Doomsday Wonderland

Before Lin Sanjiu could hear any answer, she was dragged into darkness. She couldn't tell if Yu Yuan was pulled down with her. She didn't know how long that moment lasted. Then, her head banged against something hard, and the sharp pain jolted her awake. She tumbled to the ground, quickly rolling before springing up.

In the air, besides her own heavy breathing, there were sounds of rustling leaves and the occasional distant chirping of birds, as well as the residual echo of blood pounding in her ears. Her vision gradually cleared: sunlight streamed over her shoulders, casting dancing motes of dust in the air. An old, oversized armchair sat crookedly in the room, with a side table knocked over beside it, spilling orange juice onto the carpet.

It took Lin Sanjiu a half-second to shift her gaze from the leftover juice in the cup.

She was bewildered that this race, which crafted worlds from words, had habits so similar to humans. But the answer was clear in the next moment.

A man stood, hands pressed against the door behind him, staring at Lin Sanjiu with wide, round eyes, as if she had suddenly materialized from thin air. His shock was palpable, evident in his dilated pupils, widened nostrils, and pale face. The veins on the back of his hands bulged, and his hair was greasy, with a few red bumps on one cheek.

"He's a human," Yu Yuan said calmly as he got up from the ground. "A posthuman."

Lin Sanjiu had figured that out, but it still didn't make sense to her. She glanced around the room.

The walls were lined with tall bookshelves filled with hefty tomes from floor to ceiling. Behind her was a desk, and a glance was all it took for her to understand where she had fallen from: there was an old typewriter on the desk, beside which lay a dictionary.

The dictionary had a light blue hardcover, labeled Text Material Book in gold font. Instead of a sheet of paper in the typewriter, there was a screen the size and appearance of a sheet of white paper. From another angle, she could see inverted characters flowing like smoke or ink.

"Who... who are you?" Lin Sanjiu croaked.

When the man spoke, her last hope shattered. The voice she had heard singing from the depths of the earth was now clearly emanating from the man. "I should be asking, who are you?"

"How are you able to craft games with words?"

"How did you two fall out of it?" the man, now somewhat composed, asked with a slightly more severe tone. "Where did you come from?"

Just by his tone, Lin Sanjiu might have thought she had done something wrong and was being reprimanded. They were in the same space now, no weird white papers blocking her way. Why was he so confident?

Yu Yuan looked around their feet. "We're trapped. He must have used some kind of restrictive Special Item the moment we fell out."

The man folded his arms, nodding briefly, then suddenly smirked for no apparent reason. There was no need to smile, and he didn't seem to mean it. The smile came and went abruptly, and the muscles on his face settled back down. "This is [Drawing Grounds as Prison]. Let me introduce it to you."

Although Lin Sanjiu could convert the effects of items into cards, she couldn't do anything about the one that enveloped her. The air around her looked no different; looking around the library, she whispered, "Is this... a new game launch?"

The man pursed his lips and sized up them from head to toe.

"I don't have to answer any of your questions," he said. His smile seemed to tremble, restrained and not fully surfacing. It was as if refusing to answer wasn't out of self-preservation but brought him immense joy. "Any answer would be pointless."

He didn't elaborate on why it would be pointless, and Lin Sanjiu didn't need him to—the threat was evident in every word he said.

"If he can use the Special Item, it means he's a posthuman, just a regular person. Can you somehow neutralize this item's effect?" she said to Yu Yuan.

"I can try," Yu Yuan said as he extended his hand.

In a split second before Lin Sanjiu could react, a string of blue-white sparks erupted in the air. Without even letting out a grunt, Yu Yuan dropped to the ground. After the tremors from the electric shock subsided, he remained motionless.

"Did I not mention it?" The man feigned realization and chuckled. "The best thing about this item is that it acts out of self-preservation, reacting differently to various actions and attempts of those inside, ensuring they can't get out. The voltage just now, as I know, reached tens of thousands of volts. If I were you, I'd be mourning by now."

Lin Sanjiu didn't touch Yu Yuan; she just kept staring at the man.

The man, seemingly encountering such a situation for the first time, looked almost lost on the spot. As he gazed at Lin Sanjiu, his expression became increasingly grim.

"Since I can't get out and you seem unsure about what to do with me for the moment, perhaps we could just chat," Lin Sanjiu suggested, taking him by surprise. The man steadied himself but remained silent, wary. "You aren't the mastermind behind this game world, are you?"

From the moment Lin Sanjiu first laid eyes on this man, she was fairly certain. He was just an ordinary, low-ranking posthuman. In any other time or place, he might not even have had the confidence to talk to her—the gap in their power was just that vast.

That was just a statement of fact, yet upon hearing it, the man's face contorted slightly.

Lin Sanjiu glanced at him, feeling a bit puzzled. Looking down at the motionless Yu Yuan, she continued, "You and I, we're just normal people. We've never met before and have no grievances against each other. There's no need for this hostility. We can share our knowledge and cooperate. If you're worried about me holding a grudge, you don't need to—"

The man cut her off, "Enough with the talk. You just want to trick me into letting you out."

"The same as humans, I can understand your caution," Lin Sanjiu continued, not letting his dismissal deter her. "You acted out of self-preservation, out of fear, and out of defense. I get that. Rest assured, I don't hold a grudge against you because you haven't caused—"

"Are you not done?" the man suddenly raised his voice. "Who do you think you are? Who's scared of you? Take a look at yourself now."

Lin Sanjiu was taken aback.

She was certain that she had never met this man before today. Yet a vague feeling inside her became clearer and clearer, making denial difficult. It was indeed a test of her patience. Suppressing her anger, she slowly said, "I don't think I'm anyone special, just another posthuman like you. If you're being coerced or compelled by some rule to be here and create this game, we can help each other."

"Help? Do you think I'm a fool?" The man laughed again. "You can ignore your injured comrades, yet you expect me to trust you?"

Lin Sanjiu sighed in relief. "If that's your only concern—"

But the man didn't seem to care about what she had to say. "I've met too many hypocrites like you. Don't make me sick. Today isn't your lucky day; once you're in here, you're not getting out."

Bloodshot eyes stared at Lin Sanjiu as his pupils narrowed. "I can't let anyone know what I'm doing here."

Lin Sanjiu straightened up. "Do I know you?"

"What?" The man was stunned. "You don't know me."

Lin Sanjiu tilted her head and asked, "Then why, upon our first meeting, do you seem to... hate me so much?"

"I've never met a posthuman as idiotic as you," the man said with a smirk. "Facing your end, you're spewing all this nonsense. Who has time to hate you? Who are you to be hated? I'm taking you down because I can, and because it's a survival of the fittest world, understand?"

Perhaps because she was reminded of Puppeteer, Lin Sanjiu recalled something he once said, "Good words seldom persuade the determined ghost."

She just couldn't figure out where this animosity came from, especially since they had never met before. There must be a reason for every outcome. What could've caused such unwarranted hatred?

"So, what do you plan to do with us?" she asked, crossing her arms. Yu Yuan was still lying motionless on the ground, looking even more lifeless than a corpse. If not for her previous experience of watching him heal after falling down an elevator shaft, she might've lost her composure.

The man didn't reply. Instead, he reached out and flicked the light switch on the wall. The room instantly turned gloomy and dark, not because the lights were off, but because the window, sunlight, and chirping birds... all disappeared with the flick of the switch.

All that remained was a rectangular concrete box-like space. Lin Sanjiu had been in a similar space before, where she participated in the Elephant in the Room game.

Everything vanished, except for the door behind the man.

He stood in the doorway, saying, "I won't return to this room. Once you run out of food, you can eat his corpse."

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