Doomsday Wonderland

[Full Title] 1309: Money Is Hard to Earn, Shit Is Hard to Swallow. These Words of Wisdom, Let Us Be Encouraged Together

When Wu Lun woke up, the first thing she saw was the floor covered with old newspapers. The tea table, sofa, and TV were gone, and her small bed had become a flat boat floating in a sea of old newspapers. Lin Sanjiu sat in the middle of the newspaper sea, scanning the newspapers.

“Good morning.”

“W-Where’s my furniture?” the beauty advisor said, jumping up. “Those belong to the landlord! If they’re gone, I’ll have to compensate!”

“I stored them in my card inventory,” Lin Sanjiu said without lifting her head; she extended her arm, and suddenly, a tea table fell from her palm. She casually patted it, and the tea table disappeared again. “They’re not lost, don’t worry. I just needed some space.”

Wu Lun stuttered for a minute because she couldn’t rationalize what she was seeing, even searching under the bed as if she could find the missing tea table under the bed.

“You’re right, strange news occasionally pops up,” Lin Sanjiu said, “but… no news is this extraordinary.”

“Your magic is getting better,” Wu Lun said, seeming to voluntarily block out the phenomena she couldn’t explain. Her thoughts turned to the newspaper, and she replied, “I told you, none of this is strange.”

Lin Sanjiu looked at the newspaper in her hand again.

In a city in the neighboring province, an unidentified person occupied a residential area. He brainwashed a whole community of residents with some so-called magic, secretly forming a cult-like organization venerating him as ‘Lord Leader.’ After running underground for over half a year, the organization was successfully raided by local police who had long been deployed. The mastermind and other suspects were arrested.

If this mastermind was really a posthuman, he would be the most embarrassing posthuman Lin Sanjiu had ever seen.

Moreover, this report was published in a newspaper three months ago.

There was also a piece of news, not exactly newsworthy. A charity organization posted a notice saying they had recently taken in a delusional schizophrenic patient, suspected to have just escaped from somewhere, with no identification documents on them. The patient claimed that the world was going to end doomsday soon, and demanded people listen to him and assist him. Lin Sanjiu was intrigued for a moment, thinking she had finally found a clue to other posthumans until she read, ‘the patient had great strength from birth, requiring three male attendants to restrain,’ which dashed her hopes. Unless newly evolved and poorly powered, no posthuman would be subdued by just three ordinary people.

All the oddities she could find were similar to these news items; as Wu Lun said, society had all sorts of people, and occasionally, one or two of these things happened.

With that, she could rule out the possibility of posthumans arriving in this world long ago. It seemed that Anida wasn’t a posthuman.

The biggest possibility left was that posthumans would appear in large numbers soon; perhaps they had already arrived. Would others make any noise? Surely they wouldn’t all be as docile as her, would they?

Just like when she appeared on the street dripping wet, when other posthumans were teleported, they would surely cause some disturbances. Perhaps these disturbances were too minor. She searched through the recent newspapers and found no similar reports—without the internet, there were no firsthand witness reports, and people could only passively receive news filtered by various organizations.

There seemed no other way; she could only prepare for doomsday while waiting for other posthumans to appear. Moreover, during this time, she could practice her Higher Consciousness more and see what was wrong with Mrs. Manas.

“You’re quite kind-hearted. I said I’d help you, so I’ll definitely help you,” Lin Sanjiu said, looking at Wu Lun. “Since you’ve taken a day off, let’s go do something productive.”

“What productive thing?”

“Food, weapons, medicine, daily necessities; we must buy them all.” Lin Sanjiu frowned, saying, “I don’t have many ordinary weapons; we both need to stock up, like compound bows, long knives, baseball bats, materials for Molotov cocktails. Are firearms legal here? If not, it’s going to be troublesome.” Lin Sanjiu got up, pondering, “All medicines are always useful. As for food, we can buy some that can be stored for a long time.”

Unfortunately, she lost a lot of her supplies. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have to worry about this.

“Don’t say that!” Wu Lun’s face turned pale. “If someone hears you, they’ll think I’m a terrorist!”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got your back.”

“What’s the use of having you?!”

Wu Lun quickly thought for a few seconds and found the best excuse, “I don’t have money. I can’t buy anything.”

“Aren’t you getting paid—”

“I’m broke.”

“Even with a salary of four thousand and five—”

“Do you think four thousand five hundred is a lot?”

Lin Sanjiu began to doubt. “Really? Then why were you begging me to take your money and leave last night? What were you going to give me then?”

Wu Lun hesitated, “At that time… I could say anything to save my life.”

Lin Sanjiu looked her up and down a few times as if bugs were crawling in her clothes. If she refused to take out her savings, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t force her; moreover, judging by her salary and local rent, she didn’t have much money, so it wouldn’t help to force her.

Since that’s the case, let’s see if she can make money with her evolved ability. Leaving aside other things, her long-hidden Scrooge McDuck ability might make her a business tycoon in this world. Perhaps there wouldn’t be any problem.

“Alright, let’s go,” Lin Sanjiu said, waving her hand. “Let’s go make some money.”

Wu Lun looked at her with a look that seemed to regard her as a mental patient, then asked, “Is there a saying like ‘money is hard to earn, shit is hard to swallow’ where you come from? How do you plan to make money?”

‘Don’t know…’

Just two days ago, she had over a hundred and ten thousand to spend as she pleased. How did she suddenly start worrying about money?

Lin Sanjiu sighed. “It’s hard to come up with ideas when you’re cooped up in the house and have no internet. Let’s go out and take a look.”

When Wu Lun followed her onto the street, the two stood on the main road, staring at each other for a long time, not knowing where to go to make money. The morning street was bathed in sunlight, bustling with the liveliness of everyday life: grandmas walking with their grandchildren, students skipping classes riding bicycles, bustling past. On such a morning full of the flavor of life, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help but ask, “Do you know where I can find someone hiring bodyguards? Thugs would also work. Or, where are underground fight clubs held?”

“I think you might not understand the profession of a beauty advisor.”

Lin Sanjiu frowned, trying to think. She vaguely remembered reading a post-apocalypse novel years ago, in which the protagonist, somehow knowing in advance, bought a large amount of necessary supplies… except it didn’t mention how he made money. ‘What kind of life experience is this? Can artistic works that aren’t grounded in reality be considered good works?’

When Wu Lun approached her again, she already had two bags of soup dumplings and two cups of soy milk in her hands. “Eat,” she said sympathetically. “There’s no rush to make money. After recovering from your illness, you can return to work and live a stable life.”

“Do you mean there are no bullies in this city? No underworld organizations? No unscrupulous rich people?”

“What are you talking about?” Wu Lun took a sip of soy milk, saying, “There are over ten million people in this city. How would I know?”

‘So useless.’

Did she have to resort to theft? But she despised stealing the most.

“Oh no, the team leader didn’t approve my full-day leave,” Wu Lun said while standing on the roadside eating soup dumplings and looking at her phone. “She only gave me half… I have to go back to work at four in the afternoon. Don’t look at me like that; this is the only way I can make money.”

She pocketed her phone and asked, “Where did you live before?”

Oh, right. She probably still wanted to find her family. “On another planet,” Lin Sanjiu said truthfully, with a sincere expression. “That place is called Heaven Underworld. I bought a spaceship there. My friends and I lived on the spaceship. It’s very spacious. After doomsday, you can come and stay there too.”

Wu Lun’s face clearly showed despair.

“Forget it,” she said, stuffing the last soup dumpling into her mouth and handing the other bag to Lin Sanjiu. “I can see that you don’t even know what year or month it is… How about this. Since I rarely get a half-day off, why don’t you accompany me to stroll around the city?”

“You want me to accompany you?” Lin Sanjiu was surprised.

“Although you’re a bit… um, as long as you don’t mention anything about the end of the world, you’re quite normal.” Wu Lun gestured to the bus stop, walking and talking, “You’re also quite good-looking, with a nice figure. Too bad; if you were well, maybe we could be friends.”

“We can be friends now,” Lin Sanjiu said casually.

Wu Lun suddenly glanced at her, then continued to walk towards the bus stop. Lin Sanjiu followed her for a while, gradually understanding, and asked in a low voice, “Are you… always alone?”

Otherwise, why would she let a mentally ill person she had just met yesterday accompany her outside?

“I’m used to it. I have to talk to so many customers during the day… it’s enough to call my mom more on weekends,” Wu Lun said softly.

In such a big city, with over ten million people, she could only talk to others because of work.

Wu Lun seemed to sense her thoughts, turning her head to ask, “Are you lonely? Were you always alone before last night?”

“No.” Lin Sanjiu lowered her head, suddenly feeling like she was smiling a little. “Although my friends and I were constantly separated by time, I wasn’t lonely.”

“That’s good.” Wu Lun sighed.

The two of them quietly waited for the bus together, and when Lin Sanjiu walked into the carriage, for a moment, she thought she was back in her hometown, but in the blink of an eye, the faces of all the different people were different again.

“I’ve been working here for almost a year and haven’t had time to go to the city center,” Wu Lun explained. “There’s an art street and a very beautiful museum… I want to take a lot of photos this time and show them to my mom.”

‘Let’s consider today as my day off, too,’ Lin Sanjiu thought as they approached the museum. After all, she struggled so hard in the doomsday universe, didn’t she?

Thinking of this, she raised her head and saw a huge photo of the Pygmalion Choker hanging on the wall at the museum’s entrance.

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