cleveland. Be careful. They'll return soon."
"Wait, where are you going?"
"I'm not going anywhere." The voice paused for a moment, then sighed. "I'll be here forever with my store. What I'm saying is that this store and me… We might not be able to see the future anymore."
Stunned, Lin Sanjiu's brain froze. She had no idea what to say.
"Day after day, I sit here and looked at those people who came and went, leaving no trace behind. The only thing I'm familiar with in this world is this store. Hence, I know that both of us are running short of time."
The Pocket Dimension being's voice was calm and soothing. It was getting fainter and lower every second. Then, it ceased completely. Silence returned. The air was empty, and the pocket dimension being was gone.
Lin Sanjiu remained silent for a few seconds, and then she jerked up as she remembered Puppeteer. She turned around and darted into the lane. Then, she came to a sudden brake. The bottom of her shoe created an ear-piercing shriek as she skidded across the floor.
The goose was still standing at the same spot. However, the packet of ch.i.p.s below its tail was gone.
"Where is your master?" Lin Sanjiu darted forward and picked the goose up. She looked around clumsily. "Where is he?"
The Pocket Dimension being was right when he said somebody was looking at this store in the dark. Lin Sanjiu could not think of anybody else aside from the Veda. The thing that had her heart fluttering so madly was that he said he would vanish along with the store. Without the pocket dimension being to maintain the Pocket Dimension, the Pocket Dimension would soon disappear as well.
Lin Sanjiu was fraught with anxiety. Seeing that the door was within her reach, she kicked the floor hard and rammed hard into the glass. She used every bit of strength from her body, and it was not an exaggeration to say it was comparable to the strike of a locomotive. However, the glass seemed to be able to absorb all the impact, so it did nothing.