Doomsday Wonderland

"How fun! So much fun; this is amazing!"

If Lin Sanjiu could have foreseen this moment, she wouldn't have just avoided turning back to save Bee Sting Venom. She would've bolted straight out the nearest window and leapt from the Ziguo Tower.

On top of a nearby platform draped in deep red fabric crouched a creature, pink and bare, shaped like a fleshy, lizard-like strip of meat stripped of its skin. It was on all fours, writhing in excitement, though it was impossible to tell where its head ended and its tail began. With every high-pitched cheer, sharp and childlike, thin cracks spread open across the front of its wriggling body.

Hot waves of breath from the flattened duoluozhong rippled through the air, laced with uncontrollable excitement and joy. "How about that? My plan was perfect, wasn't it? Look at the two of them like this. Doesn't it make you feel amazing just watching them?"

In the blink of an eye, Lin Sanjiu's initial unease and fleeting triumph over her plan's success turned into boiling anger and despair. She wanted nothing more than to turn and run.

Now, the corner of this exhibition hall had two more duoluozhong.

One shadow had leapt at Bee Sting Venom as she opened the platform's door, while the other, the fleshy strip-like creature, had appeared suddenly above the platform near Lin Sanjiu.

When it lunged toward her, Lin Sanjiu quickly stepped back, leaning away just in time to see the meat-strip creature dart out of her sight and retreat again. Because of that brief delay, she didn't get a clear look at the third duoluozhong that had attacked Bee Sting Venom. All she heard was a scream and the sound of the door slamming shut. When she looked again, Bee Sting Venom was standing outside the platform, her back facing Lin Sanjiu.

"Are you okay?" Lin Sanjiu called instinctively, sensing that something was off.

Bee Sting Venom didn't move her body, her back completely rigid, but her head twisted 180 degrees to face Lin Sanjiu. Her face, while still recognizable, had an unsettling distortion to its contours. Their eyes locked. After a long, heavy two seconds, one of her arms reached back, bending unnaturally as she slowly raised a finger to her lips in a "shush" gesture.

It turned out the third duoluozhong that had attacked Bee Sting Venom was... Bee Sting Venom herself.

Fortunately, Bee Sting Venom had reacted quickly, slamming the door shut and retreating back inside. But a single door wouldn't hold for long. Her voice came faintly from behind the door, tinged with desperation and tears. "What's going on?"

'Good luck to yourself,' Lin Sanjiu thought grimly, unable to offer her anything more while barely keeping herself afloat.

"Get away from me," she whispered to the flattened duoluozhong pressing close beside her. "I'm still holding your neck."

It wasn't a bluff. Even during her frantic retreat earlier, she hadn't loosened her Higher Consciousness grip on its human neck.

"Such admirable persistence," the flattened duoluozhong cooed. Its white, arched eye was nearly pressed against her body. On the side facing Lin Sanjiu, a dense row of black dots clustered together, as if an eye had rolled to its edge to fixate solely on her. "How about it? Want to give it a squeeze and see?"

What was going on? Why did it sound completely unafraid now?

Had it stayed in the duoluozhong body for so long that it no longer cared about its human body?

"Crushed, crushed!" The flesh-strip creature atop the display platform wiggled excitedly, trembling as it repeated the same simplistic words: "Crushed, I'll peel him open!"

What?

Lin Sanjiu stood between the flattened duoluozhong and the flesh-strip creature. In front of her, "Bee Sting Venom" was tugging at the platform door. Overwhelmed with fear, her thoughts spiraled into chaos.

"Oh, looks like you haven't figured it out yet," the flattened duoluozhong whispered, its tone unnervingly intimate as if it were sharing a secret directly into her ear. "You've realized I'm not the only one here, haven't you? Now think a little deeper."

When they first arrived on this floor, there were indeed multiple duoluozhong. After blasting one into bits, they had assumed the rest had been scared off—and for a while, that seemed true. They walked for minutes without encountering any signs of a lurking duoluozhong.

Even bound by iron chains, Lin Sanjiu's heightened senses remained sharp, and her Higher Consciousness Scan was a reliable tool. Combined with Bee Sting Venom's inspection methods, they'd thoroughly checked their surroundings and concluded that no duoluozhong were nearby.

But just thirty seconds ago, Lin Sanjiu realized she had made a glaring oversight: she had ignored what was hidden in plain sight.

There were no duoluozhong in the corridors, on the ceiling, behind walls, between display platforms, or in the corners of the hall. That much was true. ⱤΆΝO͍βЕṢ

But weren't there still plenty of duoluozhong near them?

Her suspicion of the flattened duoluozhong led her to rethink those supposedly "fled" creatures. What if they hadn't truly fled but had instead returned to their display platforms? How could she or Bee Sting Venom differentiate which red-cloaked platforms held lurking duoluozhong and which didn't?

They had assumed the duoluozhong had escaped their glass enclosures and wouldn't voluntarily return. When they learned that duoluozhong had human minds inside, Lin Sanjiu realized it was likely those creatures had returned to their platforms. This would explain why no matter how thoroughly they searched, their surroundings seemed eerily safe and quiet.

The "Bee Sting Venom" standing before her now was undoubtedly the duoluozhong capable of mimicking environmental features. Though it imitated humans, it did so poorly; its facial bones looked as if they were constantly shifting beneath its skin, ready to break free in a grotesque dance.

The flesh-strip creature could create illusions of devouring objects, though its low intelligence made its attempts clumsy and easy for Lin Sanjiu to see through. Only the flattened duoluozhong remained an enigma. What role had it played? Why wasn't it afraid of having its human body's neck snapped?

"Haven't figured it out yet?"

Thoughts flashed through Lin Sanjiu's mind in quick succession, almost forming a coherent picture before collapsing into a tangled mess. In the past, her ability to think clearly under pressure had been her greatest strength. Now, she missed that skill so deeply it hurt.

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"You really are scared, aren't you?" The flattened duoluozhong drew a deep breath beside her, its voice trembling with glee. "I'm so happy. Who'd have thought being a duoluozhong could feel this good? Fine, I'll give you the answer. Do you remember the duoluozhong you blasted into pieces?"

Like fog lifting slightly, Lin Sanjiu caught a glimmer of understanding.

"That one also contained a colleague of ours who was experiencing being a duoluozhong," the flattened creature said, its tone disturbingly indifferent as it spoke of its fellow. "Your attack came so fast, he didn't even have time to react before being turned into pulp. The neural cords couldn't save him because they were destroyed too."

Lin Sanjiu felt the light of realization growing brighter as it continued.

"Now think about it. His consciousness, reduced to shreds along with the duoluozhong, left his body behind—a breathing, heart-beating vegetative shell. And the neck you're gripping so tightly right now?"

The flattened duoluozhong chuckled darkly. "That belongs to him."

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