Doomsday Wonderland Vol. 13: Sleepwalking in Dreamland [Complete]

1613: Once in a Lifetime

Thirty-two months later, Wu Yiliu set foot again in the Twelve Worlds Centrum, where the Driver's pocket dimension was located.

Before the teleportation, he knew that everything was normal in that world: he easily obtained a visa to that world, and throughout the whole process, there wasn't a hint of rumors, concerns, or whispers that appeared with the visa.

In the first six months after teleporting, he lived in a secluded and quiet place, silently observing this world—but this caution seemed unnecessary. No one had heard of anyone transforming, nor was anyone looking for him. The pocket dimension detection activity from thirty-two months ago had completely vanished amid the bustling and ceaseless human world, just like any other ordinary task in the past.

When Wu Yiliu started moving again, he was very careful. If the driver's pocket dimension didn't end as he envisioned, even a slight mishap might cause a reaction to his appearance—though no abnormalities were detected, he realized that the driver's pocket dimension seemed to have had a minor accident.

He had not seen Abby for a very long time.

"When she comes back to this world, I'm usually here too," said the female hairdresser with heavy eyeliner and lip ring. "We take turns going back and forth between worlds, so she often comes here to get her hair done. Yes, she likes to dye her hair blond."

She was sitting on a tin-roofed house, the sun flashing on the roof, looking warm. Wu Yiliu always felt that his attitude towards these posthumans born and raised within the Twelve Worlds Centrum might be like the older generation looking at the next one in the old world: longing yet mixed with some incomprehension.

Post-apocalyptic native posthumans, in a world system as unstable as quicksand, have adapted, found a new balance, and even developed many needs of old-world humanity: appearance hygiene, hobbies, dating, entertainment, etc. Like long-legged insects walking on water, even without solid ground beneath their feet, their lives could still glide forward.

"Once before like this, our teleportation worlds got mismatched, and we didn't see each other for several years." The hairdresser, like a warming cat, showed no intention of getting off the roof. "But this is normal. No one can guarantee to only go back and forth between two worlds in a lifetime; that's too lucky. I think she'll be back soon."

"Are you friends?" Wu Yiliu asked, looking up.

As soon as the question left his mouth, he knew he had asked wrong.

The female hairdresser laughed. "Friends? Why don't you ask me if I have a clone? Are you evolved from the old world?"

Wu Yiliu thanked her and left.

For the native posthumans of the new world, many things that humanity had carried on for nearly ten thousand years had been fundamentally overturned and disappeared. Humans are social animals, needing meaningful emotional relationships to survive; yet in a world system where eternal farewells may occur every fourteen months, native posthumans seem to have dissolved and discarded this part of the need.

Instead, they developed a brand-new pattern of human relations, a pattern that Wu Yiliu found hard to understand. Interpersonal relationships no longer depend on the time span or depth of interaction but become something momentary—at this moment, the connection between us arises and is sensed, enough to satisfy; the next moment, we can scatter to the four winds and never see each other again.

All the desires and needs for one's kind were poured into these fleeting moments, each farewell leading to a rebirth.

He found it hard to grasp what kind of mindset this was; but it was precisely the native posthumans' way of interacting that made his search for Abby even more difficult. After sporadically searching for three or four months, Wu Yiliu had to admit that something had happened to Abby.