Chapter 334: Meeting An Old Friend
When Lin Sanjiu walked out of the Bumper Karts attraction, blood had stopped oozing from her pores. As many of her epidermal capillaries had been damaged, huge red patches appeared all over her honey-colored skin. She probably would never forget the feeling of being fried like an 'onion ring'.
However, compared to Soulsqn, she looked much better.
Lin Sanjiu held the area which was once Soulsqn's neck and dragged her forward. She felt goosebumps on her skin. She was holding something hard beneath that skin. The layers of skin and human hair had swallowed her hand. The feeling of that soft, shapeless skin wrapping around her hand was very uncomfortable.
"You tried to attack me yet I'm bringing you out of the amusement park…" Lin Sanjiu gave a soft cold laugh. When she spotted Soulsqn looking downward, she continued, "If you Souls have even a bit of conscience, you shouldn't let me waste my worries on you."
Soulsqn remained slumped in her hand without saying a word. Lin Sanjiu did not know what she was thinking.
If Lin Sanjiu was alone, she felt that she could go for the next round… However, she found no point in risking her life.
The first round was already very dangerous. If she did manage to complete the second round, she probably would be half-dead. What would she do then? Continue with the third round which was three times harder?
She was tossed into Starry Carnival Amusement Park by Santa Claus so she could be bait for Puppeteer. The only reason why she wanted to continue down the route was so that she could find Reno and Rena. If she hurt herself badly, she wouldn't have a chance of rescuing the kids from Puppeteer. With that in mind, it was clearer to her that it was a much better choice to exit and think of a better strategy. Just like the fact that every ability had a limitation, there should be a way to survive every pocket dimension.
Just as before, there wasn't any sound of human conversations on Frog Route. They could only hear the tinkling sound of music weaving through the air along with the balloons that bobble to their beat. Somehow that spirited atmosphere seemed to further emphasize the sense of alienation and solitude.
Set against this strange silence, hearing a human voice from the middle of the grass field was like a thunderbolt out of nowhere.
"I want a scoop of chocolate toffee and a scoop of rum and raisin."
Lin Sanjiu turned her head slowly and coincidentally locked eyes with the customer who was buying ice cream. That person seemed to have already known that another human was approaching, however, unlike Lin Sanjiu who was cautious about the risks of meeting someone who might pose a danger to her, he clearly felt that buying ice cream was important.
"Um? I think I've seen you before."
While Lin Sanjiu stared speechlessly at the other person, he already raised his brow.
Even if Lin Sanjiu was now almost 1.8m, the man in a black robe was a head taller than her. His muscles were well-defined and sharply sculpted, quietly possessing incredible strength and power. There was a depth in his eyes that seemed to be forged through countless bloodbaths. Every fiber of his being revealed a steel-like will which had been tempered by destruction and bloodshed.
The katana on his back was nowhere to be seen but the aura that Hei Zeji exuded had never been more dangerous.
"Thank you for your patronage. It will be 30 Stamina points," the ice cream truck owner handed Hei Zeji his order after a 'ding' sound. After he took the ice cream, Hei Zeji turned around to face Lin Sanjiu. She couldn't help feeling a sense of relief. Holding an ice cream cone in each hand did soften his image considerably.
"It's me," Lin Sanjiu replied. She never would have imagined that she would improve so much. She felt that she was no longer that 'weak sh*t' that couldn't even stand properly in front of him previously. "Have you forgotten? When we were in Hyperthermal Hell, you and Li Zhijun saved me and my friends… I didn't expect to meet you here!"
As she spoke, she couldn't help finding the situation a bit funny. Each time they met, they were in a pocket dimension.
"Oh, I remembered," he only recalled what had happened after he heard Lin Sanjiu describe the pocket dimension. "So, you're Lin Sanjiu. That is the reason why your name sounds so familiar."
From the looks of it, Hei Zeji had already forgotten what Lin Sanjiu looked like originally. He didn't seem surprised by her current appearance either. With his two large ice cream cones, he strode toward her. Once he moved, Soulsqn immediately started trembling. She started struggling as if she wanted to run away but Lin Sanjiu held her with a tight grip.
Looking up, Lin Sanjiu realized that his words were a little odd, "What do you mean?"
When Hei Zeji came closer, Lin Sanjiu had a vague feeling of what she had felt in the past. She remembered how his overbearing aura made it a little hard to breathe and her muscles quivered all over. He looked at Soulsqn and narrowed his eyes. The latter immediately shivered.
"I heard that name from another posthuman. That person said he was from Progressor Alliance and told me to inform the Puppeteer to come here to catch her."
"He approached me because my name felt familiar—" Lin Sanjiu gulped.
Lin Sanjiu had a very good impression of Hei Zeji. Even though he seemed ill-tempered, he was very reliable when they were at Hyperthermal Hell. When she first saw him, she was delighted to see someone she knew but she overlooked something.
"Is Hei Zeji from Progressor Alliance?"
With this chilling doubt, Lin Sanjiu was just about to question him when the tall man in front of her spoke.
"What's Progressor Alliance? Who is Puppeteer? Who are they anyway?" he suddenly said.
"Huh?" Lin Sanjiu stared wide-eyed at Hei Zeji. Her amber irises shone under the sun. She didn't understand the context. If Hei Zeji did not belong to any faction, why was he here? "How did you enter?"
Hei Zeji took a big bite from his chocolate toffee ice cream as he listened to Lin Sanjiu stammering as she questioned him. After a faint hint of satisfaction he got from the ice cream disappeared quickly from his face, he slowly replied, "I've been in this world for two months. I happened to land right out this pocket dimension when I was transported to this world. Red Nautilus sounds familiar... Where is this place?"
And Lin Sanjiu thought she was unlucky before she heard about Hei Zeji's predicament!
Lin Sanjiu looked at him, gaping. For a moment, she didn't know how she should start to explain. After she explained the general situation in Red Nautilus, Hei Zeji nodded.
"Ah, so this is one of the Twelve Worlds. Sounds boring." Even though he was still holding his ice cream, there was still a scary vicious aura about him. "Nevermind. This pocket dimension is pretty good."
"You— you… you plan to stay here for 14 months?"
If it cost 10 Stamina points each day, how many points must one get to stay here for 14 months?
Hei Zeji would not answer any question he had already explained. He turned to look at Soulsqn and asked, "What is this? Is it your pet?"
From a certain angle, Hei Zeji wasn't wrong. Lin Sanjiu raised Soulsqn up. She had not really tamed "it" so she didn't know how to answer.
"It's really ugly," Hei Zeji concluded.
Soulsqn immediately twisted her body. But when she saw the person who said that, she hung her head down and did not move again. After a while, she hissed, "I... I need to consume just one person…"
Lin Sanjiu was startled and did not know how Hei Zeji would react. He narrowed his eyes.
"Pass me your dog for a moment."
Lin Sanjiu trusted Hei Zeji because he saved her once. She hesitated and finally handed Soulsqn to him, but not before giving him a cautionary warning, "Be careful. It can create illusions—"
She wasn't sure if Soulsqn, who was now struggling desperately, had already started to fight back. But when Hei Zeji held her neck and brought her over to the ice cream truck, she seemed docile and obedient.
After a while, Lin Sanjiu heard the familiar squelching sound from the back of the ice cream truck.
A bloodied black bear vest lay on the grass, showing slightly from behind the ice cream truck.
When Soulsqn emerged with her small leather shoes, she already looked much better. Her face still looked terrible but when she moved it was visible that she had already recovered quite a lot. Her dried up limbs had already grown out once more.
"Is that the posthuman who informed you about me?" Lin Sanjiu asked Hei Zeji when Soulsqn rushed back eagerly to her side. "You killed him?"
Hei Zeji lifted one side of his mouth and showed a malicious smile.
"He was annoying."
"What did that person do…" Even though Lin Sanjiu did not like that man, she didn't feel that it was necessary to kill him. After thinking about it for a while, she decided to change the subject and asked Hei Zeji about Li Zhijun's current status. Unexpectedly, the two men were separated after a little incident at Hyperthermal Hell. After that, they did not meet each other again.
"It's alright. When you find a Consular Officer, you can always find him." After Lin Sanjiu said that, she looked at the digital clock nearby and was shocked, "I need to go! If I don't leave now, the door will be closing soon!"
It was 5 minutes to the door's closing time. If she wanted to leave, Lin Sanjiu had to go now. The ice cream truck was quite a distance from the large castle door!
"You're leaving the pocket dimension?" Hei Zeji raised his brow.
"No—" Even though it was quite embarrassing, Lin Sanjiu quickly told Hei Zeji about the situation at the Bumper Karts station. "Bumper Karts is a little difficult. Just to be on the safe side, I am going to prepare myself before coming in again. I will get 15 Stamina point…"
Hei Zeji listened to her expressionlessly and did not reply.
Seeing that he wasn't about to reply any time soon, Lin Sanjiu bid him farewell and ran toward the exit dragging Soulsqn behind her.
After she ran a few steps, she suddenly felt the hair on her back standing.
Even though she didn't hear anything, somehow she knew that something was heading directly at her at high speed, tearing through the air. Before Lin Sanjiu could scream, she tumbled forward to the ground as fear gripped her body. A sharp cold wind swept above her head and she saw a black crescent-like shadow.
When she turned around, the black crescent froze in mid-air. As Hei Zeji made a gesture, it remained floating in the air.