Dimensional Store: Welcome to the Apocalypse Apartment - Chapter 299

Chapter 299

The cable car stopped in front of a swamp.

The air was damp, thick with the smell of rotting earth.

“I’ve been through this swamp before. There aren’t any monsters in here, so it’s very safe.” Holding the cable car door, Xiling Ling first tapped the ground with the tip of her foot. Only after confirming it was solid did she step down.

Here, Gu Huaiwei sensed the same cold, sinister aura she had felt from Lin She.

What a familiar feeling.

The swamp was shrouded in dense fog. Dark green algae floated on the water’s surface, while beneath it was nothing but black sludge. Every now and then, a few bubbles rose with a “glub glub,” like the digestive juices of the earth.

“Careful! Snakes!” Xiling Ling pointed toward the Mangrove Forest ahead on the right, where exposed roots rose above the water. Several black snakes hung from the twisted branches.

From a distance, they looked just like vines wrapped around the trees.

“That’s strange. When I passed through this swamp before, there weren’t any snakes here.”

Gu Huaiwei gathered the hair draped over her shoulders into a loose low bun to keep the swamp branches from snagging it. “The gates of Paradise have opened. They’ve gone home too.”

“Who?” Xiling Ling didn’t understand.

“The little ones who work as Assistant for me. None of them have much of a conscience.” There was no particular emotion in Gu Huaiwei’s tone.

Xiling Ling tactfully chose not to ask any further.

She picked up a long bamboo pole and carefully made her way forward, using it to prod at the drier-looking ground as she walked.

“When you’re walking through a swamp, it’s best to follow the edges where plants are growing. Avoid the darker mud and any place with standing water in the middle,” Xiling Ling shared from experience.

Compared to her, Gu Huaiwei looked far more at ease. She had been through a martial arts Dimension and had already learned qinggong. In a place like this, she moved as easily as if she were walking on flat ground.

“Over there… it looks like there’s someone there.” Xiling Ling frowned. “No, that’s not a person. It has to be one of those monsters in disguise. We’d better not get close.”

By the raised roots of the Mangrove Forest, a boy in black was reclining there at an angle.

His black hair was soaking wet, plastered to his pale cheeks. From his neck down to his collarbones, dark scale-like patterns spread across his skin. His eyes were shut, his thin black lips pressed together, and the lower half of his body was submerged in the water. The murky surface around him had turned a dark red.

“Wait here. I’ll go take a look.” Leaving Xiling Ling where she was, Gu Huaiwei lightly tapped the surface of the water with the tip of her foot.

The floating algae on the water sank slightly. Light as a swallow, she flew to Lin She’s side, dragged him out of the water, and brought him to a patch of shore that was a little drier.

Thankfully, when she hauled him up, there wasn’t a long black snake tail underneath.

Xiling Ling was still trapped out in the swamp.

Gu Huaiwei felt it wasn’t safe to leave her there alone, so she stood up, intending to carry her over as well.

At that moment, a cold hand gripped Gu Huaiwei’s wrist.

“Don’t go.” Lin She slowly opened those dark green eyes of his. They were like bottomless stagnant water, not a trace of light shining through.

“I’ll be right back.”

Lin She didn’t let go. “Did you ride the cable car up from behind the Paradise Haunted House?”

“Yes.”

A flicker of a smile passed across Lin She’s lips. “Then I really am lucky to be the first to meet you.”

“Let go first. I met Xiling Ling on the way here. She’s an ordinary human and can’t withstand too much of the swamp’s miasma.”

Lin She’s voice was weak. Beneath his damp black shirt was a savage wound that was still bleeding. He undid the buttons of his shirt and exposed the injury. “But I’m hurt too.”

Gu Huaiwei’s gaze swept over the lean, tight muscles of his abdomen before she quickly looked away.

His skin was so white it was bloodless. Blood slid down along his groin with a cruel sort of beauty that stirred the imagination.

She couldn’t keep looking. If she did, she might turn into a sadist and want to give him two more lashes.

“Who hurt you?” After spending so much time together, not asking even a single question would have been too cold.

Lin She lowered his head. A slit opened at the corner of his thin black lips, revealing a trace of dissatisfaction. “I went to the Castle to collect my wages from the boss, but the boss said it wasn’t time to pay us yet.”

It gave off the miserable feeling of an employee failing to collect back pay and getting beaten up by the boss instead.

Gu Huaiwei had a bad feeling about this. “What’s the payment?”

Lin She lifted his head. Black hair covered one side of his eye as he looked at her with those shadowy pupils, his voice low and hoarse. “Come find me after you return from the Castle, and I’ll tell you.”

Xiling Ling hadn’t stayed where she was. Instead, she was using the bamboo pole to tap the ground and slowly make her way toward Gu Huaiwei.

Lin She lightly flicked his sleeve, and the miasma surrounding Xiling Ling dispersed.

“Miss Gu, after you go to the Castle, the boss will invite you to stay and work in Paradise.” Lin She braced himself and stood. The wound, whose bleeding had just started to clot, split open again. He seemed not to feel any pain, letting the blood pour freely. “Don’t believe him. He’s a liar who only knows how to say nice things. He never pays us on time.”

“We’ll deal with that when the time comes.” What Gu Huaiwei cared about was something else. “Lin She, now that the gates of Paradise have opened, can we come and go freely? The entrance and the exit aren’t in the same place, are they? I came in through the amusement park’s iron gate, but outside the gate there were still mountains. It didn’t look like a way out.”

“The exit is in the Castle.” At the mention of leaving, Lin She’s expression turned especially cold. “Since you’ve come, don’t be in such a hurry to leave. I’ve prepared a welcome banquet for you. Once you’ve finished visiting the Manager, we’ll celebrate properly for you.”

Gu Huaiwei suddenly recalled the painting she had gotten earlier while sorting through Xiling Yuan’s belongings: Beasts Devouring Prey.

The six beasts seated at the dining table were served first.

Only what was left over would go to the beasts in the jungle.

“Where are He Xueyi and the others?”

“Don’t mind them. Once their work ended, they returned to their own territories.” Lin She concealed the fact that the others were also waiting for Gu Huaiwei to visit them.

Where Gu Huaiwei couldn’t see, a thin forked tongue slipped out from the split in his mouth.