Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Lucy’s body had been eaten very cleanly.
Lin Sanjiu was only able to recognize her immediately because the girl’s head had not been touched. Lucy’s head still looked as it did when she was alive. The girl was lying in a pool of dried blood. Her sleeves and trouser legs were neatly rolled up, and what should have been delicate, fair-skinned limbs had now become four ghastly white bones.
No matter who her murderer was, he did a fine job. All her skin and flesh were cleanly scraped off of her limbs. It was just that Lucy was too skinny; the person would not get many portions of flesh even if he were to scrape everything off.
Slowly, Lin Sanjiu sat beside the body. She realized that Lucy had a small, heart-shaped face. Her eyelashes were short, and her skin exhibited an unwholesome white. Although her complexion was bloodless, she gave off the vibe that she would suddenly peel her eyes open and start to walk around.
“Those who are dead will walk around,” Lin Sanjiu said. “That was what Eggy told me.”
The faint footfalls were within earshot. They stopped beside the dead body, and Lucy’s face appeared from the dark. Lowering her head, she inspected the corpse that looked exactly like her. A mixture of perplexion and terror was written all over her face. With an outstretched arm, she touched the face of the corpse.
“It has been five years,” another “Lucy” who could not bleed mumbled. “I always believed that someday I would find a way to exclude myself from the world leaping loop. My mother always said I was smart and full of tricks. I don’t remember her face anymore, but I would never forget the thing she said. I always thought, one day I would beat the hell out of the doomsday.”
She ran her fingers across the body’s face then her shoulder and arm. The bone rustled under her fingers.
“For five years, I kept struggling and struggling and struggling…” Lucy laughed halfheartedly, “But this is it. This is what I got in the end. If I knew earlier that everything I did throughout the years would all be in vain, I would rather die together with my parents and Bubbles when the apocalypse first arrived.”
Lin Sanjiu kept her head low, staring at the young girl on the floor. She did not say anything.
“Am I really dead?””Lucy” asked again, her voice faltering like hollow wind in a cave. “If I’m dead, how can I still touch my body?”
“Before you met us,” Lin Sanjiu replied softly, “The highest god created a dozen of “me”. Each and every single one of them had my memories, and all of them thought they were the real Lin Sanjiu. The only difference was, at that time, I was not dead yet.”
Lucy remained standing still. Lin Sanjiu had no idea whether or not she was listening to what she said.
Without making any sound, Lin Sanjiu extended her arm and withdrew the box of matches from Lucy’s hand. The young girl seemed to be unaware of her movement as she continued to stand as still as a statue.
Lin Sanjiu took out a match and struck it across the striker at the side of the box. A tiny, wavering firelight then came alive and danced on the end of the wooden stick. It chased the shade away a little bit and dyed their surroundings in an orange hue.
Since the firelight was closer this time, Lin Sanjiu finally saw “Lucy’s” face. Livor mortis had already set in on her skin, leaving a few dark patches around her chin and cheek. Both Lucys wore different attires as well. The corpse on the floor dressed in a T-shirt that went very well with its petite body size whereas the “Lucy” in front of her donned an oversized men’s shirt. The sleeves were rolled up.
Obviously, this was a male corpse that had been “transformed” into Lucy’s appearance.
Why didn’t the highest god make her corpse walk and talk instead?
This was because Lucy’s legs had been reduced to two white bones.
A tiny sense of pain flared across Lin Sanjiu’s fingers as the fire snuffed out, prompting her to hurl the match away. Since she had only been using a bandage to hold her broken palm, it did not permit her such maneuverability. It gave her a lot of pain as if she had been whacked by a sledgehammer. As she sucked in air to soothe the pain, “Lucy’s” voice rose from the dark and slid into her ears. “Why… Why does he have to make me stand up and walk around?”
Unfortunately, not even Lin Sanjiu could answer the question.
Raising her arm high, “Lucy” inspected the dried wound on her arm. Then, she looked at Lin Sanjiu and gave her a forced smile. “You see, this body has been eaten as well. It doesn’t bleed, so I think it is a corpse too. I… my body won’t be able to grow anymore, right?”
Lin Sanjiu had no answer to this question either; she could not even sigh. Placing her palm on the shoulder of Lucy’s corpse with her other hand, she said gently, “Which world did you come from?”
The young girl, keeping her head low, she answered, “…I came from the Bamboo Forest.”
“I’m taking this away,” Lin Sanjiu said as she nudged her chin at the dead body. “If I get the chance, I’ll take your body back to your home at Bamboo Forest.”
Curling on the floor like a helpless young cub that had just lost its mother, the young girl curled her body up and nodded.
With those words, Lin Sanjiu activated her ability and turned the body into a card. Then, Lin Sanjiu put the card away. Just as she was about to query “Lucy” about the cause of her death, “Lucy” suddenly jerked up from the floor.
“What are you doing here?””Lucy” asked. Gone was the pitiable young girl. She took a step back as she snarled, “I don’t care about what is going on between you guys and that b*stard, nor do I want to get involved as well. I still have another two months before I say goodbye to this f*cking world. You guys have caused too much trouble for me. I’m going to find the exit now!”
Lin Sanjiu was so startled that she could not come around to her senses. By the time she snapped herself back to reality and jumped up from the floor, “Lucy” had scurried to the back of the screen. Before the words “You are already dead” could escape her lips, she held them back.
She remained silent and listened as “Lucy’s” footsteps grew fainter and further away. She felt that something was stuck in her throat. Everything that she had gone through with “Lucy” after meeting her under the table did not stay in the corpse’s brain. It occurred to her that the young girl’s psychological state had returned to the way it was before she died.
It was just like a disk.
The death of Lucy marked the final storage capacity of the disk. The disk contained only Lucy’s fifteen years of memories. Even if the highest god copied her memories and installed them into another corpse, it would contain only her fifteen years of memories and nothing more. Everything that happened after she died, including the fact that she was already dead, would be discarded because there was not enough memory in the disk.
Right now, “Lucy” did not know she was dead. She would continue to look for the exit in this furniture cemetery. However, she would never find it.
“Bamboo Forest.” Lin Sanjiu rubbed her face before gazing out in the direction where “Lucy” had run into.
“Bamboo Forest,” she mumbled again. Then, she withdrew her gaze and looked at the mass of furniture behind the screen.
“Lucy” said that Polva’s corpse was somewhere behind the screen.
Lucy probably came across Polva’s corpse before she died. Logically speaking, if let’s say Lucy came from the spot where she found Polva’s body, then all Lin Sanjiu had to do right now was to head towards that direction.
However, Lucy encountered something around the screen and died.
Lin Sanjiu shuddered when she thought about that. She studied her surroundings. The screen and the furniture, which was in all sorts of shapes and sizes, stood quietly in the dark. However, there was a patch of dried black blood on the cement floor.
Lucy encountered something around the screen and she died.
Lin Sanjiu stood behind the screen. There was a lot of furniture surrounding it. She had to check around to see if Lucy left some traces behind to find out which direction she came from. In other words, she could not leave this spot just yet. Suddenly, she felt a chill creep down her spine, prompting her to take a few steps forward and lean her body against a large closet.
She listened in the dark for a moment, but her surroundings were so quiet that she could not hear any sound. It was as if those pieces of furniture had turned silent as well.
She took a deep breath. After she had calmed herself down a little bit, she raised the matchbox and shook it. From the sound of it, she was certain that there were less than ten matches inside the box. She had to use them sparingly and carefully. The matches could only light up a small area around her, which not only accented the darkness around, but also made it even more frightening.
Taking a match into her hand, Lin Sanjiu darted a quick glance at the furniture around her.
The fire was so small and wavered so fast that it looked as if it would go out at any moment. Her brain was so filled with questions that her ears buzzed. She could not concentrate on doing whatever she was doing right now. Just as the fire was about to extinguish, the goddess of luck finally decided to smile at her. She found a small footstep on a cream-colored couch.
She snuffed out the fire before the match burnt out. She tore the couch cover and wrapped it around the match. After leaving the match in the center of the cement floor as her marking, she stepped onto the large couch. The cushion had a soft texture, and her feet sank into it all the way up to her calves.
Then, one of her feet got stuck, and she could not pull it out. She lowered her head and saw a hand clutching her ankle.
