Doomsday Wonderland

"This is a product of my ability."

A silver-white orb, about the size of a human head, spun around on Eight-Heads De's fingertip, like a pre-doomsday basketball trick. But between his finger and the orb, there was a thin sliver of air keeping them apart.

"I'm not afraid to be honest with you. These orbs are my personal message relays. My combat ability isn't great, but this power of mine is unique. Right now, I can produce seven of them. Once I make the eighth, I'll have to rename myself Nine-Heads De."

He lifted his finger slightly, and the orb floated upward, hovering above them. Through the thin bamboo curtains surrounding them, the shadows of Chimeric City's residents and the hurried shuffle of feet flickered in and out, the sunlight filtering through like scattered fragments, giving the space a gentle, rippling warmth.

Despite his fame, Eight-Heads De's home was as modest as the others, occupying just a narrow strip along the road. It was enclosed by walls on either side, with two large bamboo curtains hanging down to form the entrance. The place was simple, but sitting beside the flowing crowds, in the soft waves of light, it felt perfectly warm and peaceful.

Lin Sanjiu sat cross-legged on a thin rug, a cup of tea resting on the rough stone table before her. This Special Item, which refilled itself after being consumed, wasn't particularly rare in the Twelve Worlds Centrum. In the short time they'd been talking, two thirsty children had already come by to ask for a drink.

"I became a broadcaster out of interest and because I was born for it," Eight-Heads De explained. "The messages sent out by my seven heads can connect to any system that transmits signals and be relayed through it. So, even if I'm not a registered broadcaster on a system, you can still hear my show on, say, the Yellow Ear system."

Any communication system?

Lin Sanjiu's thoughts hadn't fully formed before Eight-Heads De anticipated them, clearly used to this question. "Yes, even the internal communication systems of passing ships will transmit my broadcasts. You used something called a cell phone in pre-doomsday society, right? If I want to, and if the signal reaches, my voice can come through everyone's phones."

Lin Sanjiu realized Eight-Heads De's ability to help her find someone was far beyond what she'd imagined. As long as Yu Yuan was near any signal transmission, he was practically within arm's reach. Only later did she notice that in her mind, the subject of that thought was Yu Yuan, not Ji Shanqing.

1

"Why don't you just register as a broadcaster on those systems?"

Eight-Heads De waved dismissively. "Too much hassle. Regular users are fine, but broadcasters need system approval for their content. If it doesn't meet their standards, you have to revise it until they're satisfied. This way, I piggyback off them, and they can't do anything about it. Now they've just accepted my existence."

"These orbs can also function as high-level broadcasting devices, capable of targeted transmission within a set range." Eight-Heads De chuckled, forming a fist and mouthing something silently. Instantly, from five or six houses away, his voice echoed faintly. "Old Ding, there's one more person for tonight's mission. Be ready."

With your eyes closed, it sounded exactly like Eight-Heads De himself was standing dozens of meters away.

"Tonight's mission?" Lin Sanjiu leaned forward, intrigued.

This must be why Eight-Heads De wanted to hire her. It seemed like it wasn't just a fight, but a full-on group brawl.

Eight-Heads De's smile faded. He raised his hand, and the silver orb stopped moving, its color dimming as if switched off.

"I hope you can stay a few days and join our patrol team. Tonight, at midnight, you, me, and thirty other posthumans we've organized will patrol Chimeric City in shifts." He pulled out a roughly drawn map from a storage item and spread it on the table. The deep creases showed it had been folded and unfolded many times; clearly, she wasn't the first to see it.

Chimeric City was reduced to an irregular shape on the map, divided into eleven sections. Eight-Heads De pointed to the fifth district, indicating that this was the area Lin Sanjiu would patrol. Two other names were also written there, including his own, all assigned to the fifth district's patrol team.

"Who are we guarding against?" Honestly, if it meant Eight-Heads De would help her find the grand prize, she'd guard against nuclear bombs if needed.

But Eight-Heads De's answer surprised her.

"I don't know..." the broad-shouldered man answered quietly. "My guess is duoluozhong."

"Your guess?"

Eight-Heads De glanced outside the bamboo curtain, where the usual shadows flowed by. "This past month, a lot of people in Chimeric City have gone missing. One day, they're there, talking to neighbors about starting a vegetable delivery business, fighting with their partners, or signing up to join the Noble Accord... The next day, they're just gone."

Lin Sanjiu furrowed her brows.

"For posthumans who vanish suddenly, that's easy to explain. Either a teleportation mishap or the Great Deluge, the latter of which we're all getting used to." Eight-Heads De, true to his broadcaster nature, was well-informed. "But how do you explain it when ordinary people disappear?"

He exhaled heavily. "In Cloudwalk Heights, the only ones who'd target ordinary people are probably duoluozhong. Our high ground was built from the mountaintop under the smoke layer. If a few duoluozhong sneak up here to hunt, that wouldn't be surprising."

"If that's the case," Lin Sanjiu said, spotting a flaw, "there should have been similar incidents before."

Eight-Heads De had thought about this too. He scratched his stubbled chin with a grating sound, visibly troubled. "Maybe the duoluozhong got smarter? They used to attack indiscriminately, which triggered alarms and got them killed by posthumans. Maybe now they sneak in at night and quietly snatch people one by one."

"Has anyone heard warnings or cries for help?" Lin Sanjiu raised an eyebrow. "Any signs of struggle or traces left by duoluozhong?"

"None."

She looked at him, and he deflated. "So... one of the goals of the patrol is to figure out what's really happening."

As long as Eight-Heads De helped her find the grand prize, she didn't care what the patrol's objective was. Everything she did now was just to find her way back to the grand prize. Whatever was happening to strangers in this unfamiliar city was regrettable, sure, but she couldn't bring herself to feel deeply concerned.

There were plenty of others hired by Eight-Heads De who shared her attitude, posthumans who worked for money. One of them was Zhong Qing, her teammate: a slender young man with shoulder-length hair tied loosely at the back.

Late at night, Chimeric City closed its eyes along with the people who kept it running by day. It sank softly into the darkness, like a body melting into bedsheets during sleep, gently rising and falling in the dim light.

Lin Sanjiu walked in the narrow passageway, where only the sound of steady breathing echoed, trailing behind Eight-Heads De and Zhong Qing.

From somewhere beyond the walls, lilting, swaying music drifted through; flashes of ambiguous, shifting lights illuminated the space between windows, beating out the rhythm of someone's dance steps. Occasionally, in the open patches of night sky above, boys and girls stifled their laughter as they leapt past on skateboards. It was like Chimeric City was lost in a hazy dream.

The night filtering down from the skylights was soft, as if warmed by the heat of the people below. On such a tranquil, peaceful night, it was hard to imagine any danger.

They glanced out from a window, where countless layers of black city walls sprawled out along the hillside, so dense it was impossible to tell where Chimeric City ended.

The people of Chimeric City, sleeping every night among so many neighbors, must feel secure, right? Even when someone vanished, the atmosphere didn't seem to tighten.

After patrolling for nearly two hours, neither Lin Sanjiu's instincts nor her Higher Consciousness detected anything out of the ordinary. The long walk seemed to relax even Eight-Heads De; there truly seemed to be nothing amiss. Sometimes they passed night owls who greeted them softly.

"Still patrolling?"

A woman leaned against a window, smoking a cigarette. The drifting smoke made it hard to tell whether she was a posthuman or an ordinary person. "You're more diligent than the Noble Accord. Besides collecting taxes, they don't care about anything."

Eight-Heads De responded politely.

"I don't know what you're trying to prove." She flicked her cigarette stub out the window. She was a posthuman. "We live here every day and haven't noticed anything either. If you ask me, that rumor is probably true. You're paying people to patrol every night because you don't want to admit it, right?"

Eight-Heads De's face stiffened as he walked past her without responding. When Zhong Qing reached her, he paused and asked, "What rumor?"

The woman smiled faintly, the remnants of smoke and fine lines spreading from the corner of her eyes. She looked Zhong Qing up and down, clearly reluctant to explain further. Instead, she chuckled softly and said, "I like your type; thin, short, young boys. Don't die, okay? That would be such a pity."

Zhong Qing shook his head. Up ahead, Eight-Heads De had stopped and turned around, as if to urge them to keep moving. Zhong Qing glanced back at Lin Sanjiu and asked, "You sense something wrong too, don't you?"

Lin Sanjiu didn't reply. She needed to find the grand prize and Yu Yuan; any risk was worth taking.

"The target of your suspicion isn't duoluozhong at all," Zhong Qing said to Eight-Heads De, his voice low. "If you were worried about duoluozhong, why are we patrolling the depths of Chimeric City? We're too far from the outer edge where they'd climb up. I've lived here a few days and heard some rumors..."

Eight-Heads De's expression suddenly darkened, and the woman by the window slowly straightened. Everyone could feel their bodies tense with vigilance. In that moment, the word trap flashed through Lin Sanjiu's mind.

She realized it just a moment later: Eight-Heads De and the woman were staring intently at something behind her and Zhong Qing.

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