“Yes. I heard it too, but I didn’t pay it any mind since I had a customer to attend to at the time. There ought to be some strange noises from places where people usually gather. You might not know about it, but since I have been here for so long, I am already used to it,” the tavern owner said softly.
“Yes, I saw it! A globe of shining red fire so huge that half of the sky was illuminated by it!” a man sitting outside of Bliss said. “I told the other guy, but he didn’t believe me.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see anything,” a passerby said with haste. He didn’t even stop when he was talking.
“There was a big explosion in the sky. Then something crashed into the mountain and caused a minor rockslide,” said a kid whose gender couldn’t be identified. He or she giggled, staring straight at Lin Sanjiu. “I wonder who the poor bloke is.”
A cold breeze shot right underneath her clothes, and the chill rushed over her skin. The nape of her neck and her scalp goosed, and she shivered in the cold. She returned to reality as Mrs. Manas’s voice rang out in her mind, “Are you okay?”
She had been sitting on the mountaintop for more than ten minutes.
She was cold, hungry, and alone. When she tried to get up, her legs had grown so numb, they couldn’t support her weight. Like a drunkard, she stumbled back on the ground and just sat there, her thoughts beginning to wander away once more.
The night had completely fallen. It was so vast and boundless, she couldn’t see the end of it. The mountain beneath her feet looked like a lonely rock in a sea, and the wind felt like a rolling wave. It blew and assaulted both her and the grass mercilessly, causing them to sway.
She had no idea how long she had been sitting here. The last thing she could remember was that she walked over to Mid Mountsburg, asked around the townspeople about the incident, and then groped her way up the mountain in the dark. No matter how hard she tried to recount, she couldn’t remember anything. It was as if there was a wall in her brain, shutting her out and preventing her from tapping into her memory.
She had searched everywhere, including the valley nearby, the back of the mountain… She even went to search the other mountain, yet she still couldn’t find the wreckage of the aircraft or anything that could be Yu Yuan. This was something within her expectation, as when she finally gathered enough energy and pulled herself up from the ground, she looked to the front. Up ahead of her lay a massive swath of mountainous area, stretching all the way back into the horizon. Some of their peaks were so sharp as if they had poked through the sky.
She scanned across the mountain range, wondering where Yu Yuan could possibly be and how long it would take her to search through the entire mountain range. She was alone and she had no helper, hence there was a huge possibility that she wouldn’t be able to find either Yu Yuan or the aircraft even after she spent half a month there. Talking about the aircraft, she still hadn’t named it yet, for she hoped Yu Yuan could do the favor. After all, he was the one who piloted, repaired, and did all the maintenance work. Thus, ever since Lin Sanjiu passed him the task to name the aircraft, he’d come up with a new name every day. However, he always had the feeling that those names were not good enough. It was like he couldn’t make up his mind, and the name of the aircraft remained undecided since then. And now, the name was not needed anymore.
Although the sky was still dark, she could see that dawn was nearing. Perhaps the search and rescue operation could be smoother during the day time when the sun was up.
“The first thing you have to do when the sun is up is check-in,” Mrs. Manas sighed, “The last time you checked in was at noon, correct?”
“Yeah…”
“Don’t be such a fool. Check-in would take you only two hours. You can always come back here and continue to search for him.”
“I understand…”
If it weren’t for her, all of this wouldn’t have happened and Yu Yuan wouldn’t have to die. She couldn’t stop herself imagining how lonely Yu Yuan would be when he stared into the night sky with his lifeless body and soulless eyes, or perhaps, he was still clinging on to his last breath in his battered body as he waited for her rescue. No matter if it was the former or the latter, she couldn’t do anything right now, as she still had to go down the mountain and check-in to avoid the so-called “calamity” from befalling her.
Lin Sanjiu couldn’t bear the thought. She balled herself up tight like a frozen shrimp.
How could she continue her life as if nothing happened while Yu Yuan was dead?
“Pull yourself together! If anything happens to you, nobody can help Yu Yuan anymore!” Mrs. Manas growled. She knew she had to do something, otherwise Lin Sanjiu would succumb to her downward spiral of depression.
“I know…”
Lin Sanjiu sat in a daze for a while longer. She called out the communication device and inputted Yu Yuan’s calling number again. However, the same as before, there was no sound on the other end.
Even though the communication device was a Special Item, it couldn’t survive an explosion. Once destroyed, it couldn’t be used anymore.
The night was receding and wisps of clouds were pulling the sun up. As the dawn was breaking, the thing that woke up in Lin Sanjiu was her hatred and anger.
If she could find the man again, she swore that she would snap his neck and crush his windpipe. She wanted nothing but to revel at the scene as his pair of eyes popped out of their sockets.
Even though she had been searching for Yu Yuan the entire night, Lin Sanjiu continued her search despite Mrs. Manas’s warning. The sun was getting stronger and the temperature spiked. Mrs. Manas had no thought of giving in. She kept urging Lin Sanjiu to go check-in first again and again, and finally, it got through her skull. Lin Sanjiu turned around and began to walk down the mountain.
Ever since she left Bliss with Silvan, she had not stepped into the building again. However, when Lin Sanjiu passed by Bliss today, she stopped.
“I will check-in here today,” she spoke to Mrs. Manas.
“But what about Jezebel—”
“Which Jezebel are you talking about?” she interrupted Mrs. Manas coldly. Perhaps she knew Lin Sanjiu was not in the mood of discussing anything right now, for Mrs. Manas did not say anything anymore afterward.
Lin Sanjiu had no idea what kind of role the fake “Jezebel” took on throughout the entire event.
The thought had been in her mind for a long time. When Lin Sanjiu pulled out the bag of red crystals, she had the sudden urge to throw it at the young server’s face, even though she knew he was innocent. When he welcomed her with great manners, Lin Sanjiu did not move. She smiled coldly.
“I can go to the fourth floor just like that? No permission required?” She was very certain that the server did not know anything, but she just couldn’t control her anger anymore. “Anyone can go and see Jezebel after they pay the money?”
Setting his jaw tight, the young server replied, “She is not here today.”
“What if she is here?”
“For your information, miss, only those who have Ms. Jezebel’s permission can go to the fourth floor. I hope this will answer your question. If there is nothing else I can help you with, I hope you will enjoy your stay in Bliss.”
Lin Sanjiu remembered clearly that during her first time at Bliss, she did not get any permission at all. Nevertheless, on second thought, she reckoned it was normal as well. After all, none of the staff was aware of Jezebel’s presence. It was just that the Jezebel wasn’t the real deal, but she did not know that either.
She had to go through all three floors first before she could find the staircase to the fourth floor. The window displays in the morning were empty. Out of ten window displays, nine were unoccupied. From time to time, a shadow would flit across a window display. Perhaps the person had just woken up after having a fun night? Lin Sanjiu didn’t know. After losing their brilliant colors, the window displays looked so bland, they could be the cubicle in an office building.
Lin Sanjiu was uninterested with the people or things behind the window displays. She stormed down the corridor, her lonely footfalls that ricocheted off the wall being the only sound that could be heard in the air. Some of the people happened to come out of the window displays as she walked down the corridor. When they caught sight of her, they would turn their heads away. Perhaps they still felt embarrassed even though they had evolved?
The way they turned their faces away from Lin Sanjiu gave her an idea.
She caressed her mask and fell into thought.
“The Jezebel I met is the clue given by the Reverie Libretto, so she must be somehow connected to the person who wants to kill me, correct?” she asked Mrs. Manas. Then, without giving Mrs. Manas a chance to say anything, she continued, “That man on the mountain the other day, he must be after my life as well. No matter if he is the primary mover behind the entire incident or not, he must be related to the entire event.”
“Yes, what do you want to say?”
“If all of them are involved in devising a plan to kill me,” Lin Sanjiu said as she nipped at the corner of her mask, “Then all I have to do is present their target, which is me, right to their doorstep.”
“Don’t be silly, Lin Sanjiu. Right now, all you have to do is check-in and then—”
Mrs. Manas was a step slower. Before she could finish talking, Lin Sanjiu had taken down her mask already.
“What the hell were you doing? Put the mask back on!” Mrs. Manas snapped. “What if they pop out before you could check-in? Okay, I get it now. If you do not check-in in time, then according to the rules of the checkpoint pocket dimension, a “calamity” will befall you. You want to use the “calamity” to lure all of them to you? What a daring move! I never thought about this at all…”
Lin Sanjiu paid Mrs. Manas’s gabble no mind. After all, she was part of her consciousness; everything she said was Lin Sanjiu’s own thoughts. The darkness in her heart had grown to a size that surmounted her fear. Regardless of what Mrs. Manas said, it just couldn’t reach her.
You would never know what would happen next, no matter how well prepared you were.
When she was about to mount the staircase to the second floor, she heard a click and the next thing she knew, the entire building had plunged into darkness. She turned around and squinted her eyes. The long and deep corridor behind her looked like a beast with its mouth opened wide, waiting to consume her.
