Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1036: Three Treasures Platter

The moment Lin Sanjiu realized that Puppeteer had opened his eyes, she quickly retreated several steps back. Thanks to her body reacting faster than her consciousness, Puppeteer and the drool-soaked bib under his chin were immediately a distance away, making them hard to see in the dimness. Luckily, she had taken off her mask after noticing the low level of lighting in the building. After all, it was only useful if people could see her clearly.

She met Puppeteer's gaze in the dim light, and the air fell silent for a few seconds.

"Are you brain damaged?" Puppeteer's voice was hoarse and weak, almost unrecognizable compared to his usual dark and cold tone.

"What's... the situation here?" Each word seemed to drain him as if saying them took tremendous effort.

Lin Sanjiu hadn't expected him to wake up so quickly.

The current situation was a bit difficult to explain. While scratching her face, Lin Sanjiu noticed that the person on the bed seemed impatiently trying to sit up. In her haste, she blurted out a series of keywords, "Great Deluge, teleportation, your visa, Esculent Alethia, hospital!"

Well, the situation seemed to be pretty straightforward after all.

At least Puppeteer looked like he immediately understood the situation. He gave up struggling and laid back on the pillow. Even this simple movement caused his breathing to quicken, and his gasps disturbed the stillness of the night.

Perhaps due to his severe injuries, he didn't seem to notice the thing under his chin... Lin Sanjiu hesitated to approach too closely, so she stayed a distance away, craning her neck as she asked, "I couldn't find a doctor. Do you want to sleep a little longer?"

Even in the darkness, the glint that appeared in his eyes when they rolled over sent a chill down her spine.

Fortunately, she had already grown used to it.

She guessed that Puppeteer must've had many questions, but whenever he opened his mouth, he would start to wheeze. It was probably because he didn't want to appear weak in front of her, that Puppeteer clenched his lips tightly and refused to speak any extra words.

In that case, she would have to start the conversation herself.

"Do you have any Special Items for healing or self-preservation?" Lin Sanjiu asked as she walked past his hospital bed and opened the medicine cabinet.

"No."

She sighed inwardly. She couldn't imagine Puppeteer valuing his own life. After all, his mindset seemed to be "when I die, I die." She found it hard to understand how someone could hold onto such a thought and continue living.

"There are some things here; let me see if there's anything we can use... You should rest easy for now and relax. I'll make sure nothing happens," she said.

"It's because you're around that I can't relax," he retorted.

She really wished it was his mouth that was injured.

"Don't touch me."

Lin Sanjiu was about to pick up a roll of bandages, but those few words froze her in place. She awkwardly set down the bandages and waited for him to fall back asleep again. "How are you feeling now? Any discomfort?"

"Are you pretending you graduated from a medical school now?"

Even when struggling to catch his breath, he didn't forget to mock her... Besides sighing, she found herself at a loss for words. Listening to Puppeteer's heavy breathing in the dark for a while, he finally managed to squeeze out a word, "Why?"

In that instant, she felt like she understood him.

They had never truly been companions in the by sense of the word. In fact, Lin Sanjiu couldn't even define what their relationship really was—their subtle connection had long deviated from any standard definition of companions, friends, enemies, or even spouses. They were constantly at odds, but understood each other, and they didn't particularly like each other either— but their paths had somehow become deeply intertwined.

2

To keep the Puppeteer alive, she figured she needed to make him angry, even if it meant that someone might die because of it. She would worry about future problems later.

"I didn't save you for any particular reason. After all, we can consider ourselves acquaintances," she said as she opened another drawer and bent down, "I can't just watch you die. Besides, you have some redeeming qualities... Hmm, although, you always stick to your words. Since you didn't kill me back then, I can't just leave you alone now."

She picked up a tube of ointment with the help of her flashlight. Even though she couldn't read a single word on it, she pretended to examine it for a while and spoke with her back turned to him, "Don't worry, you'll be fine. Nuisances like you never die!"

Puppeteer probably regained his will to live purely out of anger. He hadn't rashly sacrificed his remaining energy to strangle her, and that was proof enough for her.

He glowered at her as she rummaged through an entire tray of bottles and jars, clearly holding back his rage as he slowly said, "I was asking... why is there a leek on my shoulder?"

Here comes the difficult part to explain.

"Huh? A leek? That's strange," Lin Sanjiu had never attended Qing Jiuliu's acting class, so she quickly turned her face away to avoid revealing anything, "Do you want me to remove it for you? Oh, I got it. I won't go over there."

In the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Puppeteer's struggling to remove the wet baby bib, which made her feel uneasy and uncomfortable. However, she didn't show any improper expression and pretended not to see. After Puppeteer managed to stabilize his breathing, he finally spoke up, "Esculent...?"

"Esculent Alethia," she quickly replied. "That's the name of this world. Do you know anything about it?"

He had obtained the visa, so he should know more than she did. As expected, Puppeteer let out a slight sigh, seemingly relieved.

"So that's it..." He gently closed his eyes, his voice becoming indistinct, almost inaudible, as if he were whispering softly, "Then its trivial."

While Puppeteer was relieved, Bohemia was completely unnerved on her side.

When she had been staring motionlessly at the metal wall, the bulge that had protruded from behind it grew larger and closer, deforming the metal to an extreme state. It was about to pass right in front of her. In shock, she snapped back to her senses and quickly leaped like a startled squirrel onto the front part of the car, crouching low while keeping her gaze locked on the deformity.

The bulge protruded eerily like a human face. Even amidst the noise of the engine, she could clearly hear the heavy creaking sound of the metal under stress.

Soon, a black seam appeared at the center of the bulge.

What could it be? Due to the angle, no one except her noticed that "it" had crawled out from behind the front of the loading truck. All the heads that had poked out from the windows were facing the sky. From the high, corpse-filled bed of the truck, more fleshy pillars gradually extended, like a cluster of inexplicably disgusting columns, stretching towards the sky.

"Ordinary people are so useless," Bohemia muttered under her breath. In the howling wind, she quickly climbed up to the top of the passenger seat, wrapping her hand in her sleeve. With a single punch, she shattered the glass. Just as the glass shattered, the person inside the truck produced an involuntary scream. But before the scream could even subside, she had already lowered her body, reached into the passengers seat with both hands, and forcefully pulled the passenger by the collar out through the broken window.

The scream quickly turned into a long shriek, as the passenger flung back behind the speeding vehicle, disappearing in an instant. The wind swirled around Bohemia's flowing robe, carrying a gust of air, and she deftly flipped into the truck through the window, her wildly flapping clothes brushed haphazardly around the corners. Suddenly, a loud sound rang out from the roof of the truck, followed by a burst of sparks.

In the car driving parallel to the loading truck, the muzzle of a gun shifted, revealing the face of Old Da.

"It's the companion of that woman from earlier!" he shouted toward the back, still trying to aim the muzzle at Bohemia. "She followed us!"

The driver of the loading truck was probably under the most pressure. As soon as Bohemia settled down, he let out a desperate cry from his throat. She reached out and tapped his head, shouting, "Unload the loading truck!"

A strange sound that might have been a sob followed.

"Don't unload it," Old Da heard her and shouted anxiously back, "The loading truck hasn't broken yet. Hold on for a little longer. We're about to cross the border!"

In this country where even the doors were never fully closed, it seemed only natural that the border would be open to the world as well.

"To hell with holding on," Bohemia said, swinging her hand. The knife she had retrieved from Lin Sanjiu was now pressed against the driver's neck. "Something over there came out from the back and is about to hit the front of the truck!"

If it weren't for the fact that she needed these people alive to question them later, she wouldn't have cared about the situation one way or another.

"Okay... okay, I'll unload it," the driver said, his face covered in cold sweat as he stole a few glances at the rearview mirror. "I'll unload it now..."

His last words were drowned out by the loud cracking sound of the loading truck.

As if breaking out of a cage and regaining its freedom, the loading compartment split open, and a long, slender shadow immediately lunged into the fresh air outside. Its growth speed far surpassed that of its companions. It swelled up in the darkness and, in the blink of an eye, crossed the small space between the loading truck and the front of the car. With a resounding impact, it crashed straight into the front of the car.

Bohemia didn't have time to say a word. At the same moment the shadow surged into the front of the car, engulfing the driver's seat, she leaned to the side, pushing open the car door and half-jumping, half-falling into the night wind. With a thud, she landed on the road, rolling a few times before finally coming to a stop.

As she raised her eyes, a slender flesh-colored pillar, like a skewer piercing through grilled meat, slowly extended from the front of the car, growing longer and longer.

The other cars swerved, turned, and slammed on their brakes, causing the sharp sound of tires scraping against the road to pierce through the night sky.

Bohemia flipped and leaped into the roadside shrubs. Just as she landed, she heard several consecutive loud crashes behind her. The heavy trucks crashed into each other, and shattered glass, the smell of gasoline, and the stench of blood erupted in the darkness.

Breathing heavily, Bohemia stood up and scanned her surroundings. Blood dripped from the cars where the drivers' heads had shattered the windshields. It seemed unlikely that any of them had survived. She spat on the ground but suddenly heard a loud rumble. One side of the truck's bed, which was filled with corpses, suddenly broke apart.

Metal panels fell to the ground, and several bodies tumbled down with a thud. Several tall, fleshy pillars swayed slightly in the night wind, as if enjoying this peaceful and beautiful world. Sensing something, they slowly turned slightly in Bohemia's direction.

"This place is very safe..."

Bohemia probably couldn't imagine that those were the last few words Puppeteer uttered before gradually falling asleep in the distance.

3