Doomsday Wonderland

Even if it came with sacrifices and meant hurting others, it was still the right thing to do?

Xie Feng certainly had a radical side to her, but Lin Sanjiu didn't see her as someone who lacked a sense of right and wrong. However, given everything the Shark Nexus had done, it was difficult to associate them with the word "righteous," let alone "just."

She was desperate to extract from Xie Feng exactly what the Shark Nexus was planning.

But Xie Feng, true to her word, neither obstructed nor assisted her. She crossed her arms and let out a cold chuckle. "I understand and support the Shark Nexus's goals and plans. But you? You're just going after them because of some personal grudge, aren't you? Compared to that, I think the Shark Nexus's cause is far more significant. Why should I tell you anything? Not stopping you is already more than you deserve."

If she kept thinking about it, she might actually change her mind and decide to stop her. Lin Sanjiu quickly interjected, "I'm not doing this out of personal grudges," and then she briefly recounted how thousands of ordinary people had been taken from Chimeric City.

Xie Feng seemed to be hearing about Chimeric City for the first time, yet she didn't look surprised. If anything, she just seemed vaguely uncomfortable.

"I already said," Xie Feng waved her hand dismissively, "the people in the Shark Nexus aren't perfect, and their actions aren't beyond reproach. If you want to help those ordinary people, I have nothing to say about that. We all have our own paths to walk."

Her attitude had shifted, just slightly, but it was leaning toward Lin Sanjiu's direction.

Lin Sanjiu didn't let the opportunity slip.

She might seem straightforward most of the time, but she wasn't slow when it came to strategy. Facing someone as passionate and impulsive as Xie Feng, she instinctively felt that mentioning five thousand people as a statistic wouldn't be as impactful as telling the story of just one person.

Or rather, the story of a single life.

After a moment of thought, Lin Sanjiu asked, "Do you remember Eight-Heads De? The one Pete was about to target with Ah Quan's pocket dimension? He lived in Chimeric City. He was an orphan, one who could have disappeared at any moment without anyone noticing. But when he was four years old, he was sent to Orphanage No. 97, where he met a woman named Ye Jing."

This was a story she had heard when she and Cyrus were circling the skies, while Eight-Heads De was trapped and restless, desperately contacting them just to keep himself sane.

It wasn't a dramatic tale, nor was it filled with extraordinary twists and turns. It was just the story of an ordinary woman who spent an ordinary life raising children who weren't her own.

Yet, as Lin Sanjiu spoke, Xie Feng listened with growing focus. For a brief moment, she seemed to forget herself, forget Dong Luorong, and instead became fully immersed in the story. Her expression shifting with each turn, the light in her eyes flickering as though she was living Ye Jing's life alongside her, even if only for a fleeting instant.

She was like a fire that could ignite at any moment, willing to throw away her future for the sake of Tear City, willing to burn herself out for Dong Luorong's fate, and now, trembling with the emotions of a stranger's story. Lin Sanjiu had rarely met anyone like her.

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She burned so brightly and intensely that it was almost worrying.

"You understand now, don't you?" Lin Sanjiu concluded. "This isn't just about the Shark Nexus working with someone tied to my friend's fate. It's because every one of those people who disappeared had a life of their own. Now Ye De, or Eight-Heads De, is completely alone, trapped—"

Before she could finish, Xie Feng suddenly moved.

Even Lin Sanjiu, caught off guard, didn't fully catch the moment she struck. By the time her instincts screamed at her and she leapt to counterattack, Xie Feng had already stopped.

A ballpoint pen rolled across the floor at Lin Sanjiu's feet.

Had Xie Feng really just thrown a pen, and yet made her feel as though she was about to be pierced through?

Only now did a layer of cold sweat seep across Lin Sanjiu's back, as if her emergency response mechanisms had lagged behind by a step. In her confusion, she glanced up at Xie Feng, only to see her lightly shake her head and tap her ear.

She understood immediately.

Placing Xie Feng inside the rental office wasn't enough for the Shark Nexus. They had installed listening devices as well?

When Xie Feng first heard about the five thousand missing people in Chimeric City, she had only seemed vaguely uneasy. But after listening to Ye Jing's story, she immediately stopped Lin Sanjiu from revealing Eight-Heads De's location.

But what about Xie Feng herself?

Now that she had regained her memories and openly stated that she would no longer block Lin Sanjiu for the Shark Nexus, wasn't she afraid of the consequences?

"You really shouldn't waste your time worrying about useless things like that," Xie Feng said.

She narrowed her eyes at Lin Sanjiu, as if she had seen right through her thoughts. For the first time since they met, she showed an expression reminiscent of the nineteen-year-old girl from the streets she once was, looking, surprisingly, a little flustered. "Do you think you can just stay here indefinitely? I don't care what you came to this rental office for, but whatever it is, you don't have much time left."

Lin Sanjiu exhaled slowly and nodded.

With Xie Feng's level of combat ability, if she openly turned against the Shark Nexus, they likely wouldn't be able to do much about it; hence, her confidence. But Lin Sanjiu still had to hurry. Even without Xie Feng as an obstacle, she still had to track down the Shark Nexus.

Now that the tour guide was gone, what could she do?

"You've probably already destroyed the rental office's records, haven't you?" she asked, testing the waters.

Xie Feng shook her head even as she said, "Yeah."

That was all the confirmation Lin Sanjiu needed.

Without hesitation, she began rummaging through the office. Ordinary objects were no match for her strength, and in no time at all, she had turned the once neat and orderly rental office into a chaotic mess—drawers overturned, cabinets flung open, papers scattered everywhere, as if someone had shaken the entire place inside a pocket.

Xie Feng remained leaning idly against the front door, her gaze fixed through the glass at something in the distance, as if she had already forgotten about Lin Sanjiu entirely.

During her search, Lin Sanjiu's fingers brushed against her wounds multiple times, forcing her to pause in pain each time. The deep gash Xie Feng had sliced across her fingers seemed to have hit a nerve.

Pain aside, she also tried several times to use the signal device Cyrus had implanted beneath her skin to send him a message that everything was going well. However, no matter what she did, the device remained silent.

According to Cyrus, the device seemed to work by utilizing nerve signals or bioelectricity in the hand. Lin Sanjiu hadn't understood the technical details at the time, but that didn't stop her from forming a guess. Her damaged nerves were likely preventing the signal device from functioning properly.

While she was still inside the rental office, she couldn't use the Beacon-Wolf Signal system's personal terminal to contact Cyrus either. After weighing her options, she concluded that the best course of action was to find the rental records as quickly as possible, leave immediately, and then contact either Cyrus or Yu Yuan once she was in the clear. Yu Yuan had originally planned to locate her through the communicator, but now that it was destroyed, he hadn't shown up. Most likely, he had no way of finding her.

She wasn't too concerned about the Shark Nexus learning about Yu Yuan's existence. The bigger issue was that the communicator the grand prize had given her had been her last one, and it now lay shattered on the ground. If she tried to contact Yu Yuan through other means, she would inevitably expose Eight-Heads De's location. To be safe, she decided to hold off on making contact until she was sure she had completely shaken off the Shark Nexus's surveillance.

The rental office contained a large number of documents, but fortunately, Pete had mentioned the time frame of his pitch, so she only needed to check the records around that period. This saved her a great deal of effort. The office had rented out five buses in total, three of which had been booked within the relevant timeframe, with six names listed. Any one of them could be linked to the Shark Nexus.

Now, she had a pool of suspects to investigate. Tracing these six individuals would undoubtedly lead her to someone from the Shark Nexus. And with Yu Yuan's help, the process shouldn't be too difficult.

As she secured the documents and made her way to the door, she paused beside Xie Feng.

"Where are you going next?"

It was as if the question had drifted for an eternity through the vast universe before finally reaching Xie Feng, pulling her mind back from wherever it had been floating.

"I'm going to find her."

"Where is she?"

Still gazing into the distance, Xie Feng replied calmly, "In the sea by Tear City."

That made sense... it was the most fitting resting place for Dong Luorong.

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A fleeting image of Xie Feng spending the rest of her life on a boat appeared in Lin Sanjiu's mind before she quickly dismissed it. That wasn't possible. The morning star where Tear City had once stood had long since fallen to doomsday. She was likely just going to visit, before being teleported away again.

Lin Sanjiu retrieved the Beacon-Wolf Signal personal terminal from her card inventory and handed it to Xie Feng. "Let me leave you a way to contact me. I told you before that my friend and I were trapped inside Ah Quan's pocket dimension and ended up experiencing several memory records, right?"

Xie Feng hesitated briefly before looking at the small white device.

Lin Sanjiu continued, "Your past wasn't one of the ones I personally experienced... but my friend did. He isn't exactly human, at least not yet, but he lived through a part of your life as you. If you ever need his help, I think he'd be more than willing."

"And you? Whose memories did you experience?" Xie Feng seemed unwilling to dwell on her own past and changed the subject.

"Wu Yiliu." Lin Sanjiu smiled. "You can tell him that if you'd like. When you return from Tear City, if you want to find me, just send me a message... or don't wait until then. You can reach out anytime."

Xie Feng studied her for a moment before returning the small white device. "I'll tell you two things. First, if this communication system is from Beacon-Wolf Signal, I suggest you throw it away right now. I suspect it belongs to the Shark Nexus. Second, once I return to Tear City, I won't be leaving again."

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