Chapter 100: Escape & Reunion p2
Multiple personalities?
Seeing her attack so easily thwarted, Lin Jiayao remained motionless… she couldn’t move, her tiny fungal legs were useless, she could only wait.
At least she now knew the leader of the Voodoo Cult was mentally unstable, with multiple personalities, at least three, as far as she could tell.
A calm, composed mastermind, a sentimental, fragile persona, and a foul-mouthed, aggressive personality mirroring the Voodoo Cult’s style.
As Lin Jiayao stared, hoping to glean more information, Wu Hejun finally looked at her.
“You’re still here,” she said, looking down at Lin Jiayao, a slight smile on her face. “Thank you for fulfilling Junjun’s wish.”
Lin Jiayao didn’t reply, unsure of this personality’s intentions.
Did she see her as just an ordinary zombie? Planning to kill her after “fulfilling the wish”? Or would she be locked back in the basement?
Judging by this modified villa, likely back to the basement.
“Xin City… Fuzhou City… Donghai… no, Donghai is gone…” Wu Hejun chuckled, walking towards Lin Jiayao. “And Qingzhou City.”
“Where are you?”
“…Why are you trying to kill me?”
“Fucking answer me!”
Three sentences, in different tones, tumbling out almost simultaneously.
And then, her hand shot out, gripping Lin Jiayao’s eyes.
“AAAAAH!!!”
An agonizing pain, unlike anything she had ever felt, a searing, soul-wrenching agony.
The consciousness switching map in the upper left corner of her vision flashed frantically, indicating her main body was being harmed.
“You fucking dare to come here?!”
“Where are you, you bitch?! Answer me!”
“Speak! Are you mute?! Huh?!”
“You fucking—”
“Crunch—”
“Still not talking?!”
“Rip—”
“I don’t care what you’re planning, I’ll find you and tear you apart! You just wait!”
Wu Hejun’s fingers dug into Lin Jiayao’s eyes. Fighting the excruciating pain, Lin Jiayao switched back to her main body.
But the pain didn’t disappear.
“Ugh—!”
She arched her back, tears, mixed with blood, welling up in her eyes.
Her sudden movement and the choked sound woke Lin Xiwan. She turned and saw her sister, her body curled up, trembling.
“Yao?!” She shook her sister’s shoulders, her Awakened night vision just barely able to make out the blood and tears on her face. “What’s wrong?!” she exclaimed.
But Lin Jiayao couldn’t respond, the pain almost unbearable, her lips pale and trembling.
Only when the words 「Extraction Failed」 appeared before her eyes did the pain subside.
“Gasp—Gasp—”
She lay on the bed, panting, her body relaxing.
An overwhelming wave of mental and physical exhaustion washed over her.
“Yao… Yao? Why are your eyes bleeding? Is it your ability? Wait, I’ll get you some blood crystals…”
Lin Xiwan wasn’t completely panicked. Seeing the problem was with her sister’s eyes, she immediately went to find blood crystals.
There was no better remedy for an Awakened.
By the time she returned, a blood crystal in hand, about to crush a small piece and apply it to her sister’s eyes, Lin Jiayao had recovered and was looking at her.
“Sister… I’m fine…” she said weakly, forcing a smile, but the bloodstains on her face belied her words.
“What happened, Yao? Your eyes…” Seeing her sister’s pain, Lin Xiwan felt tears welling up; she wished it were her who was hurt.
After the initial disorientation, Lin Jiayao had recovered.
A mental attack…
The Voodoo Cult leader’s attack hadn’t just injured her second zombie, but had also transmitted the pain to her main body.
It had even caused the capillaries in her eyes to rupture.
So this is what it feels like to be slapped across the internet?
And the Voodoo Cult leader could seemingly track her consciousness… besides America, which was too far, she had listed every place she had been.
And why had that cowardly personality said “Why are you trying to kill me?”
Lin Jiayao had never interacted with them.
In fact, she had always avoided them.
Why was the Voodoo Cult targeting her?
The thought made her head pound.
I have to tell Sister.
“Sister…” Lin Jiayao opened her eyes, looked at her sister, and extended her hand.
Lin Xiwan quickly took her hand, helping her sit up. “I’m here.”
“I… I just dreamed about the Voodoo Cult…” Lin Jiayao said after a moment. “She said… she knows where I am… she wants to kill me…”
She didn’t dare say it was the Voodoo Cult leader, afraid of scaring her sister.
Her sister’s words stunned Lin Xiwan, then a chill ran down her spine.
A dream?
No, even a dream couldn’t be taken lightly… there were all kinds of strange abilities in this world; who knew if there were Awakened who could manipulate dreams?
Perhaps the Voodoo Cult was targeting her because of the previous incident.
A dream that caused real-world harm… that had to be the work of an Awakened.
They’d both been covered in Voodoo Cult blood, and their jeep had been filled with their supplies.
She didn’t know if it was something they’d eaten or touched that allowed the Awakened to enter their dreams, but it was definitely a warning.
A warning that they were in trouble, that the Voodoo Cult was coming for them.
“It’s okay… Yao, how are your eyes now? Do they still hurt?” Lin Xiwan changed the subject, focusing on her sister’s injuries.
She figured the Voodoo Cult Awakened, unable to penetrate her own mind, had targeted her weaker sister.
It was her own carelessness that had given them the opportunity… she hadn’t suspected anything wrong with the Voodoo Cult’s food or supplies.
“They don’t hurt anymore,” Lin Jiayao said, shaking her head. “Just a momentary pain.”
She didn’t want to worry her sister further and didn’t reveal what she had experienced.
She was already planning their escape.
Run, as far as possible, preferably somewhere beyond the Voodoo Cult leader’s reach.
Her precognitive, or rather, sensory ability couldn’t be infinite; she hadn’t been able to detect Goldie in America.
Only when she was truly strong could she confront the Voodoo Cult leader, discover her motives, and understand how she had been targeted.
Now… she could only run and become stronger.
Looking at the 12-hour cooldown timer on the second zombie slot, Lin Jiayao took a deep breath.
They had to leave, soon.
Before they endangered the Qingzhou University camp.
The second slot would be available tomorrow morning, before they reached Yun Province. She could log in on the road and check the situation in Kun City, deciding then whether to detour or proceed.
“Yao…” Lin Xiwan, after a long moment of agonizing silence, finally spoke, hugging her sister tightly. “Let’s run.”
Against such a powerful and malevolent organization, the two of them were too weak.
Their only option was to run, as far as possible.
“Okay,” Lin Jiayao nodded. “She said in my dream… they’re coming from Chongyu City… she told us not to run.”
“Then we’ll run faster, to somewhere far from Chongyu City,” Lin Xiwan took a deep breath, nodded, then stood up. “Yao… you rest in the wheelchair. I’ll go prepare.”
She had to destroy everything in the jeep, buy new supplies… she even had to wake Wan Zi in the middle of the night.
The sooner they left, the better, both for them and for the camp.
Lin Jiayao nodded, knowing this wasn’t the time for sentimentality.
She knew her sister wouldn’t leave her alone in the dorm.
Lin Xiwan unfolded the wheelchair, gently lifted her sister, placed her in it, and then wheeled her to room 101 to ask Auntie Lan for Wan Zi’s location.
Led by Auntie Lan, Lin Xiwan found Wan Zi, explained their situation, and then Wan Zi, looking at Lin Jiayao resting in the wheelchair, her eyes closed, felt a chill.
Holy shit… they’d provoked the Voodoo Cult?!
But she maintained her composure. She wanted to curse, but she wasn’t sure she could beat Lin Xiwan in a fight; that would be awkward.
She immediately had people remove and destroy everything from Lin Xiwan’s jeep, then helped her select and load new supplies into a replacement vehicle.
She even woke up the two little girls, confirmed they hadn’t had any… strange dreams, and then destroyed all their belongings.
By around four or five in the morning, as the sky began to lighten, Lin Xiwan had a jeep full of supplies, a full tank of gas, and even a few spare folding wheelchairs.
For all of this, Wan Zi only charged one and a half blood crystals, leaving Lin Xiwan with half a crystal for emergencies. She could have taken them all.
But Wan Zi wasn’t that kind of person; she wasn’t greedy.
And the sisters had warned her, and the image of the younger sister’s bloodied face was still fresh in her mind; they were all victims in this apocalypse.
No need to make things more difficult for fellow survivors.
After sending off the two sisters, who were now, in her eyes, harbingers of misfortune, Wan Zi couldn’t shake her unease. Finally, she led her people to camouflage the camp, to make it look abandoned.
And she warned everyone to stay within the camp for the next month, all scavenging missions canceled.
She could foresee the ensuing chaos and anxiety, at least for the next month or two.
Unless they heard the Voodoo Cult’s radio broadcasts cease, or someone announced their demise – a wishful thought.
“Whirr—”
As dawn broke, Lin Xiwan and her sister were on the road.
She glanced at her sister constantly, her face etched with worry.
Not being able to stay in the camp was disappointing, but having her sister by her side was enough.
Her biggest worry now was that her sister had been “marked” and would suffer another mental attack, so she checked on her regularly.
The bloodstains on Lin Jiayao’s face had been cleaned; she was now sleeping soundly, leaning against the headrest, her face turned towards Lin Xiwan.
If she even frowned, Lin Xiwan would wake her immediately.
As they drove onto the highway, the road ahead clear, Lin Xiwan glanced at her sister again.
And in that brief moment of distraction, it happened.
“Thump—”
A sudden impact, and she saw something white fly through the air.
What was that? A zombie? A human?
She didn’t stop. If it was a human, they were beyond help. If it was a zombie, then good riddance. There was no need to risk stopping and checking.
And looking in the rearview mirror, the road behind them was clear.
Had she imagined it?
She would check the car for damage later, when they found a place to rest.
What Lin Xiwan didn’t know was that a small, white figure was now lying on the jeep’s roof.
Its back was covered in tendrils, which clung to the metal, preventing it from falling.
It lay there, its hands clutching its head, tears streaming from its eyes, caught by the wind and then pulled back, a comical sight.
“Waaah…”
“Cars… cars really are dangerous…”
Leave a Reply