Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 809: Farewell

Lin Sanjiu took the [Mask] off, and the appearance of the man sizzled away from her face. She took a long breath and set her foot on top of the table. The men’s trousers she was wearing sagged loosely.

She knew there was no point in getting angry at a system, but she couldn’t help but feel slightly resistant when she greeted Silas. ‘She welcomed me warmly every time, how could she delete my authority right away once I was gone?’

“Hey, fetch me something to drink,” she commanded indignantly while rubbing her neck.

Yu Yuan nestled into the other side of the couch, glancing at her. After spending nearly ten hours in the narrow pilot’s seat, he ended up walking like an old man suffering from sciatica when he stepped out of the aircraft.

“Hey, did you hear me?” Lin Sanjiu threw her head back and shouted again.

“Er, Erm... You have to say its name.”

Woyu, who was covered in bandages, edged his way from the doorway into the dining room. His chubby cheeks dangled limply on both sides of his pallid face. Seeing Lin Sanjiu and Yu Yuan both jerk up from the couch, he shook his head, signaling them that he could walk on his own. Slowly, he trudged into the dining room. He had no crutches, but there was a hollow iron pipe in his hand, which somehow looked familiar.

Lin Sanjiu raised her head and called for Silas after she pulled a chair out for him. She then threw Woyu a question, “Why are you out of the bed? Do you need anything?”

“I heard you were back, so I thought to stop by,” Woyu said as he sucked in cold air through his teeth to ease the pain. He then continued his sentence, “It’s kinda boring, you know, staying all alone at the infirmary by myself.”

Then, he looked at the table and mumbled, “It’s only been one day. I was hiding for my life under this table yesterday, hardly daring to breathe, and right now, I’m sitting here, alive. It really felt like a dream.”

Yu Yuan pulled out the on-screen menu for him. “Can I get you anything?”

“Ah, thank you. A glass of whiskey, then.”

Lin Sanjiu immediately raised her head and said, “You know, you shouldn’t be having any strong drinks right now. Your body is still recovering.”

“I really could use a glass of whiskey now,” Woyu said, trying his best to smile, but the corners of his lips moved a little upward before falling down again. “Don’t worry, I know my body well. It heals better with some spirits.”

Lin Sanjiu watched him finish the glass of whiskey in one gulp. When he ordered a second glass, her iced coke was served as well. She couldn’t recall when was the last time she had a coke. She played with the ice with her straw. She took a sip at a time, reveling in the prickling and cold sensation as the beverage washed across her tongue. Woyu suddenly spoke at this point.

“What happened to the man’s body afterward?”

Lin Sanjiu still did not know the name of the man who sold her the house. However, it probably didn’t matter anymore since he’d rolled and fallen down the blue sky. Lin Sanjiu frowned and took another sip of her drink before saying, “We threw it down from the sky.”

Woyu’s lips trembled slightly. He still couldn’t shake off the fear the man instilled in him.

“I didn’t really want to kill him actually,” Lin Sanjiu chomped on the ice and swallowed it like candy, “But I didn’t expect him to already be injured and unable to withstand our attacks.”

“I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t want to kill him,” Yu Yuan interjected indifferently. He picked up a piece of scrambled egg from the plate and continued, “That man was a threat. We didn’t know when he would fight back, so he was just better off dead.”

“I’m certainly not sorry for him. He deserved it, but...” Lin Sanjiu felt like explaining something, but for a moment, she couldn’t find the right words, so in the end, she kept her mouth shut. Woyu bottomed up the glass of golden liquid in mere seconds. There was a flush of redness on his chubby cheeks. Then, he asked Silas to bring him the whole bottle of whiskey and a bucket of ice. The wine in the storage was basically kept by Lin Sanjiu for Qing Jiuliu. It was the first time somebody took the wine since she parted ways with Qing Jiuliu and Magus.

“Why didn’t you want to kill him?” Woyu’s voice rang out, forcing their attention on him.

He lifted his thickly wrapped arm and filled the glass one-third full of whiskey. After that, he popped several ice cubes into the glass. He picked the glass up and took a sip. Then, he continued, “You... Usually, people go for the kill when their life is in jeopardy, but you’re different. Even though those people from the Munitions Factory tried to kill you, all you did was just knock them out and send them away. While for me, my community and I came after you because of your red crystals, and you didn’t kill me either. Why?”

Lin Sanjiu was a little taken aback by the question. She had never thought about this before. She usually wouldn’t go for the kill when facing an opponent, but it was far to say that she had a soft heart either. However, this did indeed set her apart from other posthumans.

“I can kill if the situation calls for it,” she mumbled after swallowing a piece of ice. “When the doomsday first befell on my world, my ability was very weak. However, just because you’re new to the doomsday, doesn’t mean that reality will stop throwing you curveballs and predicaments. To escape and also to survive, I killed... A lot.”

The other two listened quietly. The only sound in the dining room was the buzzing of the central air conditioner.

“Everyone wants to be strong, but do you know what’s really good about being strong?” Lin Sanjiu asked as she offered Woyu a grin. She could feel that her breath had become cold due to the ice she consumed. “Being strong makes me a good person.”

“Huh?” Woyu was stunned.

“In this era where survival precedes morals, practicing good is far more difficult and often costs more than doing evil. A dead man will not stand up and harm you, but that is not the same case for a living person, especially those you have let off. You will never know when they will strike back.” She looked up thoughtfully at the ceiling. Since Silas couldn’t repair major damage like this, there was a hole that was smashed through by Woyu. “Compassion is a luxury, especially now. It is far more luxurious than any other time in human history. I’m lucky to be able to afford it.”

Sitting at the other side of the table, Yu Yuan looked silently at Lin Sanjiu. His face under the tattoos held no expression, and his eyes glistened with a strange light that nobody could read. A deadly silence roamed about in the dining room. No other sound could be heard apart from the clatter of ice cubes and the sloshing of water when Woyu gulped down the glass of whiskey. He put the glass down and wiped his lips. His face and neck were thoroughly red as he said, “But... that is not “why”...”

“Hmm?”

“That—That is not why you don’t... don’t kill,” Woyu stammered. Instead of letting this embarrassment stop him from going on, he displayed an almost strange tenacity that seemed like he would not stop asking until he had an answer from her. “Being strong allows you to do so... But, but you still don’t have to do this at all.”

“You are right.” Lin Sanjiu frowned at the feeling of being questioned. It felt as if someone was trying to pry into her heart with a stick. Be that as it may, on second thought, it could have just been that she was not used to talking about her feelings, so she did not feel that offended. “Let me think about it...”

The question had raised Yu Yuan’s attention as well. He put the fork down slowly on the table.

“If I must say why...” she began speaking softly after a while. Even with her voice low like a sigh, it still sounded clearly in the quiet dining room. “Firstly, I just simply don’t think people should die this way, and secondly, I’m afraid of loneliness.”

“Loneliness?” Yu Yuan parroted, sounding a little surprised.

“Yeah,” Lin Sanjiu leaned on the couch and curled up her legs. “Somewhere in the universe, human civilizations are collapsing one after another because of various reasons. Meanwhile, those of us who are lucky enough to survive will be thrown into a different world in every fourteen months, and like a bird that can’t find a tree to perch, we will drift on and on with no end in sight.”

She hadn’t thought about it much before, but now the words came to her so smoothly, it was as if she had practiced saying them a thousand times. “There is no such thing as forever. Our family, our friends, none of them stay in the end. Even the Twelve Worlds are merely temporary landing spots for all of us. Nobody will know if we could get back here if we leave. I’m not afraid of death, I’m not afraid of duoluozhongs either, but I’m afraid of loneliness. When I am alone, it’s like I am still alive, but dead on the inside.”

She sighed and looked at the card in her hand, wondering when it had appeared. She was stunned for a few seconds. When the line [Hello, sister?] fell into her eyes, she felt as if she heard Ji Shanqing’s call. It was soft and soothing.

“Whenever I let my opponent go, it’s like I’ve become alive a little. A connection will be formed between us. After I help or save someone, even if he or she doesn’t appreciate it, even if we will never become friends or see each other again, that’s okay to me. At the very least, I know that there is someone out there in this boundless world who is connected to me, and that is all that matters. Eventually, a new bond is forged. In this way, perhaps one day, humanity will be able to survive in a whole different way.”

Lin Sanjiu shook her head and nipped off her sentence. She laughed, “I don’t know what I’m talking about, please don’t laugh at me.”

Woyu turned his head and asked in a muffled voice, “But you’re not going to forgive everybody, are you?”

Yu Yuan glanced at him.

“Of course not,” Lin Sanjiu guzzled down her drink, “I am not a judge, so I can’t judge people. I can only do my best so that I can look back on things with a clear conscience.”

Woyu nodded without giving any comment. A smile crawled upon his face, but Lin Sanjiu had no idea why she felt that it looked sad.

That was the last time she saw Woyu.

The next morning, when the sky broke like an egg into full sunrise, Exodus landed in the canyon. After a few hours, Silas suddenly prodded Lin Sanjiu to check on her prisoner.

‘Did I set up a reminder?’ Lin Sanjiu wondered as she moved towards the prison area.

When Lin Sanjiu opened the cell, she froze at the scene that greeted her eyes. The entire cell was colored in red. On the wall, in the bed, in the crevices, every inch of the cell was fully soaked in a strange crimson liquid, and Lin Sanjiu did not know where to place her feet. The liquid seemed to have bled into everything in the cell and proved to be uncleanable, for she could tell very clearly that someone had gone through some effort to clean up, but to no avail. It did not look like blood, as the color was a shade lighter and she could see that there were some mottled fragments of something in the liquid as well.

Lollipop was nowhere to be seen.

‘The glove...’ Lin Sanjiu muttered. Then, something caught her eyes.

‘I am sorry.’ That was the first sentence Lin Sanjiu saw on the message Woyu left.

‘My judgement is that she should die.

‘You said that everyone deserves a second chance, but how about my friends? Did she give them the chance?’

The last sentence stung Lin Sanjiu’s eyes like a needle.