Doomsday Wonderland

Like other buildings within the CBD, Ziguo Tower had endured a century of doomsday decay. Despite constant repairs and reinforcements by posthumans, it had lost its structural bone density over time, much like an elderly person. Not only had the lighting and electrical systems long since failed, but on this floor, Lin Sanjiu couldn't find any surveillance cameras, storage rooms, bathrooms, or other typical nooks of an office building.

The entire floor was neatly stripped down and smoothed over with plaster. Even most of the windows were sealed shut, clearly designed to function as an exhibition hall.

Perhaps when the exhibition was actually open, the hall would be equipped with temporary lighting, surveillance, and other facilities. The empty iron brackets fixed to the walls seemed to suggest that. But for now, the hall contained nothing but partition walls and display platforms.

This was puzzling.

Lin Sanjiu was 80% certain that the mastermind hadn't escaped through here. There were many logical reasons for her conclusion, yet standing in the empty hall, they all felt tenuous.

They were standing near the display platform where the flattened rat had been found, the red cloth now pulled away.

Every few dozen steps, a duoluozhong in some grotesque or disturbing form writhed, crashed, and split apart inside the glass tubes, screaming silently. Even a glance felt like an affront to the eyes, a sharp stab of discomfort. Lin Sanjiu couldn't fathom why anyone would willingly come to see such an exhibition.

"I don't want to see them," Bee Sting Venom said, growing paler. She covered her mouth as though she might vomit if she wasn't careful, her eyes cast downward. "Since we can't find him, let's just leave! If we keep delaying, what if someone shows up?"

Lin Sanjiu bit her lip, torn. She could leave if she wanted to. At worst, she could hide in Exodus, and the organizers couldn't do anything to her. But until she was completely sure who was in Bee Sting Venom's body, how could she leave with peace of mind?

Bee Sting Venom closed her mouth, but her expression made her feelings clear. Beyond fear and worry, there was a hint of frustration, as though if Lin Sanjiu delayed any longer than her promised few minutes, she'd turn and leave on her own.

Lin Sanjiu clenched her fists, suppressing the visual assault of the duoluozhong as she scanned several more exhibition halls. The flattened rat scuttled up beside her, its voice thick with suppressed laughter. "Still not sure?"

It was clearly referring to Bee Sting Venom, deliberately ambiguous in her presence.

Lin Sanjiu ignored it.

Her shoulders were beginning to ache. When she dumped the unconscious man at her feet, he immediately drew the attention of several nearby duoluozhong. One looked like a human-sized clump of tangled, filthy hair pulled from a sewer drain, its strands quivering with excitement against the glass. Another was a fleshy mass with veins beneath a translucent membrane, shaped like a grotesque gourd. The gourd's mouth pressed to the glass, opening and closing.

'If only these duoluozhong could tell me where the mastermind went,' Lin Sanjiu thought.

They were all near the display platform where the mastermind had disappeared. Even with the red cloth covering them earlier, maybe they'd seen something through the gaps.

Duoluozhong weren't trustworthy, but it was worth a try. The hairball and the embryo didn't seem capable of speech, so her eyes naturally drifted toward the other duoluozhong.

Next to the flattened rat's display was one that could, perhaps generously, be called humanoid. If this creature had appeared in the world before doomsday, no one would mistake it for a normal person.

The one on the left seemed composed entirely of layered black nightmares. Dense, swirling, twisted black mist formed a vague human shape, though with each breath, it shifted, dissolved, and re-formed.

Within the head-shaped cloud of mist, if one looked closely, darker patches faintly suggested eyes and a mouth. Unlike the grotesque forms of other duoluozhong, this one wasn't horrifying at first glance. In fact, it had an almost abyssal allure, like standing at the edge of a cliff, knowing the fall would be fatal yet fearing you might step off anyway.

The longer she looked, the stronger this pull grew. The swirling mist seemed to form patterns or meanings, threatening to drag her consciousness down with it. Lin Sanjiu stared too long. Mrs. Manas's sharp warning snapped her out of it. She realized with a jolt that she had unconsciously moved closer to the glass tube.

She couldn't shake the feeling that this black mist duoluozhong seemed oddly familiar.

Compared to the one on the left, the duoluozhong on the right was a typical grotesque horror. It was a nauseating sight. Imagine dozens of human bodies broken, twisted, and tightly wrapped together, layer by layer, forming a massive flesh-colored ball of tangled limbs. That was this duoluozhong's likeness.

From a narrow gap between a leg and an arm, a human head poked out—or rather, one of the heads. It was the closest to Lin Sanjiu, while the other heads were wedged deeper into the flesh, surrounded by torsos, genitalia, and limbs. The flesh-ball filled the entire glass tube, leaving almost no empty space.

Lin Sanjiu decided to start with this flesh-ball.

The head belonged to a middle-aged woman. Her coarse curls stuck to her forehead, the tips blending into the skin of a nearby thigh. From the color of the skin, it was clear the head and the thigh weren't from the same person. The woman's face was pressed coldly against the glass, her expression blank and vacant. Even after Lin Sanjiu repeated her question several times, there was no response.

"Can it not understand human language?" Bee Sting Venom complained.

The flattened rat sat motionless a few steps away at the entrance to the exhibition hall, watching their repeated failures with great amusement.

Lin Sanjiu knocked hard on the glass. The face flinched slightly, startled, but the expression didn't change much. The eyeball rolled to the corner, glanced at Lin Sanjiu, then turned back, returning to its previous numb state.

"Maybe this one doesn't understand. I'll try another head," Lin Sanjiu said as she moved to the other side of the glass tube.

Before she found another head to question, she noticed the information plaque for the duoluozhong. It seemed that when staff installed the display platforms, they hadn't been particular about direction. The plaques on this row faced different directions; the flesh-ball's and the black mist's plaques were on the back side.

"Check both descriptions," Mrs. Manas suggested.

It wouldn't take much time... Lin Sanjiu leaned down to the plaques. She called out, "Keep an eye on that man on the floor. Don't let any duoluozhong touch him."

This was a warning to the flattened rat—and if Bee Sting Venom really was a duoluozhong, it was a warning to her too.

The flesh-ball's plaque contained detailed information, showing that posthumans had studied it thoroughly.

"Name: Fleshbound," Lin Sanjiu read aloud. "A duoluozhong from the world of Twist and Coil. This duoluozhong is made up of multiple human bodies and possesses flexibility and resilience far beyond its appearance. It can spread itself out as thin as plastic wrap across the floor, ceiling, or walls, which is one of its primary hunting tactics. It can continuously absorb new victims into its body. In this sense, the fleshbound has no maximum size..."

"That's disgusting," Bee Sting Venom murmured from afar.

"Here it is. The dominant head," Lin Sanjiu skipped a few lines to find what she needed. "The other heads absorbed into the body are usually decorative... What kind of twisted taste is that, using human heads as decoration?... The dominant head is often hidden deep within the flesh-ball and rarely—Well, damn, what's the point if I can't see the dominant head?"

The thought of wasting a precious half-minute on this flesh-ball made Lin Sanjiu want to kick the glass tube.

In contrast to the fleshbound, the black mist's information plaque was pathetically sparse.

"Name unknown. Origin world unknown. Abilities and behavior unclear..." Lin Sanjiu almost laughed in frustration. Why even bother with a plaque?

Despite knowing nothing, the exhibit organizers had added a lengthy note at the end.

"This black mist's original form seems unrelated to a human shape. There is widespread debate about whether it is even a duoluozhong. Due to technical and safety reasons, this exhibit does not offer an experience for the black mist duoluozhong. Based on our limited understanding, we can only confirm that the humanoid form it currently displays seems to be a mimicry of human shape..."

As she read this line, it was as though a light suddenly illuminated her mind.

Two of her questions were answered unexpectedly. One of them was the origin of the black mist kidney inside her.

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