Doomsday Wonderland

The pried-open cabinet doors, the empty liquor shelves, the messy dining tables, and the cloth napkins smeared with food stains—all the chaos and disorder left behind by the group's earlier noise and activity in the hotel—remained in place, cold and untouched, waiting for their return.

The realization that at least two people had already become mouthpieces weighed heavily on Lin Sanjiu's mind.

"Who's turned into a mouthpiece?" Jiang Tian finally blurted out. "No one's been spreading their message..."

"And no one's been urging others to pick up anything," Caveman added immediately. "I've been paying close attention... absolutely no one!"

Hina frowned in thought for a moment before suggesting, "Why don't we all empty out our belongings? If two people have the same item, then we'd know who—wait, no, that won't work." She smacked her forehead as the flaw in her logic became apparent.

If two people had picked up different media, then even dumping everything out wouldn't reveal anything. Moreover, due to common needs, plenty of people had picked up similar items.

"It's impossible to guard against, impossible..." Rob muttered. "We've all been extremely cautious, but when was there a moment where both a message and media appeared, and we didn't notice?"

He glanced down at the black plastic bag in his hands, taken from one of the previous scenes, and seemed tempted to throw it away before restraining himself.

"Then from now on, I just won't pick up anything," Tenny Voltz said, inspired by Rob's hesitation. "If I don't take anything, I'll be safe, right?"

Everyone quieted down, turning their attention to her.

"The traces we left in the hotel haven't been reset," she said, gesturing around her. "This means that the food we ate, the water we drank, and the supplies we used up won't replenish either."

Someone let out a small gasp.

"Then we all—"

"Even if you don't take anything, others will still prepare for contingencies. Someone will always pick up supplies, and if they do, you'll end up with nothing," Jiang Tian said as she sat down on the sofa, rubbing her forehead. "As long as one person picks something up, the rest won't be able to resist. How can we talk about cooperation when there's no mutual trust? I just don't understand. Who did something behind our backs and became the mouthpiece?"

While the group muttered and discussed nervously, Lin Sanjiu walked to the hotel's glass doors and looked outside. If not for the fact that even she couldn't push the doors open, she might have thought the street beyond was also part of the scene. Streets, skyscrapers, streetlights—she lifted her head and saw the dark blue sky tinged with layers of orange and purple, the setting sun now low enough to look at directly.

In the upcoming scenes, there would likely be more dark, dimly lit outdoor environments than brightly illuminated indoor ones. Lin Sanjiu glanced back at the group.

On the surface, she maintained a calm and silent demeanor, but inside, she was as agitated and frustrated as anyone else. She'd thought she was only a step behind whoever was moving in the shadows, but now it seemed the other party had advanced far beyond her expectations.

Still, it wasn't too late to put her plan into action.

After another glance at the sky, Lin Sanjiu strode back into the hotel. As she silently moved through the group, their attention naturally gravitated toward her. She made her way behind the front desk and opened all the drawers and cabinets. Dr. Chen hadn't taken all the white paper; she grabbed the remaining stack of A4 sheets and stuffed it into a new hotel bag.

"What are you doing?" Rodent-Face asked, his tone wary.

Lin Sanjiu didn't respond. After grabbing all the scattered paper products, she stood up and called to Caveman, "I know you have several lighters. Give me one."

Caveman hesitated, clearly reluctant. "Those are my lighters..."

"Give it to me," Lin Sanjiu repeated. She didn't threaten or move toward him, just stood there with her hand extended. That alone was enough to make him freeze, his mouth open but unable to respond.

"Just give it to her," Wen Ya said with a faint smile, offering Caveman a way out. "I'm curious to see what she's up to."

Once she had the lighter, Lin Sanjiu grabbed a second bag full of paper and walked purposefully toward the hotel kitchen. Naturally, a few people followed her, asking, "What are you doing?" and "What are you looking for?"

Lin Sanjiu glanced at the trash bin in the kitchen and muttered, "No," before turning around and heading back out.

"No, what?" Hina asked urgently. "Say something!"

"The trash can is plastic," Lin Sanjiu replied curtly. "It can't hold fire."

"Fire?"

"When the next scene begins, it'll be dark," she said, stopping in the lounge and turning to face the group. Her gaze swept across their faces as she continued, "There won't be lights on the beach. And as for the third scene where Dr. Chen died, forget about it. Does everyone here have a flashlight?" ⱤΆ𐌽ỘᛒËȿ

"N-no..." someone stammered.

Lin Sanjiu already knew they didn't. The flashlight from the third scene was in her bag. Aside from her, only Rob had a rechargeable desk lamp, but even when he found it, it was barely functional.

"An uninhabited neighborhood, an after-hours hospital, an abandoned amusement park, a forest by the lake... Do you think they'll all have lights? Or that it's fine to stumble around barely seeing anything?"

Her words exaggerated the situation, leaning heavily into fear rather than reality. But that was exactly her goal: to plant seeds of panic in their minds. Without waiting for a response, she turned and left. As she passed by a wall, she casually took the newspaper Tenny Voltz had claimed to be media and stuffed it into her bag along with the rest of her items.

"Y-yeah..." Guan Nan said, her face pale. "To protect ourselves from the killer, the first step is being able to see."

By this point, even a fool could figure out what Lin Sanjiu was doing. These people weren't fools, and once they realized, Caveman became the center of attention. Everyone demanded his lighters. When he was down to his last one and on the verge of snapping in anger, the group begrudgingly dispersed, searching for other ways to start a fire.

But if there had been more lighters, Caveman wouldn't have held onto his so desperately. After an exhaustive search that turned the hotel into a scene of near-destruction, the group came up empty-handed. There were only four lighters in total, and the only other source of fire was the immovable stove in the kitchen.

"The next scene..." Rob said, his brows furrowed with worry. "No, the next two scenes will have little to no light, and there won't be much we can use to make fire..."

The group, weary and dejected, exchanged glances. On the beach, there might still be faint twilight or distant lights, but the third scene had been pitch black.

"No wonder she's taking all the paper," Ya Rong murmured. "There's nothing to burn on the beach, so she's preparing to make fire in the third scene. And with paper, she can borrow fire from others and use it as kindling... She doesn't say much usually, but when it counts, she doesn't mess around."

1

As the hotel descended into chaos, with people rummaging through drawers and cabinets, Lin Sanjiu found a quiet corner and waited for the next scene.

Unable to find a metal or tin bucket, she ended up dumping out a fern from a large ceramic pot in the lobby. She placed the stacks of paper at her feet and set the empty pot beside her, mentally reviewing her plan again.

She was certain no one else had paper. They had discarded their recording sheets in the third scene, and even if some had kept a few, it wouldn't be enough for illumination. In the next scenes, paper wouldn't be entirely absent, but it wouldn't be abundant enough for a proper fire. Paper burns quickly; even feeding it sheet by sheet, a fire lasting thirty minutes would require a massive amount. Lin Sanjiu had already emptied the hotel's supply, and the beach scene wouldn't offer much to begin with.

This meant that in future scenes, whatever paper remained would be taken without hesitation.

She half-expected someone to say, 'What if the paper is her media?' But as the second scene came and went, no one voiced this suspicion.

Standing on the darkened beach, shivering in the cool night breeze, Lin Sanjiu hugged her belongings closer.

No one questioning whether the paper was her media could be attributed to several reasons. Perhaps most people believed it was Dr. Chen's media, and since the same media couldn't appear twice, they assumed the paper was safe now that Dr. Chen was dead.

As the group scattered across the beach under the night sky, Ya Rong walked to a nearby table and chairs and sat down with her back to Lin Sanjiu.

"I did pretty well, didn't I?" Ya Rong said softly without turning around.

"Very well," Lin Sanjiu replied.

"What's the next step?"

"We wait," she said quietly. "When the next scene comes, I'll expose whoever's been working in the shadows." 

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