There was no police station in Peanut Town, and there was no need for one. Everyone lived under the command of the speaker and moved under the watchful eye of the camera. Even at night when they were sleeping, there would be a pair of eyes next to their pillows watching them.
Every morning after they grabbed their breakfast, they would file out of the building under the guidance of their residential leader and move towards the black mountain with their neighborhood team. There were teams of police officers along the way, from the residential buildings to the black mountain. After they finished their daily reporting, if they weren’t taken away by the black mountain, the police officers would then escort them to the strolling garden for a walk.
Once the citizens returned to their homes and began their daily routines, all of the police officers would return to standby at the town hall, leaving only a few of them to patrol the town.
The things that happened in the dream were often hard to explain. As Lin Sanjiu moved towards the town hall with Yu Yuan, she had no idea why, but she somehow gained clarity of how the police officers worked.
“This happens all the time. Don’t forget that we are actually dreaming right now.”
Yu Yuan destroyed yet another camera as he spoke. After that, both of them scooched down and dived into a grocery store beside them. Since it had lost its functionality, the grocery store had been closed down. From the way it looked, Lin Sanjiu deduced that it should’ve been closed for at least thirty years. The roller shutter was full of dust and the handprints of children. There was a hole underneath it, which they could barely go through.
Both of them squeezed through the hole and threw themselves into the grocery store. The air was so dusty that they could smell and taste the dust. There was no camera in the grocery store and the two windows were sealed with planks, giving no way for the sun to shine into the dingy premise and chase the darkness away. Covering his nose and mouth with his hand, Yu Yuan continued to talk in a muffled voice, “This town is in your dream, so occasionally, you will have a situation where you will get enlightened out of nowhere. This is not uncommon, as it often happens in our dreams when we are sleeping. For example, when I first dreamed of this,” Yu Yuan paused for a second as he waved his wrist, “I didn’t know what was going on, and all of a sudden, there was a voice inside that kept telling me I had to form a team with somebody to fight against a person.”
Yu Yuan continued to tell Lin Sanjiu more about his conjectures as they moved towards the back of the grocery store. Since Lin Sanjiu had stayed in a supermarket for one month before, she knew that there was a backdoor that would lead them to the loading dock in this grocery store.
Before they came into the grocery store, the police officers had changed their tactic. Right now, they were moving in groups of four instead of two. They had dispersed across the entire Peanut Town, and Lin Sanjiu was certain that both of them would walk straight into their web if they were to continue moving on the main street.
They unlatched the lock on the backdoor. As soon as they pried the door open, a heavy discharge of gunshots sprayed on them, numbing their ears with the clatter of bullets striking the metal door. Even though both of them reacted quickly and took cover behind the door in the nick of time, Lin Sanjiu was nearly hit in the shoulder by the spray of stray bullets.
“There are two teams out there,” Yu Yuan shouted as he fought back by firing a burst of gunfire outward. As their enemy firepower dwindled, Yu Yuan seized the chance and darted a quick glance at Lin Sanjiu. Panting, he asked, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just a small wound,” replied Lin Sanjiu as she wiped the blood off her shoulder. “Luckily we are in a dream, so it should be fine.”
“They’re in here!” somebody outside shouted. “Quick! Send in more people!”
“Copy! Don’t let them out of there! The reinforcements will arrive shortly.”
The conversation between the two police officers accompanied by the static noise wafted into their ears. Both of them looked at each other, their expressions turning grim.
“We have to get out of here before their reinforcements arrive,” Yu Yuan said, gritting his teeth. Lin Sanjiu could see rivulets of sweat meandering down his tensed muscles, making the tattoos on his skin catch the light and glint.
“They have four people, so each of us has to take care of two. Are you okay with that?”
Lin Sanjiu did not make any comment. She peeled her eyes away from Yu Yuan and looked at the door. Then, she asked, “How good is your shooting skill? I am going to be honest with you. I am not very adept with guns, so my aim sucks.”
“Don’t you worry about that,” Yu Yuan said. “Guns were my bread and butter when I was traveling in my first apocalyptic world, so you can count on me.”
Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath, let it out, then grinned at Yu Yuan. “Well, I will leave it to you then. You gotta do it quickly. Okay, now, step back.”
Yu Yuan took a few steps back, his face clouded with confusion. “What are you—”
However, before he could finish his question, he saw Lin Sanjiu raise her rifle, and the next thing he knew, Lin Sanjiu was firing at the hinge of the door. The blast showered sparks as the spray of bullets slammed against the hinge. After the hinge succumbed to the lethal barrage and broke off, Lin Sanjiu took one large step forward and stamp kicked the door as hard as she could, sending it tumbling onto the ground.
“Cover me!” After Lin Sanjiu barked out her order, she lunged forward and reached out for the door. However, before she could pick the door up, a sudden staccato broke loose from the few muzzles ahead, and the air instantly filled with the foul smell of gunpowder.
Just as she tried to lift the door up, Yu Yuan began engaging the few blue figures in the distance while at the same time providing cover fire for Lin Sanjiu. Even though this was the first time they worked as a team, their teamwork was impeccable. The police officers were thrown into disarray. Panic increased as they fought back desperately. Their aims became erratic, and none of their shots hit their target.
Finally, Lin Sanjiu lifted up the door. As sharp and loud rattles erupted from the door, Yu Yuan successfully sent a bullet right through a police officer’s forehead.
“How long before the reinforcements arrive?” a police officer yelled into the walkie-talkie, his voice laden with anxiety. “They have guns! We can’t hold—”
Another bullet came and silenced the police forever. He fell to the ground along with the walkie-talkie in his hand. Seeing their fallen comrades, all color drained from the remaining two police officers’ faces. Fear-driven, they both fired everything they got blindly, hoping they could score a lucky hit. However, since they lacked actual firearm training, their shooting skills were extremely lacking. Both Lin Sanjiu and Yu Yuan took cover behind the door, and surprisingly, neither of them were injured.
By the time they finished their ammunition in the moment of panic, it was the end of their lives.
Lin Sanjiu threw the door away and went forward to rummage through the corpses for more ammunition. She snatched several for Yu Yuan and hollered out to him, “Let’s get moving. The town hall is around the corner.”
“Hold on,” Yu Yuan said, “Let’s strip them naked.”
As he talked, he reached out for one of the buttons on a police officer’s uniform. Lin Sanjiu immediately saw the light. She went to another body and took off his uniform. Just as they were putting on the uniforms, a series of messy footsteps rang out from the entrance of the alley.
Both of them looked at each other and then took to their heels.
There were several groups of police officers on the way to the town hall. All of them were patrolling around the white building behind them. Lin Sanjiu and Yu Yuan concealed themselves behind a row of huge bushes and peeked ahead. They felt troubled.
The street was flanked by two electric fences, and it was so straight, there weren’t any spots for them to hide. They could see the town hall situated at the far end of the street, but if they wanted to go there, they first had to go through the groups of police officers that roamed around along the street. They both knew that the second they showed themselves, they would be obliterated into nothingness by their rifles.
“Let’s take a rest first,” Yu Yuan suggested, his brows furrowed deep at the center of his forehead. “Perhaps your ability might be triggered once more?”
“I don’t hold out much hope though. And my ability can only create coincidences,” Lin Sanjiu smiled bitterly. “It might happen to us, or it might not.”
Hearing her words, Yu Yuan let out a long sigh. He rubbed his face with his right hand, and a tattoo depicting a forest bent out of shape.
“There is something that has been bugging me for quite some time,” Lin Sanjiu asked hushedly as she looked at the two rifles that leaned against their shoulders. Reaching out with one hand, she felt the cold surface of her rifle. It was smooth and ergonomically designed. Lin Sanjiu wondered how such a thing could easily take a person’s life with just a pull of its trigger.
“What?”
“Why would you give me this phrase?” Lin Sanjiu glanced at her wrist. “Why are you so certain that this phrase is compatible with me? After all, I am the one who dreamed of this freakish town…”
“Why? Are you not satisfied with it?” Yu Yuan said in response without turning his head.
“Well, not really.” Lin Sanjiu peered at the group of figures through the gap between the branches. After a short while, only then did she begin to speak again, “I don’t know what the phrase wants me to do. Freedom, in other words, means liberation. Does it want me to liberate Peanut Town? But how?”
She paused for a second as she recalled the thing Smith told her. She repeated it again to Yu Yuan, but she still could not think straight. “They said absolute freedom doesn’t exist, and they don’t think that their freedoms are under threat. So, what am I gonna do with the phrase? No one needs my help anyway.”
Yu Yuan slowly turned his head over and glanced at Lin Sanjiu. His tattoo-covered face made it difficult for people to read his expression. He said, “In my hometown, we call this quagmire of evasion.”
“What does that mean?”
Even though she knew now was not the right time for this, Lin Sanjiu could not help asking.
“I was born in a small country. It was considered to be the nation that was closest to being perfect in human history.” He did not answer her question directly. There was something gleaming in his eyes and his voice was on the verge of shaking. Even though their situation was far from being ideal, he still could not help but succumb to the feeling that he had been suppressing for so long. “We used to take care of our people’s education and mental health. At that time, everyone was very close to each other. We respected each other, we cared for each other, and we knew what we should do and what we shouldn’t. Everything seemed so right, so perfect, until the doomsday came. Then, in one single night, everyone was gone… and my brethren… I’m sorry, I got swayed away by emotion. Anyway, that is not my point.”
He lowered his head and took a deep breath. It seemed that even though he had wandered in the apocalyptic worlds for a long time, the agony that followed after the destruction of his hometown did not lessen even by the slightest bit.
“The point is, all of the people in my hometown received a certain level of education regarding this matter, so I’m immune to their fallacy.” He gripped the rifle with his remaining arm so tight that his finger joints turned white.
“For you, what is freedom?”
