Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  Shaking her head, Lin Sanjiu pushed the thought out of her mind. She let out a sigh, turned around, and looked at the resting zone.

  This was not the first night she spent in the resting zone. However, the ambiance at night never failed to dazzle her. It was lively and full of vigor which was a stark contrast to the dreary and dense atmosphere in the day.

  Take tonight as an example, she had been waiting with Soulsqn in the assembly point her grand prize had told her to meet at for more than an hour. Nevertheless, every posthuman who came and went, and the things they brought along with them were always able to surprise her.

  Although it was less prosperous than the Twelve Worlds Centrum, all of them still cherished it greatly. After all, this was the only spot and the only time that could make them feel alive after risking their lives through an abundance of torture in the day.

  "All sorts of hot and fresh bread in different fillings are on sale. Come and pick your favorite!"

  Shouts and yells from a distance wafted into her ears, prompting Lin Sanjiu to look over to the source of the sound.

  At night, plenty of round market umbrellas were set up in the resting zone, acting as temporary stalls for some posthumans to sell or trade their resources while they recuperated. As for those who still had energy left, they would bustle to and fro amongst the crowd like a busy bee selling their products and services.

  The flame gave a lovely shiny finish to the box of bread. All the loaves of bread had different shapes, and they smelled delicious. Lin Sanjiu could even see steam dancing in the air, but she was confident that the pastries were not freshly baked. Perhaps the stall owner had a specific Special Item to create these pieces of bread.

  Despite that, the bread was well-received by the populace here. Several posthumans who stayed nearby mobbed the stall the moment it opened.

  "Deep sleep," another voice came from the crowd, although it was far away, "Does anybody need it? My price is fair. With one special type, you can…"

  Lin Sanjiu could not hear the rest of his sentence as his voice was drowned out by the wind and the holler of the crowd. However, while she was strolling around the area, an angry voice erupted from that direction, "Three seconds?! Are you kidding me? What can three seconds of deep sleep do?"

  In addition to food and abilities, resources and Special Items were also very popular with the people here. There was a gaunt man who was slaloming in the crowd to promote his pair of flaming men's running shoes to anyone he met. After being rejected several times, he approached Lin Sanjiu. Initially, she was pretty interested in buying the shoes from the man, so she tried them out. However, after finding out that her feet were too large to fit, she had no other choice but to turn down the man's offer as well.

  After that, Lin Sanjiu continued roaming around the resting zone. Then, she came across a stall which caught her attention. The stall owner was a woman who had a pair of cherry-colored lips and was donned in a gown. There was a long queue in front of the stall. Lin Sanjiu discovered that after getting a kiss from the woman, every posthuman, be it male or female, would become drunk as if they were walking on clouds. Lin Sanjiu had no idea what happened to them, but the woman was picky with her customers as she would not serve those who did not measure up to her taste.

  The smell of food, spices, tobacco, alcohol, and sweat permeated the air before a gust of wind carried them all away into the distance. The atmosphere was lively and stimulating as the posthumans were talking and laughing while the stall owners were cooing to promote their products and services. Needless to say, only those who had fully regained their strength or did not join any competition that day were able to walk around and engage people in a lively conversation. There was a group of posthumans who sat in the dark corner, too exhausted to move around. Their breaths were shallow, and they looked no different from dead people.

  Lin Sanjiu was carrying a birdcage with a man inside on her back. A two-meter tall bloke was standing next to her, and an unknown creature had curled up by her feet. All of them were resting under an umbrella, and nobody dared to chase them away.

  Lin Sanjiu had been waiting a long time for Puppeteer and her grand prize. She took out her Demae Iccho Beef Instant Noodles.

  Although the name of this Special Item sounded almighty, Lin Sanjiu did not hold much hope for it since its previous owner was willing to exchange it for a simple bowl of noodles.

  Lin Sanjiu was getting more and more engrossed in selling her noodles. Just as she hollered out again, "Piping hot noodles!" she realized that her voice was much louder this time. Everything had suddenly become quiet.

  Stunned, Lin Sanjiu looked around. Then, the scales fell from her eyes when she did not see Polva, and people began to move aside. Two shadowy figures were walking in her direction.

  Even the warm firelight and the aroma of bread could not dissolve Puppeteer's cold and callous face.

  "Want some noodles?" Lin Sanjiu raised the bowl of noodles from the ground and presented it to the two people in front of her.

  "Sis!" Ji Shanqing gave her a bitter smile. He hastened his pace and said, "There are many things to discuss. We don't have time for a bowl of… What flavor is this bowl of noodles?"

  Chapter 622 - Busy Life

  A series of slurps echoed in the air as a few drops of soup splattered onto the grand prize's shirt. Ji Shanqing was sitting in a lotus position under the umbrella. He had gathered his long hair at the back of his head. His cheeks were rosy, and his lips were red and bee-stung as he buried his head in the bowl and stuffed the piping hot noodles into his mouth.

  "Is it good?" Lin Sanjiu watched him like a mother looking at her son as she wiped at the soup stain on his trousers.

  The resting zone plunged into a deep silence the moment Puppeteer and the grand prize showed up. It took a considerable amount of time before the atmosphere gradually became lively again, except for one spot. The area where Lin Sanjiu and her group sat was still as quiet as before. The cries from the stall owners, the steam from the snacks, and the whisper from the tarot stall were all blocked out by a group of people that surrounded them.

  The group of people was, in fact, "posthumans" who had been turned into puppets. Under their steely, emotionless gazes, Lin Sanjiu had lost all interest in selling the noodles. Since she had nothing else to do, she rested her chin on her hand as she admired her grand prize wolfing down the bowl of noodles.

  After guzzling a clump of noodles and half a bowl of soup down his throat, Ji Shanqing wiped his mouth and gave a satisfied burp. The burp instantly tainted the air around him with the smell of beef noodles. He turned to Lin Sanjiu, giving her a toothy grin. "It's great, sis! I feel so refreshed! But I feel that it's missing something. If we added some chives and egg, the overall taste would be elevated..."

  "Enough! Get to the point!" Interrupted Puppeteer, who had been sitting aside in the dark.

  "Why the fuss? We can talk while we eat," Lin Sanjiu refuted with a frown after she saw her grand prize jolt up and put the bowl down. "Are you sure you don't want one? I've heard that when people are hungry, their blood sugar level will be lower. And when their blood sugar level is lower, they'll feel angry more easily than usual."

  Puppeteer gave a cold smile. Lin Sanjiu did not know whether he was angry or not, as his face was pallid and bereft of any form of emotion. Half of his face was scrunched up as he softly said, "If you love to eat noodles so much, I can do you a favor and turn your blood into noodle soup."

  Upon hearing this, Soulsqn, who had been staring at the Demae Iccho Beef Noodles, lowered her head.

  Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to put the Special Item back into her card. When she raised her head, she found that Ji Shanqing was measuring the birdcage on her back. His two delicate eyebrows knitted together in a frown.

  The grand prize happened to have met the bald man once in the Meat Elysium before, albeit just briefly. At that time, the wind caused by the dimensional rift had obscured their vision, and they were far away from
the bald man. Although Lin Sanjiu fully knew that her grand prize could not recognize the man, to avoid any contingencies, she tilted her body a little to block the birdcage from her grand prize. She smiled and said, "A little token of appreciation for my friend since he helped me in the game. Anyway, what did you want to tell me?"

  The question snapped Ji Shanqing back to reality. He returned Lin Sanjiu with a smile, "Sis, you already know the reason we chose the Red Nautilus zone, don't you? The Data Streams Library is a universe. Do you still remember that?"

  Lin Sanjiu nodded. The idea of two apocalyptic worlds co-existing in one single universe was not hard to understand. It made sense to her, especially right after her grand prize had explained it to her in detail. Nevertheless, without her grand prize, Lin Sanjiu was confident that the concept would never have come to her.

  "I have briefly explained my idea to…" the grand prize paused, "Mr. Puppeteer, but I did not have enough time to elaborate more extensively on it. Now that everyone is here, let's pool our thoughts together."

  He cleared his throat, looking at the trio before continuing in a low voice, "Okay, first things first, we already know that the Veda has made changes to this piece of the universe so that they can live in it. Besides that, we also know that they have modified at least two planets in this universe, one of which is the Salvation of God while the other is the Olympics."

  Three of them listened attentively to Ji Shanqing. The symphony of voices of the crowd and the constant holler of the stall owners were carried away by the wind into the distance.

  "Right now, we've spent four days at the Olympics." Fearing that the trio could not hear him well, Ji Shanqing held four fingers in the air before moving on. "Initially, I was worried that the Veda would come after us. If that happened, they would most likely go to the Salvation of God zone first. That is the reason why I picked the Red Nautilus zone in the first place, but now it seems like my worries were totally uncalled for. There are so few contenders in the Salvation of God zone that the Veda would've spotted you instantly the moment they came. Since you are here with us now, that could only mean one thing—they didn't come in the end."

  Puppeteer gave another cold laugh.

  The grand prize felt a little bit awkward. He looked at Lin Sanjiu, but upon realizing that the latter remained nonchalant towards what he had said, he continued, "Although I don't know the reason why, since the Veda isn't coming for us, there's one more option we could undertake."

  "What do you mean?"

  "According to my speculation, you—" The grand prize suddenly stopped when he realized he had made the same mistake again and quickly corrected himself, "According to my speculation, our time in the Olympics won't be reset. That is to say, the number of days we have left in the Salvation of God is the same number of days we will be staying in the Olympics. Thus, we can stay here until we transfer to another world and say goodbye to the Veda forever. What do you think?"

  "I disagree!" Lin Sanjiu was the first to speak up. She pointed an accusing finger at Puppeteer and said, "He left my friends in the Salvation of God, so I have to go back to them."

  Soulsqn raised her upper torso, replying, "I believe that cat can take care of himself. Why do you have to worry about him?"

  For Soulsqn, it was not a hard task to return to the Salvation of God to look for her clansmen. All she needed to do was find herself a suitable human pouch and get a visa, but the premise was that she had to get out of here alive first.

  Ji Shanqing's face turned sour. "Sis, why do you have so many friends?"

  "Put your damned finger down," Puppeteer commanded. He turned over to the grand prize and said, "I don't agree with this plan either. I must go back and give those Vedas a lesson."

  Soulsqn turned silent.

  The grand prize's expression turned even uglier, but he did not say anything. Pointing at the dark sky above them, he said, "If that's the case, we have to go up."

  The other two nodded while only the flesh worm remained frozen.

  "This is going to be a little bit tricky." The grand prize sighed.

  Before the apocalypse arrived, going outer space was something that could only be done with the wealth of a country and a staggering amount of resources. Even in the apocalypse era where most posthumans had a wide array of Special Items with different abilities, it was still by no means an easy feat. Lin Sanjiu and Soulsqn were probably well aware of this more than anybody else as they almost died when the elder brother f.o.r.c.i.b.l.y pulled them out from the Salvation of God into the Data Stream Library last time.

  Although they knew where they should be going, they did not know how to reach there.

  "What should we do?" Lin Sanjiu asked.

  The grand prize sighed, his shoulders sagged in defeat, "First, we have to analyze this planet."

  "We can help with that…" Soulsqn was nodding, and before Lin Sanjiu could finish her sentence, Ji Shanqing raised his hand to interrupt her, "That's not necessary. I already have a plan."

  "What's on your mind?"

  "The Veda must have done something to the Olympics with their power. Otherwise, a normal planet would never look like this. Since they didn't come after us, there's only one person on this planet who might be a Veda, or is related to the Veda," Ji Shanqing paused, glancing at the trio with his bright eyes, "Zeus, the highest god.

  "There's a high probability that Zeus knows the way to return to the Data Stream Library," the grand prize continued, "As long as we can find him, we can return to the Data Stream Library. At that time, you can do whatever you want, be it teach the Veda a lesson or return to the Salvation of God. It's all up to you."

  "In other words, to meet Zeus, we have to win the match." Lin Sanjiu frowned. "I remember that only the winner who wins the most matches in a zone will get to…"

  "Yes, only the winner who won the most games will get to meet Zeus. I remember that," Ji Shanqing finished the second half of Lin Sanjiu's sentence. "The only thing that I'm not sure about is if there's any time restriction imposed on us to collect our winnings. Is it a month or a year? But the wall in the resting zone has already been shut down, so we can only find out tomorrow."

  "In that case…" Lin Sanjiu's expression changed as she delved deeper into her thoughts. She let out a long sigh and said in a tired voice, "We cannot rest for three days after each game."

  Ji Shanqing nodded. With an apologetic look, he went closer to Lin Sanjiu, assaulting her nose with the smell of beef noodles that lingered on his breath as he said, "Sis, you mustn't choose racing again. Next time, pick another lighter competition."

  Lin Sanjiu could not help burying her face in her palms at the thought that she had to go through hell at least once every day. Seeing her reaction, the grand prize became restless. He tried to find words to comfort her, "Try to look on the brighter side, sis. You and Puppeteer are in different zones, so you two won't be competing with each other. Once you two get first place, both of you can each bring one more person to meet Zeus. That way, four of us will be seeing Zeus, so we can leave this place together."

  Chapter 623 - Meeting Zeus

  Like Cinderella, who had to return at the first stroke of midnight, the warm orange fire lights dimmed one after another as the minute hand touched 12. The darkness beyond the wall crept in, slowly filling every inch of the resting zone. The stalls closed, and the people quieted down. The mood took a nosedive and turned somber.

  There was a cold air of dread hung heavily in the air. Everybody seemed both anxious and worried about the arrival of the second day, as some of them knew they might not get the chance to see the sunset tomorrow when the game ended.

  After she had nudged out of the crowd of puppets, Lin Sanjiu was taken aback by what she saw. There weren't any people around them. Earlier on when the night was still young, she could somewhat hear the noises of people shuffling here and there, but now, everywhere her eyes looked, all she could see was darkness and empty umbrellas.

  Those posthuman couldn't
be blamed for not wanting to stay near them. After all, Puppeteer was too volatile; nobody knew when he would suddenly turn hostile and go on a killing spree. She did not want to share an umbrella with him either, even if he had promised her that he wouldn't kill her.

  Of course, the feeling was mutual; the last thing Puppeteer wanted was to share the same space as them.

  "Sis, can we sleep here?" the grand prize grumbled as he followed behind Lin Sanjiu. "I'm sleepy… I cannot walk anymore."

  No sooner had Lin Sanjiu and Ji Shanqing walked away that Puppeteer shooed Soulsqn away as well. Snaking beside Lin Sanjiu, Soulsqn sighed, "It's so cold at night."

  "Both of you have become more fragile after spending some time with him."

  Lin Sanjiu commented while pulling a long face and continued walking forward without turning her head. Most of the posthumans had already succ.u.mbed to sleep. It was quiet, and the night air was filled with snores and the trio's footfalls.

  Although there were quite a lot of posthumans that slept on the cobbled floor without any scruples since they knew they had nothing to lose, some of them were circ.u.mspect. This was because the rule that kept those that harbored evil designs at bay lifted when the morning came. Hence, more of them had set up some protection to make sure they were safe for the night while they were fast asleep.

  Whether it was hanging on the wall like a cocoon, hiding under a bump on the ground, or building a makeshift shelter using Simmons' mattresses… There was a motley variety of barriers that Lin Sanjiu couldn't count them all on the fingers of one hand. Turning a deaf ear to the complaints behind her, Lin Sanjiu stopped and studied her surroundings. Then, she pointed to a direction and said, "Stop complaining! Look, isn't that a… hotel?"