Chapter Three - Weiwei
The sound came from inside her head.
Not outside. Not from the very half dressed hunk standing at the edge of the pool.
From inside her brain.
Lin Wan pressed two fingers against her temple.
She looked at the man.
He was still looking at her with those dark steady eyes, water still dripping from his hair, He had not moved an inch. He had not spoken. He was just watching her.
She looked away from him, then stared at the ground.
"Okay," she said quietly, to no one. "Okay. I am just tired. I have been walking in the sun for hours. I haven't t eaten properly today. That is all this is. Stress"
Silence.
"I did not hear anything," she continued. "There was no sound. I imagined it."
[Host did not imagine it!]
Lin Wan went completely still.
The voice was bright. Cheerful. It came from her mind with the comfortable confidence of something that had always lived there and was only now choosing to introduce itself. Clear as a bell and entirely too enthusiastic for the situation.
[Host is not hallucinating,] the voice continued pleasantly.
[Host is not experiencing a heat related episode. Host is fully conscious, adequately hydrated following recent water intake, and in stable condition. For now.]
Lin Wan's eye twitched.
"For now," she repeated slowly.
[Yes! Which is actually something we should discuss. My name is Weiwei. I am the Save The World By Bearing A Cub System, assigned specifically to Host for the completion of a very important mission. It is lovely to meet you!]
The silence that followed was not a peaceful silence.
It was the silence of a person standing soaking wet at the edge of a wild pool on the worst day of their life, being told by a voice in their head that they had been assigned a mission involving bearing a cub, trying very hard to find one single rational explanation for what was happening and coming up completely empty.
Lin Wan looked at the pool.
She looked at the man standing beside it, who had his arms crossed over his chest now and was watching Lin Wan mumble to herself and the ground.
Lin Wan kept her gaze on the floor, not daring to raise her head and make the man who saved her think he saved someone insane.
"Save the world," Lin Wan said.
"Yes!"
"By bearing a cub."
"Yes! Host really does catch on quickly. This is an excellent sign!"
Lin Wan pressed both hands flat against her thighs and breathed through her nose the way she did when she was trying very hard not to say something she would regret. She looked at the sky. She looked at the palm trees. She looked at her own feet, which were still wet and covered in sand and had walked for two hours today already and deserved better than this.
"Weiwei," Lin Wan said, keeping her voice extremely calm and controlled.
"Yes Host!"
"Where am I."
"Host is currently located on the Beast Continent! A world that exists parallel to Host's world of origin, inhabited primarily by beastmen who possess both a human form and a beast form and are able to move between the two at will. Host arrived approximately forty seven minutes ago through a natural convergence point, which is located at the pool directly behind the candidate currently standing in front of Host."
Lin Wan turned slowly and looked at the pool.
Then at the man.
Then at the pool again.
The pool sat there looking completely innocent. Still and clear and absolutely not like a doorway between worlds.
"I came through the pool," Lin Wan said flatly.
"Not exactly through it! More beside it. The convergence point opened in the surrounding area due to a rare atmospheric alignment that occurs once every. . . "
"Weiwei."
"Yes?"
"Is there a way back."
A pause.
It was not a long pause. That was the problem. If the answer had been yes, the pause would have been shorter. If the answer had been a clear and simple no, the pause would have been shorter too. This pause was the length of someone choosing their words very carefully, which was never a good sign.
"That is a wonderful question," Weiwei said, "that we can absolutely explore together at a later time! However, Host should be aware that there is currently a more pressing concern."
Something appeared in Lin Wan's vision.
An interface. Faint and glowing, floating in the air in front of her face like a notification she had not asked for and could not swipe away. Numbers in the center of it, large and red, ticking downward with the calm unhurried certainty of something that did not care at all about Lin Wan's feelings on the matter.
02:58:33
02:58:32
02:58:31
Lin Wan stared at the numbers.
"What," Lin Wan said, "is that."
"That is Host's countdown timer! The atmospheric composition of the Beast Continent differs significantly from the atmospheric composition of Host's world of origin. Host's body is currently attempting to process this difference but it cannot sustain that process indefinitely without external support. In approximately two hours and fifty eight minutes, Host's system will begin to deteriorate. Initial symptoms will include severe fatigue and difficulty breathing, and if left unaddressed the situation will become significantly more—"
"What do I do," Lin Wan said.
She did not mean to cut Weiwei off. She just needed the answer faster than the explanation was arriving.
"Host must complete the primary bonding requirement of the Save The World By Bearing A Cub System! By establishing a full mate bond with a compatible beastman, Host's body will permanently adapt to the Beast Continent's atmosphere, fully activating the system and ensuring Host's long term survival here!"
02:57:51
Lin Wan looked at the countdown.
"A mate bond," Lin Wan said.
"Yes!"
"With a beastman."
"Yes!"
"Meaning I need to find a beastman and bond with him."
"Yes! And the truly wonderful news, Host, is that a fully compatible candidate has already been identified! He is standing approximately two point three meters directly in front of Host at this very moment!"
Something lit up in Lin Wan's vision. A soft glowing tag, hovering over the head of the half dressed, stripe marked, soaking wet stranger who had been standing at the edge of that pool watching Lin Wan hold a full conversation with herself for the past several minutes.
CANDIDATE DETECTED.
NAME: WANG.
COMPATIBILITY: HIGH.
STATUS: UNMATED.
DISTANCE: 2.3 METERS.
Lin Wan read the tag.
She read it again.
She looked at Wang. Wang was still standing with his arms crossed, water still dripping from his dark hair, those three stripes on his arm catching the strange afternoon light. He had not moved. He had not spoken. He was just watching Lin Wan with those dark unreadable eyes and the composed, patient expression of someone who had decided to wait and see how this played out.
Lin Wan looked back at the glowing tag floating over his head.
She looked at her countdown.
02:56:44
She looked at her saviour again.
This man had pulled her out of a pool where something enormous and terrible had been trying to drag her to the bottom. He was standing here in the middle of nowhere, alone, which suggested he came to this pool specifically because he did not want to be found. He had a name, apparently. Wang. And according to a system that had just moved into Lin Wan's head without asking, he was her best shot at not dying in the next three hours.
Lin Wan took a slow breath.
"You have got to be joking me," Lin Wan whispered.
Wang's eyes narrowed.
Just slightly, but that was enough.
It was the first real change in his expression since he had stepped out of that pool and it was somehow, inexplicably, less reassuring than no expression at all.
Even then, he did not say a word.
He simply watched her, patiently, like he had nowhere to be and had all the time in the world which Lin Wan was more than welcome to use as much of it as she needed to finish whatever she was doing.
Lin Wan looked at her countdown.
02:55:38
She looked at Wang.
He looked at Lin Wan.
And somewhere in the back of Lin Wan's head Weiwei hummed a small bright sound that managed to be both encouraging and deeply irritating at the same time.
Lin Wan had two hours and fifty five minutes.
And she had absolutely no other options.
Lin Wan squared her shoulders. Ready to face anything that comes her way.