Old Domain Bizarre

Chapter 4 Rules
In a daze, Zhang Wenda woke up again and found that he was not dead, but this was not something to be happy about.

Both the physical torment and the despair in his heart made him feel suffocated at this moment.

At this moment, his body was almost out of his control. He trembled and curled up into a ball, instinctively shrinking under the dark bed.

After an extremely long five minutes, he finally let out a long breath and regained control of his negative emotions.

"It's...it's being late! No, it's skipping class, I skipped class, I didn't follow the rules! This is my punishment!" Zhang Wenda shouted out his thoughts.

It's not because of what I did, but because of what I didn't do.

The fact that meat was only hanging on TV set number 6 suggests that the world operates on logic, even if one doesn't understand that logic at the moment.

If you want to survive, you must abide by the logic of this world.

Zhang Wenda lifted his almost numb right leg, trying to crawl out from under the bed, but the pain in his joint made him gasp. He felt a burning sensation all over his body, and every part of his body ached.

It was three minutes later when he crawled out from under the bed. Looking at his battered self in the mirror, Zhang Wenda raised his bruised left hand to touch the torn wound on his forearm. The tearing pain made him realize that the pain was real.

If it were just a matter of different lifestyles, then hanging meat on a TV screen would be harmless. But this time it was different. He knew that if this trouble wasn't resolved, he might really die!
He only fainted this time, but he didn't know, nor did he want to know, what the price would be next time.

Looking at his two broken fingers, Zhang Wenda gritted his teeth, grabbed them with his right hand, and snapped them back into place with a crack.

Pale with pain, he looked at the dark red wound on his arm that was still bleeding. The fear of death made his breathing quicken again. "No, I can't just sit here and wait to die. I have to save myself."

His first problem now is how to avoid that kind of attack. He can't be attacked again. The feeling of being unable to fight back and having his mind overwhelmed by negative emotions is just too unbearable.

Zhang Wenda looked up at the time and realized it was already 12:30 pm. He had been in a daze all morning.

After glancing once more at his incredibly familiar home, Zhang Wenda gritted his teeth, lifted his injured leg, and walked outside.

The dire situation left him no time to rest; he had to find the fat man and get to the bottom of things right now.

The street was still the same street, Tianshan Road, which he had walked countless times. The plane trees along the roadside, the cicadas chirping in the plane trees, and the disc-shaped white water tower on the left were all so familiar, but Zhang Wenda felt no nostalgia at all.

He hurried forward with his head down, trying to look and think as little as possible, for fear of triggering some rules again.

Fatty's home wasn't far away; it was in the factory's residential compound next door. If it had been far away, they wouldn't have been able to play together when they were kids.

When Pan Dongzi was called out by Zhang Wenda, he was still holding a bowl of rice, with meat and vegetables piled high on top.

"What are you doing? I'm eating." Pan Dongzi complained while shoveling rice into his mouth, seemingly unconcerned about the injury on Zhang Wenda's face.

Zhang Wenda looked at the other person with a complicated expression. Although this guy's personality and appearance were very similar to the fat man in his memory, he didn't know why he always gave him the feeling of a fake.

He wasn't surprised at all that he was so badly injured? Or was it because he was a local of this wretched place and had seen all sorts of strange things?

But as things stand, no matter how strange this guy is, he doesn't seem to have harmed me, and I don't have any other source of information besides him right now.

Without saying anything, Zhang Wenda simply rolled up his sleeves to show the other person his wounds. "I'm injured. I'm asking you, were these injuries caused by skipping class?"

"Huh? Who hit you? That's awful."

"Fatty, just tell me, isn't that right?"

"Um... I don't know either, I guess. I think you should still follow the rules, at least you should still attend classes." After saying that, the chubby boy took out a small booklet the size of his palm from his pocket and handed it to Zhang Wenda.

Zhang Wenda took it and his heart skipped a beat when he saw the four large characters written on it: "Student Code of Conduct".

Zhang Wenda glanced at the chubby boy who was gulping down his food, then carefully opened the book. The first line of the first page read: "Students are prohibited from skipping class, being late, or leaving early." "Damn! It really is! The reason I was attacked is because I skipped class!"

He asked the chubby boy, "Do you want to read everything in here too?"

“Of course, this is mine. I’ve always followed the rules, I can recite it by heart,” Pan Dongzi said proudly.

Hearing this, Zhang Wenda, who was tense, breathed a sigh of relief. "It's good to have rules; at least rules can help us avoid problems."

He no longer cares about whether the rules of this world are strange or not; he just doesn't want to be attacked anymore. That feeling is just too unbearable, and he never wants to experience it a second time.

He sat down on a long white tile and began to read intently.

Fortunately, the rules in the handbook are not very strict, and most of them are very simple to follow, such as cherishing food, maintaining hygiene, keeping clothes neat, not spitting on the ground, loving labor, and thinking for yourself before asking the teacher when encountering problems.

But he understood that this was different from the casual, half-hearted things he had learned as a child; if these things weren't followed, people could really die.

He couldn't be careless about matters of life and safety. If he wanted to continue living in this world, he had to avoid such situations. He not only had to read them, but he also had to memorize them.

Just as Zhang Wenda was engrossed in watching, a chubby hand reached out and pointed to the wound on Zhang Wenda's forearm, saying, "What happened to your hand?"

"What?" Zhang Wenda looked at the spot where the finger was pointing and saw a crooked red scar on his swollen skin.

All the other wounds hurt, but strangely, this one didn't. "I remember... this mark was made by a flashlight?"

He cautiously reached out to touch it, but to his surprise, it didn't hurt at all. It was as if it wasn't a wound, but rather some kind of red tattoo.

"What's going on? What kind of strange thing is this? Is it good or bad?" Zhang Wenda didn't know.

This world is strange, and he wasn't sure if his wounds would also cause some kind of abnormality in this world.

Zhang Wenda glanced at the fat man, then stretched out his hand and asked, "You don't know what this is?"

"How would I know it's on your body?" The chubby boy shook his head.

The sudden situation made Zhang Wenda frown. One problem hadn't been solved before another popped up. Could he even stay in this wretched place anymore?

"Hey, you still haven't told me, who hit you?" the fat man asked again, his eyes filled with curiosity.

“It’s something unseen—” Before Zhang Wenda could finish speaking, his scalp tingled, and a sharp tearing pain shot through his back again, forcing him to shut his mouth. His hands trembled as he gripped his clothes tightly.

"Don't talk about it, don't ask others." He saw the rules he had just memorized in the student handbook: when you encounter a problem, you should think about it yourself before asking others.

This seemed to be a warning, and the harm did not continue. However, from this, Zhang Wenda could draw a new conclusion: this rule of punishment did not disappear when he left home; it had been following him all along.

He's stopped thinking about anything else; all he needs to do now is adapt to this world.

The TV in this crappy place is weird, the student handbook is weird, and who knows what other things in this world might be even weirder.

Only by thoroughly understanding this world can one have a chance to break free from the rules and regain freedom.

Just as Zhang Wenda put down the booklet in his hand, preparing to memorize it, he saw the chubby boy put down his bowl and walk down the stairs with his backpack.

"Hey, Mouse, I'm going to the Children's Palace this afternoon, are you coming?"

(End of this chapter)