Chapter 903: Visiting the Zoo
With only about half of her consciousness restored and having slept only seven to eight hours in the past two days, Lin Sanjiu was well aware that she was far from her optimal condition.
Would it be enough to get through tonight?
She walked lightly along a gravel path, flanked by thick, tall wire fences that extended endlessly, intersecting and disappearing in the distance. In the moonless night, it felt as if she was walking amidst a scattered swarm of pitch-black insects, unsure when she would be engulfed by the swarming insects.
Fate never seemed to allow anything to go smoothly and effortlessly, always throwing numerous obstacles and surprises when people took action. Lin Sanjiu stopped and rubbed her slightly aching brow, starting to regret not coming with Silvan.
Under the nightfall, the cherished animal sanctuary had completely turned into a labyrinth.
This was not a metaphor.
With each step she took, Lin Sanjiu could feel the slight incline of the path beneath her feet. She was certain she was walking in a straight line, but this straight line eventually led her to a stone wall. Just minutes ago, when she was scanning the distance, this rough stone wall did not exist on the path.
Tonight, she intended to follow the route she had taken once before and enter the Munitions Factory through the Rare Creature Natural Reserve. However, as she walked, she never encountered the "pale face" that nearly deceived her last time. When she felt something was amiss and turned back, the path she had come from had already twisted and disappeared behind another stretch of wall.
Of course, she wasn't foolish enough to follow the suddenly twisted path and enter that section of the wall. But the further she walked, the more confused the direction became, leaving her puzzled. Lin Sanjiu sighed, realizing she had started off on the wrong foot, and looked around.
The shadows of the walls and wire fences were darker and denser than the night itself, pressing heavily against the darkness. Occasionally, creatures trapped within the walls and wires would rustle, making a sound as if they were crawling along with her footsteps, only to stop after a while.
So far, she hadn't seen anything that made a sound. The air, faintly tinged with a slight stench, blew through the night intermittently. Each time a thin mist passed by, the road ahead seemed different from before.
"Why would they turn this place into a maze?"
Lin Sanjiu felt a bit worried and muttered under her breath. No one would usually come in at night—
"Because it's our walking time."
A voice, as smooth as if it had slipped into her ear, resounded near her lower leg.
At the moment the voice uttered the first word, a faint white light suddenly appeared behind Lin Sanjiu, protecting her all the way to her heels. In an instant, without turning around, she closed her arms and launched two blasts of consciousness power towards the center.
When Lin Sanjiu twisted her body and took two steps back, the thing that had been speaking near her lower leg had disappeared. She was certain that her attack had hit something, but apart from a cloud of dust and scattered stones on the gravel path, there was no trace of anything suspicious.
"How fierce," the slippery voice chuckled from above her head. "You're free to go!"
Lin Sanjiu shuddered and quickly looked up, but she only caught a fleeting shadow near a horn speaker on the wall. She couldn't even discern the size or color of the shadow—it vanished into the darkness.
What was that thing?
She stopped and her pure touch immediately spread out from her side, encompassing the surrounding environment, turning it into an acute world that resonated with her heartbeat and breath, as if a blindfold had been lifted, revealing a sensitive world.
In the pure touch, there were countless things moving near and far around her, crawling in the darkness. Of course, in the Rare Animal Sanctuary, this was not an unusual sight. However, the creature that spoke just now moved with astonishing speed, leaping out of sight. Even her pure touch couldn't capture it anymore — perhaps it had slowed down, pretending to be some other creature in the images she perceived.
Why was it unharmed after being hit? Lin Sanjiu didn't think much about it. What bothered her was the phrase "It's time for our walk."
What did "walk" mean? It couldn't possibly mean walking like a dog, right?
No, more importantly, the creature said "our."
So, the things that were "protected" in the Rare Animal Sanctuary were now possibly outside... taking a walk?
Lin Sanjiu slowly swallowed her saliva, feeling a headache intensifying. She never expected that even such a simple plan to pass through the sanctuary would go wrong. What she had to do was never smooth sailing, and her desires were never easily granted. It seemed she had to struggle against the current of the universe just to exist.
But then again, perhaps everyone is like that.
Lost in her thoughts, she stood still, waiting for the limping shadow in the distance to approach her.
"Help... help me,"
The thin and frail shadow emerged in the darkness, gradually revealing the appearance of a little girl. Even though Lin Sanjiu was mentally prepared, her heart couldn't help but ache when she saw her. A large piece of flesh was missing from her cheek, and amidst the bloody mess, a faint glimpse of pale white could be seen — her bloodstained teeth, without the cheek's cover, completely exposed to the wind.
Perhaps because of the injury, the little girl's voice became muffled, and her choking sobs grew heavier.
"Sister, please... please help me," she cried, as if she could fall to the ground at any moment and never get up again. "Save me, I want... I want to go home."
Lin Sanjiu didn't move, standing with her arms crossed, watching as the girl slowly and tremulously reached out a small hand towards her.
Before that hand could touch her, it first encountered a smoothly shaped black metal resembling a canine tooth. The black metal was over a meter long, with one end gripped like a sword hilt in Lin Sanjiu's hand. The tip of the tooth gleamed with a dark light, sharp enough to pierce through the night. This was a weapon provided by Silvan from the Munitions Factory, the perfect choice for when facing unknown situations at the beginning of a confrontation.
Under the sharp angle of the metallic tooth, the little girl froze.
"Go away," Lin Sanjiu muttered under her breath.
After all, this was a "rare creature," and she didn't want any unnecessary trouble — but these mimicries were truly unoriginal.
The girl's body also began to tremble, quickly retracting her hand and staring at Lin Sanjiu. She stumbled a few steps in an attempt to escape but fell heavily to the ground. Sobbing in fear, she curled up into a ball, making way for Lin Sanjiu as if she were a clump of mud: "Please... please don't kill me..."
A small black figure huddled on the ground, shaking like a withered leaf.
Using people's sympathy as a hunting strategy was truly revolting. It was because of these things that the posthumans in the apocalypse were becoming less and less human — compassion, kindness, and salvation now seemed like infuriating jokes.
Lin Sanjiu walked over, tightly gripping the metallic tooth, her knuckles turning slightly white. She hadn't expected that an uncontrollable urge to kill would arise within her: What use did this thing have in the world? What use was there in protecting and breeding it? It would be better to kill it off early, doing a favor for humanity.
But as she twisted her body, she suddenly halted her movement.
The little girl remained curled up, hugging her shoulders, continuously hiccupping in fear. Although it wasn't a real living person, at least it appeared indistinguishable from a frightened little girl. Lin Sanjiu's burning desire to kill gradually cooled down, like oil that had cooled and solidified.
This time, she finally turned around and walked away without looking back. With her pure touch active, she had no worries about any potential ambush from behind.
Her only concern was how she would manage to get out.
Since these "rare creatures" could be let out for a walk, it meant one thing: the park management was confident and believed that these "rare creatures" couldn't escape from the transformed maze-like park. After all, if these things couldn't find a way out even when they came out for their nightly walks, then what about her?
After violently knocking away something that had descended upon her like a tattered cloth, Lin Sanjiu propped it on the ground with the metallic tooth and fell into deep thought for a few seconds. She couldn't wait for the maze to reset at dawn—besides, she couldn't be sure how it would reset—by then, her plan to infiltrate the Munitions Factory would be a complete failure.
Although it was a bit embarrassing, she had no choice but to ask the Chicky brothers if they had any clues on how to get out.
With a sigh, Lin Sanjiu reluctantly took out a paper crane. It was a little embarrassing, but after all, it was just a white paper folded into a bird. It couldn't hide in the darkness, so she could only hope that no one nearby had seen the fluttering paper crane flying into the night...
A huge, flat face with a massive beard suddenly emerged from behind the wall, swallowing the small paper crane in one gulp before slamming back down behind the wall. In just a fraction of a second, the night was empty again, as if everything that had just happened was merely a figment of Lin Sanjiu's imagination. She didn't even have time to react before the paper crane was forcefully ripped out of the night.
The face, with features resembling both a catfish and a human, remained vividly imprinted in her memory.
Just what kind of creatures did this sanctuary hide?
As Lin Sanjiu felt her heart race, she hesitated, unsure if she should release another one. She had already given Bohemia half of her paper cranes, and she had used quite a few herself. If she released another one and encountered the same situation...
Before she could make up her mind, a yellow beam of light suddenly illuminated the distance in the night, and someone called out from afar, faintly saying, "Is there someone over there?"