Chapter 131: Malice
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
As if a tiger had escaped its shackles and crept into their backyards, all the residents in the Garden of Eden spent a day in fear and turmoil when the officials could no longer suppress the news of the disappearance of the female Posthumans. If someone were to stand by the window, they would hear the sharp barks from the marching troops on the streets as well as the wailing sirens from many ambulances. Every now and then, the sound of broken glass could be heard and cacophony of noise had already lasted for the entire day.
Lei Ming, who had obediently stayed indoors as told, had no idea what had happened outside. He circled the entire house anxiously until night came. When Gong Daoyi finally returned, Lei Ming visibly let out a sigh of relief before welcoming him quickly.
Gong Daoyi combed his hair back with his fingers. There was barely any expression on his beautiful, immaculate face, “Yes, they already escaped.”
“That’s great! That explains the pandemonium outside… Um, you look unhappy?” Lei Ming asked cautiously.
Gong Daoyi kneaded his own face and answered, “No, but we have to leave Garden of Eden tonight.”
As a habitual people-pleaser, Lei Ming was dazed only for a short second before he agreed quickly. After some consideration, he decided not to ask if they were really going to just leave those female Posthumans to their own devices.
Gong Daoyi sat in a chair and looked upwards. He suddenly spoke with a slightly quivering voice and an indescribably ambiguous tone, “Oh… I have to thank her for chasing me away. I was so scared and excited the entire day…”
Meanwhile, Lin Sanjiu was quite puzzled that she managed to send Gong Daoyi away with just a few words, she actually thought that it would be harder. She did not want to waste time thinking about it because in any case, they were not coming back to Guang Zhu’s residence.
“To summarize, these two teams will focus on locations where the anti-radiation resources are stored. Xueqin will brief you on the exact location. It would be better if you could catch and question some people, so we wouldn’t miss any crucial…”
The 43 people were grouped into ten smaller teams. Lin Sanjiu tried her best to put people with different types of abilities together so that they could complement each other’s weaknesses. Their targets were various strategic locations in the city. They had also worked out how they could communicate and get help between teams.
When their plans have been finalized, it was already late at night.
“The operation will last for two hours. After two hours, all teams should gather at the meeting point. Please remember, safety first.”
Lin Sanjiu stood at the door as she watched the various teams leave. When each of them walked past her, they nodded and smiled at her or added a quick remark. Each of them carried a laser gun at their waists. In the worst case scenario, the gun would ensure that they wouldn’t be captured alive. Even though there were 43 people now, Lin Sanjiu wondered if there would still be 43 people when they meet up again.
Someone stopped by her side and Lin Sanjiu noticed that it was Xueqin, who was still being piggybacked by the escort. After the escort had been used for one day, he had become much shorter and Xueqin’s legs were just dragged around. She didn’t seem to mind, but was rather curious when she looked at Lin Sanjiu, “Why aren’t you coming with us?”
“I’ll be honest with you,” Lin Sanjiu looked into her eyes sincerely, “I told you guys not to go to the Garden of Eden Laboratories, right? Well, I wanted to scout out that place first.”
“Isn’t it dangerous for you to go alone?”
“I will just observe from outside, it shouldn’t be a problem.” Lin Sanjiu flashed a faint smile.
Xueqin murmured to herself before she nodded and said, “Take care.” Then, she left with Bai Xiaoke. When they were quite far, Lin Sanjiu turned and Li Tao stuffed a card into her hand, “I followed what you said, and took the card after three hours. Have a look…”
“Thank you. Please be careful out there.” Lin Sanjiu held her Diary card and hugged Li Tao. [This feels like we are parting forever…] Lin Sanjiu sighed and walked upstairs. She opened every door until she found a bathroom. If she was really going to die tonight, she wanted to smell good when she was dead.
The beige ceramic bathtub was almost the size of a small swimming pool. Even with multiple taps filling the hot tub, it took over ten minutes. As steam filled in the bathroom, Lin Sanjiu took off her clothes and jumped into the bathtub. When her skin first touched the warm water, she immediately made a refreshing “ah”. It was just that comfortable! After all, the last time she took a bath was ages ago…
While she enjoyed the ripples, she reached for her pants and got a pen and a piece of paper. She leaned over the edge of the bathtub and decided to leave some words for the others.
“Hi, all. I lied to you. Haha! I am going to the black tower alone. Supposedly, if it is destroyed, the glass globe will also be destroyed. Xueqin, please do not curse when you read this. When you read this letter, it would have been two hours later. Wait for me at the meeting point for a while…”
Lin Sanjiu reconsidered her words and scratched out “a while”, and replaced it with “thirty minutes”.
“If I haven’t returned by then, please leave. Leave Garden of Eden and don’t think about destroying the glass globe anymore.”
Lin Sanjiu bit her pen and finally added, “Best regards, Lin Sanjiu.”
That should sum up everything. Lin Sanjiu folded the paper and kept it back into the pocket of her pants. “Splash.” She dived into the water and fooled around for some time. Suddenly, she remembered something and summoned her Diary card. She hasn’t even read it properly after Li Tao handed it to her.
The events recorded in those three hours were quite insignificant. Gong Daoyi ate, chatted and slept. The conversations were nothing interesting. They were just random conversations with the various young ladies.
“7:29 AM, retrieved by a super cute girl.”
When Lin Sanjiu saw the last sentence, she knew that she didn’t get any information. She scrolled through the words once again, as if she wasn’t satisfied with the outcome. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong, but even after reading through every word that Gong Daoyi said, she couldn’t find anything fishy.
Without any other options, Lin Sanjiu kept her Diary card—it kept repeating the line “If only I were in the same bath as that super cute girl.” Lin Sanjiu found a bottle of shower gel and sniffed the fragrance as she poured it into the water. She let out a sigh of enjoyment.
After 20 minutes, she reluctantly got out of the bathtub. She found a clean set of clothes from her card deck and wore them. She checked the items she had before she finally left Guang Zhu’s house.
The meeting point was suggested by Xueqin and it was at a closed-down factory that would soon be rebuilt. Lin Sanjiu pasted the letter on the door of the factory before sprinting towards the black tower. Using her maximum speed, she reached the tower in less than ten minutes. Lin Sanjiu noticed that the atmosphere around suddenly got a lot creepier. Right in front of her, the black tower loomed over like a giant ominous beast.
She looked around the place and found nobody nearby, just as described. Land was a scarce resource in Garden of Eden, yet there wasn’t even a building near the black tower. There was only a heavy thick mist circling the tower. The tower’s mysterious design and cold black metal facade stood out from the usually refreshing, adorable-looking architecture in the Garden of Eden.
“Odd. There is really no one guarding this place?” Lin Sanjiu raised her guard as she stepped closer to the door, while she was on a constant lookout for danger.
She guessed that a ten-meters flat metal structure which looked movable was the door. The entire tower seemed a little stronger than she expected. Lin Sanjiu walked carefully to the metal door and realized that there wasn’t even a single gap which indicated an opening.
“How am I supposed to get in?” She was a little frustrated as she stamped her feet, but the door stood still.
Lin Sanjiu activated her [Mosaic Censorship] and tried to blast the door apart. A few pieces of fist-sized metal fell to the ground, exposing the inner structure of the door which was at least ten feet thick. If she had to use this method to enter, it would probably take a month.
“Why is this door so thick?” Lin Sanjiu frowned. “If the door was already that thick, how thick were the walls? The interior of the tower doesn’t look that big.”
Lin Sanjiu was at her wit’s end as she walked around the entrance. Suddenly, her eyes stopped on something. She noticed that one of the metal pieces which made up the wall was of a lighter color and was slightly jutting. Lin Sanjiu tried pulling it. She was almost exerting all her strength when she touched something and suddenly she heard a doorbell sound, “Ding dong—”
The inviting sound of the doorbell rang out a few times. The night was so quiet that it seemed as if the noise would be heard by the entire Garden of Eden. As the doorbell sound echoed, Lin Sanjiu stopped while she stared in a daze at what she saw.
The door, which she tried so hard to destroy, was slowly opening. It made a deep, rumbling sound as if it had been years since it was last opened.
[What? I just have to press the doorbell to get this opened?]
Lin Sanjiu stared blankly for a few seconds before she drew out her mouthpart weapon and peered inside the tower. It was totally dark inside, she couldn’t see anything without a light source.
Lin Sanjiu gritted her teeth and stepped into the tower. Once she entered, the metal door closed again with a rumbling sound as if it detected her presence. Without the last bit of natural light from the outside world, she couldn’t even see her fingers. Lin Sanjiu took two steps into the darkness and a bright light suddenly assaulted her eyes. She squinted and when she opened her eyes again, she was flabbergasted.
“Are you kidding me?!”
