Hot on the Heels

Just as if someone had added water to her memories and made some porridge with them, her memories were like a cloudy broth. She could only remember herself lying asleep in her own bed as it gradually became warmer and warmer. She became more and more thirsty… Suddenly, she felt a gentle concern from the man beside her. She grabbed his hand and whispered, “I’m thirsty...”

“Just about then, you unconsciously activated your ability, in that daze you unwittingly absorbed your husband. When you became clear-headed, obviously only his pajamas was left behind…” Lin Sanjiu’s cold voice reverberated in the dark room.

Toward the woman who was now sitting on the floor, Lin Sanjiu dreaded and feared her ability. [How powerful is her ability? In that short time that she was in a daze, she actually managed to absorb an entire full-grown man? She did not even leave a strand of hair!]

Kong Yun stared blankly into the air, she had a weird expression, she looked as though she was about to cry or laugh. Just as her expression turned malevolent as she managed a “Ha.” but her tears fell anyway, “Nonsense! What do you know! You only said that because you don’t want me to absorb you! So you’re spouting nonsense!”

“Really? Then, let me ask you a question. When you woke up, did you still feel thirsty?” Lin Sanjiu challenged softly.

This sentence was the last straw which broke the camel’s back. It totally devastated Kong Yun. Suddenly, Kong Yun let out a shrill cry. The others were so shocked that they could not help retreating backward. Thereafter, she buried her face in her arms and curled up on the ground. She rocked her body gently as if she was comforting herself as she started crying loudly.

“I… I don’t know!” Kong Yun screamed and cried at the same time. Her face was covered in tears, and her words were muffled and unclear. “Everyone said that I was too good for him. But in fact, he was too good for me... too good! He was such a nice person… such a nice…” Her cries sounded like fabric being torn, it was filled with deep wrath and pain, so much so that one could not help feeling fearful and uneasy when they heard it.

“Why are you still just standing there?”

Suddenly, she felt her arm being pulled. She turned her head to find that it was Marcie. Marcie whispered, “Let’s take this chance to get away! Do you want to wait for her to regain her composure and absorb you?”

Lin Sanjiu only regain her senses then. It turned out that Luther, with a tensed look on his face, had pressed his body against the soft and already crept step by step out of the living room. When he saw that the two of them were still standing at the same stop, he was seriously mad at them, he hurried mouthed, “Are you two stupid?”

The two of them hastened their steps and slipped past Kong Yun. The latter seemed to have forgotten where she was, while she wailed heedless to the things around her, her ten fingers dug deep into the sofa. She made several deep holes in the sofa’s soft material and was absolutely ignorant to the movements of the people near her.

Just like that, under the sound of her anguished cries, the few of them escaped quietly and sprinted downstairs. After heart-stoppingly nervous situation, their trip back to the supermarket was a contrastingly less eventual journey. They jogged all the way back to the road in front of the shopping mall. They swiftly moved through the queue of cars, walking speedily between the cars.

The scurry of footsteps woke up the dying people who were in their cars. When their group walked past the cars, quite a few people in the cars managed to sit up, pounding powerlessly on their car windows in despair. Even though they were alive, their expressions were not different from the dead, without a single spark of life.

Lin Sanjiu looked at them with sympathy. Within the ten over arms behind those car windows, she wondered how many of them could survive until they successfully evolved...

“Wait!” Luther who had been leading them suddenly stopped. He turned to instruct Marcie, “Keep a lookout on the road, make sure that Kong Yun is not following us. Xiao Jiu, hand me your knife.”

With a white flash, Lin Sanjiu handed him her chef’s knife and asked puzzledly, “What’s wrong?”

Luther tilted his head to the white Volkswagen Bora, his face stiffened, “Look at that, that person is going to change into a duoluozhong soon.”

Following where Luther gestured to, Lin Sanjiu felt a layer of goosebumps rising. A dark brown face was pressing tightly against the windscreen of the Volkswagen Bora; it was impossible to tell its gender. Most of its moisture had already evaporated, leaving only a layer of wrinkly skin which piled at the two sides of its cheek. Its mouth area was protruding out as if a mouthpart would burst through its skin any moment. One of its eyelids had already fallen off, and the other eyelid swayed as it hanged down precariously over one of its eyeballs

The pair of white eyeballs were staring motionlessly at the three of them.

Holding his breath, Luther cautiously walked toward the side of the car. The eyeballs within the car also swirled to look at his side.

“Crash!” with a shattering sound, the car window by the driver’s seat was smashed in. Following shortly, even before the person in the car could react, Luther struck and thrust the knife into the brain of that half-man half-duoluozhong. The process was as quick as lightning, and before Lin Sanjiu even had the time to respond, she heard a rasping, guttural sound and the body in the car slipped back wearily into the seat.

After he casually cleaned the knife on the shirt of the corpse, he walked back and returned Lin Sanjiu her knife. Seeing her frowning conflicted face, Luther could only sigh, “I know that it is uncomfortable for you but we can’t just leave it like that, right?”

Lin Sanjiu nodded her head and kept the knife.

Even though that person still had the visage of a human figure, it was obvious that the person could not be saved. Apparently, she had better try to get used to such a scene in the future. While Lin Sanjiu continued forward with her wide strides again, she tried to stomach the waves of disgust that she felt—it was quite different from killing in self-defense after all.

They did not know if Kong Yun was too overwhelmed by grief, but she appeared not to chase after them. The three of them ran into the supermarket, shocked but unharmed, and they quickly pulled down the metal shutter. Only after they locked the shutter from inside, did Lin Sanjiu slid to the ground leaning on the shutter, exhaling a deep breath.

Marcie grabbed a few bottles of water and handed out a bottle to each of them. She took out the Ability Polishing Agent that she did manage to retrieve previously and placed it on one of the shelves beside them, using it for lighting. Who would have known? It was much stronger than the candles. A corner of the supermarket was lit up as if there was a fluorescent light there.

After resting for few minutes, Lin Sanjiu’s mind could not help drifting back to the piece of paper. “So, the item that we found just now…” As she said this, she pulled out the piece of paper. Suddenly, the two remaining people also focused their concentration on that piece of paper.

The handwriting on the paper could clearly be seen under the silver light. As what she saw was too mind-blowing, Lin Sanjiu inadvertently crushed the sides of the paper.

【VISA】

Place of issue: Black Death City

Valid Destination: Hyperthermal Hell

Valid From: Six months prior to the descent of Hyperthermal Hell

This visa was issued by the Consular Officer of Black Death City.

Despite looking at it once before, Lin Sanjiu was still dumbfounded. She passed the visa over to Luther and Marcie. Both of them were also filled with perplexity.

“I don’t understand… when we came here, we did not have any visa, but we could enter this place anyway?” Luther muttered several times repetitively. He flipped over the visa multiple times, examining it.

“If we think it through carefully, your situation was different from his.” Lin Sanjiu paused, seemingly to think. “You had to wait for a full fourteen months before you could enter another mutated dimension, but when Ren Nan came here to my world, it was still normal— its mutation had not even started...“

[Apparently, a visa could not only assign a destination, but it could also allow a person to travel to a dimension before it mutates?]

Marcie pointed at the line “Journey Performed” at the back of the visa. She explained softly, “Ren Nan definitely came here with this visa.”

“Both of you have never heard anything about such a thing like this visa? “ Lin Sanjiu pressed on with her questions unrelentingly even though it seemed hopeless.

Both of them shook their heads as expected. Luther laid the visa on the ground, staring at it, saying bitterly, “If we knew there was such a thing, we wouldn’t have to wake up to an exploding bomb the previous time.”

[That made sense.] Lin Sanjiu lowered her head, her heart was filled with an incomprehensible feeling.

“If we first ignore how that man with the surname Ren got the visa, just imagine the advantages of entering a dimension six months before!” Luther clicked his tongue, speaking to Lin Sanjiu, “You can start making all sorts of preparation when it is still peaceful. Be it supplies, or body training… Your chance of survival will far succeed the original inhabitants of that world.”

[That’s true…]

“But I think that this sort of visa is much more useful for Ren Nan… No matter how well we prepare, we cannot guarantee that everything will work out. However, with his ability, he could gain a lot more potential growth value in the six months.” As she thought about the past disorienting half a year, a cold self-deprecating smile appeared on Lin Sanjiu’s face.

Luther sighed and patted Lin Sanjiu’s shoulder to show his comfort in a seemingly matured manner.

“I wonder how he got the visa. Even if we wanted to find out, there is no one we can ask.” Marcie was still fiddling with the paper obstinately.

“He doesn’t have many items, so I don’t think he had been to many places…” Luther’s eyes suddenly brightened, and he said, smiling, “If we can find the Consular Officer of Hyperthermal Hell, maybe we can survive together, we don’t have split up when we get transported to another world.

Struggling through the infinite number of apocalyptic world, everyone comes and goes like drifting duckweed on water. This is indeed a troubling matter. It was a rare opportunity to meet someone that one can share a good rapport with, if they can become companions, it can’t get any better!

The problem they had was finding the Consular Officer. All three of them had this same thought. Lin Sanjiu was just about to speak when they heard a neither light nor heavy knock on the door.

“You all must be inside, right? Why don’t you open the door?” Kong Yun still had that nasally hoarse voice that one has after bawling, but her tone was a lot calmer.