The air immediately fell silent, and a few long seconds passed in shock.
The carpet was now empty. There wasn't even a mark left on the spot where the pair of black cloth shoes had stepped on.
Judging from the way the old woman was stretched and sucked up, she should be stuck to the ceiling. However, when he looked up, the ceiling was empty. A living person had disappeared from this floor in the blink of an eye.
Qing Jiuliu blinked. His long eyelashes fluttered.
If it weren't for the fact that he could still feel his body from the neck down, he would have thought that he was dreaming. Confused, he turned to look at Ji Shanqing and froze.
Ji Shanqing was staring at the spot behind Qing Jiuliu with an incredulous look on his face. He opened his mouth and was about to say something, but he felt a sudden blow to his stomach. Before a surprised expression could form on his face, his small face scrunched up in pain.
Qing Jiuliu shuddered and turned his head.
Not far behind him, Lin Sanjiu was standing beside the handrail of the swimming pool. She pinched her nose with one hand and held a card in the other. Her lips were pursed tightly as if she was afraid that she would let a single breath through. Her face was flushed, and the veins on her forehead were bulging.
It was obvious that she had been holding her breath for quite some time.
"Have you recovered?" Qing Jiuliu blurted out.
"You will suffer from depression when you breathe." Logically speaking, if you don't breathe, you should be able to temporarily get rid of the effects of depression. However, even though he had figured it out, he still had a lot of questions. "What … What is going on? Since you came up with this solution, why did you recover only now? Also … Where is that old woman? "
Lin Sanjiu pinched her nose and shook her head. Lin Sanjiu had no idea what Lin Sanjiu was trying to say. She threw a piece of paper and a pen on the ground. She pointed at the corridor a few times and twirled her hand around her face.
Qing Jiuliu looked at her with a perplexed expression. Although they still did not understand the situation, the atmosphere had quietly relaxed a lot.
Even posthumans wouldn't be able to last long if they couldn't breathe. Therefore, every second was excruciating and precious. Lin Sanjiu obviously didn't believe that she could speak without inhaling air. She quickly pointed at the corridor again and circled her face. This time, she even covered her mouth with her hand while blushing.
Qing Jiuliu was tired of raising his neck, so he simply laid down on the floor. He looked like a dog watching a human doing something stupid, and he still had a blank expression on his face.
The veins on Lin Sanjiu's forehead throbbed a few times. Just when she was feeling anxious, her grand prize finally let out an "Ah" and saved her, "I got it!"
Before Qing Jiuliu could turn around to ask, the grand prize hurriedly shouted towards the corridor, "Irezumi! Irezumi, come in! "
There was a pause in the corridor, then a voice said, "… I'm not going in."
Lin Sanjiu closed her eyes as if she was trying her best to control herself.
"Come in! It's fine now, I won't lie to you! "
"It's fine now?" Irezumi mumbled a few words as if he was asking for the opinion of the communicator. After a few seconds, he raised his voice and asked, "Where's the old lady?"
The grand prize froze for a moment and avoided answering, "Don't worry, she's safe now! Come in quickly, we need your help. "
After a while that felt like ten years, a pair of yellow eyes peeked out cautiously from the corner of the corridor. The eyes darted left and right, but there was no sign of the old lady. Finally, they rose again, revealing Irezumi's long face that was filled with doubt.
"What help?"
"Cover my sister's nose and mouth. Don't let her breathe," the grand prize said quickly.
Qing Jiuliu finally reacted and added, "If you still want to pick a fight with her, at least wait until —"
Irezumi waved his hand and interrupted him. He sounded a little embarrassed, "Oh, it's fine. It's actually a misunderstanding. She can still be a candidate."
"Fine, fine. Anything is fine. Hurry up …" Before the grand prize could finish his sentence, he was hit again.
Irezumi frowned and peeked at Lin Sanjiu. It was obvious that he still didn't want to come in. After thinking for a while, he suddenly waved his hand at her. As if she felt something, Lin Sanjiu quickly put her hand down. Almost immediately, a dent appeared on the skin of her face. Even her nose was flattened a little.
"This is the tip of the tail of the [Bashful Python]," Irezumi explained to the other two people, "I didn't use any force."
Lin Sanjiu seemed to have finally calmed down. She rushed to the pen and paper. She held a card in her left hand and pressed it against the paper while she scribbled line after line of words with her right hand. As she was in a hurry, the tip of the pen even scratched the paper a few times.
After she finished writing a paragraph, she stretched her arm and moved closer to Qing Jiuliu. She pushed the paper and the card toward him.
"I heard from you that she has a 'schizophrenia' in her consequences. Does it mean that she caused the end of the world? That's why I took the risk. " When Qing Jiuliu read up to this point, he looked at Ji Shanqing. When he saw the latter's solemn face, he turned to Ji Shanqing and said, "Hey, the grand prize said that the old lady can only activate her ability when she sees the target with her own eyes. So, I don't think she is … Ah, okay, okay. I will continue reading."
He placed his chin on the piece of paper like a gluttonous snake that couldn't move its body.
"I summoned the [Nostradamus's Card] just now. It absorbs the element of the apocalypse. If the old lady really caused the apocalypse, I might be able to store her away with this card."
When Qing Jiuliu read up to this point, he paused. He stared at the second half of the sentence, "I didn't expect that I would really store her away!"
There was a big exclamation mark at the end of the messy and messy handwriting. When Lin Sanjiu wrote that sentence, she was obviously in a very unstable state of mind. The color of the exclamation mark was so deep that it was startling.
Qing Jiuliu slowly looked at the card beside the piece of paper. His mouth was agape. The battery icon showed 23%.
"The old lady is in this card?"
For a moment, none of them could say a word. The air was so quiet that they could hear each other's breathing. All of them stared at the [Nostradamus's Card]. For a long time, no one made a sound.
Lin Sanjiu grabbed the piece of paper and wrote another paragraph. Then, she pushed it back to Qing Jiuliu expressionlessly. Her face was curled up by the snake's tail and it was flattened. It was difficult for her to make any expression, so she could only communicate through words.
"What do you mean she must see it with her own eyes? Didn't you guys suspect that she caused the apocalypse first? "
After Qing Jiuliu finished reading, he remembered that he had purposely lowered his voice when he was talking to Ji Shanqing. Lin Sanjiu, who was standing a distance away, was still immersed in her depression. She probably didn't hear what he said.
When he thought of this, he couldn't help heaving a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness she didn't hear it!"
"There is indeed something fishy about this. But now, it's clear that the apocalypse of this world is man-made." Qing Jiuliu couldn't help looking at the card again. He asked, "Let's not talk about this first … Didn't you tell me that you can't turn a card into a living thing?"
"Since she can be kept in the card," the grand prize suddenly said, "That means she's not a living person!"
Lin Sanjiu wanted to nod her head reflexively, but she couldn't move her neck. It was only then that she remembered that the python was still coiled around her face. She blinked her eyes quickly.
"That's it," the grand prize panted. "There are too many things wrong with that old lady. When she sat on me, I couldn't even feel her weight or body temperature. Besides, how can a living person survive after being squeezed like that?"
"If she's not a living person, then what is she? Is she a duoluozhong? "
Irezumi turned around the corner and walked over. He was still holding the communication box in his hands. Number 46's face was lit up on the low resolution screen. He seemed to be very interested in what was going on.
If there was anyone who could guess what the old lady was, it would be Lin Sanjiu.
After all, back at Kisaragi Station, she had once been something similar to that old lady.
In fact, the moment the old lady was absorbed by the card, Lin Sanjiu stared blankly at the card in her hand. She had a vague conjecture in her mind.
… This old woman, could it be that someone had constructed something with their Willpower?
Now that she thought about it, this conjecture wasn't impossible.
First of all, the old lady had to satisfy both the conditions of "non-living thing" and "doomsday factor" before she could be absorbed by the [Nostradamus' Card]. On this point, the Souls were a good counterexample.
The doomsday factor was obvious. It must be the Evolved Ability that she displayed. So, what kind of "non-living thing" could possess the Evolved Ability of a posthuman?
Even though Lin Sanjiu couldn't use her Evolved Ability in her higher consciousness form at Kisaragi Station, it was mainly because her Evolved Ability was based on her physical body. Once her physical body changed, her Evolved Ability would be rendered useless regardless of whether she was in her higher consciousness form or in her hen form.
However, what if someone's Evolved Ability was completely detached from their physical body?
Once Lin Sanjiu thought of this, the rest made sense. The old lady's [Concept Mishmash] was actually the ability of the person behind her. It wasn't her own. The "old lady" was probably just a higher consciousness form that was created.
Unlike Lin Sanjiu at Kisaragi Station, the higher consciousness form of the "old lady" was obviously meticulously constructed. She was like a vehicle on the battlefield. Almost all the parts were discarded to carry the most powerful weapon.
What concerned Lin Sanjiu the most was that the old lady only took up 23% of the card's capacity after she was absorbed. Did this mean that the old lady only had a tiny bit of higher consciousness?
In other words, after the culprit turned everyone in the world into lunatics, he sent an image that he created using a bit of higher consciousness to come back here...
All kinds of thoughts flowed through Lin Sanjiu's mind like a stream. Even though she still had a lot of questions, her thoughts were finally interrupted by Number 46's gaze.
Lin Sanjiu lowered her eyelids. She didn't write down her thoughts. Instead, she wrote on the paper, "No, I need to breathe."
That was the truth. If she didn't breathe, she felt that her brain was going to explode.
As Irezumi waved his hand, the [Bashful Python] quickly moved its tail away from Lin Sanjiu. Lin Sanjiu immediately gasped for air. When the fresh air flowed into her chest, the refreshing feeling of happiness didn't last long. Her expression quickly turned gloomy, and her expression stiffened.
The "depression" that the old lady had inflicted on her was so severe that she was only a few steps away from death. Hence, when the depression returned, Lin Sanjiu's thoughts immediately became heavy, as if she was carrying a thousand kilograms of weight. She stared blankly at her hands and momentarily forgot the question that she had been thinking about.
Seeing that Lin Sanjiu's face was no longer flushed and she looked as if she wanted to hide as far away as possible, the [Bashful Python] immediately wrapped its tail around Lin Sanjiu's nose and mouth again, dragging her back a few steps.
Lin Sanjiu waited for another minute after she stopped breathing before she picked up her pen again.
"Why didn't you stop your breathing earlier?" Qing Jiuliu asked, a little indifferently.
"Because the depression is too serious. I can't even think of helping myself," Lin Sanjiu wrote with her head lowered, "Even though I know that I won't get depressed if I don't breathe, I can't even do something as simple as that."
"Then, you —"
"Didn't that old lady want me to kill myself?" She quickly wrote a few lines of ink on the paper, "So, I thought I might as well use this method to kill myself. If the depression is gone, I'll let it go. If it isn't, I'll just die. When I couldn't hold it any longer, I already planned to jump into the water."
The grand prize sucked in a deep breath.
Lin Sanjiu glanced at him. Then, she reached for the [Nostradamus's Card] on the ground and wrote on the paper, "I can release the apocalyptic elements that have been absorbed by this card. Perhaps, I can use this method to replace the effects on all of us."
When Qing Jiuliu read the words out loud, the grand prize almost cried. He had been beaten for a long time and his face was so swollen that he couldn't even stand still. He could only roll around like a ball. When he heard that there was hope, his eyes immediately turned red.
Lin Sanjiu didn't waste any more time. She pinched the [Nostradamus's Card].
With a thought, two lines of the same words appeared in the air beside her finger.
When Ji Shanqing and Qing Jiuliu saw the two lines of words, both of them heaved a sigh of relief and smiled. Perhaps, they were lucky. The words that appeared the first time they saw the words, there were a few less serious consequences. For example, "I'm hungry", "Sleep for three days", and so on.
"Sis! Sis! Give it to me first! Give it to me first!" The grand prize fell to the ground. When he saw the words on the words, he jumped up again, "I'm going crazy!"
Lin Sanjiu sighed inwardly. She randomly chose a condition and tapped on it twice. As she tapped on it, the grand prize's short hair suddenly grew longer and fell to his chest. At this moment, he looked like a little girl. Lin Sanjiu sighed inwardly.
Ji Shanqing was stunned. He didn't believe what he saw. He waited for a while. When he was sure that the unknown force had stopped beating him, his face lit up. However, when he looked up, he saw Lin Sanjiu's brows were knitted tightly together. The words on the screen had disappeared.
"What's wrong?"
Lin Sanjiu raised her hand slowly and showed them the [Nostradamus's Card]. The number on the battery had dropped from 23% to 16%.
Before Irezumi, who was watching from the side, could react, Number 46, who was in the communication box, exclaimed, "Oh no!"
"Oh no." Lin Sanjiu grabbed a pen and paper and wrote, "Every time I use the [Concept Mishmash], 7% of the energy will be consumed from the card. In other words, one of us won't be able to recover. "
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