Chapter 189: The Something Mrs. Manas Sensed
Translator: Pluto Editor: Vermillion
Lin Sanjiu spent a considerable amount of effort hiding her shock, so when she looked at Douglas, she had a serene expression. "No, I didn't hear anything." She even acted in concert with her answer and looked around. Apparently, Douglas couldn't hear her thoughts because at that moment Lin Sanjiu was shouting repetitively in her mind — for Mrs. Manas to shut up and stay quiet for the meantime—but Douglas didn't show any reaction.
Douglas scanned his surroundings suspiciously before he slowly looked away.
"Maybe, to him, it isn't a great deal hearing a random woman's voice in this strange, incomprehensible world..." Lin Sanjiu acted nonchalantly and casually picked up a helmet-like product. She stared hard at the packaging but she had no idea what was written on it.
"Why can Douglas hear Mrs. Manas' voice? Mrs. Manas is just a manifestation of [School of Higher Consciousness], she is just a self-aware entity created from higher consciousness. Could this be related to his abilities?"
As both of them just got acquainted, they didn't reveal their active abilities to each other. Even if Lin Sanjiu wanted to ask Mrs. Manas about her odd reaction, she couldn't do it now. Lin Sanjiu had no choice but to wait, against her impatient nature, for Douglas to gather all the game discs he had chosen before both of them started walking back to the hotel.
It was a dark afternoon, and the buildings around them silently watched as the two people walked through the street. Other than being quiet and uninhabited, there was nothing unusual about the world around them. They did not chat much along the way. After their sparse exchange of words, they could only hear their own mundane footsteps.
Although she had not been in this world for a long time, Lin Sanjiu had walked for quite some distance. However, other than that eccentric group of students and their teacher, Douglas was the only other posthuman she met.
"Where are all the other people?"
When they returned to the hotel, the sky was so dark that it almost seemed as though it was already nighttime. Under that darkness, the facades of the buildings faded into mere outlines. The world fell into a lifeless, dark silence. Looking up and noticing that the light from her room was still on, Lin Sanjiu sighed in relief and felt slightly safer for no particular reason.
She wrapped the down jacket tighter around herself, but it felt as if the frigid wind was still breezing through the material. She was so cold that her skin hurt.
The somewhat awkward journey, caused by their lacking conversation, finally ended at the front doors of the hotel. Lin Sanjiu couldn't wait to rush to her room to chat with Mrs. Manas, but Douglas called her with a surprised look, "Didn't you say you wanted to play some video games together? I specifically chose some popular fighting games, and I even grabbed a controller for you!"
Lin Sanjiu had forgotten all about that. "Oh," she answered. Even though she wanted to find an excuse, she didn't have the heart to disappoint Douglas after she saw his eyes filled with expectation. "Okay, wait for me. I just want to go back to my room for a while."
Douglas agreed cheerfully and added, "I'll wait for you in my room." Then, he left and headed back to his room.
Something felt wrong but Lin Sanjiu couldn't put her finger on it.
"In any case, I need to call Mrs. Manas as soon as possible..." This was the only thought which engulfed her mind. Once Douglas left, she opened the door to her own room. She switched on the light, illuminating the pitch black room. The Teru Teru Bozu on the ceiling turned slowly to face her.
"Mrs. Manas, quick! Come out!" she shouted in her mind, "He isn't nearby."
Lin Sanjiu called a few times and finally heard her faltering voice, "Student... Li-Lin..."
If two speakers had the ability to swallow their own saliva, Lin Sanjiu was sure that Mrs. Manas gulped before plucking up her courage to speak.
"How can you feel frightened if you're just an entity created from my higher consciousness?" Lin Sanjiu tried her best to maintain a relaxed tone, even though her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
There was a short moment of silence in her mind before Mrs. Manas slowly spoke again.
"I'm scared... because you're scared." Lin Sanjiu was stunned.
"What happened?" she asked softly before heading to the side of the bed.
Mrs. Manas was an entity created by her subconsciousness so she might have noticed something Lin Sanjiu missed... and her guess was right.
"Don't, don't walk further into the room!" Mrs. Manas yelled out urgently from her mind. Lin Sanjiu was shocked. Before she could ask what was wrong, her gaze shifted and she froze on the spot.
There was a pair of old cloth shoes at the side of her bed, laying there neatly, and the tip of the shoes pointed towards the pillows.
"Quick! Hurry! Get out of this room," Mrs. Manas sounded anxious and panicky, even stammering. "You idiot. Didn't you realize that the room was dark when you walked in?!"
Lin Sanjiu was terrified. She turned and raced for the door. She pulled open the door in one smooth movement and ran out to the corridor. She did not close the door behind her properly, so it opened with a click behind her, revealing the dark crack between the door and its frame—the light had somehow been switched off again.
"I can't... This place isn't safe anymore." She took a few rapid gasps of air, barely hearing what Mrs. Manas was saying. She rushed to Douglas's room and was just about to knock on the door.
Just as she raised her hand, she finally understood what felt wrong.
Douglas entered room 205. That dust-filled room, which had not been used for a long time, whose door had been locked.
It was only then that Lin Sanjiu could suddenly hear Mrs. Manas' alarmed and furious words, "Did you hear me? I want you to get out of this hotel!"
Before her brain could even respond to the events, Lin Sanjiu's body already reacted first. Her whole body felt freezing cold. Her footsteps echoed as she ran down the stairs and sprinted out of the front door without stopping.
After Lin Sanjiu got out of the hotel, Mrs. Manas edgy voice relaxed a little, but she was still angry and scared. "Are you an idiot! You clearly caught a glimpse that something was amiss yet your conscious mind didn't register anything at all, you had to look for me in your subconscious to realize that something was off—"
As Mrs. Manas said this, a few images appeared in her mind, beyond her own volition.
This was another function of her high consciousness, but she didn't have the mood to think about that now.
The images showed the situation back at the electronics store. After browsing two shelves unhurriedly, she incidentally spotted a backroom of the store. The door was ajar, and Lin Sanjiu could see through the door crack that it was dark inside. Somehow, the room made her feel uneasy so she retreated backward and avoided it.
Through that crack, Douglas's eyes stared straight ahead. His face was contorted and his skin was hard, as he had died quite some time ago.
Apparently, the thing he lost in the store was actually his own body.