Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 296

Chapter 296

During the final Dimension Jump, Gu Huaiwei brought Zhou Chuanning with her.

By all rights, he should have appeared here with her.

But Gu Huaiwei had no idea where Zhou Chuanning had ended up.

Gu Huaiwei took out her sister’s diary and the photo tucked inside it.

At some point, the writing in the diary had vanished, leaving only that photograph clipped in the middle of the blank pages.

She compared the photo with the gate before her.

Back then, that photo had been taken right in front of the Paradise Gate.

Opening the gate was a silent invitation.

Gu Huaiwei took a blue feather out of the Jade Bracelet.

The boss had given it to her.

He had hoped that after she arrived in Paradise, she would come find him immediately.

Paradise was exceptionally vast and empty.

Beyond the amusement park in front of her, there were endless mountain ranges farther back, as well as an ocean stretching beyond sight.

No one was there to greet her at the entrance.

The wind was calm. Catching the faint scent of blood in the air, Gu Huaiwei stepped through Paradise’s gates.

Two wax figures stood by the entrance. Gears were built into their joints, and they mimicked welcoming gestures while the speakers in their bellies repeated over and over:

“Welcome to the amusement park.”

Gu Huaiwei had originally wanted to find someone to ask for directions, but she couldn’t spot a single living person in the entire park.

She headed toward the Ferris wheel.

Halfway there, she saw a woman in a work uniform, covered in blood, clutching her right arm that was barely hanging on by flesh as she limped toward the main gate.

Gu Huaiwei had seen that uniform on Mu Lingxi before. It was the standard work attire custom-made by Xiyuan Group.

The moment the woman saw Gu Huaiwei, terror flashed across her face, and she turned to flee.

Her injuries were too severe. Blood kept pouring from the place where her arm had been torn open, and there was no stopping it.

Gu Huaiwei moved with airy grace, drifting forward like the wind to block the woman’s path.

“Miss, please wait a moment.”

The woman’s face was deathly pale. In her good hand, she gripped a rusty dagger and waved it wildly at Gu Huaiwei.

Her eyes were sunken, and she muttered on the verge of collapse, “Get away! Get away from me, you beasts! Stop hounding me already!”

“I’m not a beast. I’m human.” Gu Huaiwei took hold of the woman’s torn arm and channeled spiritual energy into it.

A faint glow enveloped the wound.

The woman’s injuries began healing at a visible rate.

“Human…” The woman parted her dry, peeling lips, looking lost. “Th-then run… quickly… There are monsters here…”

Before she could finish, she passed out from blood loss.

There were hunting beasts in Paradise. If Gu Huaiwei left her here, she would die. It had not been easy to come across a living person, so Gu Huaiwei crouched down and found an employee ID in the woman’s pocket.

As expected, the severely injured woman was an employee of Xiyuan Group. Her name was Xiling Ling, a department manager at one of the company’s biotechnology subsidiaries.

Night fell quickly.

Gu Huaiwei had no intention of traveling at night. She found an abandoned claw machine shop, pried some broken wooden boards from outside, and used fire magic to start a fire.

She took down the curtains and spread them on the floor, then laid the unconscious Xiling Ling on top of them, letting her rest with her head on her lap while feeding her a small sip of water.

Xiling Ling slowly came to, though her face was still frighteningly pale.

Even after seeing Gu Huaiwei, she remained shaken with fear.

“Shh-” Gu Huaiwei soothed her, placing a finger against her somewhat chapped lips. “Be quiet. I have no intention of hurting you.”
“Are you one of this batch of sacrifices too?” Struggling, Xiling Ling pushed herself up from the ground and looked Gu Huaiwei over. “I don’t know you. Why did you save me?”

“What do you mean by ‘sacrifice’?”

Gu Huaiwei had once heard Lin She and He Xueyi mention sacrifices in passing.

The run-down claw machine arcade was bitterly cold. Wrapping herself in a curtain she’d pulled off the ground, Xiling Ling stared at Gu Huaiwei warily.

“You really don’t know anything?” Xiling Ling leaned away from Gu Huaiwei, her whole body radiating distrust. “This place is monster territory. Everyone sent in here is a sacrifice. Those monsters are cruel by nature. Sacrifices are just tools for their amusement.”

“Do the monsters you’re talking about eat people?” Gu Huaiwei poked at the fire with a wooden stick, and the orange glow lit half her face.

As Xiling Ling’s body slowly warmed up, hunger came rushing in after it. “I don’t know… Some of them eat people, some don’t, and some only take a couple bites. I feel like instead of eating us, they treat us more like toys to torture and kill for fun.”

Gu Huaiwei heard Xiling Ling’s stomach growl with hunger and glanced at her. Looking embarrassed, Xiling Ling rubbed her belly. She had been living in constant fear and hadn’t eaten for days.

“If you’re hungry, eat a little first.” Gu Huaiwei took out some milk-filled cookies from her Jade Bracelet and tossed them over.

“Thank you.” Xiling Ling tore open the wrapper and devoured them.

“Here’s some water too. Don’t choke.” Gu Huaiwei tossed her a bottle of Mineral Water as well. “Other than you, is anyone else here?”

Food helped bring Xiling Ling a little closer to trusting Gu Huaiwei.

Thinking of the people who had come here with her, she suddenly covered her face and burst into tears. “They’re gone. They’re all dead. Three of us came here in total… sob… and now I’m the only one left.

“The Xiling Family lied to us. They adopted orphans like us and turned us into sacrifices just to satisfy those monsters’ desire to torture and slaughter.

“I have to make it back alive. I have to expose what they’ve done and avenge my brothers and sisters!”

Xiyuan Group was a major international corporation controlled by the Xiling Family. A large part of the reason the group had remained prosperous for so many years was that the Xiling Family had been offering sacrifices to Paradise for ages.

On the surface, they were philanthropists. In secret, they were executioners.

Gu Huaiwei quietly waited for Xiling Ling to finish venting her emotions.

Once Xiling Ling had finally quieted down, Gu Huaiwei realized something was off.

“Are you from the family too? Why have I never seen you before?” Xiling Ling found the girl in front of her deeply strange. The thought made her slow down while eating the cookies.

“I’m a Dimension Operator responsible for opening the Paradise Gate.”

As Gu Huaiwei’s operations progressed, she had discovered a pattern: every Dimension she managed was a world on the brink of collapse.

A Dimension Operator’s shop would take root inside a small Dimension and then continuously absorb that Dimension’s energy until it was drained dry.

Every light on the Ferris wheel had lit up, and those beams looked more like a Formation. Gu Huaiwei could feel the incomparable power inside the painting. That power was probably what had broken through the Paradise Gate.

So-called Dimension operations were just a cover.

The real reason Paradise spent so much blood and treasure cultivating Dimension Operators was to use their hands to complete dimensional Formations and open Paradise.