Doomsday Wonderland Chapter 1692: Lin Sanjiu and Bee Sting Venom's Experience Log

Chapter 1692: Lin Sanjiu and Bee Sting Venom's Experience Log

In a corner of the exhibition hall, silence gradually seeped into the air, growing heavier, like a damp sponge pressing against the skin.
The tour guide slowly straightened her back, glancing at Lin Sanjiu and then at Yao Han.
Perhaps because she hadn't caught what Lin Sanjiu had mouthed, the woman inside the glass tube looked utterly blank, her expression one of pure confusion as if she were still trying to figure out why they had suddenly stopped moving.
No matter how you looked at her, she didn't seem like a duoluozhong. The delicate texture of her skin, the messy strands of her hair, the tear streaks on her cheeks, and the cracked skin on her lips—all of it made her seem like a living, breathing human with warm blood in her veins.
While the tour guide lacked physical strength, she wasn't exactly dull. She kept one hand firmly pressed on the platform's small door, turned her head away from the glass tube, and said in a low voice, "Really? How do you know? I mean... I know you don't want to save her..."
Her attention had been focused on Yao Han earlier, so it wasn't until now that she took a proper look at Lin Sanjiu—and froze in surprise. "Huh? You seem a bit... um, I can't quite put it into words..."
Lin Sanjiu understood what she meant. She couldn't see herself, but she was fully aware of how her demeanor had shifted.
To be honest, if not for recalling Ji Shanqing while thinking about the name earlier, she might have completely forgotten that she could activate the mimicking function of her Higher Consciousness, a near-cheating tool. She could sense that her resemblance to her original self and the mimicry's effectiveness had decreased significantly since being transformed into a timid version of herself. It wasn't even a tenth as good as before. But still, it was enough.
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"Actually, it's not just about this one duoluozhong. I've also been thinking about our earlier encounter. How we just so happened to run into escaped duoluozhong. I think I have a general idea of what's going on."
Lin Sanjiu didn't deliberately slow her speech, making it difficult for the woman in the glass to lip-read what she was saying. Judging by the deepening furrows in Yao Han's brows, it was clear she was struggling to follow. "The reason we haven't figured it out until now is that we've been operating under the assumption that this place is simply an exhibition hall, and the duoluozhong are merely exhibits. But that doesn't make sense. The writing on the glass casing clearly states that this isn't just an exhibition hall—or at least, it's not only an exhibition hall."
"An... experience hall?" the tour guide asked hesitantly.
"Exactly. In fact, ever since we fell in here, we've been gathering scattered clues bit by bit." Lin Sanjiu, still bound by chains, couldn't shrug but continued anyway. "Of course, this is partly because whoever set up this experience hall never intended to hide its purpose. The fact that we only just realized something was off shows how slow we are."
"What clues? What hints are there?" Bee Sting Venom asked urgently.
"The name 'Duoluozhong Experience Hall' itself is a clue. Forget for a moment what's so fascinating about the duoluozhong. If this were just about walking around and looking at them, how could that be considered an 'experience'? 'Exhibition' refers to what the organizers do, but 'experience' refers to what visitors do. Yet, as we've walked through this place, there's been nothing to provide visitors with an 'experience.'" She nodded toward the black platform with her chin. "Not until you opened that door."
The tour guide stared at the small door by her hand, waiting silently for Lin Sanjiu to continue.
Yao Han, still kneeling on the ground, watched them with wide eyes, seemingly calling out a few "heys," though no one paid her any attention.
"The simplest answers are often the closest to the truth. When I first saw the gap in the fabric covering, I thought it looked like an entrance, assuming a duoluozhong had escaped through it. That's why I came over to check." Lin Sanjiu continued, "It turns out my first instinct was correct. There's a door beneath the platform."
This was an obvious clue: why was there a door here? If the glass enclosure contained a duoluozhong, why would its base be so easy to open?
The answer was simple; it could be opened because it was meant to be opened.
The rest of the hall offered nothing for visitors to "experience." The only remaining possibility was the platform beneath the duoluozhong.
"Let's imagine the scenario," Lin Sanjiu explained. "Visitors to the experience hall walk among the display stands containing duoluozhong. When they find one that interests them, they approach and open the platform." ⱤΑΝồΒЁṣ
"Open the platform and then... what?" the tour guide murmured, as if in a dream.
"That's the question. I'm afraid the only way to find the most accurate answer is to go in and see for ourselves."
The two of them opened the platform's door, revealing a dim, half-height space. As Bee Sting Venom finally mustered the courage to bend down and crawl inside, the woman on the display platform kept her face pressed against the glass, watching them intently.
At some point, she had stopped trying to speak to them. Her face was expressionless, and only her eyes, peering out from under her eyelids, remained fixed in place as though glued there.
As someone entered, lights illuminated the underside of the platform.
Lin Sanjiu, who had been holding the door open for Bee Sting Venom, awkwardly knelt down to peer inside. At the same time, they both saw what lay beneath the platform: the space was extremely cramped, barely large enough to fit a person. Once inside, there was no place to stand except for a reclining chair at the center.
The most striking feature was the cluster of thick, white, nerve-like cords hanging down from the panel above. They dangled precisely over the headrest of the chair, so anyone who sat down would find their head and face in contact with the cords.
The cords swayed slightly in midair, like a group of sentient worms. Occasionally, when Bee Sting Venom inadvertently leaned closer, the tips of the cords would suddenly lift as though sniffing for her face.
Naturally, Bee Sting Venom had no intention of testing it herself. Pressing her back tightly against the wall, she stammered, "What... what is this for?"
Faced with the eerie implication of the white nerves, her question sounded less like genuine curiosity and more like a plea for reassurance.
As if in response to her voice, a loud thump, thump echoed from above, the sound of someone banging on the floor. It was clearly coming from "Yao Han." For the first time, they heard her muffled voice through the glass: "Pull those white cords off for me!"
The two of them stared at the white, nerve-like cords dangling and swaying in the air. Neither moved or spoke.
"I'm just one panel away from being free," Yao Han continued, her voice coming through the platform as if she were speaking with her mouth pressed to the ground. "If you try a little harder, I'll be able to escape! Hurry up! What are you even doing?"
They could no longer see Yao Han's face or posture, but something faint and unsettling seeped into her voice, like a slow-spreading toxin, making Bee Sting Venom's lips tremble uncontrollably.
"So... how did you know she..." Bee Sting Venom's question trailed off.
Lin Sanjiu, still examining the space under the platform, replied, "I guessed that the place for visitors to 'experience' something must be below the platform. Whatever the experience is, it's definitely related to the duoluozhong. This place is called the Duoluozhong Experience Hall, after all. And we saw the same kind of platform under that other fleshy duoluozhong. It's probably under every glass enclosure. When I asked her, 'Do visitors enter through the underside for the experience?' she said yes."
"I think I get it now." Listening to the banging above, Bee Sting Venom muttered, "She's a duoluozhong. That's why she knows visitors go under the platform for the... experience."
"Exactly. At the very least, the possibility of her being a duoluozhong is far greater than her being human."
Lin Sanjiu didn't lower her voice. It seemed that "Yao Han" on the platform above had heard her, as she suddenly went quiet, neither shouting nor banging anymore.
After a few seconds, Yao Han's voice returned, syrupy sweet.
"There are a dozen more cords buried inside my body. Don't you want to give it a try?"
Inside the eerily quiet space under the platform, Bee Sting Venom audibly swallowed.
It seemed that the most far-fetched guess was actually true. By safely separating people from the duoluozhong and connecting them via these "nerves," some kind of experience could be facilitated...
What kind of experience could it possibly be?
"It's likely that visitors to this place can control the duoluozhong, like a game character, and experience what it feels like to live as one."
As soon as Lin Sanjiu finished speaking, a distant voice behind her responded, "Exactly."