Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1307: The Career Path of a Posthuman in Modern Society

You could take selfies and edit pictures, engage in text-based social interactions, play offline games, and watch news updates… but no internet. All data transmission seemed to be done through mobile signals. Lin Sanjiu didn’t understand the technical knowledge, but she figured it should be similar to sending text messages. This also meant that information transmission was mostly one-way.

“You can still watch TV shows?” she asked, surprised as she watched Wu Lun open a TV show on her computer. “Where did the show come from without the internet?”

The beauty advisor seemed convinced that she was dealing with a lunatic. Perhaps because Lin Sanjiu didn’t seem like a violent lunatic, she gradually gained courage, and her tears stopped.

“I… I rented this from the library; you can also buy it from video stores and bookstores,” she said cautiously. She picked up her phone, saying carefully, “Um, I can show you… but can you wait a moment? I… I need to use the restroom.”

She tightly clutched her phone and stood up, trying to put on a calm face. Lin Sanjiu felt sorry for this girl; it seemed like even Wu Lun herself couldn’t believe she had managed to go to the bathroom without incident. She glanced at Lin Sanjiu before hurriedly closing the door. After a while, a low and hurried voice came from inside, indistinct amidst the flowing water.

This was the reaction of a normal person in society.

A normal person would relinquish their right to use force and let a specialized force maintain order and govern them. Lin Sanjiu once thought this was normal, but when she thought about it again, she found it unacceptable. Without power in her own hands, it was not truly hers; since it was not her power, how could she trust it, let it take care of her, and entrust herself to it?

When Wu Lun returned, the two acted as if nothing had happened and sat down to watch the news for a while. The girl was still too nervous; when she came out, she only remembered to turn off the faucet but forgot to flush the toilet.

About ten minutes later, someone knocked on the door.

“They’re here!” Wu Lun’s composure shattered, and her voice almost broke with excitement. She rushed to the door and opened it.

Two men in blue uniforms looked around as they walked in, asking her, “Did you call the police?”

“Yes! Some lunatic followed me home,” Wu Lun said, turning her head, “I don’t know her, and…”

The room was empty, with only a slight indentation on the sofa.

The police stared at her. “A lunatic? Where?”

“B-but she was just here.”

This was a narrow single room without a balcony, less than thirty square meters, where one could see the entire room at a glance: a single bed placed at one end of the rectangular room, against the wall; on the side facing the door, there was a small sofa. Wu Lun looked under the bed and up at the ceiling, not as if she were looking for a crazy woman but more like she was looking for cockroaches. “Strange, she was here just before.”

“Young people must be under a lot of work pressure and getting nightmares,” the older man said, taking out a pen. “What’s your name? Let me register you. It’s for your own good. False alarms are not allowed, you know. If this happens again, you will be held liable.”

Wu Lun stood up, her expression ugly. “I-I’m not, really, I didn’t lie to you… she jumped off the bus and followed me home.”

The last sentence successfully chased away the two police officers.

After they left, Wu Lun stood in the room dumbfounded, unable to regain her senses. “How could she disappear,” she murmured to herself. The only window was blocked by thick anti-theft wire mesh, impossible to get out; behind the door, under the bed, in the bathroom… there was simply no one.

Wu Lun couldn’t figure it out after thinking for a long time. If it weren’t for the computer still on the sofa, she would probably have thought she had just had a nightmare. She slowly walked over, picked up the computer, and intended to put it back where it belonged—there was a small desk at the foot of her bed, doubling as a dressing table. If she sat in front of the desk to use the computer, she could easily reach the wall with her arm.

As she put down the computer, Wu Lun felt as if she were enveloped in ice, unable to move. In the silent and frozen air, the gaze on her back felt tangible, making her hair stand on end.

The bed was originally against the wall, but now there was a narrow gap. When she walked over just now, her peripheral vision swept through the gap between the bed and the wall; when she put down the computer, her brain suddenly realized what she had seen.

Between the bed and the wall… wasn’t there a face squeezed in?

She slowly turned around and opened her mouth but couldn’t make a sound.

Lin Sanjiu was in a position that a normal person couldn’t achieve, lying flat against the edge of the bed, her hands and feet hooked around the wooden planks, perfectly hiding her entire body behind the mattress. This posture seemed effortless for her; she had been staring absentmindedly at the desk until she suddenly returned to her senses when Wu Lun met her gaze, smiling and saying, “Didn’t expect that, did you? You can even hide someone here.”

The beauty advisor sat down on the floor with a thud.

“What are you afraid of? It’s not the first time you’ve seen me.” Lin Sanjiu climbed down, remembering to push the bed back into place. “I knew you called the police. But, you know, if I didn’t let you call once, you wouldn’t behave. Now, you have a record of making false reports to the police, so you’ll listen to me.”

She paused, pondering, “Why does my tone sound like that of a villain?”

Wu Lun wanted to cry but couldn’t. Leaning against the desk, she looked up at Lin Sanjiu as she approached, blocking the fluorescent lamp’s light. She suddenly hiccupped and trembled, asking, “W-what do you want?”

“It’s a long story. I originally planned to see if there was any unusual news, then use your computer to post messages and find other people, gather information.” Lin Sanjiu squatted down, facing her directly. Her painstakingly painted face looked like something out of a horror movie. “Without the internet, it’s difficult for me.”

She glanced at Wu Lun, trying to reassure her. “Why are you still so scared? I haven’t even touched you. If I wanted to harm you, you would have been dried meat by now.”

“Y-you—do you also eat people?”

“No, no.” Lin Sanjiu scratched her head, saying, “I don’t know why… I might be a little hungry. I originally wanted to comfort you… So, consider today your deadline, and you won’t be afraid anymore, right?”

Wu Lun sniffled, tears and snot running down her face, whimpering, “Please don’t comfort me anymore.”

The two fell silent, and the beauty advisor suddenly looked up. “Are you hungry? Shall I cook something for you? I have eggs, vegetables, ham, and noodles.”

Lin Sanjiu was taken aback. Before she could respond, Wu Lun crawled away from her, heading straight for the small open kitchen—it was called a kitchen, but it was just a simple refrigerator next to a stove. “Aren’t you afraid of me?” Lin Sanjiu watched as she quickly grabbed a bunch of noodles, saying, “Not enough. Need more.”

Wu Lun glanced back at her, pouring the entire bag of noodles into the pot. “My mom said even if something big happens, a bowl of hot noodle soup will smooth out any bad mood. I don’t know what you’re going to do to me, but at least after you eat, you have to remember my kindness in making this hot noodle soup.”

“It won’t work if you say it like this.”

“Then I won’t care!” Wu Lun said firmly, chopping off several vegetable stems, “You still have to eat noodles!”

This was basically the same as the steps humans take to tame wild animals, with the first step being to feed them. But Lin Sanjiu had no objections; she sat obediently on the sofa and waited to eat. The beauty advisor seemed to be quite skilled in the kitchen, with nimble and dexterous movements and generous with ingredients. The sizzling of steam, the crackling of oil in the pan, the aroma of ham and eggs, and the clatter of knives and bowls quickly dispelled any feelings of fear and tension. Even Wu Lun gradually relaxed, as if the hot noodle soup had a special comforting power for her.

Soon, there were five bowls of hot noodle soup in front of Lin Sanjiu, each topped with a fried egg. Slices of ham and several fish balls were piled on top of the noodles, golden brown eggs paired with fresh green vegetables, making one’s mouth water at first glance. Posthumans were like wolves with elastic stomachs: they could survive for ten days or half a month without food, but they could swallow a whole cart when there was food.

“You’re really nice,” she said, sweating as she ate, deeply feeling that leaving that empty room and finding the beauty advisor was the right choice. “You can rest assured, six months later, you’ll have me to protect you.”

Except for her red eyes and nose, Wu Lun almost looked normal now. “My mom is right,” she muttered softly, pushing the bowl of noodles slightly. “What six months?”

“In six months, there will be a doomsday world,” Lin Sanjiu reminded her.

“Oh, right, right,” Wu Lun echoed.

“I am a posthuman from another world.” Lin Sanjiu knew she didn’t believe it, and she didn’t intend to make her believe it all at once, so she said everything she needed to, adding, “I need to find the consular officer, try to get more… get more doomsday visas back to Twelve… other apocalypse worlds. I have friends waiting for me over there.”

“Yes, yes, so you have to hurry up and leave, right? Don’t delay, okay?”

“I need to find the consular officer.” Lin Sanjiu glanced at her. If she were really a lunatic, she might have been fooled by Wu Lun.

“How about this?” Despite her delicate and docile appearance, Wu Lun could come up with a few bad ideas when she tried. “You go to the bookstore now and buy the yellow pages. I’ll give you the money. It has everyone’s phone numbers, and then you can call the consular officer!”

Lin Sanjiu rubbed her forehead.

Without any fuss, she placed the chopsticks on her palm, converted them into cards with a thought, and handed them to the beauty advisor.

Wu Lun was obviously deeply ingrained in materialistic education.

“There must be an explanation for this, although I can’t think of one,” she said stubbornly, “My grades were never good, and I’m not particularly smart. Just because I can’t explain it doesn’t mean your magic trick is real.”

“I’ve seen performances by many famous magicians,” when faced with a challenge to her belief, the beauty advisor forgot that she was speaking to a lunatic, saying earnestly, “There are many that remain unsolved after the magician retired or died. Compared to those, yours isn’t that strange. You didn’t throw my chopsticks on the ground, did you?”

Lin Sanjiu thought about showing her [Mosaic Censorship] but decided against it.

“I’ve seen people float mid-air wearing only shorts, with nothing on them,” Wu Lun continued. “And some take things from a distance, like an office two streets away; they look through the window on this side of the building, reach under the desk with their hand, and bring over a file folder from the office that far away.”

Lin Sanjiu swallowed the mouthful of noodle soup and thought for a moment.

Floating mid-air was just a magic trick; she had seen it before… But taking things from a distance, wasn’t that an evolved ability? They had teleported here not long ago and already knew they had to rely on magic tricks to make money?

“Who?” she asked. “What’s the name of that magician? I want to find them.”

“You’ll have to wait decades and die before you can meet him,” Wu Lun waved her hand. “Anida died a long time ago. He was one of the most famous magicians of the last century.”