Doomsday Wonderland c1-855

by N. Heller

  "Key? But where is the door?" Lin Sanjiu shouted once more after she circled around the concrete slab.

  She took a deep breath to calm herself down. She knew she could not reach anywhere if she was consumed by rage. The traces of human activities had been eroded by nature after so many years had passed. She cleaned up and removed all the weeds and vines to reveal all four corners.

  After that, she put all the weeds together and made herself a bed.

  "W-what are you doing?" Mrs. Manas asked, sounding dumbfounded.

  "Wake me up in another 30 minutes," Lin Sanjiu said as she threw herself onto the pile of grass. "If I don't catch some sleep now, I won't be able to think anymore, so I'm going to take a nap now."

  Chapter 833 - Rebuilding The Ruins

  Followed by a sudden palpitation, Lin Sanjiu cracked her eyelids open and drew in a harsh breath. She was woken up by a growing fear of oversleeping. After she fell into a slumber, Mrs. Manas had been assaulting her with waves of warning to wake her up. It was not a pleasant experience, but it was extremely effective.

  For a person who had not slept for several days, a 30-minute nap could do nothing but worsen her condition. Her brain hurt as if someone was hammering her head and she felt woozy. Every time she blinked her eyes, it was a torturous process as her eyelids grazed her eyeballs.

  The pocket dimension remained quiet. It seemed that it did not care if she was sleeping or not.

  "Look for the exit, huh…" She dragged herself up from the ground and took in her surroundings. The ruin was large. It was at least a hundred, no, maybe a thousand square meters wide. She could not tell.

  Collecting all the grass that she makeshift as her bed, she hurled them out of the concrete slab. After that, she began taking in her surroundings. The slab looked as if it had been gnawed on by some beasts. All four edges were uneven as they vanished into the patches of long grass that grew around them. She dusted herself and called for a bottle of water. She gulped half of it down and used the remaining to wash her face.

  Then, with a long sigh, she began speaking. Her head became more clear and her thoughts more focused.

  "This is a ruin and I can't see any doors around. I suppose the pocket dimension is talking about the door of this building before it's destroyed. But how? How am I supposed to find the door without any clues?"

  What worsened the situation was that she had lost her [Battle Item]. She found several suitable Special Items from the [Notebook] that could be helpful for her current situation, but without her [Battle Item], she could not do anything.

  Suddenly, a certain Special Item flashed across her mind and her eyes glowed.

  "Hold on! Why didn't I think of that? That might do the trick."

  "What's your idea?" Mrs. Manas asked, sounding a little relieved.

  "I'm not sure if it will work out or not. Let me try it out first. Hopefully, it will work."

  Using the remaining broken walls as her landmark, she identified the length of the locked room. After all, judging from the location of broken walls, the concrete slab looked like a rectangle.

  Trailing along the length, she walked away from the concrete slab. She poked around in the tall grass and looked back and forth.

  If she went too far into the tall grass, the pocket dimension would pull her back to the concrete slab. To prevent that from happening, Lin Sanjiu had to turn her head back to check the distance between her and the concrete slab from time to time to make sure that she did not go beyond the boundary.

  When her feet kicked something hard, her eyes shone.

  I knew it!" Lin Sanjiu let out her first grin of the day. "I knew there must be more. The locked room is much larger than I thought."

  After being exposed to the wind and the rain for such a long time, part of the locked room had eroded far beyond recognition. Nature had reclaimed some part of the buildings and grass flourished, growing out here and there and blocking some of the concrete slabs from sight.

  'I think this should be enough…'

  She did not know if this would work or not, but she had to try it out nonetheless. She called out a card and examined it meticulously. After all, this was her first time using this new Special Item.

  [The Power of Word Picture]

  This Special Item is born from an author's confidence. The following is the compiled record of the conversation of him and his friend that night.

  "This is so annoying," author A said grumpily, "People nowadays are growing more and more impulsive and adrift, of course, me included. Anyway, that doesn't matter. The main thing is that most of the readers drop a certain novel if the opening of the story doesn't catch their attention. If I put more effort into describing the surroundings, weather, or the feelings of the main character, the readers will accuse me of lacking concrete ideas."

  After that, he emptied a can of beer in a gulp. His face turned rosy and he looked just like an unlucky middle-aged man who had not succeeded in his career.

  "Look at this sentence," author A pointed out, "How can you picture the character's image if I hadn't described his appearance? How can you have an immersive sense of reality if I omitted all the descriptions of the details of the environment? The devil is in the details. I can't just throw aside all my hard work and just draft out whatever the reader likes…Hold on a second, do you really think I look like an unsuccessful middle-aged man?"

  "Three." For some reason, there was a gleeful grin on his face. "It only takes three or more details to give the reader a sense of reality. For example, the sofa you are sitting right now has a very thin cushion and you can feel the wood touching your skin. It is wrapped in a mottled green chenille fabric, and there is a layer of cat fur on top. Like the room, the sofa gives off a musty smell. See? Very realistic, right?"

  Perhaps he should change his sofa. But on second thought, a poor writer like him might be too broke to change his furniture.

  "I really hope that everyone can realize the power of word picture." Author A sighed deeply and ended the conversation.

  As its name suggests, this Special Item can show you the power of description. Description besets detail, and detail creates reality. When you are describing the weather, a person, or an object, throw in more or change some details. The more details you add in or change, the likelier it is to change something in the direction you want.

  Since she had never used this Special Item before, Lin Sanjiu decided to try it on herself first.

  "Erm…my boots," she said as she looked downward at her feet, "They are black and made of leather. They are tough and pliable, but they are old. The back of the boots have turned white and the shoelaces are now gray instead of black."

  She should change to a new pair of shoes.

  'What details should I add next?'

  "On the left side of the boot, there is a depiction of a starfish in yellow. It was sewn by using the same colored thread. The thread is very thin and hard to see…" As she spoke, she raised her left foot and looked.

  "Huh?" Even though she had expected it, she was still a little surprised. "This is so ugly…"

  "Are you through yet? Can we get down to real business now?" Mrs. Manas urged.

  Lin Sanjiu pushed the grass aside with her feet. Standing next to the smaller sized concrete slab, she studied at the locked room and began gauging the distance.

  "The floor of this room is concrete," she began describing by using the locked room as her example. In order to return the entire building as close as to its original state, she chose several details that were less affected by the erosion of time. "The floor is flat and there are different grays. Some of the grays are deeper while the others are lighter. On the side of the building is a wall. It's painted in white…"

  Here was where the real challenge came.

  "The concrete floor spreads all the way until the door…" Gripping the [Power of Word Picture] that looked like a pen tightly, Lin Sanjiu prayed that her plan would succeed. "The floor covers the entire building. There are cr
acks here and there due to the expansion…"

  She waited for a while, yet nothing changed.

  She then looked at the starfish on her left boot and frowned. She decided to wait for a longer while. However, the concrete slab did not spread out as she expected. Everything remained the same as it was.

  "Maybe it is because of the door," Mrs. Manas suggested, "Since you don't know where the door is, the detail can't be established."

  Sure enough, the pocket dimension was not as easy as she thought.

  Be that as it may, Lin Sanjiu was just testing it out, so she was not really disappointed. She stepped on the smaller sized concrete slab and said, "If that is the case, then the floor spreads until here."

  Before her voice died away, the concrete slab suddenly began to radiate out as if it came alive. It crawled forward and connected with other concrete slabs that scattered around, including the one beneath her feet. The soil, grass, and roots were pressed underneath, and soon enough, a smooth cement floor was formed, shimmering under the sun.

  The concrete slab stopped spreading forward after it reached her feet. She looked down and saw that the edge was still full of bumps and hollows. Apparently, it did not spread to the other side of the room.

  "If I can find out more clues," said Lin Sanjiu, beaming brightly, "Then, I can restore the entire room!"

  Chapter 834 - A Billionaire Who Plays With Trash

  Ever since Lin Sanjiu evolved, she had destroyed a number of buildings, yet this was her first time reconstructing one.

  Worse still, reconstruction was far more difficult than she expected, especially when she realized there was a time limit to the [Power Of Word Picture]. Every 30 minutes, she had to repeat the description of the building again to prevent it from returning to ruins. However, the silver lining was that there was no restriction using this Special Item, and there was no lag time between each activation. She wondered if she could use the Special Item to make a spaceship.

  If Yu Yuan was still alive, then he could take Exodus with him...

  "Can you stop pacing around?" Mrs. Manas asked again, "You connected half of the floor and made two walls. Then? What is next?"

  "Good question." Lin Sanjiu stood in the corner and rubbed her temples. Her head was still hurting from the incident earlier on. "Let me think…"

  Right now, this dilapidated and empty building looked just like a half-finished model.

  Without a roof, there were only two walls, and half of the building had been eroded by nature. Since she could tell how large the building was, she could not estimate the location of the door.

  However, on second thought, could she really go out once she found the door?

  She stood on the concrete slab for a while. Confusion was written on her face and her brows were knitted together. After clearing up the grass and vines and patching up the concrete slabs, a mass of flotsam and jetsam began to show up.

  She never expected to see so much rubbish here.

  "What the hell did they use this building for?" she mumbled, "There is no furniture, yet it covers so large an area…"

  Lin Sanjiu reached out for several wooden planks and rusty steel bars next to her and pushed them aside. These two things contributed the most to the amount of rubbish here as she would find one or two scattered on the ground or leaning on the wall every time she moved forward. As several screws fell to the ground with a jangling note, she yanked her arm back and pulled a plastic bag out from a pile of rubble. She tapped the plastic bag several times and stirred up puffs of dust. Then, something fell out of the bag.

  It was a bundle of clothes.

  Lin Sanjiu was able to recognize them at first glance even though they had been badly eroded by time. These hoodies were once brand new and had never been worn before. They shared the same size and style, and there were six of them. They were tied up neatly in a stack by a rope, and it seemed to Lin Sanjiu that they were inventory from a clothing store.

  "Congratulations on unlocking clue no. 2," the pocket dimension's voice rang out suddenly as if it had been waiting for this moment to come. "The player is required to look for clues from the pile of rubbish."

  Compared to the voice that had pulled her hair earlier on, this voice sounded so much more pleasant.

  "Hold on a sec…" Suddenly, Lin Sanjiu realized something. "This pocket dimension…Could it be…"

  "Let's go look for the clue first." Mrs. Manas cut into her thoughts, "We'll get back to that after we've gotten out of here."

  Sighing, Lin Sanjiu flung the roll of hoodies to one side and walked towards the mass of rubbish on the ground. She had no idea why, but she felt the rubbish had grown after unlocking the second clue.

  By the time she threw the last screw onto the ground, she was covered in dust from head to toe. She had been swimming in the sea of garbage and waste for the entire afternoon. There was no clean spot on her body and she was caked with a thick layer of black dirt and sweat.

  "I don't know what I bought Exodus for," she grumbled, throwing herself on the ground, "Even though I own a spaceship, I still have to waste my time here rummaging through garbage to look for a clue."

  "I am a teacher of the School of Higher Consciousness, yet here I am, helping you to sort out the garbage. I haven't said anything yet, so what do you have to complain about?" Mrs. Manas mumbled grumpily.

  "Speaking of which, what do you have over there?"

  Grumpily, Mrs. Manas projected the results of her sorting in her mind.

  Plank and wood chunk: 79 pieces in total. All different in size but have the same texture. Judging from a few rather complete specimens, these rectangular planks are of the same specification and share the same purpose of use.

  Iron frames and steel bars: Number unknown. There are holes in some of the steel bars and iron frames. It seems like they could be fit together into a larger frame.

  Screw: There is no point in sorting this out. As for its purpose of use, please refer to the above.

  "I have gone through so much stuff, and you've only sorted three things out? You are clearly slacking," Lin Sanjiu said.

  "There is so much rubbish and they are all eyesores. It's just normal for me to get upset," Mrs. Manas countered, "Besides, these are your innermost thoughts, so don't blame me."

  "Alright, alright, keep going."

  Glass fragments: Six pieces. Very large in size.

  A push-pull handle with a marred surface. Considering its size, it should be the handle of a window.

  "Are you still listening?" Mrs. Manas suddenly stopped and asked.

  Right now, Lin Sanjiu was staring at the plank and the steel bar in her hand. She gave an indifferent grunt before saying, "I think…I have an idea of the use of this building."

  After several minutes worth of wrecking her brains for more description, the building was no longer empty. Row after row of racks rose from the ground and shrouded the sun. The bundles of cloth were placed neatly on every level of the rack.

  "This is a warehouse." Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh. "A warehouse used to store clothes."

  Strangely, as a Special Item that emphasized the importance of descriptions, its own description was severely lacking, especially in regards to usage restriction. There were many subtle restrictions that could only be understood when she used the Special Item. For example, even though she was certain that the plank and the steel bars were part of the racks, it still could not be considered as a hard fact.

  Therefore, she had no other choice but to fit the plank and the steel bars together into a rack with her own hands before making them stand up using the [Power of Word Picture]. She repeated the same procedure for the rest of the racks, and the effect was satisfying. The racks looked new even though she did not know what was the use of them appearing new or old.

  "Well, just take it as practice."

  "Do you still have other things on the list?"

  Mrs. Manas did not reply instantly. It took her several beats before she began speaking, "There is one
which particularly stands out from other rubbish. It's a pile of grayish-white pieces. I'm pretty curious about them, so I checked them out further. Guess what I found?"

  "Just spill the beans."

  "The reason I'm so curious about it is that it looks familiar," Mrs. Manas continued, "So, I put them together." Mrs. Manas paused and sighed. "It's a bone."

  Lin Sanjiu was stunned.

  "Judging from the size of the bone, it could be the bone of a large mammal or human bones," Mrs. Manas thought for a moment before adding, "Considering that there are more humans than cows, I suppose it should be the latter."

  Chapter 835 - New Discovery

  Human bones...

  This was indeed the bone of a human.

  Sitting on the ground, Lin Sanjiu stared at the pile of broken bones before her.

  She did not know when she had attained the ability to distinguish a human bone from an animal bone. Perhaps she had seen too many of them.

  Singling out the bones from the mass of garbage was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Lin Sanjiu had to maintain a high degree of concentration in order to complete such a feat. As she was looking through the garbage, she stumbled upon a blackish item stuck in the crack of the wall. Piqued by curiosity, she pulled it out only to realize it was a lock of hair. The hair was a very strange object. It could be considered as one of the most beautiful things when it was on people's heads, but it was particularly disgusting after it fell on the ground, not to mention that the lock of hair in her hand was tangled up in a confused mass and caught lots of dust, soil, bugs, and grass in it. The owner of the hair was obviously dead. The realization did not soothe the swelling discomfort in her heart but made it even worse.

  "There's too much hair for it to have come off naturally from someone's head," Lin Sanjiu said. Then, she remembered the thing that had grabbed her hair and what it said before she entered this pocket dimension. She began to wonder what the relationship between the two was. "Bones, dead man's hair, inside a pocket dimension…"