Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1328: TV Ad

In the first few days, she drifted through in a haze.

After placing the small white porcelain jar on the cabinet on the first day, she went to work as usual. Her colleagues asked if she had caught a cold yesterday, and she nodded in agreement. By the time she finished work, Deng Yilan still felt nothing. The thought of ‘Han Jun is dead’ had crossed her mind a few times, but it didn’t stir her much.

Returning home, she unlocked the door with her keys, bent down to change her shoes, and called out, “Honey, I’m home—”

Then Deng Yilan remembered. She fell silent momentarily, put on her slippers, turned on the lights in the dim living room, and looked around. Nothing was missing. A stack of unfinished, missing person flyers still lay beside the television, and the dried orange peels from the past few days were still on the coffee table… Yet the house felt empty.

It was almost like when he used to work the night shift, and she would come home to find no one. Deng Yilan slowly sat on the sofa and looked up at the clock on the wall. By five or six in the morning, she would usually hear Han Jun unlocking the door. She used to hate it when Han Jun worked the night shift, not because she was afraid of sleeping alone, but because he would come home neither early nor late, disturbing her sleep.

The next morning, when she opened her eyes on the sofa, she washed her face and went to work without changing her clothes. There was a senior colleague with whom she had a good relationship, and during lunch, she asked, “When are you planning to have a baby?” Deng Yilan replied, “I don’t know yet.”

The third day was particularly difficult because her parents finally found out, and the police came to ask questions. Her parents came straight to her door, sighed repeatedly in the house filled with smoke, and her father asked to smoke on the balcony several times. She could still find cigarette ashes on the floor. Despite everything, she still went to work. Her mother looked at her and said, “This is terrifying. Aren’t you afraid at all?”

On the fourth day, Deng Yilan was working accounts when she noticed her colleagues staring at her. She wiped her face and realized she had been crying. She couldn’t hide it anymore. The company granted her five days off even though she pleaded with the leaders not to give her leave. She didn’t want to go home, but everyone felt she needed to.

As she was leaving, the senior colleague who had asked her about her plans for having a baby approached her, looking concerned.

“I really didn’t know,” she said, sighing, as she waited for the elevator with Deng Yilan. “When is the cremation? My kid has final exams coming up, so I might not be able to attend the funeral. Let me give you a token of my sympathy.”

“No need.” Deng Yilan said. “I found him the next day, and they informed me that the cremation was done. There won’t be a funeral.”

The senior colleague was taken aback. “The next day? But didn’t you say he— he was—”

It’s never easy to say those words directly before the bereaved. Deng Yilan felt something stirring inside her again, tearing her apart. She steadied herself and heard herself say, “Yes.”

“So soon? Wasn’t there supposed to be an autopsy?” The senior colleague realized suddenly that she shouldn’t have said that and quickly added, “Oh, they must have already completed the autopsy.”

Autopsy. She had never thought about this issue—rather, whenever she involuntarily thought of Han Jun’s final appearance, her first reaction was always to suppress it. These days, she hadn’t even asked about the progress or assisting with the investigation, which was only that one time around eleven in the morning. Wasn’t she supposed to identify the woman with the hat?

Feeling a bit uncomfortable, Deng Yilan decided to call the police station. The policewoman who answered the phone had a good attitude and told her they were still reviewing the surveillance footage, and the autopsy report hadn’t come out yet, asking her to wait for notification.

When she returned home, her parents were still there, informing her they would stay for a few days. Deng Yilan was grateful to her parents. Seeing people in the house when she opened the door was more comforting than anything else.

“Why don’t you go back home and let me take care of you?” her mother said. “You could rent out this place and get some extra income.”

“I won’t rent it out,” she said as she peeled peanuts, not eating any. They piled up one by one. “This is Han Jun’s house.”

“But he’s dead now, so it’s yours,” her mother said. Seemingly realizing it wasn’t appropriate to say that now, she sat down and looked her over, sighing heavily. “You’re still grieving, keeping everything bottled up inside. What’s there to be sad about? Everyone goes through this someday.”

“Stop talking.”

Her mother became angry, saying to her father, “Look at her, being so picky. She picked a short-lived one in her thirties! It’ll be even harder to find a husband after a second marriage. Although people are more open-minded now and not against divorcees, to say that her husband died…”

Deng Yilan stood up abruptly. She strode back to the bedroom, slammed the door shut, and locked it.

“What nonsense are you talking about?!” her father mumbled in the living room. For once, her mother didn’t retort. She murmured a few words and fell silent.

After a while, her father came to ask her to open the door. Deng Yilan climbed out of bed and glanced in the wardrobe mirror, realizing she looked nothing like herself. When she opened the door, her father was also stunned. Her father wasn’t good at comforting people, but he managed to say something. Then he explained a few things to her mother, finally telling her to take care and not to get depressed.

“What is there for me to get depressed about,” Deng Yilan said, wiping away a tear. “He died under mysterious circumstances. Until I figure it out, what is there for me to get depressed about?”

Her father opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. He had already taken a few steps away when he turned back, solemn. “Deng Yilan, stay at home with peace of mind, cooperate with the investigation, and wait for the results. Don’t go out and do anything rash.”

What did he mean by doing anything rash? It seemed to be a warning, but he didn’t dare say it directly, probably afraid she would get ideas.

Deng Yilan thought over and over about Han Jun’s last words to her, and then she opened the ‘City Traffic Information Encyclopedia’ on her phone. She typed in ‘Copper Harbor Pier,’ and the search results came out—she had searched it once on June 6th and had even posted missing person flyers there, but she couldn’t remember the bus number.

After closing the information encyclopedia, she noticed her phone had a new app called ‘M Master.’ She was sure she hadn’t installed it, but installing a mobile app required browsing through the app store, paying, and connecting to a computer on-site. She hadn’t been in the mood for that lately.

M Master opened but crashed immediately. She tried to delete it, but it wouldn’t delete. After thinking for a while, she called the police station again.

“I lost my phone that night,” she said, but the policewoman interrupted her.

“We installed it,” the other party said. “If criminals contact you, we can detect their messages. Don’t tamper with it.”

‘Technology is really advanced if it can detect this.’ Deng Yilan hung up the phone and looked at the icon of M Master for a while, secretly hoping that the woman in the hat would call her now so that she could catch her through M Master, get her arrested, and execute her—she couldn’t handle this case alone. There must be accomplices, and they should all be arrested and executed together!

Suddenly, she thought again, this was the difference between her and Han Jun. If someone surreptitiously installed an app on Han Jun’s phone, even if it were to his advantage, he would definitely be unhappy. That’s just how he was; it was very strange.

When she walked into the living room, she found her parents watching a TV ad.

“It’s really strange. Advertising in all these newspapers and TV must cost money,” her mother muttered. “And what kind of advertisement is this? I can’t make sense of it.”

“Maybe it’s some activity for young people,” her father said, waving Deng Yilan over. “Come and take a look. Do you know what this is about? It might take your mind off things.”

Although she wasn’t in the mood, Deng Yilan glanced over. There was a TV ad inserted in the middle of a drama, with only a segment of text floating on the screen, unmoving. In the bottom right corner was a line of small text that read, ‘Shadow Operation will play in 1 minute and 53 seconds.’ It was counting down continuously, but the ad remained unchanged. The usual commercials for laundry detergent, sanitary pads, and cars were nowhere to be seen.

She read the text.

“I arrived on June 2nd, and my condition is currently stable. I want to return to the Twelve Worlds. According to our speculation, the regression we encountered here may be reversed after returning. I can obtain a visa without causing any damage, but I still need help. If you are someone like me and want to return, no matter how long you’ve been here, please contact me. Tell your paper crane to find Lin Sanjiu, or respond to me differently.”

“What’s this?” Deng Yilan said, distracted. “I don’t get it either.”

She glanced at the words ‘Twelve Worlds’ again, finding them familiar.

“Oh, it’s starting,” her father said. “Come, sit down and watch for a while.”

Amidst the continuous gunfire, Deng Yilan stared at the changing faces on the screen, the heroic battles, but her mind was filled with the words she had just read. Why did they seem familiar? She was sure she had heard this term before. Twelve Worlds.

“I’m heading to bed.”

She didn’t want to watch anymore, so she got up and walked past the determined face of the female lead on the screen, her eyes filled with tears. The female lead had just learned that the enemy had cruelly killed the male lead’s old lover, and she was encouraging him to turn his hatred into strength and eradicate the enemy together. Deng Yilan felt that they both acted as if they were crazy.

Closing the bedroom door, she lay on the bed, placed her hand on Han Jun’s pillow, and gently rubbed the fabric with her fingers. Not long ago, his hair, skin, and breath were pressed against this fabric.

On weekends, they would stay in bed a little longer in the morning. Once, when Han Jun had just woken up from a dream, his voice still hoarse, not knowing what he had dreamed of, he looked at the ceiling and whispered to her, “Sometimes I think this life is pretty nice. I never thought I might one day have a wife and a house to live in.”

“Sounds like you used to be a homeless person,” Deng Yilan replied while texting, not paying much attention.

“When I was in the Twelve Worlds, I really was homeless,” Han Jun said, then stopped speaking.

Deng Yilan suddenly sat up, her heart pounding.