Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1335: A Glimpse of the World

Han Suiping possessed both quick thinking and organization. Even though the shocking turn of events threw his thoughts into disarray, he quickly sorted out several questions to which he must find answers: first, where is the Twelve Worlds?

“Many posthumans from the past have established the Twelve Worlds, where the survival difficulty is relatively low, similar to the order of human society.”

A woman in a white suit sat on the sofa, explaining to the male host next to her. The host rested his arm on the table, seemingly very interested in the topic: “Oh, is it the ‘Twelve Worlds’ you mentioned in your book?”

“Yes.” The woman turned her head and smiled at the camera, her makeup exquisite, resembling a movie actress. “I have lived in six of them.”

The video, ‘Friday Night Talk, Episode 1002: Guest Posthuman Shang Wan Talks About the Twelve Worlds,’ stopped here and buffered again.

Han Suiping glanced at the remaining half-hour of the video and sighed inwardly. If he waited for the video to buffer bit by bit, wouldn’t he have to sit until tomorrow morning? However, this search result had already given him some of the most important information: it turns out that Twelve Worlds is related to posthumans, and the latter established twelve human societies.

Why didn’t they mention countries, but rather ‘human societies’? Where were they established, and if new countries were established, why was there no news domestically?

Han Suiping vaguely knew about the existence of posthumans from the internet before, but honestly, he was too excited during his first two online experiences; even his memories were a blurry mess of excitement. Coupled with the fact that he was like an illiterate suddenly thrown into a library, there were countless concepts, common knowledge, and information to understand and grasp—in the limited opportunities, he did not spend time on posthumans.

So, the second question is, what exactly are posthumans?

In the search bar, he entered ‘posthuman.’

This time, nearly tens of millions of search results popped up. Of course, he also knew now that not every search result was worth looking at. As you scrolled from the first few pages, the relevance of search results would decrease. On the first search result, he carefully clicked the right mouse button and squinted to find ‘Open in New Tab’ — he was quite familiar with this thing called a browser now.

The first result was an advertisement.

Well, it clearly said AD… But Han Suiping couldn’t even bring himself to skip the advertisement, lingering for a few seconds, then remembered the important task at hand. The terror and despair from accidentally killing someone seemed to gradually fade away as he opened the webpage. He knew rationally that he was saving himself and should be nervous and afraid, but in reality, he couldn’t help but enjoy every second online.

The cold night breeze, the rhythmic sound of the waves, the pale light of the cellphone flashlight, the dead person in Room 2004… When he hid under the blanket and secretly looked at the computer screen, this moment seemed magical, and he felt like he would never forget it.

He opened many search results in a row. The first one was from a website called World Encyclopedia, and the entry for ‘posthuman’ read:

Survivors from other human worlds destroyed by doomsday (see doomsday world entry).

He opened the entry for the doomsday world and continued reading while waiting for it to buffer.

Race: Posthumans currently appear to have a similar composition to the races of our world.

Abilities: Posthumans have developed abilities similar to superpowers to cope with the drastic changes of doomsday (see superpower entry). After they arrive in our world, their abilities gradually decline and are completely lost after several months, making them indistinguishable from us. This is also the basis for their integration into society and living together.

Identification: In the absence of surface signs, only posthumans (including those who have completely declined) can identify each other.

Because posthuman abilities may pose a certain danger, when it is necessary to persuade and control newly transported posthumans (see teleportation entry), it is generally posthumans residing in our world who undertake this task. The ability to be recognized by the other party becomes a crucial part of this job.

Assistance and Management: Most countries currently have special posthuman management departments, with a high proportion of posthuman staff. These departments can be divided into several sub-departments, such as ‘Contact, Negotiation, and Registration’ (see negotiation entry), ‘Assistance, Education, Integration, and Welfare System,’ ‘Posthuman Late Follow-up Investigation,’ and ‘Technical Research Cooperating with Posthumans.’

History and Controversy: The first appearance time of posthumans cannot be traced. In the early days after posthumans were discovered, there were several waves of curiosity and fear in various countries, followed by the ‘Dark Ages’ (see Dark Ages entry) that lasted ten years. During this period, all posthumans teleported here were closely monitored. Once their abilities began to decline, they were subjected to military suppression and even torture or human experiments by various countries.

A turning point unexpectedly occurred thirty years ago in a movement for same-sex marriage rights (see Harker protest entry), which brought the posthuman issue to public attention for the first time. After the inhumane treatment they suffered was exposed to the public, the movement to fight for posthuman rights and the charity organizations helping posthumans have never ceased. However, there are still voices opposing the acceptance of posthumans. Opponents mainly believe that even posthumans who have lost their abilities due to differences in their origins and experiences from humans in our world are unpredictable and may cause social unrest.

Han Suiping stared motionlessly at the computer screen, overwhelmed by the information. Did these things really happen in history? What Harker, what Dark Ages—he had never even heard of them. From the advertisement, ‘Lin Sanjiu’ was obviously also a posthuman, indicating that posthumans are in his country too. Why didn’t he know about this before? Also, can same-sex marriage even be legal? Wouldn’t that cause chaos? Forget it; he, a murderer, has no right to comment.

The page was very long, and there were many detailed explanations below, including ‘important events in history,’ ‘figures in history who may have been posthumans,’ ‘means to delay the decline of abilities,’ and ‘research progress cooperating with posthumans.’ He also read a special article that said ‘the posthuman can be married.’ He even specifically looked at the ‘identification principles for newly transported posthumans.’

“Newly transported posthumans are relatively easy to identify. They will suddenly appear in a place, and their clothing, overall condition, appearance, and demeanor will significantly differ from the locals. They mistakenly believe that this world will also encounter doomsday after six months, so their behavior will show similarities, such as inquiring about social common sense to the public, attempting to hoard supplies, etc. (see newly transported posthuman entry).”

“In principle, posthuman departments do not recommend the public to approach newly transported posthumans rashly. An effective method is when witnessing individuals who may be newly transported posthumans, the public should immediately inform the local posthuman department. Many posthuman department websites have emergency reporting channels, and they can also inform the posthuman department through local hotlines, mobile apps, social media accounts, etc.”

They can really go online at any time… Han Suiping marveled.

“At the same time, do not actively contact them, avoid direct communication (unless unnoticed, you can avoid it), continue to pay attention to Special Alert warnings, and cooperate with and satisfy the requests of newly transported posthumans within the permitted scope. If there is a dangerous situation, please call the local posthuman department’s emergency number. The alarm will be lifted when the newly transported posthuman is under control.”

“In general, newly transported posthumans believe that a stable and safe modern society is beneficial for recuperation and replenishment, so they rarely take large-scale destructive actions. However, when they do commit crimes, the posthuman department will prosecute them judicially after they are controlled for interrogation, in cooperation with local inspection agencies (see posthuman crime and related legal entries).”

Finally, at the bottom, he saw this paragraph.

“After decades of trial and error, today ‘posthuman’ has gradually become an economic issue, a human rights issue, rather than a major social security issue. However, it is regrettable that, when most countries generally need to cooperate due to different ideologies, the world’s largest country with the largest land area, population, and strongest economic and military power is not on the list of signatories to the international posthuman convention. As the likelihood of posthuman appearance increases with population density, we still do not know how many posthumans have appeared there and what they have encountered.”

It seemed unnecessary to read these.

What Han Suiping most wanted to know was whether he could also go to Twelve Worlds since he had nowhere to go now. But it turned out that the Twelve Worlds were not on this planet at all.

Then how could ‘Lin Sanjiu’ go back? By spaceship? Wouldn’t that be a science fiction story?

No, Lin Sanjiu said they could contact each other through paper cranes, so the third question should be: how can he use paper cranes to persuade the other party to take him to Twelve Worlds?

What exactly are paper cranes?

He entered the keywords ‘posthuman’ and ‘paper crane’ into the search bar and quickly found the information he wanted on the second page — a personal account from a social networking site.

“This is how we posthumans used to contact each other: paper cranes. Aren’t they cute?” Beneath this short paragraph was a picture of a white paper crane. “Now it’s about to be unusable, too. I’m suddenly feeling a bit sad.”

Han Suiping was startled and quickly checked the time of the post.

It was posted last Friday. Could these paper cranes still be used?

Han Suiping looked around and found that the avatar belonged to a beautiful girl named ‘I’m at odds with Cantaloupe. ‘ She had tens of thousands of followers—even the combined population of other countries didn’t have as many, so this number was quite large. She was obviously a posthuman, and it seemed her abilities had not completely declined yet.

But the paper crane was overseas; even if he had seen it, it wouldn’t have helped. He casually scrolled down.

“It seems that ‘I’m at odds with Cantaloupe’ is an employee of a local posthuman department. A few months ago, she also posted, ‘I’m about to leave. There seems to be a new person appearing in the southwestern area of Wenchi. Everyone nearby should be careful!'” Many fan comments, as shown below, wished her safe travels.

In addition to work, she also liked to post some small animals, food, and selfies. Occasionally, there were more melancholic posts, all talking about the struggles of survival in the past, often receiving a lot of comfort. From her posting status, it seemed that the probability of newly teleported posthumans appearing was not high. Sometimes, people even questioned: “Your work is so easy, and there are so many employees in the department. Isn’t it a waste of public funds?”

Since the other party was a member of maintaining social order, he shouldn’t tell her that he had just killed someone, right?

Han Suiping hesitated for a long time, really not knowing what other choices he had left. He had reached a dead end, but he felt reluctant to confess. After thinking about it, he plucked up the courage to send her a private message, of course, concealing the fact that he had killed someone. He estimated that the other party might not see it immediately, and now the sky was about to light up, so he carefully left the deck after closing the computer.

The next night, Han Suiping saw the reply.

The first message was: “Are you kidding me? Are there really posthumans in that place?”

After a long half day, the second message was: “I raised this issue with the department today. We decided to send a paper crane to Lin Sanjiu.”