Doomsday Wonderland

Unexpectedly, her idea actually worked—no, her idea should have worked from the start.

Lin Sanjiu urgently called out to Yu Yuan and ran out of the apartment building made of words. She listened for a few seconds and then started running towards the direction of the ringing sound, completely forgetting to look back at Yu Yuan.

Lily was completely turned into words, not leaving out anything external. Thus, when Whit E. was transformed into words, naturally, the communicator in his hand was transformed too. So, that communicator should be somewhere in this blank space with Whit E.

The real question was, can that communicator make a sound in this blank world?

"Was it that robot JoyBee that gave you the idea?" Yu Yuan caught up with her, adjusting his path according to the sound. "After thinking about it, the only thing that could've provided you with a clue was JoyBee."

Lin Sanjiu, while running, replied, "Yes – even though JoyBee is just a structure of words here, when projected into the building, it speaks. This means that even if these things are made of words, they don't lack any functionalities and can still produce sound."

"Ah, now I get why the punishment you heard from the game was different."

Yu Yuan jogged along – this was the first time the two were running flat out on level ground. After only a few steps, Lin Sanjiu realized that the combat abilities of the body Yu Yuan was in now weren't good. Perhaps he made this body look like Yu Yuan, but it certainly wasn't the original body.

"Yes, I think the 'JoyBee' word structure contains two different loser punishment messages. One for me to hear, and one for them."

Lin Sanjiu sighed inwardly and said softly, "I've always been puzzled about how it managed to let me hear a different punishment message... but if the projected sounds were different in the first place, that would explain a lot."

If these peculiar word structures can project sound, it indicates they still have the conditions to produce sound. Then, if a word wasn't written down and didn't need to project anything onto the ground, but its sound-making function was triggered, would she hear it?

Fortunately, the answer was yes.

After an indeterminate amount of time, Lin Sanjiu slowed down amidst her doubts, and called the communicator again. She listened carefully to the long, muffled beeping. She circled around a few times following the sound, becoming both amazed and suspicious, and asked Yu Yuan, "Do... Do you hear where the sound is coming from?"

Yu Yuan also looked around.

She had followed the sound all the way here, and now the faint beeping of the communicator was clearly very close, definitely right beside her. However, all she could see was endless, oppressive whiteness. The word clusters behind her had disappeared from view, leaving only an unending pure white.

"Hold on," Yu Yuan said, slowly crouching down. "I think... the sound might be coming from beneath your feet."

Lin Sanjiu suddenly jumped to the side, revealing the empty white beneath her. She quickly lifted her foot to check the bottom of her boot, but there was nothing there either. She fell to the ground and redialed the communicator, pressing her ear to it. A faint, unmistakable series of beeps echoed, sounding like muffled cries for help from beneath the vast expanse of white. Before she could even react, the sound faded away.

"It's really coming from below," she murmured, feeling her mind turn into a tangled mess. "Why is it coming from below? What's beneath us? How do we get there?"

She pressed her hand against the paper-like ground, tapping and feeling around. It felt hard, smooth, and level. She couldn't pinpoint the material; it didn't quite feel like paper but more like a computer screen—and if there were flashing cursors, it would be even more so.

It's probably safe, right?

Lin Sanjiu pressed her ear to the ground and activated the communicator again. The ringtone, slightly clearer than before, immediately filled her ears. The hard, paper-like surface acted like a barrier, separating her from the unknown world beyond. She continued lying on the ground, and in frustration, punched the ground a couple of times, but her efforts seemed to vanish without any response, not even a slight tremor.

It was at this moment that Lin Sanjiu heard a stranger's voice.

"Huh? Did I just hear a noise?" said an unfamiliar male voice, sounding low and muffled, as if he was standing far away behind the paper-like ground.

Lin Sanjiu quickly shut off the communication.

Chills ran down her spine. The voice had only just appeared. The question was, where did it come from? What lay beneath this white landscape?

"Hm? Did I hear wrong?" The man's voice paused. For the next several seconds, there was silence. Yu Yuan also laid down, pressing his ear to the ground.

A few moments later, the man's voice began again, initially humming in a strange and unclear manner. It gradually became clearer. "On the mountain where pear blossoms flutter, sits the girl waiting for me..."

Lin Sanjiu and Yu Yuan exchanged a glance.

If Lin Sanjiu had to guess a hundred times, she would never have imagined that the race behind the game, which could manipulate the world with text, would be... so lively and humming a tune. If not for the bizarre circumstances, she might have thought she was listening to a security guard killing time in his booth.

Just as Yu Yuan was about to get up, Lin Sanjiu pressed him back down.

"Don't move," she mouthed. "What if he hears us? Let's listen to what he's doing."

Being a Veda, Yu Yuan complied without hesitation, pressing his face back down, his tattoos becoming distorted in the process.

For the next twenty to thirty minutes, no significant sounds came from the other side of the paper-like ground. Occasionally, there would be a vague rustling sound, and intermittently, the humming would continue. Lin Sanjiu, maintaining the same position for so long, felt a stiffness in her neck.

"That should do for now," the man's voice suddenly rang out, startling her. "Hmm... I've got the framework. I'll fill in the details step by step. After all, it's all about observing people."

What he referred to as the "framework" was surely about the framework of a game. The person that could convert the world into text and manipulate it was, without a doubt, designing a game right now. However, Lin Sanjiu couldn't see what he had done—her surroundings were still a vast expanse of pale whiteness.

"Hmm, there seems to be a loophole here..." The man's voice was very low, sounding very distant, even more so than a communicator. "Add a rule?"

Yu Yuan reached out and tapped Lin Sanjiu on the shoulder.

Lin Sanjiu, who had hastily ducked down moments ago, glanced at him, realizing he had sat up and was pointing behind her. Following his direction, she almost came face to face with someone whose face was extremely close— the warm breath exuding from their nostrils even stirred the loose strands of hair on her forehead.

Shocked, Lin Sanjiu involuntarily let out a soft gasp. As she scrambled several steps backwards, that person, who had approached her unknowingly, still stood there, staring straight at her. Below, in the depths of the paper-like ground, the sounds of murmurs and tunes ceased.

Standing not far away was a plain-looking, weary man with messy short black hair, wearing a brownish-yellow jacket. He leaned forward and took a couple of steps, glancing at Lin Sanjiu and then at Yu Yuan. His expression was as if—he had spotted a water stain on the wall at home, worth a closer look but not evoking any particular emotion.

Lin Sanjiu wanted to ask who he was but dared not speak. Yu Yuan slowly stood up, and the three of them formed a triangle, standing still. Aside from the man who kept looking around, no one else made a sound or moved.

"Stop."

With this word echoing from deep below, the man in the brownish-yellow jacket froze instantly. A second later, Lin Sanjiu felt as if a bucket of cold water was poured over her head, and she had a sudden realization.

As soon as the man stopped, he transformed into several tall characters. At a glance, they resembled the Chinese characters for "yellow," "overcome," and "ordinary." These characters were aligned one after the other, resembling a column of troops. Just a few glances between the strokes of these characters, and Lin Sanjiu's mind was flooded with information—he was 41 years old, had a son, found a phone that he kept for himself without telling his family, and the apocalypse occurred while he was at work. Was this a real person turned into text then back into a person, or an NPC formed from text?

Before Lin Sanjiu could figure it out, someone spoke from the depths below.

This time, the male voice was much clearer, seemingly very close to the paper-like ground.

"Why are there other people down here?" He was genuinely surprised. His reactions were just like any other human's, except he wasn't in this space, yet he could still see both Lin Sanjiu and Yu Yuan. "How did you two get in?"

Not just Lin Sanjiu, even Yu Yuan instinctively looked around, trying to find where the voice was observing them from.

"Did you come to stop the new game launch?" The surprise and interest in the voice grew more pronounced. "No way, did someone really find this place based on that one line?"

Lin Sanjiu remained silent—even with her past apocalypse experiences, she didn't know what to say.

"It's a pity you've misunderstood. The new game launch can't be stopped like this. Maybe I should get rid of you..." The male voice paused, seeming to contemplate for a moment before suddenly laughing. "Ah, it's a good opportunity to test out this game on you."

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