Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  The kuchisake-onna stared at the pouch but did not take it. Lin Sanjiu nudged the pouch again, and only then it extended its hand and took the pouch of red crystals before leaving.

  Timo let out a soft sigh and turned around. However, before he stepped into the room, a hand fell on his shoulder.

  "What was its name again?" Lin Sanjiu tightened her fingers, clutching the man's shoulders tightly like a metal claw.

  Chapter 723 - Mephis

  After guzzling down the last drop of the golden liquid, Timo put the glass on the table, wiped his mouth, put on his sunshades, and went to the bar counter.

  "Did you say there's a back door here? Mind showing me the way?" he asked in a low voice.

  The waiter continued to wipe the glass in his hand. Without saying anything, he pointed in a direction.

  "Thank you." Timo nodded. Just as he turned away, the waiter called out to him, "Do you know that duoluozhong ?"

  Timo turned around and peered at the waiter. However, since the waiter did not raise his head, Timo could see only his scarlet hair that shimmered under the lamp.

  "Why you…" The real estate broker did not finish his sentence. He swallowed the rest of his words and flashed a bitter grin. "Is it really that obvious? That woman just found out about me too."

  Even until now, he could still vaguely feel Lin Sanjiu's palm squeezing his shoulder. Nevertheless, it occurred to him that she had just used a tenth of her strength to force him to spill the truth as he was very certain that if she were to unleash her full strength, she could crush his shoulder easily.

  'What the hell is happening inside these posthumans to have such monstrous strength?'

  "Yep, as clear as day," the waiter answered, "You aren't fit for the job. You'd better find another job if you don't wish to die so soon."

  Timo snorted at the waiter's remark. He understood everything the waiter said, but he did not want to give up so early. Taking a deep breath, he rubbed his face. "Even though I'm not a posthuman, it doesn't mean that I'm a pushover," he said dryly, "I've been a real estate broker for some time and have developed a certain set of skills and amassed a handful of items to keep myself out of danger. If you want to catch me, it won't be that easy."

  The waiter shrugged before turning his body around and placing several glasses back on the shelf. There was a collection of glasses and wine bottles in different shapes and sizes on the rack. All of them gleamed weakly under the dim light.

  Suddenly, Timo said hesitantly, "The holograph ended sooner than I thought."

  "Yeah," the waiter harrumphed. His voice was so low it was smothered by the husky female singer that crooned a soft and sentimental song in the background, causing Timo to think that he was having an illusion.

  He waited for a while longer, yet the waiter did not say anything more. He dusted his jacket off and paced towards the exit.

  The sky that day was overcast, filled with puffs of black clouds like clumps of cotton in a moth-eaten blanket. Timo pushed the door open and scanned his surroundings meticulously before stepping into the parking lot.

  The parking lot was a heritage from the modern days. Since those in the Heaven Underworld who could afford a vehicle would not come to such a shabby and dingy bar, the parking lot had lost its purpose. After being corroded by the apocalypse for 70 years, it had now become a barren land, filled with all kinds of trash and rubbish.

  The duoluozhongs usually began the cleaning process starting from the end of the street. Since the parking lot was situated on the other side of the street, it would normally already be noon by the time the duoluozhong reached.

  Walking past bag after bag of rubbish, Timo pulled out a compass-like roundel from his pocket.

  He was still a little concerned about the things the waiter said earlier on. He let out a sigh and pushed a red button on the edge of the roundel. A silver pointer appeared on the black surface and began spinning. It rotated faster and faster, turning into a fuzzy white afterimage.

  After a few dozen seconds, the pointer stopped and several dots of lights appeared.

  The blue dot in the center was Timo. Not far away from the blue dot, where the bar was behind him, there were two red dots, one of which was the waiter while the other was a customer.

  He fitfully pulled the radar out as he traversed down the parking lot. Other than the bird calls in the distance, only his footfalls could be heard. After he exited the parking lot, Timo took a left turning and saw a garbage truck collecting rubbish on the side of the street. He began pondering how he should talk Lin Sanjiu into buying the ring as soon as possible. Even though the holograph was short and her eyes were glowing with merriment, Lin Sanjiu had not asked him about the formalities as he expected.

  Timo looked down and saw that the blue dot was walking past a red dot. He then shoved it back into his pocket.

  Suddenly, there was a whoosh of wind. By the time he realized it, it was already too late for him to put up any effective retaliation. He felt a radiating pain from the back of his head, and his vision turned black as he fell to the ground.

  There was a short, sharp buzz in his head. As his head received another harsh blow when he dropped to the ground, stars burst before his eyes. Timo's blood ran cold as he flailed his feet frantically, yet none of his kicks could connect. Peering through blurred vision, he turned his head around and finally saw the true appearance of his assailant.

  The assailant had a slit that streaked across its face from ear to ear. It breathed heavily into its mask, causing its wispy bangs that fell from its forehead to flutter with every puff. Its eyes had an icy cold gaze as it stared fixedly at Timo. Gone was the docile kuchisake-onna.

  "Good day, Sir," Naga-ashi's voice came to Timo, muffled through the mask, "It has been such a long time."

  Timo clawed his way on the ground as he tried to increase their distance as much as possible, but the waves of pain and nausea that pulsated from the back of his head rendered his arms and legs useless. He could not tear his gaze away from his opponent's arm as Naga-ashi had removed its sleeve, bringing the full length of its blade-like arms into the light.

  "What…what do you want? You know your owner won't allow you to do that, don't you?"

  "Have you forgotten?" It took a step forward and Timo realized that his way had been blocked by the duoluozhong . The garbage truck that it had snatched from an unknown duoluozhong continued to whir loudly next to him. The air was tainted with a strong stench and the garbage truck shrouded Timo in its shadow, effectively blocking him away from the reach of the pedestrians. "You're just an ordinary person. Perhaps I may get punished if I murdered a posthuman, but who would care about the life of a normal person? Not to mention, you are a real estate broker."

  He had already stayed long enough in the bar, but how could he have still ended up like this?

  Timo tried to calm his breath down as his brain worked desperately to slow his galloping heart rate so that he could hear the footsteps on the street more clearly and call for help. He knew this was his only chance, and that in the Heaven Underworld all posthumans were ultra-s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e towards the words "A duoluozhong is trying to kill me."

  "W-why do you…want to kill me?" he stammered, hoping to buy himself some more time.

  "Don't you know?" The kuchisake-onna flourished its arms and slashed them through the air. "I just can't help it…Why, why, why is it me and not you?"

  All the color suddenly drained away from Timo's face.

  " Duoluozhong …are you guys really the seamier side of humans?" he asked through a shaky voice as he held his head up, meeting Naga-ashi's gaze. With pleading eyes, he asked again, "Is the reason you want to kill me just because I didn't get to turn into a duoluozhong ?"

  "Yes." Naga-ashi shrugged, its eyes turning bloodshot. "It's as simple as that."

  Timo did not get the chance to say anything else after Naga-ashi had finished speaking. The footsteps from the pedestrians did not come close to him in the end. For a moment, his visi
on was filled with Naga-ashi's figure and its brandishing blade-like arms. He curled his body into a ball like a frozen shrimp and his heart stopped pumping for a second as he waited for his long and painful death.

  However, the expected pain did not come. He heard a light pat and a wind graze past his hair. Dumbfounded, he peeled his eyes open slowly, then his mouth was left ajar.

  The woman, who had left her fingerprint on his shoulders, was now standing beside Naga-ashi. Her hand was gripping the duoluozhong's arm tightly. Her pair of amber eyes glowed under the shadow of her eyelashes while her face had a calm expression. She did not look angry or surprised as she just stared at the kuchisake-onna blade arms serenely.

  "You?!" Naga-ashi shouted aloud, its voice grating to the ears, "Why are you here?!"

  "I realized it before I went into the room," Lin Sanjiu said softly, "Is your real name Mephis?"

  Even though it was wearing a mask, Timo could still somewhat see Naga-ashi's face distort upon hearing that name. He whimpered as he scampered back. Then, he tried to raise himself from the ground but to no avail. His legs were just too weak to move right now. The kuchisake-onna wriggled with all its worth under Lin Sanjiu's steel-like grip. Its mask fell off, bringing the large slit on face into the light. It roared like a wild beast, "You must die! I must kill him today! I must kill him today! Let go of me!"

  "Can you please calm down?" Lin Sanjiu twisted the kuchisake-onna's arm behind its back. She moved to the side to inch a little further away from its scythe. "Aren't you afraid of activating the device on your body?"

  A chain of guttural roars reverberated from Naga-ashi's throat and tumbled out from its mouth. The skin on its forehead scrunched up to a sickening degree. Meanwhile, its body was quivering vigorously as if it was almost torn apart by its overwhelming emotions that ran amok within.

  "I asked him before I went into the room. He told me that you guys have been friends since you were young," Lin Sanjiu said. She inched herself a little further away as she did not want to activate the mysterious device that its owner had planted on the duoluozhong's body. "Is he the one you're looking for?"

  "No!" Naga-ashi growled out loud.

  "So, you don't have any ill feelings towards him?"

  "Yes, yes," Naga-ashi panted. Its rationality returned a little, but its eyes were still red. "Still, I can't let him live! I want to absorb his fear! I want to hear him scream!"

  "Why do you want to kill him?"

  The kuchisake-onna let out a scoff. It turned its head and leered menacingly at Lin Sanjiu. "I can't kill posthumans, so I just picked a normal human as my target! What's wrong with that? Don't you already know that we duoluozhongs have no conscience or goodwill? I want to kill this b*stard! He should have died!"

  Be that as it may, perhaps because it knew that it had lost its chance to kill Timo, the kuchisake-onna, which was renowned for its docility, began to calm down.

  Lin Sanjiu thought for a moment and stole a glance at Timo who was leaning against the garbage truck, his head held low. She was quite surprised that he had not seized the chance and ran away.

  "Who are you looking for then?" she growled.

  The kuchisake-onna did not reply to her question. It slowly spun its neck like a snake turning its body. The bone structure of a duoluozhong was obviously different from humans. It spun 180 degrees and looked eye-to-eye at Lin Sanjiu.

  At last, the one who responded to Lin Sanjiu's question was not Naga-ashi but Timo.

  He crouched down and delved his hand into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled cigarette. He tried to light it up, but his hands were shivering so terribly that he failed several times.

  "The name is Melhor," he said, "It's looking for Melhor. However, it will try to kill me whenever it sees me… I guess the last time was about six years ago."

  Chapter 724 - A Neverending Tag Game

  Naga-ashi kept its head down. Its brown hair glissaded down its ear and veiled half of its face.

  The soft and docile side of the duoluozhong had once again taken the stage. It sat by the roadside silently. When it was not at work, it looked just like an ordinary duoluozhong .

  "We were neighbors." Timo finally lit up a poorly-produced cigarette after Lin Sanjiu handed him a lighter. He took a long drag on the toxic roll and puffed out a ring of smoke. The poisonous chemical from the roll tainted the air and assaulted their eyes and nostrils. The smell was so strong that it even overwhelmed the stench from the garbage truck.

  "It was a makeshift iron shack that could be brought down easily by removing several bolts," he said, pointing to a parking lot in the distance, "You would use a curtain to mark your own spot and a single iron shack could hold three to four families. A person like you who has the ability to buy a house with 300 acres is considered rare even amongst posthumans, let alone us. The place where we lived was a wasteland, crammed with nearly hundreds if not thousands of families. Both of us stayed in the same iron shack, separated by only two curtains."

  Staring at the parking lot, it took several seconds before Lin Sanjiu asked again, "Both your parents, are they posthumans or normal human?"

  "There are no parents." Timo narrowed his eyes and waved his hand. "We don't have fathers, only mothers." He shook off the ashes and continued, "Not just us, but many people born in the Twelve Worlds don't have a father."

  "Why not?"

  "Why not? When did you leave human society?" Timo stared at Lin Sanjiu through the veil of smoke with a surprised expression on his face. "I mean, the human society that has never encountered the apocalypse."

  Lin Sanjiu knitted her brows together as she tried to search through her memories. After a short while, she began to say hesitantly, "I guess…it should have been seven to eight years ago."

  "Oh, as a posthuman, you are pretty fresh," Timo said as he took another drag from the cigarette. There was only a tiny stub left, but he did not throw it away. "I only came to this grim realization after I grew up. No matter how they've reconstructed and made the Twelve Worlds look beautiful, it will never be the same human society anymore. They used to say that a family is the most basic societal unit, didn't they? Well, it isn't anymore."

  "You posthumans have to hop from one world to another every 14 months. Thanks to this f*cking *sshole rules, the Twelve Worlds eventually turned into a great grassy plain." Timo puffed on the cigarette and continued, "The male posthumans came and went just like wild animals. Even though both sides were doing the same thing, the baby ended up growing inside the mother's w.o.m.b. Then, when the baby was born, the father was nowhere to be found anymore. My mom is a normal human, but Melhor is a posthuman. Hence, when Melhor was going to be transferred away, her mom entrusted her to my mom and she stayed with us for some time."

  Unknowingly, he had used "she" to address Naga-ashi.

  "Then?"

  An eddy of wind blew from the alley, and the plastic bags rustled from its assault. For a moment, there was nothing but silence in the air. Lin Sanjiu turned and looked at Timo, realizing that he was staring at Naga-ashi, who was sitting on the opposite side of the road. He seemed to have fallen deep into his own memories as his eyes were glazed over. She nudged him and snapped him out from his reverie.

  "Oh, I'm sorry. My father is a posthuman, and he did take care of us for a while. However, he never came back after a few years. I have no idea if it was because he finally decided to abandon us, or he was killed by somebody out there. Compared to Melhor and her daughter, our lives were much easier. Not only did her mother have to keep herself alive out there, but she also needed to come back here and take care of her child. It was a really tough time for both of them."

  Timo stole a glance at Naga-ashi. Seeing that the kuchisake-onna did not give any response, he then continued and swiftly brought the topic to a stop, "We lived on, and then we all grew up. That's the end of the story."

  Naga-ashi continued to stare at the road. Its shoulder-length brown hair fluttered in the wind, shrouding most of its face. From a
single glance, it looked just like a young girl.

  Both of them grew up, but unfortunately, one of them ended up turning into a duoluozhong .

  Just as Lin Sanjiu nodded and was beginning to think about what she should do next, she heard a sharp and painful howl erupted from the alley at the back. Naga-ashi's face turned pale.

  "What's that?" Lin Sanjiu rose to her feet.

  Timo cursed under his breath and threw the stub on the ground. He jerked up from the ground and shouted at the kuchisake-onna , "Did you promise a duoluozhong that you'd help it to clean the street and get this truck here to kill me?"

  There was a layer of perspiration beading on Naga-ashi's forehead. It paid no mind to Timo's accusation and its body was shivering uncontrollably. The howling showed no sign of ending and turned even louder, boring straight into their souls. They could not imagine what kind of suffering the thing was going through for it to let out such an agonizing howl. Lin Sanjiu quickly went towards the source of the sound, and she soon bumped into a man.

  The incomer was obviously a posthuman. He had an ectomorphic build and a pair of sunken eyes. He was wearing a shirt with a slanted collar with one of his arms exposed. There was a tattoo in an intricate pattern that ran throughout his entire arm.

  Behind him, a black creature the size of a dog was squirming on the ground. Even though the terrifying wail was coming from that creature, Lin Sanjiu could barely make out what kind of living organism it was. In her mind, she had no knowledge of what kind of creature could contort its body back and forth to such a degree.

  "What's happening here?" the male posthuman shouted while pointing displeased at Naga-ashi, "Is that your duoluozhong ?"

  Lin Sanjiu's face sank. Before she could reply, the man shouted again, "Why did it take away the garbage truck? Do you know that the thing which was originally tasked to clean the street is sleeping over there? If you can't control your duoluozhong , then don't buy one!"

  "I'm so sorry!"