Doomsday Wonderland

As the thirty minutes neared their end and the last traces of twilight faded away, the group gradually returned to the beach.

They looked like a ragtag group of scavengers, having picked up whatever they could find as fuel in the damp, barren seaside environment. Tenny Voltz was the luckiest, managing to find large stacks of napkins and hotdog wrappers in the restaurant. Hina had stuffed her pockets with bundles of dry palm leaves, while Caveman dragged along several empty cardboard boxes he'd found somewhere.

However, most people held barely enough burnable material to fill a handful. Guan Nan, unable to find even scraps of paper, returned empty-handed, her face pale.

"We could all throw what we've found into your pot," Wen Ya suggested, looking around before addressing Lin Sanjiu. "A bigger fire would be brighter, and it's better than everyone trying to start their own fire that won't last long."

Rob, Rodent-Face, and others who hadn't found much material immediately chimed in, echoing their agreement.

Even Tenny Voltz and the others, who had collected more, hesitated for a few moments before reluctantly nodding in agreement.

This willingness to pool their resources might explain why they felt safe gathering paper: even if Lin Sanjiu's media really was paper, or something burnable, so what?

During the thirty minutes of the beach scene, everyone had stayed far away from her. When the next scene began, they could simply toss everything into the pot and light the fire. By then, anything Lin Sanjiu tried to say would be too late.

From another perspective, if paper really was the media, Lin Sanjiu's approach could be considered extremely risky. If the message hadn't been successfully spread and the media was burned up, or reduced to fewer than four items, she'd have no chance of achieving victory.

As the beach grew darker, the silhouettes of palm trees, the sound of wind, and the murmur of waves seemed to sink into an ink-black abyss. It felt as though the world around them was being swallowed by the cold, oppressive silence. Everyone realized the third scene had begun.

"I can't see anything..." Rodent-Face said nervously. "Where's the fire? Aren't we starting a fire?"

He wasn't the only one panicking. "Is there someone next to me? Is anyone there?" Muya warned from the darkness, "Stay away from me, or you'll regret it!"

Guan Nan, clearly terrified of the unseen killer, urged Lin Sanjiu repeatedly to light the fire. Rob clicked his lamp a few times and cursed, "This damned thing—why isn't it turning on?"

"Where's the hairy dame?" Jiang Tian's voice cut through the chaos. "Where are you?"

"I'm here," Lin Sanjiu called out from the darkness. "I've set the pot down here. Bring the paper over, and just drop it in when you feel the pot."

In the pitch-black night, the anxious sounds of heavy breathing, the rustling of clothes, and hesitant footsteps rippled toward Lin Sanjiu's location. Ya Rong was the first to call out, "Ah, I've found the pot!" Guided by her voice, the others followed, dropping their materials into the pot one after another until it was soon filled.

"Light the fire already," Jiang Tian said, uncharacteristically uneasy. "It's pitch dark, and besides, there's still..."

She didn't finish her sentence, but everyone immediately understood.

In this pocket dimension, traces left behind in a scene didn't disappear. Which meant Dr. Chen's corpse was still somewhere in the darkness, sitting silently in a corner, sharing the space with them.

"Why is it taking so long to light a fire?" Caveman grew agitated as soon as he remembered there was a corpse in the darkness. "If you can't do it, let me try."

A sharp click echoed as the lighter ignited, and a thin flame licked the paper in the pot, gradually growing stronger. The flickering light stretched out into the darkness, illuminating Lin Sanjiu's face and revealing the room's floor, furniture, and shadowy corners.

The group collectively exhaled in relief, and as they adjusted to the light and found their positions, their gazes were inevitably drawn to one corner of the room. The moment their eyes landed on the drooping head behind the table, they recoiled, as if shocked. Several of them instinctively stepped back. In the wavering firelight, Dr. Chen's shadow on the wall, headless and ominous, seemed to sway, almost as if it were about to spring to life.

Lin Sanjiu appeared oblivious to the group's unease. She shook her head at the modestly burning fire and said, "This pile of stuff will only last thirty minutes. For the next scene, we'll need to keep gathering burnable materials."

"Did you put all the paper you brought into the fire?" Rodent-Face peered curiously at the bag by her feet.

"Half a pack," Lin Sanjiu replied, lifting the bag of A4 paper for him to see. "Paper burns fast. It's best to mix it with other materials."

"Then we should use the light we have now to gather more burnable things," Ya Rong suggested, glancing around. "This room seems to have a lot of office supplies."

"The wall says this is an office," Lin Sanjiu said as she stood up from the fire, waving for everyone to get moving. "There should be plenty of stuff to burn. Go look around."

Seeing their collected materials turning into a bright, comforting fire, the group seemed to relax slightly and began spreading out in the firelight. Lin Sanjiu walked over to a chair she had used earlier and glanced around, noticing Guan Nan standing stiffly in the firelight, unmoving. Smiling, she said, "You're not picking up anything to burn? You can't rely on others to keep the fire going; you'd be taking a big risk. What if a scene is pitch black? Shouldn't you be more cautious?"

Guan Nan blinked, her gaze shifting to Lin Sanjiu before sweeping across the others in the room.

"You're right," she said hesitantly, walking to a desk and inspecting its contents. Slowly, she gathered a few sheets of paper, newspapers, and a disposable paper cup into a plastic bag. Smiling faintly, she added, "Better safe than sorry. It's good to have something burnable on hand just in case."

Lin Sanjiu picked up a piece of paper covered in writing from a nearby chair and glanced around the room from her vantage point. When her eyes met Ya Rong's, the young woman gave a barely perceptible nod.

After taking a few steps toward the other side of the room, Ya Rong turned and called out, "Wen Ya! Wen Ya!"

"What?" The thin-eyed young man responded in a low voice.

"I... I found a big stash of paper, but I'm too scared to take it," Ya Rong said, her voice quavering slightly. This immediately drew the attention of everyone in the room. "You're braver than I am. Could you grab it?"

"What?" Wen Ya frowned, not immediately understanding. "You're afraid it's media?"

"No," Ya Rong said, shaking her head without looking back and pointing toward a shadowed corner. "It's... it's Dr. Chen. Did you forget? He took a lot of paper from the hotel—books, newspapers, magazines. It would burn for a long time. There's a hotel bag with his things on the ground near him. But I'm too scared to go near him."

She glanced at Wen Ya and added, "You weren't afraid of the corpse last time, were you? And didn't you say you thought Dr. Chen's media was paper? If that's true, it won't hurt you to take it. Could you help me out?"

Her naturally timid demeanor added a note of sincerity to her plea, making her sound genuinely uneasy. Even Lin Sanjiu had to admit that Ya Rong's words carried a persuasive weight.

Wen Ya scanned the room, his gaze flickering across the faces of the others before he let out a low "hmm" and strode toward Dr. Chen's body. Stopping a few steps away, he stretched out his arm and hooked the hotel bag from the floor.

"I took it," Wen Ya said, clearly still suspicious of Ya Rong. He warned her, "I'm going to check the contents of the bag now. Don't say a word until I'm done."

"I've never even gone near Dr. Chen!" Ya Rong protested, but seeing Wen Ya's unpleasant expression, she fell silent again.

As Wen Ya crouched to inspect the bag, Caveman and Rodent-Face joined him. Inside were exactly what Dr. Chen had taken from the hotel: a large stack of A4 paper, newspapers, magazines, some pens, bottled water, and biscuits.

As Lin Sanjiu had expected, although Wen Ya's expression showed some hesitation and worry, he neither set the bag down nor warned anyone to avoid speaking to him again.

Standing by the fire, Lin Sanjiu reached out to stop Jiang Tian when she approached with a thin stack of documents.

"This fire is already sufficient," Lin Sanjiu explained. "Let's save the documents for the next scene."

Jiang Tian paused, startled.

"We can't burn them now?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she immediately grasped the risk. There were still over twenty minutes until the next scene. If the documents couldn't be burned right away and they turned out to be Lin Sanjiu's media, then Jiang Tian would naturally be at risk.

"Don't worry," Lin Sanjiu said, raising her voice so everyone could hear. "The documents aren't my media, and this scene isn't my home territory. In fact..."

She paused, noticing many people had turned their attention to her. "I already know who's been secretly turning us into mouthpieces one by one, how they've done it, and who killed Dr. Chen."

Jiang Tian drew in a sharp breath, while Hina loudly slammed a drawer shut and demanded, "You know? That's impossible. Who did it? Or are you just trying to spread that message of yours?"

Lin Sanjiu smiled faintly, pulled over a chair, and sat down.

"I suggest that from this moment on, everyone stays completely still. Because as long as no one moves, the person working against us in secret won't be able to act either.

"Worried I'll spread a message? Every single word I say now will be scrutinized ten times over by all of you. And it's not just me. Under this level of heightened vigilance, neither media nor message can be spread easily. However, there's another way to gain mouthpieces besides using those two."

"W-what do you mean?" Rob stammered.

"The true key to winning this pocket dimension doesn't lie in spreading media or message as much as possible," Lin Sanjiu said, scanning the room. "Because human vigilance grows quickly, those two things will soon become heavily guarded targets. The real key to winning lies in the pocket dimension's name."

"The name?" Jiang Tian murmured.

"Did you all forget?" Lin Sanjiu replied. "The name of this pocket dimension isn't Mouthpiece Battle, but Battle for Authority in Words. To win in this pocket dimension, the most important thing to seize isn't mouthpieces but authority in words."

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