Published at 8th of October 2024 3:04 am

Chapter 1034: Ah, If Only He Were a Lobster

This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl

Even though they had put on their masks, the group of ordinary people still couldn’t bear the smell of so many corpses. The more garbage was uncovered, the less real the bodies seemed under the flashlight. For a moment, aside from their intermittent retching, no one could utter a single word.

“Did you understand what I told you earlier? Stay put, I’m going!”

When Bohemia, with a pale face, nodded quickly, Lin Sanjiu stepped out from behind the excavator in one stride. She then kicked off, like a phantom, towards the sea of corpses in front.

Although she didn’t know whether Puppeteer was dead or alive, she still wanted to rescue him. They had to consider the things they couldn’t avoid. If the virus on the bodies would truly destroy this world, Puppeteer, since he came through the portal, had been with the corpses for a whole day. He might have already been infected by the virus. After all, the virus wouldn’t show any mercy even if he had the drool bib.

‘How did the virus spread, when would it take effect, and what would happen after it did? How could she save people in this situation?’

These thoughts raced through her mind as she commited to her next moves.

In the blink of an eye, she descended into the sea of corpses like an eagle falling from the sky, without disturbing even a piece of fabric. Lin Sanjiu’s foot landed perfectly in the slight bend of an open arm, and her other foot stepped between two legs, as if perfectly calculated. She bent down, and a metallic gauntlet immediately covered her her right hand with a “click”. Her consciousness hadn’t had a chance to recover, so this gauntlet was the only thing she could use to protect her hand.

She grabbed Puppeteer by the collar and carefully pulled him out of the entangled limbs of another corpse. She had to be cautious not to touch the exposed skin while she also tried to avoid worsening his injuries, and she could only use her right hand, which made the process take several extra seconds.

At this time, the group of workers finally reacted. Among the shouts of “Who are you? What are you doing?” The voice of Old Da, with his round belly, overpowered the others.

“Excavator!” he shouted angrily, waving his hand vigorously. “Quickly, go forward!”

The two huge excavator buckets, which had been silently hanging above the sea of corpses, creaked and slowly turned towards Lin Sanjiu.

“I finally get it now. She’s not actually mentally ill,” Old Da’s voice came from a distance. “She must be from the police side. Someone leaked the information! We can’t let her get away with the evidence!”

“What if that thing comes out now…”

“If it comes out, it comes out! There’s nothing we can do about it now. Quickly, use the excavator to cut her off!”

Each bucket was several meters wide and over half a person tall. Decaying vegetables, stains, and putrid matter hung on their jagged edges. Together, they swung towards Lin Sanjiu in the center. They didn’t need to worry about damaging the corpses this time; their speed suddenly increased, and they rushed towards her with the wind. Dodging them or crushing them wouldn’t normally be a problem. However, the real challenge was how to prevent the buckets from smashing the corpses beneath her feet while holding onto Puppeteer’s collar with just one hand.

She absolutely couldn’t afford to risk damaging these corpses. If there was a virus within the corpses, which was highly likely, and it dispersed into the air after the corpses ruptured, those workers might be far enough away to avoid it, but she and Puppeteer would be the first exposed.

She hoped Bohemia could remember her instructions: no matter what happened, she must not come out!

Puppeteer was tall and dragging him with one hand was already hard. Lin Sanjiu scanned the area quickly, realizing that the two massive buckets were closing in on her from both front and rear. Without hesitation, she let go of him, tossing him back into the pile of corpses. She then crouched down and, just as the buckets were about to close in around her, she leaped out from their edges.

As expected, they chased after her. Lin Sanjiu glanced at the two buckets, and in that moment, she seemed to see everything that would happen in the next few seconds. When those two buckets continued swinging towards her, they would inevitably uncover a layer of flesh and blood from the ground.

“Change direction! Lower a bit more!”

Her hand, wearing the gauntlet, suddenly plunged into the black soil, landing in the narrow space between two heads, pressing down on a bunch of hair. But touching the hair should be relatively safe. Using her arm as support, her body suddenly flipped in mid-air, and just as she anticipated, the two buckets turned back towards her. But this time, before they could reach the ground, she bent her legs and kicked with the force of over a thousand pounds.

With a resounding “thud,” the impact sent shockwaves through her lower leg, causing it to tingle. She endured the numbness as her toes landed on the ground, narrowly avoiding the limbs of the dead bodies. Turning around to look, Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help but raise a faint smile. One of the buckets had been struck by her kick, tilting abnormally as if its neck had been twisted, leaving a large dent. Since their targets were so close, the other bucket was also thrown off balance, creating a continuous metallic creaking sound in the air.

Without waiting for the residual sound to diminish, she slowly squatted down, her amber eyes locking onto the neck of the bucket.

“How could… What is she trying to do?”

The answer was quickly revealed. As if her feet were equipped with jet engines, Lin Sanjiu leaped into the air with incredible force. Gripping the neck, she jumped downward, resulting in a thunderous “boom” as her feet landed on top of the bucket. She quickly removed her gauntlet, and her two slender fingers pressed against the thick metal plate.

The gauntlet disappeared rapidly, and her two slender, five-fingered hands pressed onto the thick metal plate.

At the same moment she activated [Mosaic Censorship], she leaped high from the scattered metal fragments, landing gracefully on the other bucket. After repeating the same thing, both excavators were left with just empty booms. All of this took less than ten seconds.

Lin Sanjiu landed back in the sea of corpses and reached out, grabbing Puppeteer’s collar once again.

The dozen or so people outside the pile of bodies were all staring at her with dumbfounded expressions. She snorted and used a large bath towel to haphazardly wrap the puppeteer’s head and body—now she could carry him properly, slinging him over her shoulder.

She then easily broke free from this group of ordinary people.

It wasn’t until she had run over a hundred meters away that she heard someone from the crew snap out of their daze and shout, “We have to catch up—”

“Stop!” Old Da loudly stopped the confused group of people beside him. “Look at her skills. She’s definitely someone we can’t mess with! We shouldn’t chase after her, and she doesn’t seem like she’s from the police side!”

Oh?

Even Lin Sanjiu couldn’t help but wonder how he came to that conclusion.

“If she wanted to take the evidence, she could have just grabbed any of they corpses… but she specifically charged into the center and picked up the same corpse twice to take away?” As she ran, Old Da’s voice sounded more and more distant. “I think her target is that particular corpse, although I don’t know why. I doubt it has anything to do with the police…”

“So… What do we do now?”

“Call someone immediately and take all of these… bodies taken away…”

Looks can be deceiving; Old Da’s mind actually worked quite quickly. So, they were planning to take away all these bodies next? There were so many of them…

Hopefully Bohemia won’t be discovered by him.

Lin Sanjiu identified the direction in the dim light, supported Puppeteer, who was slipping down, and rushed back to the protective net they had entered through. The car she had stolen from the old lady was still parked on the side of the road. She opened the back door and tossed Puppeteer in like a piglet—his mouth was already covered by the bath towel she used to wrap him, so she hadn’t been able to clearly see the blue polka-dot fabric earlier, lessening the effect of the baby drool bib.

After a moment of thought, she reached out and broke off her side-view mirror, carefully bringing it close to his nose. To be cautious, she didn’t dare touch his pulse directly. Puppeteer’s breath had weakened to a terrifying extent, but after an unknown amount of time, a faint white mist finally appeared on the piece of mirror.

‘As long as he’s not dead.’

What felt like a heavy stone released from her heart. She let out a sigh and sat in the driver’s seat, starting the engine.

Lin Sanjiu glanced at the pale, closed-eyed face in the rearview mirror and turned on the navigation system and went to set her destination. “Hospital.”

Any hospital would do—however, the navigation system couldn’t recognize the word.

“Clinic? Treatment? Healthcare?”

Still had no luck.

She started to think out loud, “Medicine? Nurse? Doctor? Surgery? Repair? Rehabilitation? Fixing? Body? Muscles?”

If none of these worked, she truly had no idea what hospitals were called in this world… Would she have to foolishly go back and ask the round-bellied man, “Where do you go when you’re sick?”

“Lobster Body Repair Center,” the navigation suddenly spoke, startling her. “Twenty kilometers away. Start navigation?”

1

If Puppeteer were a lobster, that would be great.

Wait, why would there be a lobster body repair point—why would lobsters need repairing? Even if they were physically damaged, it wouldn’t prevent them from being cooked and eaten, right?

Lin Sanjiu suddenly lifted her head from the steering wheel and stared at the navigation system with a dazed expression, but it was still just filled with unfamiliar characters.

This place that seemed to have medical tools sounded like her only option. “Yes,” she answered loudly and then glanced at the unfamiliar face in the rearview mirror, as if comforting him in a low voice. “It would be great if someone were on duty there…”

When she finally pulled the car to a slow stop at the “Lobster Body Repair Center,” Lin Sanjiu found herself once again in the city. However, in this orange-red building that resembled a giant chewed-up gum, there wasn’t a single light on.

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