The soft and docile side of the duoluozhong had once again taken the stage. It sat by the roadside silently. When it was not at work, it looked just like an ordinary duoluozhong.
"We were neighbors." Timo finally lit up a poorly-produced cigarette after Lin Sanjiu handed him a lighter. He took a long drag on the toxic roll and puffed out a ring of smoke. The poisonous chemical from the roll tainted the air and a.s.saulted their eyes and nostrils. The smell was so strong that it even overwhelmed the stench from the garbage truck.
"It was a makes.h.i.+ft iron shack that could be brought down easily by removing several bolts," he said, pointing to a parking lot in the distance, "You would use a curtain to mark your own spot and a single iron shack could hold three to four families. A person like you who has the ability to buy a house with 300 acres is considered rare even amongst posthumans, let alone us. The place where we lived was a wasteland, crammed with nearly hundreds if not thousands of families. Both of us stayed in the same iron shack, separated by only two curtains."
Staring at the parking lot, it took several seconds before Lin Sanjiu asked again, "Both your parents, are they posthumans or normal human?"
"There are no parents." Timo narrowed his eyes and waved his hand. "We don't have fathers, only mothers." He shook off the ashes and continued, "Not just us, but many people born in the Twelve Worlds don't have a father."
"Why not?"
"Why not? When did you leave human society?" Timo stared at Lin Sanjiu through the veil of smoke with a surprised expression on his face. "I mean, the human society that has never encountered the apocalypse."
Lin Sanjiu knitted her brows together as she tried to search through her memories. After a short while, she began to say hesitantly, "I guess…it should have been seven to eight years ago."
"Oh, as a posthuman, you are pretty fresh," Timo said as he took another drag from the cigarette. There was only a tiny stub left, but he did not throw it away. "I only came to this grim realization after I grew up. No matter how they've reconstructed and made the Twelve Worlds look beautiful, it will never be the same human society anymore. They used to say that a family is the most basic societal unit, didn't they? Well, it isn't anymore."
"You posthumans have to hop from one world to another every 14 months. Thanks to this f*cking *sshole rules, the Twelve Worlds eventually turned into a great gra.s.sy plain." Timo puffed on the cigarette and continued, "The male posthumans came and went just like wild animals. Even though both sides were doing the same thing, the baby ended up growing inside the mother's womb. Then, when the baby was born, the father was nowhere to be found anymore. My mom is a normal human, but Melhor is a posthuman. Hence, when Melhor was going to be transferred away, her mom entrusted her to my mom and she stayed with us for some time."
Unknowingly, he had used "she" to address Nagas.h.i.+.
"Then?"
An eddy of wind blew from the alley, and the plastic bags rustled from its a.s.sault. For a moment, there was nothing but silence in the air. Lin Sanjiu turned and looked at Timo, realizing that he was staring at Nagas.h.i.+, who was sitting on the opposite side of the road. He seemed to have fallen deep into his own memories as his eyes were glazed over. She nudged him and snapped him out from his reverie.
"Oh, I'm sorry. My father is a posthuman, and he did take care of us for a while. However, he never came back after a few years. I have no idea if it was because he finally decided to abandon us, or he was killed by somebody out there. Compared to Melhor and her daughter, our lives were much easier. Not only did her mother have to keep herself alive out there, but she also needed to come back here and take care of her child. It was a really tough time for both of them."
Timo stole a glance at Nagas.h.i.+. Seeing that the kuchisake-onna did not give any response, he then continued and swiftly brought the topic to a stop, "We lived on, and then we all grew up. That's the end of the story."
Nagas.h.i.+ continued to stare at the road. Its shoulder-length brown hair fluttered in the wind, shrouding most of its face. From a single glance, it looked just like a young girl.
Both of them grew up, but unfortunately, one of them ended up turning into a duoluozhong.
Just as Lin Sanjiu nodded and was beginning to think about what she should do next, she heard a sharp and painful howl erupted from the alley at the back. Nagas.h.i.+'s face turned pale.
"What's that?" Lin Sanjiu rose to her feet.
Timo cursed under his breath and threw the stub on the ground. He jerked up from the ground and shouted at the kuchisake-onna, "Did you promise a duoluozhong that you'd help it to clean the street and get this truck here to kill me?"
There was a layer of perspiration beading on Nagas.h.i.+'s forehead. It paid no mind to Timo's accusation and its body was s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably. The howling showed no sign of ending and turned even louder, boring straight into their souls. They could not imagine what kind of suffering the thing was going through for it to let out such an agonizing howl. Lin Sanjiu quickly went towards the source of the sound, and she soon b.u.mped into a man.
The incomer was obviously a posthuman. He had an ectomorphic build and a pair of sunken eyes. He was wearing a s.h.i.+rt with a slanted collar with one of his arms exposed. There was a tattoo in an intricate pattern that ran throughout his entire arm.
Behind him, a black creature the size of a dog was squirming on the ground. Even though the terrifying wail was coming from that creature, Lin Sanjiu could barely make out what kind of living organism it was. In her mind, she had no knowledge of what kind of creature could contort its body back and forth to such a degree.
"What's happening here?" the male posthuman shouted while pointing displeased at Nagas.h.i.+, "Is that your duoluozhong?"
Lin Sanjiu's face sank. Before she could reply, the man shouted again, "Why did it take away the garbage truck? Do you know that the thing which was originally tasked to clean the street is sleeping over there? If you can't control your duoluozhong, then don't buy one!"
"I'm so sorry!"
Perhaps because he sensed the anger in Lin Sanjiu's heart, Timo took a step forward and s.h.i.+elded her behind him. "Erm...erm, she's new, so she isn't very familiar with how things run here. We are really sorry for giving you trouble. You can return this garbage truck to that duoluozhong and get it to continue its work. We are leaving now."
It was only now that Lin Sanjiu realized that that thing was actually a duoluozhong. It seemed that Nagas.h.i.+ had taken the garbage truck from it.
The man raised his chin slightly and glanced at him. "Are you an ordinary human?" He licked his lips and took a step back. Lin Sanjiu had no idea why, but it seemed like the man needed to psych himself up before he could talk to an ordinary human. "Why did it take away the truck? And why is its sleeve torn?"
Timo s.h.i.+lly-shallied as he tried to come up with a reason, but nothing came to his mind. The man's brows scrunched up as he asked, "Did it sneak away from its owner? Can you explain to me why there's blood on your neck?"
"No, no, this wound—it is her doing. She accidentally injured me just now." Timo darted a glance at Lin Sanjiu before continuing to explain to the man, "Erm, well, my friend over here said she has a hard time controlling her duoluozhong, so I asked her to give it more work as a punishment."
The man's face lightened as he turned over to Lin Sanjiu.
It was only then that Lin Sanjiu tore her gaze away from the man's labyrinth tattoo. Even though there were no words on the tattoo, like the advertis.e.m.e.nt on the balloon carrier, a line was projected directly into her mind—"We run the Twelve Worlds."
Underneath the line was the name of a dozen organizations. Amongst the dozen organizations, she only knew the Munition Factory and Heaven University.
At this moment, Lin Sanjiu really hoped that she was not in the Heaven Underworld.
If this were just an ordinary apocalyptic world, she was certain that she would make the man in front of her pay dearly for treating her poorly, but right now, Timo was holding her arm very tightly. Left with no other choice, she nodded hesitantly.
"If she's new here, then how about you? Are you new here too?" the man yelled out at Timo, "Can't you explain the rules to her first? If all the duoluozhongs are fully rested, the first group of people that are going to die will be you!"
"Yes, yes, yes…You are right. I'll take note of it next time. We are really sorry for creating so much trouble."
Perhaps because the man was pretty satisfied with Timo's sincerity, he turned back and kicked the duoluozhong out from the alley.
The duoluozhong was skinny and it was apparently not a kuchisake-onna. After it had stopped yelling, it made a few quick steps and scampered into the garbage truck before leaving.
"Tsk, what an a.s.sh*le. He just manages several duoluozhongs and he already thinks he is a lot higher than us." The civility had faded from Timo's face. "If the duoluozhong fights back, he will be the first to die."
Then, he paused for a moment and sighed. "But then again, if all the duoluozhongs united and fought back, I guess our situation would be a lot worse than the duoluozhongs'."
Lin Sanjiu stared at him and asked, "So, what are you gonna do with Nagas.h.i.+?"
"Nagwho? Oh, you mean Mephis." He ran his fingers across the back of his head and sucked the air in through his teeth. "Well, there's nothing I can do. Just let her be."
"Aren't you afraid that it will come and kill you again?" Lin Sanjiu said, "If I force it to…"
"It's no use." Timo waved his hand and turned around. "Duoluozhongs are persistent. Regardless of what promise you force it to make, I'm confident that it will still come and try to kill me. Hey, where is it?"
Stunned, Lin Sanjiu turned around to see that Nagas.h.i.+ was gone. There was nothing on the street now.
"Well, I know where it works and it can't run far," Lin Sanjiu said hesitantly. She did not know what she could do even if she knew where Nagas.h.i.+ was.
"Just let it be." Timo sighed deeply. "It was just a stroke of pure luck for it to find me. Just let it be. Although I might not look like it, I am pretty good at hiding, so don't worry."
"That's it? It continues to hunt you and you continue to hide from it? Do you really love to play tag games so much?"
Timo let out a bitter laugh. He fumbled around his body, seeming to be looking for something. However, he could not find what he wanted in the end, so he sighed.
"You know what?" he questioned with a tinge of sadness in his voice, "In another month, Mephis will turn 25. She was turned into a kuchisake-onna when she was 14 years old. Since then, she has been hunting for me, trying to kill me whenever she got the chance, and I… all I can do is keep running and hiding from her. This has been my life for the past decade. I have already gotten used to it, and have nothing to complain about even if I have to continue the rest of my life this way. Is this what they call embracing your life? "
Lin Sanjiu looked at Timo, at a loss for words. After a short bout of rumination, she decided to blurt out the question in her mind, even though she knew such a question was not really appropriate and even sounded a little bit cold in their current situation, "How did she get turned into a duoluozhong?"
Timo waved his hand again. It occurred to Lin Sanjiu that he did not want to talk about that topic as he always beat around the bush whenever she brought up the subject. "Oh yeah, you did save my life. I don't have anything to repay you with, so I'll tell you something."
"What do you got?"
"You have already seen the owner of the ring." He coughed awkwardly. He looked at the bar and said in a low voice, "The waiter in that bar is the owner." After a short pause, Timo shook his head. "I have no idea why he insists on meeting up with the buyer."
