Chapter 1267: On Why Eating Candy Is Not Good
Holding a pen in her hand, Lin Sanjiu stood dazedly on the wet ground, her clothes soaked and heavy, clinging to her skin. The house had mostly returned to its original state, with walls and doors rebuilt; however, the inside was still completely wet. Whether it was the sofa or the carpet, pressing down on them would squeeze out water.
"Hey," Bohemia suddenly called out to her. "What are you staring at? We're all waiting. What do you mean by 'reversed'? Do you think I'm really curious about what you upgraded? I'm just being polite, so hurry up and tell us."
"Oh." Lin Sanjiu finally came to her senses, saying, "I might have been unconscious for too long... My mind is a bit fuzzy now."
She hesitated, feeling as if her mind was shrouded in thick fog and all her thoughts were unclear. Regarding the abnormality of her [Planar World], she felt like she was looking at shadows through mist, uncertain about the exact meaning of 'reversed'—it was almost an instinctive feeling, but she herself was unsure about the specifics of this 'reversed.'
In the past, she took material from the real world and turned it into a card. Now, maybe the things drawn on the card could become real objects in the real world?
With a thought, a card appeared in her palm.
Her card inventory had already been empty, so logically, she shouldn't be able to call out any cards other than functional cards like the Diary Card or the Nostradamus Card. But now... Lin Sanjiu looked down at the card in her hand.
The card was completely white as if it was waiting for her to add something on it.
With some hesitation, Lin Sanjiu slowly drew a curved black line on the white card. The black line remained motionless on the paper for a few seconds, and nothing happened—she tried several times to release the card back into its material form, but the card didn't respond.
"What's this?" Bohemia asked, leaning over. "What do you want to turn it into?"
"Maybe... hair?" Lin Sanjiu wasn't very confident herself as she raised the card for everyone to see. "Doesn't it look like hair?"
Yuan Xiangxi squinted and stared at the black line pretending to be hair for a while. "Do you not know how to draw?"
"What kind of drawing skills do you need for a single strand of hair?"
"It depends on whether you want to make it look realistic. A strand of hair is different from a line," Yuan Xiangxi said, crossing his arms. "The base of the hair is thicker, and the tip is thinner. It's not the same at the top and bottom and has its own shine. Your drawing is just a hasty black line."
Lin Sanjiu had no idea that hair required so much attention to detail.
"If you can draw better, you do it," Bohemia said, pushing his shoulder.
"Although I know a lot," Yuan Xiangxi said, raising his ever-bewildered face and showing no embarrassment as he spoke, "There are many things I'm not skilled in."
Puppeteer lowered his head silently, pressing his temples a few times.
Is it because it doesn't look realistic that it didn't become material?
"There's someone who can draw!" Lin Sanjiu suddenly gasped. "I have a humanoid Special Item that is an artist. Let him try it... But where is he? Have you seen him?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"We were all standing outside the house in the rain," Bohemia grumbled. "Your stupid container smashed through the house. Who knows what happened inside? Hey, what's with that enlightened look on your face? Did you think we destroyed the house for fun?"
'So, it wasn't Puppeteer unleashing his anger.'
Speaking of the Artist, she had another humanoid item. Looking around at the Special Items strewn in the living room, she noticed several missing. They must have scattered somewhere during the demolition process. Everyone, except Puppeteer who refused to help, spread out across the house, calling out, "Artist! Life Coach!" while searching every corner for the missing Special Items.
Since the Artist and the Life Coach were both humanoid Special Items, they didn't breathe or have heartbeats, so if they were hidden and silent, they would be no different from a table or chair. It was hard to find them, even for a posthuman. After searching around, they only found a wooden crate that somehow got tossed under the staircase, with the Special Items nowhere to be seen.
As a horse and a toaster, Lin Sanjiu and J7 had limited mobility to move around on their own, let alone go upstairs. After all, no one would allow a horse or a toaster to roam around freely. While the hostess took the cat upstairs, both horse and toaster remained under Puppeteer's watchful eye. A while later, even their awkward small talk ended, and J7 seemed restless.
Lin Sanjiu mustered her courage and said to Puppeteer, "You... seem well."
The living room fell silent, with only the sound of footsteps from the floor above and Bohemia's faint voice. Puppeteer stared at his fingers, turning a deaf ear.
"I wonder if there's a hairdryer or something here..."
Lin Sanjiu flipped through her cards several times, finding that the black pen lines on the card were erasable as she cleaned the card. "Being wet must be uncomfortable, right?"
"Not so much as when I see you," Puppeteer said politely.
Lin Sanjiu paused, and several thoughts tumbled in her mind. Finally, she said, "Was that forest also a pocket dimension? I seem to be slowly remembering what happened in the forest."
"You only start to recall things only after they're settled; that's convenient," Puppeteer said as if praising her. "A fool's life is worry-free."
The living room fell silent again. After two seconds, J7 suddenly extended a mechanical arm and tugged at Lin Sanjiu's sleeve.
"Is this what you humans often say..." it asked with a scientific inquiry tone, "'talking someone's ear off'?"
'Even I can't answer that now, right?'
Just as Lin Sanjiu didn't know what to say, she heard Bohemia scream suddenly from above. Lin Sanjiu shivered, and then Yuan Xiangxi's muffled voice said, "Over here! Inside the floor!"
'Inside the... floor?'
Lin Sanjiu and J7 both looked up at the ceiling. Footsteps sounded as someone rushed over, causing the chandelier to tremble. Bohemia's voice echoed from the staircase, calling down, "I found them! Both of them are sealed!"
"What happened?" Lin Sanjiu hurried to the staircase but hesitated to go up. "What do you mean by 'sealed'?"
She had never felt such a contradiction before. She knew that the staircase in front of her was ordinary one. However, in her eyes, it seemed narrow, fragile, and peculiar. She didn't want to place her hoof—her foot—on it.
Before answering, Bohemia gestured to the room, motioning for Yuan Xiangxi to start demolishing. Then she turned and explained, "The force of the impact probably threw them up, and since these idiots didn't run away, when the house started to repair itself, they became trapped inside. It's so scary! The Life Coach's face is pressed against the wall, and all his features were protruding... And the other one—the Artist, right? He fell headfirst, so his legs are sticking out of the floor and kicking the air."
Lin Sanjiu really wanted to take a look, but as a horse, Sugar Cube hesitated and circled the staircase several times, still not daring to go up. Bohemia probably noticed her dilemma, saying, "Wait in the living room! If the floor smashes open, they will fall into the living room."
J7 followed Lin Sanjiu, buzzing behind her, and both the horse and the toaster stopped at the living room entrance. Puppeteer stood up and carried his chair into a corner as the ceiling and chandelier began to shake. After observing for a while, the toaster suddenly made a very human-like exclamation, "Pocket dimensions in the doomsday are no joke!"
Then, the ceiling collapsed.
Wood, dust, and the chandelier all splintered and scattered from mid-air. A figure fell, crashing heavily onto the wet, mud-covered floor; buckets, brushes, and paint tubes bloomed in the air. The Artist lay amidst the ruins, seemingly still not fully recovered from being completely trapped in the floor. It took him a while before he moved his trembling limbs.
"Don't come over!" Yuan Xiangxi said, his face appearing through the large hole. "There's more!"
The wall opposite began to tremble and make a muffled sound. Likely because of the two humanoid Special Items' proximity, when one of these walls was breached, it triggered a chain reaction, causing the other to give way. The half on the second floor that just repaired itself collapsed with a loud rumble.
After the dust settled, Lin Sanjiu coughed and lifted the Artist from the wreckage. She made some effort to explain her request to him. The Artist probably hadn't expected that he would need to start drawing right after getting out of the floor. He held a blank card with one hand while rummaging through the debris for drawing materials.
It wasn't until half of the second floor was blown away that Lin Sanjiu realized why she couldn't find many of her small items earlier; they had also been trapped inside the second floor. Tumbling down with the debris, they dotted the entire floor.
"Did anything unusual happen after your ability upgrade?"
Perhaps after hearing their previous conversation, the Life Coach suddenly stood up from the debris, his face covered in gray. He still managed to puff up his chest and said, "One Special Item will do. Think carefully about it; making the right choices at critical moments can save you a lot of trouble. Here, take this."
Lin Sanjiu's attention shifted to a glass bottle rolling towards her, filled with colorful candies. It stopped with a soft rattle against the tip of a dark leather boot. She watched as Puppeteer, with a hand as fragile as frost, bent down to retrieve the bottle. He inspected it for a few seconds before shaking it, the candies inside responding with a muted sound. The glass reflected in Puppeteer's pupils.
"Who gave this to you?" he said, his tone a blend of scorn and desolation. The glitter at the corner of his eye suddenly flickered, highlighting the deathly stillness in his black eyes.
"G-Gong Daoyi," Lin Sanjiu said. "Is there something wrong with it?"
"Did you eat one?"
"Yes... I did," she said, her heart sinking.
Puppeteer exhaled softly, the black earring in his right ear swaying with his movement.
"There was another substance mixed in," he said hoarsely, not looking at her. "Eating it will make you forget something."