Lin Sanjiu finally knew where her “calamity” would come from.
“I’ll switch locations every three hours,” Ryuji said. He rubbed his face and his lips curled into a bitter smile. “I don’t even dare to sleep. Aside from the Mokugyo Forum and the shop that sells [Smile], I never stop by a place more than once. Still, despite everything I’ve done, I can’t shake them off. I’m terrified and tired.”
As they walked out of the Mokugyo Forum, they sensed the first sign of dusk approaching. The sun was beginning to set and the sky was red streaked with orange and gold. It looked as if a group of gods was having a war behind the cloud, far beyond their reach.
After walking in silence for a long while, Lin Sanjiu decided it was time. She pitched her voice very low and whispered into Ryuji’s ears, “No one is following us right now.”
“Are you sure?” Ryuji said, sounding skeptical. He did not even bat his eyelids as he continued, “They are all very skilled in concealing themselves. If they don’t want you to see them, you will never be able to spot them. They will wait in the dark, then strike at the right moment. With their eccentric movements, they will make sure you don’t know where or when they will strike.”
Lin Sanjiu frowned.
Unlike other abilities, hypersensory was able to detect even the slightest movement. If her hypersensory told her that there was nobody following them, it meant nobody was following them. However, Lin Sanjiu did not confess to Ryuji. Instead, she asked, “So, how did you manage to escape from them?”
Ryuji gave a slight start. He had trepidation written all over his face as if the very recount of the entire event was enough to frighten him out of his senses. “It was just a lucky streak.” Then, he grabbed Lin Sanjiu’s arm so tightly that she thought he wanted to snap it into two. He looked straight at her, eagerness shining in his eyes, “You will protect me, won’t you?”
Lin Sanjiu held Ryuji’s gaze for a while then sighed.
Even with the [Mask] and [Smile], it did not help to conceal his gloomy and sullen mien away. He did not have much money, and a single [Mask] was all he could afford. In other words, he didn’t have a spare. In such a situation, everybody would be able to recognize him after seeing him once. It was no wonder that he could not shake his pursuers off.
“Come over here,” she commanded. Then, she walked to a corner and hid in the shade.
With a despondent face, Ryuji followed her.
“Here, take this,” said Lin Sanjiu as she took her own mask off, ” I don’t have other masks with me right now, so we have to make do with this first. Give me yours.”
“B-but, why?”
“Why? To protect you, of course. So long as I put on your mask and disguise as you, you should be fine.”
“Yeah, I understand, but…”
Lin Sanjiu did not want to waste any more time. She reached out for Ryuji’s chin and peeled the layer of skin off his face. The face underneath the [Mask] was ashen white and wet with sweat. A sad furrow was drawing his brows together, and the corners of his lips were drooping with sadness despite the efforts of his cheek muscles to lift them upward. Regardless of what was the reason behind his Eeyorish demeanor, it seemed that not even the [Smile] could put a smile on his face.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine,” Lin Sanjiu consoled Ryuji as she adjusted the [Mask] to fit perfectly on her face. “This way, you will be fine, and I get to see whoever is coming after you. Two birds in one stone.”
“But you might get yourself killed…”
Lin Sanjiu let out a sigh again. “Yeah, I know that. I was caught up in a checkpoint pocket dimension, and I didn’t check in today. According to the rules, something really bad will happen to me today. The reason I’m willing to wear this mask is that firstly, I can’t guarantee that I still have the freedom to take care of you when danger strikes, and I can’t let you end up being killed because of me. Secondly, if a crisis is bound to happen, then I’d rather face it head-on than run away from it.”
She had great faith in her own abilities. After all, not even a powerful fighter like the likes of Silvan or Puppeteer could actually kill her.
“I guess the reason they are hunting you is that they don’t want me to know about the deleted messages. When they find out I already know, they will stop the manhunt. After all, there’s no point in wasting their resources on hunting and killing a man of inconsequence.” After that, Lin Sanjiu pulled out a packet of red crystals and gave it to Ryuji. “Take this. It’s always better to have some money with you.”
Since she wanted to use herself as bait to lure her enemy out from the dark, she figured it was not the right time to bring Ryuji to Exodus. Therefore, she asked him to wait for her at the Lost Dog’s Pod Hotel, which, ironically, suited him very well now.
After she had settled Ryuji down, she took a deep breath and began walking down the street. She began combing through the entire event. It was not hard to figure out who was the prime mover behind the entire incident.
As time went by, Luther’s personalities would materialize as an independent individual like Marcie. In order to increase the chance of finding him, she had issued two search notices for 12 and Septimus, whom she had never met before.
If those two search notices were deleted as well, it could only mean one thing. Whoever did this, he or she must be very familiar with Luther and all his twelve personalities, and to become so familiar with his all twelve personalities, that person must be one of the personalities.
‘So, which one is it? Why is that personality forbidding her from seeing Luther? What happened to both Luther and Marcie?’
Putting her hands in her pockets, Lin Sanjiu kept her head low and her brows drooped to imitate how Ryuji would usually look like. She kept circling around the Lost Dog’s Pod Hotel, hoping that somebody would launch an ambush, but to her dismay, despite waiting until the day darkened, nobody showed up.
“Maybe they are waiting for the right opportunity to attack,” Mrs. Manas said, “How about this? Let’s go somewhere with fewer people and stay for the night. Maybe they will show up when they see you are alone.”
“Don’t you think that sounds like a trap?” Lin Sanjiu asked.
Be that as it may, she still accepted Mrs. Manas’s suggestion and stayed for the night. She stopped beside a street light and hid behind a huge dumpster. Then, using the light from the street light, she began inspecting the road. After half an hour, she heard loud snoring coming out from the dumpster. Only then did she realize the dumpster might be somebody’s home.
The gap between the poor and the rich was at its highest in the Twelve Worlds. Some of them were rich enough to buy a manor in the Twelve World while others could only afford to sleep in a garbage bin
The night was getting dark. The orange glow from the street light shone weakly on the street, casting an eerie outline on the row of vehicles in the distance. There were three to five posthumans sitting in the vehicles. All of them were smoking, and they seemed to be waiting for something. Time continued to tick by, and then, as if they had finally given up living, the street lights went off, and more sinister darkness crept onto the street, filling every inch with deep umbra.
Squatting on the ground, Lin Sanjiu yawned. She had no idea how long it had been since she had been there. To pass the time, she had studied each and every feature on the street at midnight and had them deeply ingrained in her head. She knew there was a nest of nightingales on the roof of the building in front of her and a suspicious bar at the corner of the street. She also knew what time a pushcart would show up to sell supper as she had to turn down the man’s offer every time he passed by. She even figured out what was the use of the row of vehicles in the distance.
“Are you staying here for the night?” A square-faced posthuman poked his head out of the window at the driver’s seat. ” If you aren’t getting on, then I’m going home now. Sigh, what a bad day without a customer.”
The Heaven Underworld had a rather successful and developed public transport system, so Lin Sanjou could not understand why anyone would choose this vehicle as their means of transportation over the one prepared by the Heaven Underworld. After seeing Lin Sanjiu shake her head, the posthuman shrunk back and ignited the vehicle. Several drivers had come to her throughout the night, but she rejected them every time.
When the vehicle glided past her, Lin Sanjiu’s heart seized like a critically ill patient and she waved it down. The posthuman hesitated for a moment, but he still stopped the vehicle in the end. He poked his head out of the window and asked, “What do you want?”
“Send me to Black’s Market!” Lin Sanjiu opened the door and got into the vehicle. “Hurry!”
“Black’s Market? That’s so far away. The fare won’t be chea—” Before the driver could finish his sentence, Lin Sanjiu hurled him a packet of red crystals. The red crystal illuminated his face, and he shouted gleefully, “Off we go!” Then, he stomped hard on the accelerator.
The vehicle sped forward. Lin Sanjiu turned her head and stared at the back of the vehicle.
If somebody was stalking her, he or she should come out right now. After all, her pursuer could not pretend to be a passenger if she did not take public transport. Under such circumstances, if they wanted to keep following her, then they had to come out from the dark.
“Can’t you go any faster?” Lin Sanjiu turned to the driver and urged, “I can run even faster than your vehicle!”
“Well, maybe you aren’t slow, but you can’t hold on like this for long,” the driver drawled. Apparently, he had this kind of conversation all the time. He raised his eyes and studied Lin Sanjiu through the back mirror. “You look familiar. Have we met somewhere before?”
Lin Sanjiu threw him a glance. The appearance of the [Mask] was pretty common, so it was no wonder that he had seen her face somewhere else. If she took on a [Mask] that gave her Silvan’s appearance, then that surely would leave an impression.
“Really, I’ve definitely seen you somewhere before.” The driver’s brows were creased in the center of his forehead. “Where was it…”
Lin Sanjiu just gave him an arbitrary answer. Just as she was about to turn her head back, the driver suddenly jerked up. Several seat belts appeared from nowhere and strapped her tightly into her seat.
“I remember…”
Stunned, Lin Sanjiu tried to struggle free, but to no avail. She did not know why the driver would suddenly turn hostile. Just when she raised her head to question the driver, she saw him turning his head back. Her eyes widened. There was no way a human could turn his neck to such a spine-chilling degree. He looked just like an owl staring from a dark corner with his beady eyes.
