Old Domain Bizarre

Chapter 13 Whale
Under the beam of the flashlight, in the last moment before the huge outline disappeared, Zhang Wenda saw a row of things flying up.

There were five black chess pieces in a row. Or rather, they weren't chess pieces at all; they were five eyes lined up in a row—the eyes of the Children's Palace.

The outside world was gradually covered by mud again, but Zhang Wenda stood there for a long time, unable to calm down. The scene just now was still in his mind. The Youth Palace was alive, it was a living thing.

He understood the strangeness of this world, but he couldn't understand why an underground structure could move.

However, Zhang Wenda was not surprised at this moment. He had no interest in being surprised anymore. It didn't matter how strange the world was, because he knew he was about to die.

The youth palace is alive; it is carrying them down into the ground. The rising temperature and lack of oxygen indicate that they are already very, very deep below the surface.

There's no way out of the Children's Palace anymore. If there were, the pressure of the mud outside would crush them to death. The so-called "Rabbit Teacher" couldn't possibly save them. If he had the ability, he would have done so long ago.

Zhang Wenda slowly collapsed to the ground, his body almost brushing against the wall, his eyes filled with deep despair.

Suddenly he lowered his head and laughed, a self-deprecating laugh. "What am I anyway? I somehow ended up back here, then got beaten up by some unknown thing, and finally died hundreds of meters underground?"

He thought this was just the beginning, but he never expected it to be the end. Recalling his ambitions when he traveled back in time, he couldn't help but feel a strange sense of mockery.

"Maybe I had already died in that rented room by then. God thought I died too comfortably, so He gave me a different way to die?"

"Sigh," Zhang Wenda lay completely on the ground and sighed deeply.

The black cat, standing nearby, circled around Zhang Wenda a few times before finally squatting down on him.

"Thank you, little kitty, thank you for letting me die knowing why."

Zhang Wenda began to feel short of breath, and he even felt like he was about to faint.

Just as he was drifting in and out of consciousness, he suddenly heard someone calling his name, "Rat!" "Wenda! Don't be afraid, we've come to rescue you!"

A hand reached out from the darkness, chased the black cat away, and hurriedly pulled him up from the ground.

Soon, the flashlights on the ground were picked up and turned on again, revealing faces covered in sweat—his classmates, each with a look of concern on their faces.

"Fatty, what brings you here? Didn't you listen to your teacher and wait here?" Zhang Wenda asked, his face ashen.

"We're buddies! You saved my life! How could I not come to save you just because of what the teacher said? I'm not that kind of ungrateful person!" The fat man said as he hoisted Zhang Wenda onto his back and hurried away.

The students nearby formed a circle, waving their schoolbags with fear on their faces, trying to scare away the little black cat that was panting.

Looking at the actions of his classmates, Zhang Wenda felt a warmth in his heart for no reason. It had been a long time since anyone had genuinely cared about him like this.

They had been crying in fear earlier, but now they had come to him in the dark, and he knew that this was really difficult for them.

Looking at their innocent faces, a surge of strength suddenly welled up in Zhang Wenda's heart.

"I won't give up, I absolutely can't give up. It doesn't matter if I die, but what about them? These kids' lives have just begun, they absolutely can't just die here like this!"

Zhang Wenda suddenly jumped off the fat man's back, startling Pan Dongzi. "Mouse, are you alright?"

"Come on! Follow me! I'll show you the way home!" Zhang Wenda waved his hand forcefully. Gritting his teeth, he walked towards the remaining rooms. He knew he was already hundreds of meters underground, but he still wanted to try!
Every door opened, and every classroom became more bizarre and fantastical than before. However, Zhang Wenda did not give up. Even in the painfully gassy model airplane room, he gritted his teeth and continued his search.

What if? What if there's a portal or something? This world is so strange, no one can say for sure!
In his desperate search for an exit, he went to great lengths. He even had the cat follow him, letting it go inside every door that opened, hoping to find a glimmer of hope.

When the time on the fat man's watch reached 6:30, Zhang Wenda, who had been having difficulty breathing, finally stopped. There was no teleportation portal, and the black cat that had been there halfway through had not found any way out either.

Zhang Wenda glanced at his classmates who were already slumping against the wall, but he still didn't give up. He wiped the sweat from his face and struggled to stand up again. "I haven't given up yet, I can't give up! I'll search carefully again."

"Mouse, let's stop looking and go back to wait. Just follow the instructions in the guide, and Teacher Rabbit will definitely come to save us."

Just as the fat man finished speaking, he saw Zhang Wenda, who was about to leave, suddenly stop. When he slowly turned around and looked at the fat man, a glimmer of hope appeared in his eyes. "Why?"

"what?"

"Why do we have to follow the rules in the guide?" "Because everything written in it is correct; that's why adults consider these things."

"The problem is, I'm an adult."

Zhang Wenda pulled out his guidebook for the Children's Palace and began searching through those inexplicable rules. "Why must we follow these rules? Why is following these rules always the right thing to do?"

Why pretend you don't see the black stones in the Go room? Why leave the classroom if you see more than three black stones, and tell the teacher if you see more than five?

Why should you tell your teacher if you feel different emotions in the model airplane room? Why should you tell your classmates if you encounter a problem?
Why shouldn't you fall into the trap of calligraphy studios?
At the brink of life and death, an idea kept surging in Zhang Wenda's mind, but he could never quite grasp it.

Zhang Wenda had never considered this question before, because he felt that the world itself was bizarre and anything could happen.

But when he started to think about these rules again with an adult mindset, he found that these rules were not inexplicable; there seemed to be some kind of pattern among them, a pattern that carried hope.

"A pen? Does anyone have a pen?!"

Upon hearing Zhang Wenda's call, a pencil that had been left in his schoolbag was handed to him.

Sweating profusely, Zhang Wenda quickly summarized all the rules in the Children's Palace Guide. He found that the rules could be roughly divided into two categories.

One type is risk avoidance, such as telling other students to be careful not to fall into the gaps in the model airplane room or the round pit in the calligraphy room. These are things that don't need to be considered.

Another type is the occurrence of anomalies, such as five black stones connected in a row in the Go room, feeling inexplicable emotions in the model airplane room, and finally seeing a strange creature in the children's palace.

Hundreds of meters underground, Zhang Wenda stared blankly at the Children's Palace guidebook that he had scribbled all over.

As they continued to sink, the oxygen inside the children's palace became increasingly scarce, and everyone began to experience oxygen deficiency, including Zhang Wenda, whose lips had started to turn purple.

However, Zhang Wenda seemed oblivious, staring intently at all the rules before him, trying to find a glimmer of hope.
Suddenly, the hand holding the pencil moved, drawing a large circle directly on the last section of the integrated rules.

Aside from all the risk avoidance rules, the last paragraph of all other rules provides a final solution: tell Teacher Rabbit and let him handle it.

Suddenly, an idea struck him, and he blurted out, "This isn't right!"

"What?!" The fat man who had fainted woke up and then fainted again.

“There’s a contradiction here, something’s not right. Some of these rules are making a mountain out of a molehill! They even have a rule specifically to remind us that we might trip over a small hole in the model airplane room. It’s impossible for the rabbit to care about us like that.”

"If he cared about us that much, he wouldn't have sent us to the Youth Palace to collect materials from living people in such a dangerous situation. It's no different from using child laborers as miners! The mortality rate is too high!"

As Zhang Wenda pointed out the contradictions, he spoke faster and faster, his eyes growing brighter and brighter.

He remembered the individual black Go stones in the Go room, and the row of eyeballs in the youth palace.

"So there's only one possibility: the youth palaces we were asked to collect from in the past were all dead! Not asleep or in any other state. Only dead youth palaces are dangerous enough for kids like us to collect from! And only such places can be called youth palaces for children!"

At this moment, Zhang Wenda finally found the idea that had been on his mind. "There are never any rules that are completely arbitrary! Behind every rule lies a correct logic!"

The only one who hadn't fainted, a thin man with glasses, pushed up his nose and asked, "So what does this mean?"

Zhang Wenda looked out the window at the soil that was still slowly moving. Judging from its color and texture, it could now be said that it was not soil but rock.

He looked at the sliding rocks outside the window, and the huge outline of the cave and the general habits of the youth palace flashed through his mind.

"The living fall down, the dead rise up, you know? I once read about the exact opposite in a book, whales."

"When a whale dies, it gradually sinks to the seabed. Once it reaches the seabed, its flesh and blood will nourish the marine life. When a whale falls, all things come to life."

The white chess pieces he had collected, along with liquid happiness and the image of another youth palace, and various details that he had noticed or had not noticed before, appeared in Zhang Wenda's mind, and his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

"I mean, what if the Youth Palace is also a whale? A subterranean whale that lives underground? Unlike whales, after they die, they gradually rise to the surface under pressure, and eventually their carcasses nourish us surface creatures?"

(End of this chapter)