Doomsday Wonderland Chapter 1693: Lin Sanjiu's Second Encounter with the Tour Guide

Chapter 1693: Lin Sanjiu's Second Encounter with the Tour Guide

Before the sound echoed, even Lin Sanjiu hadn't noticed anyone behind her. She spun around abruptly, releasing the Higher Consciousness holding the door, which swept forward to shield herself. As the platform door clicked shut behind her, she saw clearly: there was no one.
The area remained as before, just three display platforms draped in deep red cloth, standing silently beneath the ceiling.
"Who's there?" Lin Sanjiu called out softly, her voice low and sharp, but no reply came.
Inside the platform base, Bee Sting Venom panicked as soon as the door closed. Her muffled voice shouted confusedly, "What's going on?" and "Who was that?" It sounded as though she was frantically searching for a way to reopen the door. After a series of hurried thumps and slaps against the platform, there was suddenly silence.
The hairs on the back of Lin Sanjiu's neck stood on end as she stopped herself from turning around.
If her hands weren't bound, she could have reached behind her to open the door without looking back. But now, to open it, she would need to use her Higher Consciousness. She couldn't afford to divert the protective field currently enveloping her for such a delicate and uncertain action.
"Are you okay?!" she shouted. "I can't hold the door anymore. You'll have to get yourself out!"
No response came from Bee Sting Venom. Neither the exhibition hall ahead nor the platform behind made a sound; only deathly silence remained.
That earlier "Yes," had sounded so close... yet whether it was male or female was impossible to tell. The voice hadn't belonged to a man or a woman; it was as if each word was the sound of bones cracking, coincidentally forming meaningful syllables.
What else could it be but a duoluozhong?
Lin Sanjiu's Higher Consciousness Scan revealed no signs of a duoluozhong hiding in the corners or behind the platforms. There was only one place it could be.
Her gaze swept over the three remaining display platforms covered in deep red cloth.
The glass enclosures were soundproof. If the duoluozhong had been able to make its voice heard, it must have already escaped its enclosure. Lin Sanjiu had never felt so vulnerable: the chains binding her restricted most of her movement. She couldn't run, couldn't fight, couldn't even raise her hands. Her only ally had suddenly gone silent.
Cowards turn cruel only when they have the upper hand. With the situation unclear, Lin Sanjiu wanted nothing more than to turn and flee, but even that option was blocked.
For the first time, a thought surfaced in her mind: perhaps returning to her former self wouldn't be such a bad thing.
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"Come out!" she roared, secretly hoping the fear in her voice wouldn't be noticed. "You're a duoluozhong, right? I've strangled hundreds, no, thousands of duoluozhong with my own hands. Do you really think you're anything special?"
She hadn't expected her bluff to actually provoke a response. From the farthest display platform on her right, a muffled chuckle emerged. Then the deep red covering slowly swelled, and the platform's door pushed open, forming a half-circle shape beneath the fabric.
Yet, the duoluozhong didn't step out from behind the cloth.
"With your own hands, huh... how terrifying," it said, its voice no longer sounding like bones breaking. Now it rang clear, like the clash of metal, each note grating against the nerves, making Lin Sanjiu's muscles twitch involuntarily as though trying to shake the sound off her body. "But... don't you currently have no hands?"
As Lin Sanjiu clenched her back teeth tightly, the duoluozhong behind the deep red cloth spoke again.
"Don't worry," it said in a tone dripping with exaggerated sympathy. "Your companion will definitely be fine. Trust me, a duoluozhong can't leave the display platform to enter the human experience zone... Oh, wait, I forgot—I just got out, didn't I?"
'Has Bee Sting Venom... already been caught by Yao Han?'
Lin Sanjiu felt her insides tighten as if her organs were shrinking. She wanted to turn around and check the state of Yao Han in the glass tube but found her neck stiff with hesitation. She was certain that if she turned, the duoluozhong under the red cloth would seize the opportunity to emerge.
"But I'm a special case," the duoluozhong added with a few raspy chuckles. Its voice grated against her nerves, like a hammer striking a bell inside her head. "That acting duoluozhong isn't like me. Your companion is definitely fine."
Lin Sanjiu didn't want to show any concern for Bee Sting Venom—it might reveal her as a weak spot. Instead, she forced a cold laugh. "You seem to know this place's setup quite well."
From behind the red cloth, the duoluozhong let out what sounded like a long, regretful sigh.
"Of course... How else could I have gotten out?" it said patiently. "Once a person crawls into the platform, as soon as they get close to those neural cords—even accidentally bumping into them—the cords attach themselves. What a missed opportunity. You didn't try it earlier, did you? Such a shame." 𝙧äƝộβЁS
"And after they touch?" Lin Sanjiu asked, partly to stall for time, partly to extract information.
Whether or not the duoluozhong saw through her intent, it complied, its steady, grating voice emerging from behind the cloth. "Once they touch, the artificial neural cords connect the person to the duoluozhong's mind. Of course, the person still knows they're a posthuman, understands it's a temporary experience, and will eventually return... No one would really want to stay a duoluozhong forever."
"Why would anyone want to experience something like that?" Even in her degraded state, Lin Sanjiu couldn't imagine a plausible reason.
The duoluozhong chuckled softly again. Lin Sanjiu tensed, waiting for an explanation, but it didn't offer one. The red cloth remained an eerily silent barrier. She knew that behind it lurked something terrifying and repulsive, but she didn't know when it would emerge—or what she would do when it did.
Just then, she heard a faint, muffled sound behind her. It was so close it felt as though it brushed against the back of her head.
Already on edge, Lin Sanjiu twisted around instinctively, her Higher Consciousness Shield flaring to full strength. But the moment she turned, she realized the sound wasn't directed at her. It had come from inside the glass tube.
"Yao Han" was splitting apart.
The "Yao Han" who had seemed as real as any living human now resembled a stretched skin, strained beyond its limits by the swelling mass within. Finally, it could hold no more. From her chin, chest, thighs, and arms, her outer layer began tearing open. Thin white tendrils stretched and snapped as they revealed the true form of the duoluozhong beneath.
Between the ripped layers of skin lay a smooth, pitch-black surface, gleaming faintly in the light.
"Yao Han's" body, along with her eyes and hair, was pulled apart as the duoluozhong underneath grew larger and larger. Her remains curled into strips clinging to the black figure beneath, only to be swiftly swallowed whole in a few bites. What remained was an entirely new, humanoid duoluozhong pressed against the glass tube, its unblinking gaze fixed on Lin Sanjiu.
Its vaguely human-like head lacked eyes or a nose, with only a deep, gaping hole in the center. That void faced Lin Sanjiu directly. When it suddenly slammed its head against the glass, the impact echoed with the same dull sound she'd heard earlier.
Looking at the duoluozhong in the glass tube, Lin Sanjiu understood.
"Bee... Miss Bee?" she called out tentatively.