Chapter 1133: As the Saying Goes, Things Never Happen Just Twice

"I"ve never heard of Special Items turning into duoluozhong," Bohemia said as she tentatively kicked the silver-white circle on the ground. The circle made a loud clang, startling her. She quickly glanced around to make sure Puppeteer hadn"t returned.

Lin Sanjiu stared at the circle, her brow furrowed, remaining silent for a while. The duoluozhong creatures walking around them now seemed to completely ignore their existence. One even approached them, picked up a wrench near their feet, and then turned away.

"I haven"t heard of it either," she said in a low voice, looking genuinely concerned. "In theory, inanimate objects shouldn"t turn into duoluozhong... I"m thinking, could it be my [Planar World] that"s the problem?"

Bohemia looked puzzled.

"When we checked the corpse, I didn"t convert it into a card—since it wouldn"t be of much help. But at that time, I was sure that I could convert it. Do you understand what I mean? It"s like a hunch or an instinct; when you"re proficient with an ability, you often have that feeling..."

"I get it, I get it." Bohemia waved her hand impatiently. "Focus on the important part."

"Anyway, at that time, I didn"t convert it. I just subconsciously felt that I could. When I tried my ability on the duoluozhong, it naturally didn"t work, so it didn"t raise any alarms."

Lin Sanjiu took a deep breath. "What if it was just a coincidence? What if there"s something wrong with [Planar World], and there"s nothing we can do about it?"

Before she could finish speaking, a shadow suddenly flew towards her and landed in her arms. Lin Sanjiu looked down and realized it was a bracelet.

"What a waste of time. Why don"t you test it?" Bohemia said with a huff.

Her wrist was thin enough, and the bracelet was slender enough to fit perfectly between Lin Sanjiu"s half-closed fingers.

Lin Sanjiu raised her hand and looked at the colorful bracelet, applying a little pressure with her fingertip. No response.

She tried again, but still, no response.

Bohemia took two steps forward and looked at her bracelet, then at Lin Sanjiu, with a puzzled expression. "What? It"s not working?"

"It really isn"t," Lin Sanjiu said, her face paling. "Maybe... something went wrong when the [Hand of Retrieval] was destroyed."

"That"s weird. My items work fine, and your whip works too..." Bohemia said, raising her wrist and pulling down a bunch of bracelets and chains, freeing up her hand to put it inside her bracelet again.

In that moment, Lin Sanjiu couldn"t quite grasp what had transpired. She found herself staring blankly at her own palm, lost in thought. However, when she abruptly raised her head, the bracelet slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground with a clang, and there was no one in sight to retrieve it.

Bohemia had disappeared.

"What the h.e.l.l just happened?" Lin Sanjiu couldn"t help but curse, taking two steps back, looking bewildered. "How did she vanish?"

Naturally, no one could answer her. Mrs. Manas didn"t know any more than she did. Even the duoluozhong creatures walking around them seemed completely oblivious, as if Bohemia had never existed.

Lin Sanjiu looked at the bracelet on the ground and bent down. Even if Special Items could turn into duoluozhong, there was no reason this particular bracelet would change. After all, Bohemia had taken it out just half a minute ago. Just as she was about to touch it, a voice suddenly came from somewhere, shouting, "Don"t touch it!"

Lin Sanjiu jumped up, stepped back to the edge of the road, and looked around until she found the source of the voice.

Her gaze pa.s.sed over the road and a small park in the center of the street and fell on a row of brown townhouses; each about three stories tall, they appeared ordinary and unremarkable, like several pieces of chocolate melted together. At this moment, a window on the third floor of one of the houses opened, and a head and waving arm appeared. "Hey! Don"t touch that thing, did you hear me?"

Lin Sanjiu looked around. The expressionless duoluozhongs on the street seemed to be completely deaf, and none of them bothered to look up at the man.

"Who are you?" she asked cautiously.

This man had appeared suddenly, and no one could be sure whether he had anything to do with Bohemia"s disappearance—although she couldn"t imagine that any random posthuman on the road could make Puppeteer disappear.

"That"s none of your business." The man waved his hand again, retracting his head back inside the window. He seemed to say something else, but Lin Sanjiu couldn"t hear it clearly.

"Hey!" Lin Sanjiu called out and looked at the two Special Items on the ground, finally deciding not to touch them. She rushed over instead.

If this was a trick he used to deceive them and take the Special Items, she vowed to use his bones to make a soup for Bohemia— As Lin Sanjiu rushed to the townhouse entrance and glanced back, there was still no one on the road, let alone anyone taking the two Special Items. Lin Sanjiu withdrew her gaze and shouted again. Finally, the window opened again, with the same head sticking out, asking, "What"s up?"

This time, a woman"s voice also sounded faintly from inside the window, "You see, you attracted her here, didn"t you? I told you... you shouldn"t have warned her..."

"Do you know what happened?" A glimmer of hope arose in Lin Sanjiu"s heart. "Please tell me, where did my companion go?"

Since the person was backlit, his expression wasn"t clear, but she could see that he hadn"t shaved for a few days. He turned back and said something to the woman behind him before showing his face again. "You... you don"t know? Are you newcomers?"

"Yes," she said. He probably noticed that her group was surrounded by duoluozhong and unable to escape. Lin Sanjiu admitted straightforwardly, "Do you know what happened to them? Why didn"t you let me pick up the bracelet earlier?"

"Forget it, there"s no use talking to her," the woman inside the house interrupted impatiently, "Our own business is more important..."

Observing the man about to withdraw his head, Lin Sanjiu quickly interjected, "Wait! What do I need to do for you to share the information?"

The man turned back and muttered something to the woman inside. Another face appeared at the window; it was the woman. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, and she had a round face, although Lin Sanjiu couldn"t discern the details of her facial features.

"We lack clean water, food, and medicine, especially antibiotics. We ran out of them yesterday," she cautioned, "Do you have any?"

Lin Sanjiu had more than enough of those.

"I can give you a few liters of clean water, and I have to count the food. I remember having two extra rolls of bandages." Lin Sanjiu understood the importance of not revealing all her resources and spoke cautiously, "If I get you what you need, will you tell me everything you know?"

"If we don"t tell you, we won"t be able to keep anything for ourselves," the woman with the ponytail impatiently waved her hand, "Come up! The door is unlocked."

After enveloping her hand with [Defense Forcefield], Lin Sanjiu opened the door. Inside, there was a staircase, with a corridor beside it leading to what seemed to be the kitchen. She employed her Higher Consciousness as a scout, extending it along the walls and floor but detecting no traps.

"They live here without locking the door because they believe that danger won"t enter, right?" Mrs. Manas whispered. "What kind of danger can cause someone to vanish instantly..."

Since she lacked a visa, Lin Sanjiu didn"t know the name of this world and couldn"t speculate on where the danger might originate. Seeing that Higher Consciousness detected nothing unusual, she slightly relaxed her guard and ascended the stairs - to preserve Higher Consciousness, she s.h.i.+fted the [Defense Forcefield] to her feet; however, it appeared unnecessary because, even upon reaching the third floor, nothing transpired.

The third floor was relatively smaller, housing only two rooms, one of which had its door ajar. The man protruded his head from behind the door, scrutinizing behind Lin Sanjiu, seemingly verifying that she was the sole arrival, and nodded, "Come in!"

Before advancing, Lin Sanjiu caught a faint whiff of blood. At least one of them appeared to be injured, and the injury likely wasn"t minor. Generally, posthumans rarely contracted infections even without using antibiotics.

"Is anyone among you injured?" She progressed slowly, her guard still not entirely lowered. "Can"t we converse outside?"

"This is a pre-apocalyptic civilian residence. Do you believe there"s a problem?" The man returned to the room, his voice dripping with disdainful sarcasm, but he evaded addressing whether anyone was injured. This wasn"t surprising; they probably preferred not to display weakness in front of a stranger.

Employing Higher Consciousness to discreetly scan the surroundings, the third floor remained seemingly clean, devoid of concealed Special Items, and no one loitered behind the door. Lin Sanjiu exhaled a sigh of relief, took several broad strides forward, and pushed the door open. As expected, it presented an ordinary bedroom interior. Just as she was about to take another step inside, every nerve in her body suddenly tensed, prompting her to instinctively halt her motion. Due to her abrupt cessation, she even stumbled slightly at the doorway.

"What"s wrong?" The woman"s voice came from inside, followed by her stepping out with a puzzled expression.

Lin Sanjiu didn"t answer; she just swept her gaze over the carpet in front of the door.

It was a round carpet.