Old Domain Bizarre

Chapter 12 Living Creatures
Looking at these children, Zhang Wenda's sense of responsibility as an adult could no longer allow him to sit idly by and wait for death; he had to find a way out.

"Hey! Fatty, Glasses, you guys wait here for me! I'll go see if there's any way to find another exit," Zhang Wenda said, wiping the sweat from his face with one hand.

Given the current situation, he's more afraid of dying here than breaking the teacher's rules.

However, others clearly do not think so.

"Mouse, don't go! Listen to your teacher! Teacher Rabbit will come to save us!"

"Yes, we must follow the rules, Zhang Wenda."

"Wait any longer? Waiting any longer won't be waiting for rescue, it'll be waiting to die. I'd rather die than wait to die!"

After saying that, Zhang Wenda stepped out of the circle of papers and walked resolutely towards the dark Children's Palace.

"You all stay here and don't wander off. Whether I or the rabbit makes it through, you'll all survive!"

At this moment, the floor of the entire Children's Palace began to become uneven, and walking on it felt like walking on a mountain path.

Zhang Wenda wasn't just wandering around aimlessly. He first went to the corridor window, trying to open it to take a look, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't open it from the outside.

Reaching out, Zhang Wenda peeled off the slogan on the window and shone his flashlight inside. He found that the outside was all mud, clearly underground, and even if he dug it open, he wouldn't be able to get out.

Since he couldn't get out of the corridor, Zhang Wenda had to look for an exit in the other classrooms, starting with the Go room.

Zhang Wenda carefully opened the door and shone his flashlight inside. He then saw various black chess pieces arranged in long strips on the table and walls on the blackboard illuminated by the flashlight.

The old wooden table and benches now seemed to flow like liquid, and the whole room became bizarre and fantastical.

Ignoring everything else, Zhang Wenda closed the door again after discovering there was no exit and headed to the next room, which was a calligraphy room.

When he pushed the door open, he saw that the center of the calligraphy classroom was collapsing, and the chairs and benches were falling into one of the round pits.

After glancing at it from afar, Zhang Wenda knew that the round pit was not the way out. The wooden chairs and benches that fell into it made a cracking sound, and he would probably suffer the same fate if he fell in.

"What's going on with this lousy place? It's such a mess." Zhang Wenda, his face growing even worse, prepared to close the door again.

However, the moment he closed the door, his flashlight suddenly focused on a blue light in the darkness.

It was a cat, a small black cat about the size of two adult palms, with a large blue eye, squatting next to the blackboard, eating colored chalk.

Upon seeing the cat, Zhang Wenda was stunned for a moment. Although it only had one eye, it was definitely a cat, not some strange monster.

Zhang Wenda saw the black cat, and the black cat naturally saw Zhang Wenda as well. It paused for a moment, slurped the chalk into its mouth, and began to run quickly toward Zhang Wenda.

Zhang Wenda was startled by this scene and quickly closed the door of the calligraphy room. Soon, he heard scratching sounds coming from behind the door, along with continuous meowing.

He wouldn't make contact with creatures of unknown origin. After taking out a rope and securing the door from the outside, he headed to the next door: the model airplane room.

But just as he pushed open the door to the model airplane room, a cloud of black gas surged out and covered Zhang Wenda's face.

The instant the gas touched his skin, intense pain enveloped Zhang Wenda's entire body—the pain of suffocation, the pain of flesh being torn apart, and the pain of despair. Zhang Wenda forced the door shut, staggered back a few steps, and only after he emerged from the gas did the pain recede like a tide.

"Pain...could this be...the pain of gas?"

Zhang Wenda watched the pain gradually dissipate with lingering fear. The model airplane room seemed to be related to emotions, either happiness or pain. It seemed there was no way out inside.

"Meow~~" A sudden meow from behind startled Zhang Wenda. He quickly turned his head and saw the same cat squatting not far from him, licking its paws.

It didn't mean to attack Zhang Wenda; instead, it looked at him with curiosity.

Zhang Wenda was certain that there was curiosity in the cat's eyes; this guy seemed smarter than other cats.

"Can you understand what I'm saying? Do you know where the door is?" Zhang Wenda asked.

The cat didn't speak; clearly, it couldn't speak.

"You can't get out either? Then we're on the same side now. How about we try to get out together?" Zhang Wenda tried to communicate again.

Then Zhang Wenda saw the black cat stand up, stretch, look around, and then nimbly jump onto the wall, using the oil painting next to it as leverage to hang directly from the ceiling and lick a light bulb.

Then it drew a few more figure eights and jumped in front of Zhang Wenda, chewing as it looked at him expectantly.
Zhang Wenda was a little confused. "What do you mean? Prove you have good teeth? That you can jump high?"

"Meow!!" The black cat meowed angrily, seemingly annoyed by Zhang Wenda's lack of understanding.

"Meow!" the black cat meowed, then jumped towards the window.

Under the light of the flashlight, Zhang Wenda saw the soil outside the window.

"I know we're underground, so what?"

The black cat didn't speak, but simply tilted its head towards the soil again.

When Zhang Wenda approached the window and observed more closely, he saw the soil slowly moving upwards, while the Children's Palace was gradually sinking!
Before Zhang Wenda could recover from his shock, a huge underground cave suddenly appeared outside the window.

The long beam of Zhang Wenda's flashlight shone obliquely through the cave and onto a plastic cloud in a rainbow.

Immediately following, an extremely faint and distorted singing voice came from outside the cave through the glass.

"I wanted to tell you as soon as possible... I used the crayons you gave me... to draw a picture and sent it to you by express... I wanted to tell you quickly... I've been thinking about you so much... No distance is too far..."

At this moment, Zhang Wenda felt a chill run down his spine. This was the singing he heard when he entered the Children's Palace. There was another Children's Palace across the cave!

Suddenly, Zhang Wenda saw that, accompanied by tremors, dust began to rise throughout the underground cavern, and the distant rainbow and plastic clouds also began to move.

Zhang Wenda quickly turned the light bulb in his hand to its maximum setting and shone it in that direction with all his might.

Then, beneath the massive dust, Zhang Wenda saw only a huge, blurry outline, like a giant fish, slowly sinking into the ground; it was moving.

This scene left Zhang Wenda's mouth dry. Although he couldn't see the whole thing clearly, Zhang Wenda knew that it was the Children's Palace, just like the one he was here. The entire Children's Palace... was alive!!
(End of this chapter)