Translator: Pluto Editor: Tehrn
Under Lin Sanjiu directions, Marcie drove all the way to the 38-floor condominium and parked the car in a secluded spot for them to rest. This was a high-end residential estate after all, so there were lesser people compared to the outside. Even in this world that had changed beyond recognition, the garden still looked unusually peaceful now.
Hesitating for a mont, Lin Sanjiu sealed the broken window and switched on the air conditioner. Zhu i was no longer around… it made no sense to save that electricity. A cool environnt would not only help her recover her strength, it would also be good for that wound on her neck. At least, it would reduce the chances of infection under such high temperatures… Despite how logical her decision was, she could not help feeling sowhat crestfallen as the cool wind started to blow.
Luther noticed her expression. He sighed and comforted, “Big Sis, don’t grieve too much. Your friend… at least your friend did not die at the hands of a duoluozhong…”
After experiencing that near death encounter together, their relationship had unwittingly grown closer. Lin Sanjiu could feel the kindness in Luther’s words and smiled. She only replied after a while, saying, “Can you stop calling Big Sis? I am really not much older than you… That’s right, I haven’t had the ti to introduce myself just now. My na is Lin Sanjiu. Well, I just… just evolved recently.”
“So your na is derived from the phrase, ‘Mortal affairs are discussed rely over three cups of wine’?[1]” Luther imdiately pouted. “My na can’t compete with yours. I will call you Xiao Jiu… And, why did you tie a towel around your neck?”
“Oh!” His words reminded Lin Sanjiu. She quickly took off the wet and warm towel exposing the ssy, mangled wound. Luther suddenly drew a breath when he saw it. Marcie raised both her eyebrows, looking puzzledly at Lin Sanjiu. Lin Sanjiu opened a bottle of clean water and started cleaning her wound. As she did this, she recounted the incident with Ren Nan. Largely due to the fact that the two of them had saved her during that previous critical juncture, Lin Sanjiu was very willing to trust them.
Unlike Luther who listened dumbfoundedly, Marcie listened silently with knotted brows. Suddenly, she pointed to the bottle of clean water — Lin Sanjiu paused for a mont — and Marcie offered, ”Let do it. I have studied dical science for a few years.” After that, she took a roll of bandage and so antibiotics from her waist pouch.
[Can a personality that had achieved a corporeal body actually have a set of life experience?] Lin Sanjiu shot Luther a look of confusion but did not say anything. She just lifted her head and swallowed the two antibiotics obediently. With Marcie’s skills, it did not take long for the wound on her neck to be properly dressed and bandaged.
After listening to her story, Luther was still a little engrossed in the details. “I have heard about such cannibalistic abilities… but Marcie and I have never t soone like that before. I always thought that it was just an urban legend. I can’t believe it was actually real. That Ren Nan probably only evolved recently too, that’s why you managed to easily get rid of him. Otherwise, if he was given more ti, who knows how powerful he would have beco!”
“Luckily, we didn’t et such a person,” Marcie comnted quietly.
After she had spent half a night with them, Lin Sanjiu could tell that even though Marcie was unable to engage in real combat, she was nimble, cool-headed and more… experienced(?); she felt more reliable than Luther.
“Can you explain to about this world? What is happening? How many worlds are there?” Lin Sanjiu faced Marcie and could not help asking.
“Why are you asking Marcie and not …” she heard a protest from beside her coming from Luther. As if she did not hear her question, Marcie replied with another question instead, “Have you heard about the theory of parallel dinsions before?”
Lin Sanjiu answered with an “Ah!” before continuing: “Apart from our universe, there is an infinite number of parallel universe. Every asurable behavior, even every single choice that a person made, will create a split, no, will create a new parallel universe?”
She had read many science fiction novels before, so she knew of such a thing.
Marcie nodded with a calm deanor, saying, “I will just state first that this is just a conjecture. So posthumans agree, and others disagree. ? I agree with it. I am not sure how many people there are in your world. In our world, we had a population of 4.3 billion. Every single decision that a person makes in his or her lifeti will create a parallel dinsion. If you decided to take the path to the left today, then the alternate dinsion will be that you had chose the path to the right… and within that new dinsion, everyone will continuously make decisions and create other new dinsions. If we take this into account, who knows how many ‘worlds’ exist? The number is just uncountable.
“Originally, we all lived our lives peacefully in our own dinsions. Within our lifeti, there was no way that we would ever et soone from another dinsion. But for so unknown reason, so of the dinsions started mutating… just like this one.”
While Marcie paused for a while, Lin Sanjiu quickly interjected and asked, “Did they all turned out like this? Do they all have high-temperature climates?”
Luther replied to her with a rare look of seriousness, “Not necessarily. For our world, half the population died due to an epidemic which was caused by a virus outbreak from a laboratory facility.” It suddenly occurred to Lin Sanjiu that he had probably lost his family and friends in his world.
The space in the car fell silent for a few seconds. Marcie broke the silence, and continued, “No one could tell with certainty how many of these dinsions have mutated. The only thing that can be confird is that it is not a small number. At that ti, we survived the epidemic and evolved. We thought that we only had to strive our best to survive on. But…”
Marcie stopped, she seed to be deliberating on the best thod to explain the situation.
“On the 14th month, Luther and I were already accustod to the New World which was filled with epidemics and duoluozhong. Misfortune struck on a normal night.”
“When Luther and I woke up, we found ourselves lying in the middle of a battleground. Can you imagine? We had just opened our eyes, we did not even understand where we were, and suddenly a bomb fell just fifty ters away from us…” Marcie added aptly.
“Even though, we were not unable to comprehend what had happened. At the very least, we quickly understood one thing: we were no longer in our original world. We asked around and finally found out that the world was called, ‘A Land dyed black by Blood’. In that world which was governed by wars, we survived miserably for another fourteen months. On the last day of the 14th month, the sa thing happened again…“ Luther’s voice sounded distant.
Even within the cool air-conditioned interior of the car, a drop of sweat rolled down Lin Sanjiu’s forehead. She understood, and before Luther could say another world, she softly said, “You appeared here.”
Luther sighed and nodded, “Hyperthermal Hell.”
[Hyperthermal Hell!]
Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth, about to say sothing, when Luther had already guessed what she wanted to ask, “It doesn’t happen only to . In the two worlds that we have been, all the posthumans that I’ve t were sent away after fourteen months. Furthermore, everyone will go to a different place each ti.”
Her heart pounded hard for a few monts. With so doubts, Lin Sanjiu said, ”Does that an, after fourteen months, I will also…”
“Reach another ‘New World’,” Marcie replied confidently. “It is probably because I am just an alternate personality, so I will follow Luther wherever he goes. However, we were separated from all our past companions.”
Waves after waves of unimaginable information flooded Lin Sanjiu’s brain. After she mulled over it for a while, she suddenly realized sothing. “Wait… you ntioned that every posthuman will be sent to a different world. Does it an that we are just flung out into an infinite abyss of apocalyptic worlds by pure chance?”
Did this an that once she left this place, she might not be able to return to this world, where she grew up in, within her lifeti?
No, not only that — it almost ant that once fourteen months have passed, Luther and Marcie will be sent to so unknown world and they might never et again. She had just t two people that she could trust, yet she was imdiately inford that they will separate. It was a weird feeling.
The car’s windows were long covered by a thin film of condensation. It was clear that even within the short ti of their conversation, the temperature outside had risen again. Lin Sanjiu turned up the temperature of the air conditioner slightly. As she was imrsed in the silence, she suddenly thought about another possibility. “Wait. From the point of a parallel dinsion theory, there is an infinite number of ‘’. That is to say, I might et myself in another world?”
Unexpectedly, Marcie shook her head firmly.
“Just like Darwin’s theory of evolution, the theory about parallel dinsions is only the best explanation for these apocalyptic worlds. It is limited to what we know and just a conjecture, it is not actually a fact. But what you’ve just said, it precisely the flaw in this theory. Because in another New World, there will never be another you.”
Lin Sanjiu felt a little overwheld. She received too much information for tonight. She could not help leaning back on the seat as her brain was filled with information about everything regarding the New World. She remained silent and in a daze.
Suddenly, she heard a swoosh. She lifted her head and saw that Marcie’s nails had transford into those long tal nails. Marcie was looking with a hopeful glint in her eyes, “So, can you let draw your blood now?”
Translator’s note: Sanjiu is literally “three wine” in Chinese. The translated phrase [Mortal affairs are discussed rely over three cups of wine] is not derived from any classical poem, it is a modern saying telling people to take things a little easier as life is fleeting.
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