Chapter 165: Eating a.s.sorted Seafood Noodles Brings Hope
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
Lin Sanjiu was certain of what she saw. That thing did move.
The cup noodles she had taken from the Garden of Eden city, from a brand called Fruit of Knowledge, was still half full. In an instant, the cup noodles along with her fork disappeared from her hands. Lin Sanjiu leaped up and took two steps forward. She stood cautiously in front of the duoluozhong.
However, it was a cloudless night, and everything around her was shrouded in darkness, so she could barely see her surroundings. The faint light from the night sky reflected off the ‘white radish’, giving it a bluish tint. As darkness fell, she could no longer see the face of the encased duoluozhong clearly. She could only make out its vague outline.
After a while, the shadow inside the radish stopped moving.
When there was still some light, Lin Sanjiu had already partly examined the duoluozhong’s appearance. She a.s.sumed that it was dead because almost half of its face had already disintegrated, showing a huge chunk of its deformed skull.
Lin Sanjiu thought for a second and took out her [Ability Polis.h.i.+ng Agent]. She illuminated the ‘white radish’ with the silver light from her [Ability Polis.h.i.+ng Agent] and narrowed her eyes.
“Huh?”
When she took a closer look, she was so startled that she almost dropped her [Ability Polis.h.i.+ng Agent]. Right after that, her body reacted even quicker than her brain. Lin Sanjiu grabbed the board used for digging and thrust it violently into the ground. Then, she dug out that ‘white radish’ quickly.
After she carefully estimated the distance, Lin Sanjiu placed both her hands some distance from the shadowy figure and activated her [Mosaic Censors.h.i.+p]. There was a loud explosion accompanied by countless flying bits of roots and slime. The humanoid shadow slipped out from the hole in the white radish and slid to the ground.
“Hey, wake up!” Seeing a glimmer of hope, her voice grew a few pitch higher due to her excitement. She rushed over to the person and dragged him out from the puddle of slime. She slapped his face a few times, asking, “Are you still alive? Wake up!”
A young stranger laid in her arms. His clothes had been reduced to a few damp strips of cloth which clung to his body. His face was a little too small for a male, and his eyes were tightly shut. His face was covered with slime and thin strands of roots, and his chest wasn’t moving. Lin Sanjiu did not know first aid, she only saw it onTV. However, without much of a choice, she tried her best to imitate what she remembered from TV and pressed her hands down on the stranger’s naked chest. She gave it a few compressions, though she honestly didn’t know what she was doing.
Unexpectedly, her desperate attempts at saving him through her random chest compressions worked. The man began to stir. She felt his chest quiver slightly. Following which, the young man coughed violently. “Blergh…” the young man turned his head and vomited.
Lin Sanjiu quickly stopped and looked. The pool of vomit was surprisingly familiar. There were many strands of maggot-like thin roots wiggling on the ground. What else could it be other than the slime from the radish?
Before the young man opened his eyes fully, he was clearly tormented by whatever was in his chest and respiratory tract. His face was red and while he continued vomiting, he subconsciously started pulling and digging whatever was in his mouth, ears, and nose. Long strands of white roots poured out from his orifices, like startled worms abandoning their nests, and ‘swam’ towards the nearest ‘white radish’ hurriedly. The gruesome performance continued for three whole minutes.
Lin Sanjiu felt she would never be able to erase the image of those long thin roots pouring out from the young man’s nostrils from her memory. Enduring the gooseb.u.mps all over her body, she took out her saber and started slicing the things on the ground.
Unfortunately, the roots were too fine for the saber. On top of that, they seemed to have a mind of their own and dodged the blade of the saber agilely. After some effort, Lin Sanjiu only managed to cut a small bunch of those things.
“Stop… stop cutting,” the young man behind her suddenly spoke. His voice was hoa.r.s.e as if his throat had been badly damaged. “There is too much, it’s useless…”
Lin Sanjiu turned around swiftly and stared hard at him. She was totally unaware of the anxiety and hope on her face.
“Are you feeling better?” She gulped a mouthful of saliva. “How did you get inside? What is this thing?”
The young man laid on the ground. After some time, he forced himself up and leaned on the rock which Lin Sanjiu was sitting on previously when she was eating her noodles. He panted heavily and said, “Thanks… for rescuing me. You saved my life…” He vomited so much that his lips were white but he did not forget to show her grat.i.tude. “What’s wrong with this world? This happened as soon as I entered this world. How scary…”
He was the unlucky chap who fell down from the sky.
According to Snow, he was probably on higher ground before he was transported to this world so he fainted when he reached this world. Before he could regain consciousness, he had already been dragged into a white radish. Thus, this was the first time he had a good look at this world.
“Do you know what this is?” Lin Sanjiu nearly died of anxiety because of him. If he had a s.h.i.+rt with a collar, she would have grabbed it. “And, how did you reach this place? Are we far from where you disappeared? And, I looked carefully just now. A duoluozhong was previously in that spot, and not you!”
The young man was stunned. After hearing Lin Sanjiu’s brief explanation, he finally found out that she had seen him when he was unconscious. He coughed a few times and relaxed a little before he answered, “I don’t know what this is. When I was still in a daze, I felt many tentacles-like things burrowing into my nostrils and throat… I barely had enough air and it was hard to breathe. I’m only here because of my ability…”
[The Great Reversal Technique]
The name of this ability comes from a novel by the famous Wuxia author, Jin Yong. It even works in almost the same way. It makes one suspect if the owner of this ability normally lacks creativity.
Effect: This ability had been leveled up once. Currently, the user can exchange position with any target within a 250-meter radius. This can be an object or a living thing. As long as the target is around the same size as the user, the exchange will succeed. But take note, if the target is a human and had never heard of that famous Wuxia novelist, the exchange will fail.
In other words, this ability depends wholly on the popularity of that famous wuxia novelist across the millions and millions of parallel worlds…
Lin Sanjiu found it rather unbelievable that the young man actually told her everything about his ability, perhaps because she had saved his life.
“Due to oxygen deprivation, I couldn’t think clearly… I didn’t dare to open my eyes because I was scared those things would burrow into my eyeb.a.l.l.s. While I endured the weird itchiness of those things crawling into my nose and ears, I forced myself to stay conscious while I maintained my ability active…”
This young man, Qian Zhengguan, had lingering fears as he described his experiences in the ‘white radish’. His face was pale-white and he had a nauseated face.
Lin Sanjiu tried to be patient while she listened but, finally, she couldn’t resist interrupting, “My nine friends disappeared in this vicinity. I think they encountered the same situation as you. Think carefully again. When you activated your ability, did you detect any living humans nearby?”
“That’s why you were digging here!” Qian Zhengguan was astounded and quickly lamented, “You’re lucky to have so many friends. Unlike me… Oh, I know. Don’t panic. Let me think…”
The young man seemed to be a slowcoach and, among all the people she knew, his unfocused line of thoughts could be considered one of the worst. He easily strayed from the topic and she had to pull his attention back constantly. This made her even more impatient.
When he was in the white radish, Qian Zhengguan activated his ability more than a few dozen times, so it was hard for him to recall his experience each time. In the end, he finally remembered after some effort, “Yes… There was one. It was between my 20th and 30th activation. I detected someone within 250 meters from me. I wanted to swap my position with that person… but the person had never heard of Jin Yong before. The exchange failed. Could that person be a foreigner?”
Lin Sanjiu quickly stood up, “Do you remember where it is?”
Qian Zhengguan was just about to show her a puzzled face but when he was scared by her expression and quickly changed his tone, “I could travel through the same route, working my way backward. But there are two problems now…”
“What is it?”
“The slime within the network of rhizomes is constantly flowing. When I was inside, it kept pus.h.i.+ng me forward. Even if I find that particular position, the person might not be in the same spot…”
For Lin Sanjiu, that wasn’t even a problem, “I still want to try! What is the second problem?”
“This thing is too terrifying.” Fear filled Qian Zhengguan’s small face. “I activated my ability like crazy down there, but I just couldn’t get back up to the surface. You mentioned that a single contact would pull a person in there, I’m afraid I’ll—”
Before he could finish his sentence, Lin Sanjiu grabbed his arm and before he could react, Qian Zhenggaun felt his vision turning upside down. Lin Sanjiu tossed him, a 1.7 m man, on her shoulder, and carried him like a pig.
“Lead the way!” Lin Sanjiu shouted. As he let out a miserable shriek, she jumped onto the network of ‘white radishes’.
Qian Zhengguan was so shocked that his heart nearly jumped out of his chest. He closed his eyes tightly. But when he opened them again, he realized that he was alright. With a trembling voice, his voice was faltering as he spoke into Lin Sanjiu’s ears, “There, you have to turn right… Why isn’t anything happening to you? Um, yes, I swapped positions with a dead person here…”
Ever since she evolved, this was the first time she ran this fast. After hearing that fellow on her shoulder giving directions unhurriedly, she actually could increase his speed further.
“Um, I think the slime is slightly corrosive… My clothes weren’t like this before…”