Doomsday Wonderland Vol. 13: Sleepwalking in Dreamland

1579: Follow the Money

Had they secretly spit into the milk tea, coffee, or the sponge cake chairs?

Wu Yiliu had been quietly observing during the construction, but he had never seen the Changelings do such things. After most of the facilities were set up, the vast majority of Changelings retreated from the false pocket dimension. At that time, the stock of ingredients in all the kitchen and bar areas had not even been unsealed.

Temporary learners of beverage preparation, or those who were originally chefs, were the only ones who had ever come into contact with food and drinks.

To say that every posthuman had the ability to detect saliva in food would be too improbable; so why did the Changelings abandon this tactic of mixing bodily fluids?

In addition to bodily fluids, extensive skin contact, especially involving internal organs, could also infect ordinary people. Professor Qiao once said that the two times she was infected, she remembered fingers scraping heavily across her face: thumbs and forefingers digging deep into the corners of her eyes, lifting her eyelids; fists pressed into her mouth, dully squeezing her throat and tongue, making her weep.

When she spoke of this, Wu Yiliu suddenly realized how fragile his own face was. Wet, sensitive eyes were exposed; lips were too weak, easily revealing the soft, red mouth; a forceful poke in the nostril would cause bleeding, and the inside corners of the eyes showed pink conjunctiva. Even the skin covering and protecting these parts was thinner, flushing easily in the wind.

Such a fragile face, yet always exposed among those Changelings whose faces had lost their fragility. Wu Yiliu truly wished there was an option in the false pocket dimension for NPCs to wear masks. As for posthumans, there was nothing to fear; which Changeling could harm them? Besides, there weren't many Changelings in this pocket dimension.

There were definitely some, perhaps those whose transformations were complete, disguised as NPCs among ordinary people, watching them. Changelings loved this tactic, making every NPC suspicious of each other, so they themselves could feel at ease. But even if they existed, they would not use spy eyes to infect posthumans.

Did they really not want to infect posthumans? Or was there another way?

Wu Yiliu's confusion was soon answered.

One movie was far from enough. As he politely opened the door for the female posthuman and handed her a map, he thought to himself.

Perhaps it would take dozens of films, tens of hours of conversation, and months immersed in a Changeling-created world before transformation would begin—maybe.

Neither he nor Professor Qiao, nor Shoreis of yesteryear, had considered one thing. If one can resist transformation through mental training, then conversely, the transformation factor could infiltrate normal people through sound, text, content, images, and other thought vehicles. The only protection was the audience's vigilance. Being surrounded by Changelings naturally led to caution and resistance to influence.

Delving deeper, this made the false pocket dimension another chilling place.

When posthumans lived among Changelings, they were always on guard, but this was a pocket dimension free of Changelings, a comfortable, non-threatening recovery-type pocket dimension, surrounded only by NPCs who were just normal people... The only Changelings were on television, distant, merely a concept, like a fictional story.

It was like hearing distant thunder, knowing it was raining somewhere far away, but you're still sitting in a dry room with air conditioning humming, and beads of condensation on your glass of iced wine.