Lin Sanjiu had no idea why misfortunes always followed her. Every time she bought something, someone would come and try to steal it away from her. The man continued circling around the aircraft. He crouched down and caressed the aircraft as if he was petting a child. Then, he nodded and turned around.
From Lin Sanjiu’s point of view, even though her vision was blocked by the swaying grass and only half of the young man’s face was visible, she could still see that he was pretty good looking. He did not seem as young as she expected, and she could not tell his age from his appearance alone.
The man then spun his face away, leaving only the back of his head visible in Lin Sanjiu’s sight.
He clapped his hands and then doubled back from where he came from. His figure got smaller and smaller as he retreated into the distance. Lin Sanjiu waited with bated breaths until he was no longer in sight. Then, turning around to look at the clearing one last time, she began following the man.
No matter how strong you were, it was impossible to completely conceal your presence from others. Fortunately, that was not the case for Lin Sanjiu. Once she went into her hypersensory state, her footfalls followed the waving pattern of the grass and her body became one with the wind. Even though she still made some noises when moving forward, just like the mountain, sky, and forest, she was just another part of the environment.
The man did not notice her, even though Lin Sanjiu was very close to him.
Lin Sanjiu kept about ten meters away from the man. The man’s steps were light, he was humming a tune, and there was an air of insouciance about him. There were times Lin Sanjiu had to hide behind a tree or a rock whenever the man turned around a corner. However, by the time she came out from her hiding spot, the man would always be there, sauntering down the hill.
The closer they were to Mid Mountsburg, the more aircraft appeared. Some of them glided across the sky nimbly like a swallow while the other drifted about like a whale, casting a massive shadow on the town below. Both the man and Lin Sanjiu entered the town one after another. Lin Sanjiu deactivated the hypersensory state and slipped into the crowd. As she tailed behind the man, there was only one thought in her mind. No matter where he was heading, Lin Sanjiu just hoped that he wouldn’t board onto any aircraft, for she would be unable to follow after him if that happened.
It appeared to her that this was the first time the man came to Mid Mountsburg. He looked excited, his eyes glowing as he hopped around the town in snow from one spot to the other like a chirping little bird. There were times Lin Sanjiu thought she had been discovered. He bought a packet of “popping candy” from a vending machine and then stopped in front of Bliss for a while. He eyed the building that was emitting a kaleidoscope of light and chuckled, as if he remembered something funny. Then, he walked away.
He seemed just like a normal posthuman, that’s if he did not go to the mountain.
Perhaps God had listened to her prayers, the man strode towards the other side of the town after he had enough walking in the town. The area the man was heading was the highest point in Mid Mountsburg. There was a long and zigzaggy staircase built in between the rocks, and at the end of the staircase was a wide platform. The people waiting on the platform were scarcely clear. They looked so small as a dot and the sole perceivable movement was when they looked up in the sky.
Expelling a long breath, Lin Sanjiu took cover behind a corner and switched to a mask when the man was climbing up the stairs. She put on a new shirt—a denim jacket, and then waited for several minutes before mounting the steps.
The platform was where Lin Sanjiu and Yu Yuan got their inspiration from to makeshift a tarmac on the top of the mountain. The platform was the airbus terminal in Mid Mountsburg. Initially, she thought only the buses from the central station would stop at this bus terminal. It was not until recently that she finally found out this bus station accepted buses from Black’s Market and other bus terminals as well. This realization did not make her any happier, as whenever she thought about how she had to travel hundreds of miles from Black’s Market to Mid Mountsburg every day by foot, she only felt sad.
After she stepped onto the wooden platform, she saw the man was sitting on a bench. His pair of long legs were stretched out in front of him. He assumed a rather relaxed posture as he soaked himself in the last sunlight before the sun set.
He did not notice Lin Sanjiu at all.
Well, truth to be told, with her current level of strength and power, not many people were able to notice her, let alone she had changed a few masks along the way. She walked into a corner of the platform and found herself a spot where she could have the entire view of the platform. She stood with her arm crossed over her chest, keeping her eyes on him as she fell into thought.
Lin Sanjiu couldn’t figure out his motive at all no matter how much she thought about it. The man found her aircraft, but he did not steal it and walked away just like that. After that, he roamed around in Mid Mountsburg like a normal posthuman, and now he was waiting for a bus as if nothing happened.
As the night slowly rolled in from the horizon and the sun began its final descent, the sunlight pierced through the canopy of the platform and caressed the man’s cheeks like the fingers of a lovely mother. The man had brownish black spiky hair that tapered off at the nape of his neck. He had a straight-edged but large nose. At first glance, he looked like a handsome young man, but upon closer inspection, one would notice the crow’s foot at the edge of his eyes and his lips that had grown thin over the years. All of which suggested that he might not be as young as he seemed.
However, what made Lin Sanjiu queasy the most was his eyes.
His eyes were well-hidden under the deep shadow of his eyebrows, and there was always a strange light swirling in them. He had a pair of abnormally large irises to the point that they filled his eyeballs to the brim. Like a reptile, he never blinked once. Most of the time, he just rotated his eyes around, and that was the very rare moment where the white part of his eyes was revealed.
Lin Sanjiu did not want to look at him any longer. She retracted her gaze and began inspecting her nails. After a short while, a slight whirring which slowly grew to an incessant whine rang out from the sky.
Although both of them worked the same way, the skybus was different from the skytrain of the Munitions Factory. The most distinctive difference was that the skybus was purposely designed to accommodate more passengers, as opposed to the skytrain, which emphasized more on safety and speed. It hovered next to the platform as it kept spewing jets of strong airstream to the back. Lin Sanjiu moved her hands to cover her eyes as if she was blocking the sun and followed after the man to alight the skybus.
Up until now, he had not discovered Lin Sanjiu yet.
Lin Sanjiu did not use red crystals when purchasing the ticket but instead used Rondo, the main currency in Heaven Underworld. To prevent the man from growing suspicious, she even had changed her walking pattern. She slumped her shoulder and hunched her back. She stood behind the driver’s seat, which was the only seat in the skybus, and kept her distance from the man.
“We will be taking off soon,” the driver’s lackadaisical’s voice spilled out from the speaker, “Hold on tight.”
As the engine whirred up loud again, the skybus began to edge away from the platform like an old man who had his stomach fully filled. However, the moment it rose into the air, the skybus suddenly tilted to one side and caused every passenger to fall down. Then, the driver’s angry voice erupted from the speaker, “What the hell are you all doing?! Can’t you have some common sense? The people on both sides have to be equal to keep the balance! You, you, you, and you, move your *sses to the right side now!”
‘Just how primitive and crude this skybus is?’
As the thought rose up in Lin Sanjiu’s mind, she saw the driver was waving his hand, gesturing for her to move. Since it would be too strange if she did not do what the driver had asked, she gnashed her teeth and walked towards the man. Like other passengers in the skybus, the man had fallen down as well. Right now, he grasped the window ledge and rose to his feet. When he sensed Lin Sanjiu was walking near him, he offered her a grin and said, “This is the first time I have taken such a poorly designed aircraft.”
“Yeah, me too,” answered Lin Sanjiu flat-footedly.
Lin Sanjiu did not expect him to talk to her. Since she did not want him to remember her face, she turned her face to the window and kept silent. The skybus had completely taken off, the ground turned from a square to a circle, and then to a dot until it completely went out of sight. Right now, what laid before her eyes was the vast twilight sky, the cloud had taken an orange hue of the coming evening. Another large aircraft approached them and cast a huge shadow on the cloud. She stared into the sky, looking at the aircraft that came and went for a long while. After she had calmed herself down, she peered through the corner of her eyes at the man.
She noticed that the man had just moved his gaze away from below.
‘What is on the floor?’
Lin Sanjiu asked inwardly. She forced herself not to look at the floor, as she did not want the man to know she had been looking at him. Suddenly, the man turned around and walked towards the back of the skybus. Be that as it may, Lin Sanjiu did not instantly look downward as the man might be planning something. She continued to wait for a few more minutes before she cast a casual glance at the floor.
There was nothing on the floor aside from the shoeprints and dirt.
The man was indeed staring at the floor. Even though she couldn’t tell how long he had been staring at it, she knew it was definitely not a careless glance.
She raised her head and began searching for the man. It wasn’t long before she found the man. He was now standing at the back of the vehicle with his hand grabbed tightly at the handle. She then lowered her head and scrutinized the floor.
Then, she saw a blade of yellowed grass that stuck in the creases of her jeans.
Lin Sanjiu knew where she got the grass from. There was a large swath of grass on top of the mountain…
Lin Sanjiu’s heart galloped and she quickly leaped into action. She sprung towards the back of the bus and shouldered past several passengers along the way, eliciting curses from the passengers. After the passengers moved and made way for her, she reached the back of the bus.
She looked around, and then she froze.
The man was gone. He had disappeared from the bus.
