The collective sound of insect wings flapping buzzed in his ears. It flooded his mind. ‘Where am I…’ Gu Jun peeled open his eyes and saw a dark sky. They were locusts, the type that he had once seen flying out from Angel City. Currently they covered heaven and earth, their number was astronomical. They stretched from one horizon to another. The ground underneath him was scorched. There was no building, plant or animal… This was the Wasteland World. He was back at this place? Why? Gu Jun thought when he saw not far away from him the multi-colored cat, Keziah Mason and Yu Chi lying on the ground. Yu Chi was in his human form with his unkempt hair and bushy beard. He was in a casual T and cargo shorts. He looked just like the human version who crawled into the machine at Pnakotus.
What about himself… He studied his hands. They were the hands that had the skill, Hands of Dexterity. They appeared to have landed here in their original form, from the Massachusetts World to the Wasteland World, from the past to the future. But their original forms should be lying at Pnakotus in the Mysterium World…
“Hmm.” Gu Jun pressed his head and stood up. He looked around and confirmed that he was indeed in his human form. Every single one of his scars was there and his consciousness was stable. Despite his headache, he was physically present. At that moment, he heard the multi-colored cat groan weakly. He walked towards it and asked, “Dirty-minded Yu, are you okay?” The cat stood up cautiously. She looked positively drained.
The next to wake up was Keziah Mason. As she looked around, she glanced with barely concealable surprise, “Is this… Hell?”
As Yu Chi woke up, he realized at first glance they were at the Wasteland World. They had transmigrated to this place in corporeal form. This was proven by the fact that Gu Jun could pick up the cat and Yu Chi could grab a handful of sand. Furthermore, they noticed their bags and supply had materialized beside them, partially covered by the scorched soil.
“This looks like where the nuclear explosion occurred.” Gu Jun said grimly, “If there’s residual radiation, we’ll most likely survive for another week.” He had many questions, for example, why were there still so many locusts? When he was last here, he was sure the nuclear bomb had vaporized everything, including the locusts… unless someone had summoned them again. Another question he had was, was there radiation here? Once the human body was exposed to high radiation, they would soon reel from the negative impacts like nausea, dizziness and so on. However, the 3 of them and the cat appeared to be perfectly fine. When the cat heard Gu Jun mentioned radiation, she shook her head as if saying there was no reason for them to worry about that.
There was radiation but they were not affected by it? Suddenly a thought entered Gu Jun’s mind, “Is it possible that we are not actually here… but we’re in a different dimension…” He was from the Phecda World; Yu Chi, the Mysterium World; Keziah Mason, the Massachusetts World; and this multi-colored cat, assuming she was Wu Siyu, this was where she came from. It was the cat who brought them here, the cat appeared to represent the Wasteland World. The split cross, the 4 worlds, the 4 lifeforms, they were all here.
“Ah!” When Yu Chi heard that, he said with excitement, “Accept, gather, we’re all here… We’re in a unique dimension, perhaps we only look this way to ourselves but we’re not really here, we’re not at the library either. We are in 4 different worlds but we are in none of the world. We’re at the centre, or we’re close to the centre… Who, who arranged this and why…” Yu Chi’s words tinged with fanaticism. Gu Jun’s head pounded. He was inspired, ‘Centre of the cross? If that is the case, what kind of role did the Yith play?’
However, instead of trying to make these speculations, Gu Jun thought it was easier to figure out a way to communicate with this cat. If it was Wu Siyu, then what happened to her, why would she know how to open that kaleidoscopic door? Was it a spell or super advanced technology? That was not some simple skill.
Now that they had tools, they could attempt simple communication.
“Dirty-minded Yu, come and try this.” Gu Jun drafted out the alphabet system. “Use english or pin yin to write out the words in your mind. Point them out one letter after another. Then we’ll confirm the meaning again with nodding or shaking of the head, is that okay?” The cat nodded but she appeared nervous as if she had something else to do.
“Think about what you want to say first.” Then Gu Jun turned to have a private conversation with Yu Chi. He told him about the witch’s presence in the library and the two rewinds. He needed Yu Chi to watch over Keziah Mason because that witch’s power had disappeared. After Yu Chi learned this, he understood why Gu Jun was so cautious around this young lady. There was indeed something inexplicable about this.
Soon, the cat was done choosing the letters. She decided to go with pin yin because Keziah Mason wouldn’t understand that. Also Wu Siyu was bad with English. Gu Jun studied the system and used a notebook to jot down every letter Wu Siyu pointed at… Based on what the cat said, Gu Jun gained more information about the situation. He got clued in about Wu Siyu’s information that he missed from Elder Tong, things like the mutated areas, the poster, the painting, and how she arrived at the Wasteland World.
‘The poster is her work as well?’ Gu Jun was startled. ‘Could it be that the thing that initiated the transmigration is not the split cross but her painting? Or rather her painting needs to be present too as the medium? The watercolor, the poster and the painting at Ol Joyce’s home at Chickasaw…’ He thought back to that countryside painting. It looked familiar, had he seen it at Wu Siyu’s home before? If her poster could appear at the Wasteland World, it was not preposterous for her other paintings to find its way to Chickasaw.
“Captain Yu, there’s a chance that we got something wrong.” He mumbled. Ever since he arrived at Mysterium World, they had been attempting to communicate with the mysterious signal. The split crosses appeared in many paintings but neither time, they initiated physical transmigration. Gu Jun thought it was because his power had weakened. But could it be due to the fact that they did not have Dirty-minded Yu’s paintings?
Yu Chi listened to Gu Jun but he was lost. He was confused whenever it was related to women…
“And then?” Gu Jun asked as he stared at the fidgeting cat, “What happened after you arrived at the Wasteland World?”
At the same time, they noticed that the number of locusts around them increased. If it was a flood earlier, now it was a tsunami.