Chapter 18: A Happy Blessing for Lin Sanjiu
Translator: Pluto Editor: Tehrn
The three of them did not say a single a word. They stood up silently as they raised their guard. Kong Yun’s question echoed softly through the spacious supermarket, and before it faded, there was another furious knock. This time, she even raised her voice, “Come here and open the door! I know you all are in there! That rice, didn’t you get that here? Open up!”
That’s right—she lived nearby, so she probably shopped here frequently. That was the reason she was able to recognize the source of that sack of imported rice. Before the three of them could think of anything to reply to her, they did not expect that her shouting successfully managed to rouse Wang Sisi who was in the staff room. After an ear-piercing hiss, bangs resonated in the air as she slammed herself violently against the door. Lin Sanjiu could not tolerate this any longer, she suddenly walked towards the metal shutter.
Somehow, Wang Sisi’s voice seemed to have startled Kong Yun. There were a few seconds of silence outside the metal shutter. After waiting for a while, Lin Sanjiu restrained her anger and asked, “What the hell do you want?”
“Is that the lady from upstairs?” Kong Yun shot back.
“Why did you follow us here? What do want?” Lin Sanjiu shouted loudly, “Do you think I will just obediently let myself be absorbed by you, just like your husband?”
Kong Yun, who stood at the other side of the shutter, fell silent for a moment. After her pause, her faint voice finally traveled through the metal shutter, “I actually just want to talk. Honestly, I have to thank you.”
Lin Sanjiu bit her lip without saying a word.
“If you had not enlightened me, I would have just continue waiting. Without anyone around for me to absorb, I would die in the end. On the other hand… I really hate you,” Kong Yun sounded unstable, the volume of her voice fluctuated greatly, it was difficult to listen to her. “My hope was ripped away from me by a young woman like you who knew nothing… I am suffering, really. Who are you to tell me that I killed him? I can’t stand it! I...I really want to kill you so that I can feel a little better.”
Lin Sanjiu was stunned. She could not help taking half a step back. Even though there was a metal shutter between them, she could almost smell the abnormal aura of insanity in the air.
Kong Yun, on the side, began to speak again, “Forget it. You wouldn’t understand… It doesn’t make a difference whether you open the shutter or not. If you don’t open the shutter, I will just converse with you… If you open them, I will turn your bones into juice and drink that.”
Lin Sanjiu was so affected that her face turned white, she was about to open her mouth, but Kong Yun continued as if she knew that the person on the other side was about to respond, “Listen carefully, I will only say this once. I can only use my ability every once in an hour. For me, a living organism is more beneficial than a dead one. And a human being is by far more beneficial for me than any other living creature. When I am absorbing, my… prey and I must not move in that ten minutes. Whether it is on my own violation or forced, if I move, all my efforts will be wasted. I will have to wait for the next hour to start absorbing again. But now at my initial stage, I need to absorb a large amount, so I can’t risk the situation of not absorbing anything for a few hours...”
[From this perspective, it meant that Kong Yun was only trying to drag time after she ate the chicken porridge…]
“Ah!” Marcie suddenly exclaimed, realizing something, ”That was why you did not lay a hand on us just now. It is not that you didn’t want to, but you did not have the chance! If the others realized that something was wrong, you would have exposed yourself and waste another hour!”
Once she said this, Luther softly but clearly swore a string of vulgarities.
“That’s right,” Even though she could not see Kong Yun face, Lin Sanjiu did not know why but she felt that Kong Yun was smiling at this point, “originally, I wanted to wait for one of you to fall behind… but I did not expect things to turn out like this…”
“How generous of you to reveal everything about your ability,” Lin Sanjiu remarked sarcastically with a cold smile, but only half believed her words.
“So what if I told you this? The worst outcome is that I’ll die,” Kong Yun intonation rose, “Do you think I am afraid of death? If you kill me, I will meet my husband. I should be thanking you then.”
Lin Sanjiu was shocked, she was about to speak when Wang Sisi who was in the staff room behind her started howling again.
The inhuman howl sounded very intimidating, it became silent for a moment outside the metal shutter, before Kong Yun spoke again. “What’s that?“
“It’s nothing,” Lin Sanjiu did not want to tell Kong Yun anything about duoluozhongs, “Probably, someone dying soon…”
Despite knowing that she was lying, Kong Yun still laughed. “Fine, let’s hope that we never meet again.”
She was surprisingly blunt. After she had said that, they could hear her footsteps changing direction. She climbed the escalator, and gradually, her footsteps faded into the distance. Lin Sanjiu tried her best to steel herself just now, but after she had heard that woman leave, she finally gave a sigh of relief.
The three of them walked back to the area where they had laid out the towels. Lin Sanjiu wiped her face then laid on her “bed” lethargically. Wang Sisi’s howling continued, but the three of them seemed to have gotten used to it. After they had discussed for a while about Kong Yun, somehow Marcie and Luther came to the subject on logistics. The two of them discussed for a short moment before deciding to gather the remaining food and water so that they could check the numbers.
“Both of you, go ahead.” Lin Sanjiu’s heart and body were weary. She did not feel like moving at all, she waved her hands saying, “Let me be lazy for a while.”
“Don’t worry. That woman can’t do anything to you.” Marcie thought that she was still concerned about Kong Yun, so she smiled and patted her head. After that, she stood up and left with Luther.
The Ability Polishing Agent glowed brightly in the tiny bottle, and the surroundings were lit up with a swirling silver light. If Wang Sisi’s banging and howling didn’t spoil that atmosphere, it was actually considerably peaceful.
After laying for a while, Lin Sanjiu found that her mind was crowded with a lot of thing—Ren Nan, the New World, her own abilities, her dead parents, Zhu Mei, Kong Yun… these things floating in her mind, one after the other, almost suffocating her. If she had discovered this earlier, she would rather find something to do. Lin Sanjiu tossed around a few times before she finally jumped up frustratedly. She decided to look for the other two people and help check their inventory of supplies.
To her surprise, once she left the ground, she felt a warm flow traveling from her head to her feet. In that split second, Lin Sanjiu felt all her muscles twitching, her blood rushing through her blood vessels like crazy, and her teeth even started to chatter. She had never experienced this before; it was strange as though she had lost control of her body. A low cry escaped her throat uncontrollably.
Coincidentally, Wang Sisi had stopped at that moment. Her voice immediately traveled through the supermarket. Almost immediately, Marcie hastily asked, “What’s wrong?”
Lin Sanjiu wanted to open her mouth to say something, but she totally could not control her muscles and her tongue. Her ears were only filled with the sound of her teeth which chattered rapidly.
“We’ll go over!” Luther yelled out.
The footsteps of the two of them approaching sounded very distant and indistinct to Lin Sanjiu. She only felt Marcie’s cold breath when the two of them were kneeling beside her. “What… what’s the matter?”
Luther sounded very anxious, “Her... her face. No, her whole body. What’s happening?”
At that moment, Lin Sanjiu was just like a large piece of human-shaped jelly, she was trembling non-stop under some sort of external force. Her skin, hair, and muscle vibrated like water ripples. After almost a full minute, this weird vibration gradually faded away. Her body slowly calmed down.
When Lin Sanjiu opened her eyes, she saw two large faces, looking very closely at her with worried expressions.
“What… what happened to me just now?” she pinched her own skin bewilderedly. The tight, delicate skin which belonged to a young woman like herself looked so normal. Her muscles, bones, and blood also reverted back.
Luther and Marcie looked at each other, feeling a little at a loss.
“Let me draw your blood; I will help you check,” Marcie said as she extended her nails and gave Lin Sanjiu a tiny scratch. Lin Sanjiu had the same idea. She looked nervously as her second drop of fresh blood disappeared into Marcie’s palms. Maybe it was because she already collected some base figures, so they only had to wait nervously for about 20 minutes before Marcie opened her eyes. She looked at Lin Sanjiu, and her lips curled up. A few smiling crow’s feet appeared at the corner of her eyes, “Xiao Jiu, congratulation, you have a happy blessing![1]”
With a “Pshhh!” sound, Luther, who was standing beside, drinking a bottle of water, spurted water out from his mouth, wetting Lin Sanjiu’s hair and face.
Lin Sanjiu vision darkened, her face was totally white. She did not even bother to wipe the drops of water on her eyelashes, “That’s not possible!”
“Why not? This is the natural order of thing.” As she was puzzled, Marcie’s smile somewhat faded. She looked at both Luther and Lin Sanjiu, “Isn’t it a happy blessing now that she has developed her third passive skill?”
She could not understand when she saw the jaw-dropping expression that the two of them had. “And her third Passive Skill is a high-tiered physical enhancement ability. Hey, what are you doing… Wait.. Wait... Luther, why aren’t you stopping her? Hey! It hurts!”
Translator notes: [1]The author use a bit of wordplay, the term in Chinese roughly translates to “fortunate event” which can mean that one is pregnant or something happy has happened.