ecstasy

"Wow—my own voice sounds weird, like it's not the same voice I hear through bone conduction."

Before Ai Xi could answer, Dou Dou suddenly realized something important he had just overlooked:

"Hey, wait, wait! Where's the Taro King? Isn't everyone the Taro King's friend?"

He didn't forget the slogan everyone was shouting:

The fat mascot of the snack bar chain must have an important position here; perhaps he is the core of this wonderful world.

-

The Taro King stood upright in the center, with the lower part of his body immersed in the mist.

As soon as Ai Xi said that, Dou Dou saw it.

It’s strange: it’s so huge and magnificent, but Doudou didn’t notice it at all just now.

Around the Taro King were three sets of ceremonial fences, bright red ropes draped between metal poles, like the partitions used in airport security lines; a cloud of mist hung in between.

Although they had all been shouting slogans about the Taro King, no students came over here.

Everyone is doing their own thing, looking for their own fun.

Compared to the inflatable mascot at the gate of Mong Cai No. 5 Middle School, the Taro King is obviously much bigger.

The pure white, glass-like triangular pointed hat pierces straight beyond the sky.

Now, if you look closely, you will find that the light that shines on the entire zenith and illuminates the world comes from this triangular spire.

The dark purple head is round, and the face has eyes and a simple brush tip; there is no neck, and the body below is even more round and large.

Only the Taro King was so clearly identifiable that most of its textures and details could be seen; except for its body which had been magnified countless times, everything else was exactly the same as Doudou remembered.

At this moment, the Taro King was speaking—his voice was rumbling:

"Melts in your mouth? Melts in your mouth. Melts in your mouth."

When Doudou and the others approached, the Taro King lowered its perfectly standard spherical head - just like the one seen outside the school gate, it still had no mouth, but it couldn't stop mumbling to itself.

The voice was low and humming, with a reverberant resonance; but the content was only these four words: "melts in your mouth".

Doudou slapped his two front legs on the fence:

"Wow, it moves! And it talks. How come it's like Disneyland?"

Ai Xi followed Dou Dou. The two of them leaned against the fence and didn't come any closer.

"Is it necessary to collect information about the Taro King store?"

"I explored the area yesterday and apart from this giant taro king, there's nothing else that stands out."

“I wonder if this so-called [Taro King] created this place.”

Doudou didn't answer, but raised his colorful and glowing hand:

"Well, wait a minute—Ai Xi, take a look over there."

Ai Xi looked in the direction of Dou Dou's finger--

In a corner of the Taro King's huge and fat body, there was a vague, dark mark, as transparent as paper soaked in grease.

The surface was pitch black, and a few numbers and handwriting could be vaguely discerned. But on the majestic body of the Taro King, it was particularly obvious:

"Did you see that dirty thing when you came here yesterday?"

Ai Xi's silhouette leaned forward, and the eyes in the profile picture narrowed:

"Eh? Are these your words? They're quite conspicuous. There wasn't any of them yesterday. Oh, you mean..."

Doudou, acting as a mirror for his head, swayed back and forth, perhaps nodding:

"I accidentally stained my math notes with the bag of taro you brought me. The packaging was so oily that I spent a long time wiping it off."

"But the math notes were printed on the oil paper. There was a picture of a Taro King on the oil paper, and the ink was printed in the middle of the body."

"If it wasn't there yesterday, then this trace must have appeared because of my arrival—in other words, it must have come from my impression of it?"

"Then I tend to think there's nothing mysterious about the Taro King itself! This super purple chubby guy is probably a collective fantasy of the other students and us."

As he spoke, he began to move:

"Let's test it, let's test it; you can't verify it just by talking."

Doudou lifted his feet and flipped over one set of red rope isolation belts after another with exaggerated movements; strange crystals replaced Doudou's original joints, and every time he moved, there was a squeaking sound.

Ai Xi followed behind him, climbing over the fence with him. The photo sticker on her head mirror flipped and she was also very excited:

"Walk slower, walk slower, wait for me to get off!"

Doudou walked to the side of the Taro King - the head on its tall body was spinning:

"Melts in your mouth. Melts in your mouth. Melts in your mouth."

Doudou moved his limbs and stretched carefully for a while according to the movements in the daily radio gymnastics.

Then he raised his hand--

A slap was uttered, hitting the Taro King's round fat belly.

I have a big project to work on these days, so I may need to take a day off tomorrow so I won’t be able to update.

Chapter 104: Small Explosions

Silent.

The Taro King remained motionless: the slap seemed to hit sound-absorbing cotton, without even the slightest vibration of the subcutaneous fat.

But no one knows whether King Taro actually has fat.

Doudou acts as a mirror for the head, spinning in circles:

"Eh? I'm here. Has my strength decreased? No, it feels fine."

Ai Xi stood beside Dou Dou and tapped his arm with his forelimbs:

"If this is an illusion, then it's normal that the power can't be exerted. After all, even the body structure is different from the real one--"

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

The unusual noise, from light to heavy, interrupted their conversation--

The Taro King's head began to spin: the acceleration process was slow, similar to the first time a fan was turned on.

But the intervals between rotations became shorter and shorter, turning into tremors in the blink of an eye. A blurry afterimage formed around the round head.

A huge, twisted roar emanated from the Taro King's body; its round body twisted, as if it was about to attack.

"As soon as you put it in your mouth—"

Wow! ! !

On the Taro King's face, which was originally solitary, with only eyes and a simple nose, a crack suddenly appeared - like a mouth that had suddenly grown:

Bang-ping!

Countless foreign objects crashed into this new opening, spraying out a slanting rainbow:

They were all packaged foods—fried taro cakes, boxed taro paste, taro paste ice cream, steamed taro, all wrapped in oil-paper bags with the Taro King logo—and the shiny, sweet purple cubes were flying around.

For the first time since entering this mist-shrouded world, they sensed smells; the sweetness of taro mixed with hot cooking oil made their heads feel greasy.

Ta-da-da-da, pouring down like a waterfall. The Taro King's "vomiting" seems endless:

The food fell on the clouds below, making a sound like a shell hitting the ground. A spectacular vomiting, even with some dreamlike colors -

Doudou grabbed Ai Xi and backed away, avoiding the flow of food:

"Oh no! I hit it too hard. Did I break it?"

The Taro King held his abdomen with his short, rounded arms, his once smooth face covered in wrinkles and bulges. His eyes, drawn with simple strokes, bulged, and the tip of his nose, formed by two short lines, twisted.

"Enter—enter—entrance"

Peel it off--pop!

There was a loud sound of balloons exploding—the purple skin of the Taro King fell off, revealing the food piled up like a tower inside: these taro products shot up into the sky, like fireworks or fountains, surging all around.

"Hahahahaha! So beautiful!!"

Ai Xi clapped her hands, her laughter like the high-pitched, shrill chirping of a bird. Her portrait changed, revealing a wide grin and crescent-shaped eyes.

As the rain of taro products fell, the Taro King also disappeared from the cloud.

"Ah! Why did something fall?"

Screams were heard from a little further away - some classmates were hit by taro cakes falling from the sky, making clanging sounds; in this purple meteor shower, they were finally alerted to the explosion of the Taro King.

The student who reacted the fastest took two steps at a time and jumped to the fence.

The Polaroids stuck to his mirror were torn off one by one as his expression changed. They vanished into thin air before they even hit the ground, but it was clear that most of them were filled with fear and terror:

"Everyone come here, everyone come here! The Taro King suddenly exploded!"

The other students also ran over and rushed to the side of Doudou and Aixi--

The classmate closest to them had a lot of densely packed text on his head mirror.

Looking closely, they were all first-person statements written in oil-based pen; they were constantly being wiped away, and new content was being written by an invisible pen:

September 2, noon: I was surprised and terrified. My mom took me to Huameidu Supermarket to buy groceries during summer vacation. Someone poked a hole in the supermarket's inflatable archway, and the sound was exactly like this.

"This is terrifying. The Taro King is gone, so will this place explode? But I absolutely won't say anything. It would be too embarrassing to let others know how scared I am."

He or she must not be able to see the words on his or her face, because the words that came out were completely different:

"Don't make a fuss! Aren't we all fine? Why are you so scared about such a small thing?"

But apart from Doudou, no one else noticed the words on this classmate's face -

The students were busy screaming and running in circles.

The scene was in chaos, filled with arguments, howling and loud collisions of bodies.

-

Doudou, feeling embarrassed after making a mistake, quickly grabbed Ai Xi and dragged her out of the crowd. They huddled in a corner and began whispering:

"How could the Taro King be so fragile? It was smashed to pieces in one blow. Oh no! I thought it was so big and could withstand a lot of beatings."

He brought his square upper limbs together and put his hands together in his imagination:

"Sorry, Taro King, I'll go to your store after school to buy some more. Amitabha."

"But I'm still very strong here; or should I say I'm still in a trance? That's good news."

He turned around—his classmates were dancing around the spot where the Taro King had exploded, piling up the scattered taro food. It was unclear what they were doing; only a sense of panic spread everywhere.

"Oh, these students are scared. I feel a little embarrassed."

Ai Xi's profile picture had returned to a calm state, and he patted Doudou's back as a comforting gesture:

"It's okay, they'll be fine after a while; they're quite good at adjusting. Let them mess around for a while."

"Having a head turn into a mirror is acceptable, but a purple snowman suddenly exploding is not a big deal."

"Besides the fact that your ecstasy is effective, it at least proves one thing: whether this is an illusion or an alternate dimension, the Taro King may not be the core. Right?"

"After all, we are still here and have not been bounced back to reality."

Doudou banged the frame of his glasses with his front paws, as if to express embarrassment:

"It's hard to say! Maybe after the Taro King explodes, no one can return to reality and end up trapped here. That would be terrible! I'd better be gentler next time."

"Hey, how did you get out last time?"

Ai Xi held a piece of steamed taro cake and looked it over. When she rushed out of the crowd, she had taken the food with her.

"Well, I think he'll be out when the time comes, but it's hard to say how long that time will be."

"My sense of time is a bit fuzzy—maybe it's disrupting my biorhythm, or maybe time just flows differently."

She crushed the steamed taro cake into pieces, paused, and then threw it all into the mist:

"Yesterday I was at 8:13 pm for the ceremony with them and came back to reality at 9:05 pm: about an hour? But it felt like most of the day."

"It feels like an eternity now, but it's probably only been a few minutes."