Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1354: Wu Lun After June 14th

A chef’s cooking always carried their emotions and warmth—at least that’s what Wu Lun believed.

That evening, the hot noodles she cooked at He Huan’s place tasted slightly bitter; even the soup and noodles seemed absent-minded, lacking sincere warmth.

After Lin Sanjiu sent her home, Wu Lun watched TV in her room for a while. After twenty minutes, she realized she was watching the shopping channel. A feeling of discomfort arose; she got up to drink water, then paced around the room. She remembered when she secretly took five yuan from her mother’s purse as a child, though the amount was small, the burning shame of being caught had lingered for over a decade, burning through time until today, leaving her restless—until a loud knocking on the door startled her back to reality.

This time, the knocking was different: some lightly tapped their knuckles, waiting for a response from inside, while others pounded on the door with their fist, demanding a response from within.

The knocking now belonged to the latter category—Xiao Leng, who had a heart-to-heart talk with her, entered as soon as the door opened.

It was already late, and Wu Lun, a single woman, was unwilling to stay alone with a man who was almost a stranger. She left the door half-open and asked softly, “Um, what’s the matter?”

Xiao Leng looked around and sat on her small sofa. “You guys gathered again tonight, right? What’s the situation?”

As if reporting to a teacher, Wu Lun stood there and whispered, “They… took some people and seemed to force them to do some advertisements.”

Xiao Leng nodded, seemingly unsurprised. “Did they mention where?”

“They… just said it was in the factory area on the outskirts, but that’s such a large area… I don’t know the specifics.”

Xiao Leng frowned. “You realize how bad these people are now, right?”

Being forcibly taken away and not knowing when they could return home was indeed terrifying; Wu Lun would know. She felt something she couldn’t understand. “If they’re so bad, why did they still want me… I’m just an ordinary person.”

“You committed the crime of harboring criminals, so you should redeem yourself,” Xiao Leng said sternly. “Otherwise, you’ll be punished according to the law.”

Wu Lun quickly nodded. “Will you rescue them? When will you go?”

“That’s something we’re considering,” Xiao Leng said, and perhaps seeing her excellent attitude, he added, “Didn’t she say they’ll be released anyway? Let her do the advertising, and it’ll be convenient for us to catch them all at once.”

After seeing him off, Wu Lun quickly closed and locked the door. She prepared to wash up and go to bed, not wanting to think about it anymore. However, while brushing her teeth in front of the mirror, she suddenly froze.

She never told him Lin Sanjiu would release them in the end.

Lin Sanjiu did say that people would be released after the advertising ended, but Wu Lun forgot to mention it. So, how did Xiao Leng know? He Huan couldn’t possibly have installed cameras and bugs in his apartment, could he? Hold on, He Huan?

She put down her toothbrush, staring at the sink for a while, lost in thought.

She had never liked He Huan much because he always seemed to be able to calculate everything. If she excluded the possibility of being monitored, then the only person who could have told Xiao Leng about their conversation was He Huan.

Then, wasn’t Lin Sanjiu in danger?

It was strange. She never felt so concerned for Lin Sanjiu when she was ordered to monitor her, but as soon as she realized that someone else was also monitoring her and maybe even influencing her every move, she instantly became afraid for Lin Sanjiu.

Now that she thought about it, wasn’t the idea of capturing people also He Huan’s idea? If He Huan was sent, after Lin Sanjiu was caught, she would be pinned with blame for the crime. Something about this seem wrong.

Wu Lun lay on the bed, tossing and turning, unable to reconcile her dilemma no matter how hard she tried. Lin Sanjiu was a good person and probably a good friend, too, but she stole from the museum. Even though she said those things originally belonged to the posthumans, stealing from an exhibition is still stealing; maybe she did deserve punishment. However, she had only gathered companions to leave together; what crime did she commit? Wouldn’t it be safer for everyone if posthumans were encouraged to leave sooner? Her companions just wanted to leave. Why did they have to be caught all at once?

The authority even used He Huan’s posthuman identity to infiltrate her group. The more Wu Lun thought about it, the more uncomfortable she felt. She took out her phone from under the pillow.

Opening the messages, she found Lin Sanjiu’s number and stared at the cursor for a while.

What should she write? How should she say it? Should she say anything at all?

“I think you should be careful of the gathered people,” she typed, then hesitated for a few seconds and deleted it.

Cicadas charged the night with a single chirp from the window. The horn of a car blared from time to time on the road far outside the neighborhood.

“Doesn’t it seem too coincidental that He Huan came to find you voluntarily? Doesn’t it seem too convenient?” She deleted the text again.

“Before you trust He Huan, you should…” She should do what? Wu Lun didn’t know and couldn’t think of anything, so she deleted it.

Wu Lun buried her face in the pillow, sounding as if she had a trapped animal in her throat.

After writing seven or eight messages before deleting each one, she gave up. It was too late now. Whatever happened could be dealt with tomorrow. Let her be an ostrich for the night; maybe everything would be fine by morning.

Just as she was about to drift off into sleep, the same knocking on the door startled her awake like a sudden wind. This time, the knocking was so strong that it seemed like it would break the door down, accompanied by a man’s voice shouting outside the door, “Open up! Quickly!”

Wu Lun hurriedly put on her clothes, peeked through the peephole, and saw at least two or three men. She took a deep breath, trying to calm down a bit, then opened the door slightly. “W-what’s going on?”

“What do you mean ‘what’s going on’?” Xiao Leng snorted and looking around, his expression guarded as if he had entered enemy territory. “You don’t know what you did?”

Wu Lun’s hands and feet turned cold, and her heart sank. She didn’t think she did anything wrong but was still afraid.

“We’ve looked into it and decided you shouldn’t meet her again,” Xiao Leng said, waving his hand. “Pack your things and come with us.”

An explosion went off in Wu Lun’s head. “G-go, where? I—I don’t want to go.”

“It’s not up to you,” said the balding, middle-aged man from the hospital, suddenly sneering. “If you were scared, why did you warn her? You almost exposed our entire operation!”

Wu Lun’s first thought was that she might have accidentally sent a message. But that was impossible; she was sure she hadn’t, and besides, the other party said it was “almost” exposed. She knew that phone calls and messages might be monitored, but could words not spoken and messages not sent also be heard and seen?

“Hurry up and pack!” Xiao Leng shouted.

The balding man was at least partly correct. She didn’t get to decide whether to stay or leave.

Watching her body move—her feet pacing back and forth, her hands stuffing various things into boxes, her body feeling light and soft—Wu Lun’s mind retreated deep inside her, like a snail retracting into its shell for safety.

After packing everything and writing a note, Wu Lun finally let out a small sigh of relief. “Are you… are you going to send me back home? But I still have to go to work.”

Xiao Leng ignored her. He had said several times, “You’ve been bothering us all night. How annoying,” so Wu Lun hesitated to ask again. Carrying bags big and small, she was dragged back to the white building last time, and this time there were a lot of signatures and hand prints, but she didn’t even get a good look at the document’s contents. She sat in her room until morning, when the thinly-haired head poked in and said, “Let’s go!”

The word “go”, of course, did not mean that she could go back to her own little apartment.

After taking the 7:30 am long-distance bus and more than ten hours of travel, she returned to her hometown in a daze. She had already left her job with a text message, and she couldn’t even return to get her monthly salary.

“We’re taking good care of you,” the balding man said. “I was specially sent to take you home. This is for your protection.”

Wu Lun was indeed protected. After returning home, the neighborhood committee often checked on her, and unfamiliar people sat outside her door. Her phone remained the same, but she pulled out the SIM card, cut it with scissors, and flushed it down the toilet.

She didn’t want to use a phone anymore.