Doomsday Wonderland

Qiao Yuansi lowered her hat brim, her head hung as she unlocked the door. Standing a head taller, Shoreis sheltered her within his shadow, blocking the majority of views from the outside world.

Thank goodness for this sun hat, often worn during hikes. It allowed her to hide her face slightly when getting out of the car. She didn't know how many Changelings were now in her neighborhood. If any of her neighbors saw the red marks on her face, they would know immediately that she was a target that required aggressive measures.

Of course, worrying about whether she'd be discovered by the Changelings seemed entirely meaningless with her current situation.

Qiao Yuansi had always prided herself on her clear mind, but now it felt like there were countless torrents in her head, her thoughts clashing and churning against one another. Even though she was finally home, she stood in the hallway, thinking for a long while, unable to figure out what to do next.

Was she about to become one of the Changelings...?

Seeing her standing still in a daze, Shoreis took the key from her hand and gently guided her into the living room with a hand on her back. His manner was so natural, as if it were his own home.

Once Qiao Yuansi was seated on the sofa, she went to get a mirror and placed it on the coffee table, reflecting her face that was torn by bloody scratches. Other than the terrifyingly large blood spots on her skin, her facial features and shape had not changed yet. Shoreis sat down on the adjacent sofa, watching her without a word.

"Why didn't you leave? Why did you come home with me?" Qiao Yuansi didn't want to look at herself after a few glances, preferring to look at him.

"There are a few reasons."

She had told him to be straightforward just once, and now it seemed that Shoreis had completely given up on being tactful. "Well, firstly, I wanted to observe you and monitor your changes up close, to help me understand this world better... there are still many things I'm confused about. Secondly, after you become a duoluozhong, I plan to kill you so I can temporarily use your house for shelter."

Was he some kind of bandit or outlaw?

At any other time, Qiao Yuansi would have been frightened by such words. But today's torments and scares had already peaked, and she simply didn't have the energy to fear Shoreis. She numbly said, "Is that so... anything else?"

He'd said there were "a few" reasons, so there should be at least more than two. But for some reason, he paused and didn't finish. If he could even mention killing her, who knew how awful the third reason must be that he didn't say it.

Shoreis rubbed his nose. "Although I didn't need your help to escape earlier, you still helped me..."

Qiao Yuansi looked at him and blinked.

"I stayed so I could see if there's anything I can do to help you," he said dryly.

Qiao Yuansi lowered her head and gave a faint bitter smile. "If... if I really become like that, maybe being killed by you would be doing me a favor."

Shoreis grunted from his nose, seemingly unsure what to say under these circumstances. After a while, he forced out words that hardly seemed comforting, "Anyway, I'll be here when the time comes."

To say she was afraid, Qiao Yuansi now felt less so. From his descriptions of the duoluozhongs in other worlds, they seemed to be creatures forever trapped in darkness, covered in brutality and sorrow. She was about to become one of them... This realization was so surreal that she almost wanted to laugh: perhaps when she opened her eyes, she would wake up from her sleeping bag inside a tent and realize it was all a dream.

Her thoughts drifted from duoluozhongs, and she began to remember more of what he'd said. Thinking about it, she suddenly realized something and hurriedly looked up to ask, "Wait, you said that the survivors in the apocalyptic world either become a duoluozhong or a posthuman. So, is there a possibility... that I could become a posthuman?"

A cool glimmer flashed beneath Shoreis' eyelashes as he looked up.

"Theoretically speaking, it's possible."

He tilted his head, his cheek, neck, and Adam's apple all colored half pale and half dark in the window's daylight, like a plaster sculpture gazing at an empty room in a quiet and deserted art room after school. Even though she was still here, when Shoreis looked at her, it was as if the living room was already empty—his expression told Qiao Yuansi the answer before his reply.

"In the four days since I arrived, I have seen enough of the duoluozhongs, normal people, and those about to become a duoluozhong," he said, "but I've never seen a person on the verge of evolving."

Qiao Yuansi closed her eyes, feeling a hollow emptiness in her heart, as if her reaction nerves had been anesthetized. She heard herself mutter, "Being with me in the same room didn't infect you, did it?"

Shoreis was silent for a few seconds, then said, "I'll be fine, this deformation isn't an airborne virus, otherwise you would have been infected long ago."

He paused here, rubbed his hair slightly irritably, and said, "I really don't understand, how at this time, you can still worry about others."

Qiao Yuansi opened her eyes and smiled at him weakly. "Maybe it's because I'm the type who doesn't turn back until hitting the wall. I never thought that my life would end like this. I won't allow it... I suddenly have a thought that might explain why you've never seen a local posthuman."

"What is it?"

"If those people who are deformed are not considered duoluozhongs," she said, looking at the ceiling, "then there are no posthumans."

Shoreis seemed stunned for a moment.

When he didn't answer, she continued, "You told me that after other worlds have faced doomsday, the surviving humans would begin to develop in two evolutionary directions. One is a duoluozhong, and the other is a posthuman. This is fundamentally the law of evolution."

These terms and information were all new to her, but that didn't mean she couldn't put them under logical analysis.

"If we take these premises and apply them to this world, you will find that they don't fit. Has this world ended? It should have, otherwise you wouldn't have been transported here; but in this apocalyptic world, humanity has never really faced survival pressure."

Shoreis didn't speak but leaned forward a bit, listening very intently.

"Yes, their faces are deformed, but what then? You also said they are still working and living as before, maintaining the normal operation of human society... they have not destroyed the world, so there's no destroyed world exerting survival pressure on humanity. Without this survival pressure, life remains the same, so humans will not develop in a new direction."

"What do you mean?" Shoreis slightly furrowed his brows.

"When everyone in a world turns into monsters, the old human world naturally ends, and in this sense, calling it the apocalypse is not wrong. But the behavior of the monsters isn't much different from before—I believe there are small differences, but macroscopically, monster society is the same as human society. If I also turn into a monster, I still have to go to work at school next month, right?"

She had observed enough of these examples on her way home: electricians, restaurant owners, truck drivers... from a distance, the only change in them was their faces.

Shoreis exhaled. "I understand."

Qiao Yuansi nodded. "Or you could say, deformation, as an apocalyptic factor, is more insidious compared to other things like radiation or poison gas. It doesn't cause social unrest after spreading, so people don't evolve. Without evolution, there's no resistance, and deformation spreads like a common cold until the whole world is full of deformed people, and still no posthumans emerge."

"In this way, it does explain why I haven't seen a local posthuman," Shoreis said and raised an eyebrow. "So why do you think you can escape?"

"The virus can't even kill people 100% of the time, so why can't I rely on my own resistance to get through?" Qiao Yuansi crossed her arms, feeling a sudden surge of defiance. "Besides, that patrol officer only grabbed me once or twice before you knocked him down. The contact was only a few seconds long, and even if his hands were contaminated, I couldn't have gotten much of it... Oh, that reminds me, I'll go wash my face." Qiao Yuansi had never washed her face so seriously in her life.

When she returned to the living room, her hair and collar were all wet. Shoreis looked at her, seemingly both amused and exasperated. "Had a good wash? He didn't smear mud on your face or anything."

"You never know, it might help," Qiao Yuansi retorted, sitting down to examine her face closely in the mirror. On the couch beside her, Shoreis was also watching her; his gaze seemed to carry weight and warmth, and as it swept across her cheek, it felt as if fingers were gently caressing her.

The bloody scratch marks in the mirror looked neither worse nor better. For the foreseeable future, clearly, Qiao Yuansi had no other option but to wait.

But waiting didn't mean she was giving up.

Qiao Yuansi cleaned the entire house inside and out as planned, even assigning Shoreis the task of tidying the courtyard. She lit incense candles, placed flowers in a vase, and busied herself in the kitchen, preparing a feast of dishes and desserts. Whether it was because Shoreis hadn't eaten a good meal in a long time or because posthumans had wolfish appetites, when Qiao Yuansi returned from her bath, she found him still at the dining table.

"What are you doing with your head?" he asked while eating.

"Applying a hair mask," Qiao Yuansi replied, with her head wrapped. "Are you planning to eat my plates too?"

"You're applying a hair mask—what's the use?"

"It helps," Qiao Yuansi said. "No matter when, I must look presentable; it makes me happy."

Posthumans might not know what politeness is. When she went into the bathroom to wash off the hair mask, Shoreis stood watching, as if observing a monkey washing itself at the zoo. Merely watching wasn't enough; after drying, he touched her hair and said, "It's actually much smoother now. You should do one for me too."

By the time two heads with silky hair returned to the living room and sat down for tea, it was already 9:30 in the evening.

As long as she didn't look in the mirror and see the red marks on her face, everything seemed no different from before.

Following her usual routine, Qiao Yuansi opened her textbooks and notes, preparing to review her lesson. Shoreis, completely at home, nestled beside her on the sofa watching TV. Though removed from human society for so long, he still enjoyed sitcoms and even complained, "How has your world not invented TV remote controls yet?"

After a while, he got up to turn off the TV and sat down on the coffee table across from Qiao Yuansi.

"Look up," he said quietly.

Qiao Yuansi slowly raised her head.

"Hmm... no change. What's wrong?" Shoreis said, observing her face with an almost calm expression. "You've had this lecture open for fifteen minutes, and you haven't turned a page."

Qiao Yuansi opened her mouth. Only today did she realize that fear comes in many forms. What she felt on the highway was one thing; what she felt now was entirely different. Her world might truly be shattered and swept away, and she was powerless to stop it. Her efforts to maintain normalcy were all in vain.

"I..." Her lips trembled, and a tear fell. "I can't understand it. I prepared this lesson myself, but I... I can't comprehend the content."

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