Chapter 70: What Did You Say?
Translator: Pluto Editor: Tehrn
While she was still in a half-conscious state, Lin Sanjiu could hear a constant soft “pitter-patter” sound which disturbed her utterly exhausted mind. From the jerky movements she felt, she could tell that she was in a vehicle...
A packet of butter cookies, on top of a large carton, shifted about with the jerky movement of the bus, just like Lin Sanjiu. A furry paw appeared behind the carton as if it was trying to sneakily snatch the packet of cookies. However, the bus suddenly jerked, so the paw accidentally pushed the packet of cookies off the carton. “Agh!” The packet of cookies hit someone.
The culprit stuck his head out and stuck his head out and incidentally locked eyes with Lin Sanjiu.
“You… You’re awake? Haha…” B.Rabbit[1] laughed dryly.
Lin Sanjiu removed the packet of cookies from her face. She still felt giddy, but she slowly sat up and looked around. She was lying in the aisle of the bus; apparently, someone thoughtful had spread out a towel before she laid down. She could see tall stacks of cartons beside her, and she figured that the others probably had to make space for her to lie down. At that moment, B.Rabbit climbed up to one of the top cartons.
“Xiao Jiu? You’re awake?”
Hu Changzai’s voice rang out from the driver’s seat as he took a second to look behind. When he saw that Lin Sanjiu could already sit up, his face immediately lit up. “That’s great! I have been worried about you!”
After hearing that, her memories slowly came back to her, filling her groggy head.
[Fang Dan had been killed by 12.]
The first thought that emerged strangled her heart tightly. [Who would have known that she was a Consular Officer?] Thus, Lin Sanjiu came to accept that she didn’t just lose the chance to get a visa but more importantly, she has lost a friend.
Subsequently, she began to summarize the events in her head. When the five Executives were defeated, 12 took the opportunity and escaped while Oasis was empty. Marcie left ahead of them as she had to maintain the distance between herself and 12 to keep her corporeal form. Right now, Lin Sanjiu did not know where they were. [How’s Marcie? Has Luther woken up?]
“How long have I been sleeping?” Lin Sanjiu was only conscious about how dry her throat was when she started speaking.
Hu Changzai eyed Lin Sanjiu through the rearview mirror before he replied, sounded a little worried, “It has been a week. Luckily, you had a normal pulse and breathing rate, I nearly thought that you were dead...”
[A week!?] Lin Sanjiu was shocked, and she immediately stood up. Her legs wobbled a little, and she nearly lost her balance. “It has been that long? Then, Marcie...”
Hu Changzai already expected Lin Sanjiu’s question, he couldn’t help sighing as he replied, “After you fainted, we discussed and decided to head in the same direction as Marcie. However, even after traveling for quite some distance, we didn’t see Marcie. I guessed we might have taken a wrong turn, or perhaps they changed direction midway…”
[That is to say, we lost contact with Marcie.]
Lin Sanjiu’s head started to hurt. She found herself at a loss as her head pulsated with pain while her intense waves of emotions — anxiousness, worry, and remorse — seemed to ebbed a little. Instead, a rather comforting thought became clearer and clearer to her: No news might be the best news...
Lin Sanjiu straightened her body and looked around the bus carefully. She felt some complicated feelings when she realized that, after staying at Oasis for less than two weeks, her previous companions were all gone and were replaced by a group of new faces.
Ultimately, B.Rabbit took another packet of cookies. He tore open the packet with his teeth, and a small round puff appeared on one side of his cheek as he munched on the cookies noisily.
Lin Sanjiu stared at the rabbit and frowned as her mind churned, “Where is Professor Bai, Xu Xiaoyang, and Hai Tianqing? Why is this rabbit here instead?”
“Executive Hai is driving your truck now. As for Professor Bai… While you were unconscious, we found about 20-odd survivors in the rubble. They managed to escape the duoluozhongs. Professor Bai said that she needed to take responsibility for what she’d done, so she stayed behind with Xu Xiaoyang. They intend to build a new refuge for humans, one without any duoluozhongs. However, without the technology from the duoluozhong’s world, I think it will be diff…” Hu Changzai couldn’t help sounding a little emotional at this point, “I’m sorry. Even though the items in the vehicles were yours, I left some of it with them based on my own discretion.”
That wasn’t really a big deal to Lin Sanjiu. However, Lin Sanjiu found herself looking at B.Rabbit when Hu Changzai brought up the subject about food. Somehow B.Rabbit caught her gaze and tilted his head upward with an incomprehensible pride. “Even though I found you both a little violent, but all of you are quite righteous. Besides, your combat skills are really pitiable, so I was worried for you. Thus, I decided to stay.”
Totally unconcerned about B.Rabbit’s image, Hu Changzai blurted, “He’s lying. He is just a rabbit. So, no matter how powerful he is, there will always be someone stronger. Considering the fact that he might be caught and eaten any day… he’s staying with us for his own safety. Plus, he is on good terms with Executive Hai.”
Despite the hardship that they had just gone through, Lin Sanjiu felt a slight urge to laugh when she saw B.Rabbit’s furious face. Since everything was explained, her focus changed to the “pitter patter” sound that she could still hear even though she was fully awake…
She was stunned when she looked through the windows carefully. She couldn’t even speak properly, “It’s… It’s…”
She didn’t notice it previously because the white steam outside fogged up all the windows. She only saw the endless droplets of water lashing against the windows when she looked closer. They converged into a stream of water at the corners of the windows.
Lin Sanjiu touched the windows which were unbearably hot on a normal day, she found what she saw a little hard to believe and asked, “It’s raining?”
“Yup,” B.Rabbit answered. He jumped down from the cartons and opened the packet of cookies which had previously fallen on Lin Sanjiu’s face. As he ate, he continued, “It has already been days, and we’re fed up with it. The rainwater is scalding hot, and it is not portable. It has a sulfur smell… We can’t even drive quickly, and the windshield wipers are going to be totally damaged. It’s super annoying!”
“Oh.” Lin Sanjiu still found the rain a novelty and watched it for some time. After a while, she even opened the windows. Just as the rabbit had described, the temperature of the water was only slightly lower than its boiling point. In the past, that temperature would have caused a bad burn but right now, it only felt warm to Lin Sanjiu, and that sensation was quite comfortable.
[The smell of sulfur is really quite strong… Wait? Can’t we treat this like a hot spring?]
Ever since the descent of Hyperthermal Hell, she was covered with perspiration every day, yet she could not take even one proper bath. She felt a sudden desire bubbling in her heart. For the past two months, she felt like she was a wild hog — her skin was covered with layers upon layers of sand and dust mixed with her sweat, so her skin felt extremely rough.
She immediately got Hu Changzai to stop the bus. Then, they called for Hai Tianqing to also park the truck. She quickly rallied the two men and a rabbit to go look for a bucket with her.
Buckets seem like very common things, but when they tried to search for one, it was harder than they thought. This was especially true as all plastic items have already become deformed due to the temperature. They searched their surroundings but couldn’t find any. In the end, Lin Sanjiu rolled up her sleeves and dug a hole with the depth of half the height of a man. Then, she used some reflective sheets and some rocks to cover the bottom and the sides of the hole to prevent water from leaking out. As the rain was quite heavy, the hole was filled to the brim rather quickly, creating a “hot spring tub”.
Even though the water didn’t look that clean, but it was already a luxury.
As for the men, they did not bother digging any holes. As they suddenly got into the mood for a bath, they treated the rain like an outdoor hot shower. Once they walked away, Lin Sanjiu grabbed B.Rabbit without warning and pushed him into the water, laughing, “Come, you should also enjoy!” After she said that, she took her clothes and jumped into the “tub”.
“Wahhh!” B.Rabbit’s head popped out from the surface of the water and complained angrily, “Rabbits don’t need to bathe!”
When he turned and saw Lin Sanjiu’s bare shoulders poking out from the waters, only half visible due to the steam, he clicked his tongue awkwardly and turned back to play with his ears. “Actually, I am a male rabbit.”
Lin Sanjiu looked at the rabbit and said, “So what? You’re still a rabbit.”
Even if he knew human speech, Lin Sanjiu only treated him as a cute furry animal, so she did not feel embarrassed at all!
“What’s up with you anyway? Why can you speak and why do you have abilities?” Lin Sanjiu asked casually as she continued to splash water at herself.
“As you can see from how cute I am, I was once a pet rabbit. I am even of a famous breed.” B.Rabbit seemed to have forgotten the awkwardness he felt previously once he starting recalling his memories. He dragged his voice and started to tell his story: “Even though my owner was quite hateable as he always limited my freedom, but, to be honest, he still loved me. I remembered that on the day the temperature shot up, there was nothing in the house. There was no water and no food… Even though my owner was very weak, he left the house to look for food. He returned after one whole day covered with wounds. He had a packet of instant noodles and even managed to get a handful of grass.”
The pet rabbit of an acclaimed breed paused for a moment before he continued sounding a little sad, “When I think back about it, it was really amazing that he managed to find some grass. But I was just a silly rabbit then, so I finished the grass with a few bites. I didn’t think much about it. After I ate that grass, my intelligently gradually increased and I also developed abilities. Unfortunately, my owner couldn’t endure any longer and passed away.”
[That grass must have probably been a special item…] Lin Sanjiu tried to imagine the rabbit’s owner. She felt that he must have been a very gentle person. She sighed and petted the rabbit’s head as if to placate him.
“Since you know that I’m a pet rabbit with a name, you can call me ‘Yo Daddy’,“ B.Rabbit said firmly. The hand on his head immediately pressed him into the water.
After Lin Sanjiu teased B.Rabbit for a while, the rabbit splashed her face with water using his ears. Maybe it was because she had some fun, or because the bath was really relaxing, but she felt a little better. After she felt that she was clean enough and encouraged by her terrible hunger since she had been unconscious for a week, Lin Sanjiu finally climbed out of the hole reluctantly. She changed into a set of clean clothes that she had prepared beforehand.
The scathing rain continued to pour from the sky as if to compensate for the previous dry days. Huge fogs of steam rose from the ground and filled the air. This constant production of steam created a dense fog which blocked their view.
“Hey, Hu Changzai, are you two done bathing? Where are you? We are going over right now!” Lin Sanjiu yelled out, “You better wear your clothes quickly!”
Hu Changzai acknowledged her with an anxious mumble.
“I already said that I’m a male rabbit… It’s alright for me to look at them,” B.Rabbit grumbled.
Once she was certain of the direction, Lin Sanjiu and the rabbit headed toward Hu Changzai’s location. As the white fog was too thick, they couldn’t really see the road, so it was a little tough. [But it was not possible that we haven’t reached him even after walking for 20 minutes, right?] Lin Sanjiu thought to herself.
After she shouted a few phrases in succession and did not receive any reply, Lin Sanjiu stopped. Her expression hardened. B.Rabbit also sensed that something was wrong, “That’s weird. His voice definitely came from this direction, and he didn’t sound this far.”
They exchanged a glance and started raising their guard.
Just as they were about to take a step forward, the sound of a loud gong broke the silence of their foggy surroundings. They were startled! The sound of the gong seemed to come from all around them. “Good afternoon, everyone!” they heard an enthusiastic voice but did not know where it was coming from.
At that moment, people came out from the fog accompanied by quiet chatter. If those two people standing closest to her didn’t look so shocked — at least they seemed more anxious than her — she would have punched them. The two people were whispering to each other, and they sounded very uneasy.
They could see more and more figures within the fog. They could sense a strange and indescribable pressure gradually building up. Just when Lin Sanjiu was about to grab the rabbit and run, the loud voice boomed again, “So, is everyone present now? I am happy to welcome all of you to the year-end Red vs. White Challenge [2] to ring in the new year!”
TN: [1] As the brown rabbit is going to be a recurring character for a few chapters, his name will be translated as B.Rabbit from this chapter.
[2] I think this red vs. white new year eve tradition should be from Japan. They have a program called Kōhaku Uta Gassen every year.