Doomsday Wonderland

Chapter 1238: Catching the Imposter

Only a fraction of a second remained for Lin Sanjiu.

As the elevator doors were about to close, she managed to slip her metal gauntlet in between them just in time. The doors made a loud thud as they hit the gauntlet. She wasn't sure if this pocket dimension elevator behaved like a regular one, reopening when obstructed, but she said, "Come out! That imposter isn't me!"

In fact, with someone suddenly appearing at the door, there was no need for her to shout. Those inside would surely come out. In the confusion, the safest thing to do was to stop the elevator and evacuate immediately, not giving it a chance to start ascending.

As Lin Sanjiu spoke outside, she heard the former guard muttering to himself as he frantically pressed the buttons, "Why won't it open? Come on, open, open..." With the sound of his fingers tapping on the buttons, the elevator doors finally released her metal gauntlet. Lin Sanjiu exclaimed, "Puppeteer, quickly catch the other me! Don't let her escape no matter what—"

Before she could finish her sentence, the elevator doors opened wide enough, and Bohemia and the former guard squeezed out together. Lin Sanjiu glanced at them, but the last word stuck in her throat.

She could hardly believe her eyes.

Was she dreaming? How could she see herself... holding Puppeteer tightly, completely immobilizing him?

The person with the same face as Lin Sanjiu had effortlessly grabbed Puppeteer by the collar in an instant. Though it was just the collar, Puppeteer seemed powerless under their control, and his slender body drooped as he was slowly dragged out of the elevator, looking like a dead fish.

"S-Sir?" Bohemia almost sounded like she was going to cry. She involuntarily stepped back as "Lin Sanjiu" moved closer. Her implication was clear; if even Puppeteer couldn't resist the person's outstretched hand, they might as well give up on leaving the hospital.

"Lin Sanjiu" raised an eyebrow slightly. As she swept her gaze over the people present, her feet were already outside the elevator.

In that same moment, Lin Sanjiu's mind seemed to be struck by a flash of white light.

'Why would the imposter step out of the elevator?'

His or her goal was to infiltrate the elevator and leave the hospital. Despite being discovered at a critical moment, the imposter was strong enough that they could easily throw Puppeteer out and close the doors to ascend. Why bother capturing someone and then stepping out again? Moreover, if they could overpower Puppeteer without breaking a sweat, why not do it from the beginning?

"It's them!" Lin Sanjiu shouted, the words bursting out of her throat. She quickly pointed at "Puppeteer," who was being tightly gripped by the neck and said, "This is the imposter who infiltrated! That isn't Puppeteer!"

"Lin Sanjiu" frowned slightly at her words—strangely, only one eyebrow on one side of her face was raised. Her gaze wandered around the group as if she couldn't focus, and she asked, "What?"

As soon as she spoke, all doubts disappeared.

The imposter could create stereoscopic photographs to deceive the spatial environment and even wrap photographs around a person's surface. However, they could not disguise a voice. Lin Sanjiu, hearing Puppeteer's deep, sinister voice coming from her own lips, felt like something in the world had gone awry.

Explaining everything was beyond the scope of a moment, and Lin Sanjiu needed to sort out her chaotic thoughts as well. Multiple thoughts poured out of her mouth all at once as she said, "Don't let go of this guy, keep holding onto them, and come out... No, I'm not ordering you... You're not you right now. I mean, we see you as me... Wait, can't you see? Can't you see what the person you're holding looks like?"

Because her thoughts were in disarray, it took her several seconds to realize this issue.

Puppeteer, wearing Lin Sanjiu's face, still had one eyebrow raised and asked in a low voice, "What do you mean? Is there light here?"

Although it wasn't very bright, the lighting in the hall was sufficient for people to see their surroundings. Lin Sanjiu was taken aback, and cold sweat broke out on her back as a reflex. What was wrong with Puppeteer's vision?

"Sir... your eyes..." Bohemia murmured.

It was impossible.

The imposter, who now looked lifeless, couldn't have possessed such power to make Puppeteer lose his vision unnoticed. Lin Sanjiu felt like a drowning person searching desperately for any evidence she could hold on to—

She gasped.

"What is it?" Bohemia asked, turning. "Do you know what's going on?"

Instead of answering, Lin Sanjiu approached quickly, a fresh towel now in her hand. From a distance, she couldn't see it clearly, but as she stood in front of "Lin Sanjiu," she noticed that due to their height difference, the "Lin Sanjiu" photograph was slightly elongated to completely wrap around Puppeteer.

"I'm going to touch your shoulder with this towel," she said before making contact. As expected, the "Lin Sanjiu" photograph was immediately absorbed by [Planar World], revealing Puppeteer's pale, gaunt face that still seemed a bit dazed underneath.

Puppeteer hadn't even noticed anything wrong or felt the photograph wrapped around him. If his tactile sensation was off, then perhaps his sight was as well. If the imposter covered his eyeballs with a layer of black photograph, Puppeteer would believe there was no light in that place and wouldn't be able to see the other him beside him.

"Look down," she whispered, then summoned a small silk handkerchief. She had stored this item in her card inventory just in case she needed it for the grand prize. "I'm going to touch your eyeballs with this handkerchief. It might be uncomfortable, but don't move and keep holding onto the imposter, alright?"

Under the tip of her fingers wrapped in the silk handkerchief, Puppeteer's unfocused eyeballs turned slightly, and the black sliced through the pale, making a dry, raspy sound. Whenever she looked at him, she felt as if he were a wandering soul inhabiting a body, unaware that he had been dead for a long time.

"Hm," Puppeteer said softly from his nose, cooperating surprisingly well.

After looking at him for a moment, still looking like a lifeless fish in his hands, showing no signs of resistance or escape, Lin Sanjiu finally relaxed a little. Just as her fingers were about to reach between Puppeteer's eyelashes, Bohemia suddenly screamed behind her, almost causing her to poke his eyes.

"Higher Consciousness!"

Bohemia jumped as if she had been scalded, rushed straight to Lin Sanjiu, and slapped her shoulder. She continued to dash towards the already closed elevator door, sayingng, "Quick, come over here. Higher Consciousness!"

What?

What was going on?

Lin Sanjiu was taken aback, but she stored her handkerchief and followed Bohemia towards the elevator. Under her excited and frantic urging, she pointed at the "Puppeteer" that had been captured, drew a virtual line in the air, and finally pressed it against the elevator door, saying, "The source... the source of Higher Consciousness is in the elevator!"

Almost as if in response to Bohemia's words, as soon as she finished speaking, a small upward-pointing red arrow lit up on the electronic screen above the elevator door.

Even though many things were still unclear, it didn't affect Lin Sanjiu's actions. Whatever the meaning of the source of Higher Consciousness was, her current objective was clear: stop the elevator. As Bohemia frantically pressed the elevator buttons, Lin Sanjiu shouted, and with the power of her metal gauntlet, she smashed the door in between. A recess appeared in the middle of the door, and she immediately grasped the edges, exerted her strength, and tore open the two closed layers of the elevator door.

The sharp sound of an error warning echoed from inside the elevator as it came to an abrupt halt just as it was about to ascend. Lin Sanjiu stepped into the elevator, and Bohemia leaned close to the door, chattering non-stop, saying, "I felt a lot of Higher Consciousness threads on that fake Puppeteer, like a puppet controlled by strings. I followed the threads and found that the source of Higher Consciousness is inside here... Huh? Why is there no one inside?"

The elevator cabin was empty.

"Of course, there wouldn't be anyone," Lin Sanjiu said coldly, understanding everything. She summoned a long iron rod she had stored in her card inventory at some point and swung the heavy rod around, feeling it hitting something and hearing a pained low cry. Using [Planar World], she tore down the elevator wall image in the corner, revealing a thin, small, scruffy man underneath.

Her heart settled.

Despite his peculiar abilities and slippery tactics that even fooled Puppeteer, when it came to combat power, Lin Sanjiu didn't even exert much effort to subdue the skinny man. Having just been about to break out of here, only to suddenly be pulled back, he almost went mad. Even though he was restrained, he continued to scream and struggle, tears streaming down his face, and foul language poured from his mouth, as if he wanted to bite all of them to death.

"Shouting won't help," Bohemia said, standing a few steps away from the two. Despite looking afraid of the skinny man, she still couldn't help but say, "You don't know, if you get involved, all of us will lose our discharge qualifications—"

The thin man burst into high-pitched laughter and spat on the ground near Bohemia's feet.

"Of course, I know you will have your discharge qualifications revoked," he said, his voice hoarse, as if he hadn't spoken in a long time, "but I never had any discharge qualifications to begin with!"

As Bohemia was taken aback, Lin Sanjiu shattered his shoulder bone with two punches and threw him at Puppeteer's feet, firmly stepping on his calf.

"But... who is this person?" The former guard had been standing aside; except for staring blankly and being anxious, he couldn't do anything. It wasn't until this moment that he hesitantly asked, "This person pretending to be Sir..."

"To be more precise, he's a dead man."

Lin Sanjiu waved her hand and tore down the photo of Puppeteer. The body wrapped in the photo and animated by Higher Consciousness was revealed to everyone. Lin Sanjiu was already familiar with the large bruises on his face.

"What... what's going on here?" Bohemia murmured. "When did this guy sneak in?"