Old Domain Bizarre

Chapter 5 Lollipop

"Children's Palace?"

Hearing this name, both unfamiliar and familiar, Zhang Wenda was taken aback. When did his small town ever have a children's palace?
He had never been to the Children's Palace before; he had only ever seen such things in math textbooks.

Question: It takes Xiaoming 10 minutes to get from his home to the Children's Palace. He sets off 4 minutes later, only to realize he forgot something. He immediately returns home at the same speed, retrieves the item, and then rushes back to the Children's Palace at a speed of 120 meters per minute. The total time taken is 14 minutes. What was Xiaoming's original speed in meters per minute?

This place sounds like a fun place to visit. When he was a child, he sometimes imagined how fun it would be, but now he doesn't think that way at all. Who knows what this awful place's youth palace is like?

"Are you going or not? If not, I'm leaving," Pan Dongzi said, feigning impatience, holding up his digital watch and looking at it again and again.

"Wait, wait a minute." Zhang Wenda quickly stood up and stuffed the student handbook into his pocket. "Shall we go now? Don't we have classes this afternoon?"

"It's Friday today! How can you have such a bad memory? We have to go to the Children's Palace on Friday afternoons."

"Then... do I have to go? What will happen if I don't go?" he asked hesitantly.

"How would I know what would happen if you didn't go? If I go, and you don't come, I won't be there for you," Pan Dongzi replied, adjusting the strap of his backpack.

Are all the other students going?

"More or less. Are you going or not?" Pan Dongzi continued to urge.

“I will go! I will definitely go!” Recalling the painful experience he had just had that morning, Zhang Wenda did not hesitate any longer and agreed without hesitation.

If missing class is this bad, who knows what the consequences of missing the Youth Palace will be? He definitely doesn't want to go through that again.

Facing this world of the past, he was unclear about many things, but there was one thing he had figured out: when things were unclear, he should go wherever the locals went, and following the locals was always a safe bet.

"You're going like this? Without bringing anything?" The fat man looked Zhang Wenda up and down.

"Bring things? What do you need to bring to the Children's Palace?" But seriously, when Xiao Ming went to the Children's Palace back then, what could he have forgotten to bring?
"Of course I'll bring it." The fat boy unpacked his backpack to show him.

When Zhang Wenda peeked inside, he was surprised to find that the bag, which should have been filled with books, was completely empty.

What appeared before him were some tangled ropes, some transparent glass bottles, some crumpled plastic bags, and a folded red and white snakeskin bag.

Zhang Wenda was completely baffled by all of this. "What...what are all these things? Do I need to bring all these things to the Youth Palace? So these are the things Xiaoming forgot to bring? What exactly is this Youth Palace?"

He had never been to any children's palace when he was a child, and could only imagine the place. But even though he had never been there, he instinctively felt that something was wrong with these things.

Zhang Wenda quickly flipped through the "Student Handbook" and found that there was no record of the Children's Palace at all.

He glanced at the contents of the fat man's bag again and asked, "Are these necessary?"

"Yes, we must bring it. The teacher told us to bring it in class."

"Teacher? What's the use of bringing all this?" Zhang Wenda stopped abruptly before he could finish his sentence. What a close call! If he had asked any more questions, would he have been attacked again?
With lingering fear, Zhang Wenda glanced at the "Student Handbook" and dared not gamble on the triggering conditions of this rule.

"Is that all? Okay, wait for me a moment, I'll go home and get it now."

When Zhang Wenda got home, he originally planned to take out the paper money he had hidden under the glass to buy something, but he actually found a dirty, tattered schoolbag. When he opened it, he found that in addition to some textbooks, there were also some similar containers inside. Judging from their condition, it was obvious that he had been to the Children's Palace before.

Seeing these marks, Zhang Wenda felt a little relieved; it seemed the Youth Palace was not dangerous.

He immediately picked up his backpack and prepared to go downstairs, but after thinking about it, he shook the heavy flashlight and finally put it in the left mesh pocket of his backpack.

"Keep it. In case something happens, it'll be a blunt weapon, something you can use." Zhang Wenda had tested its power when he was a child; it was more effective than a brick.

On the yellowish cement road, a group of students were walking towards the Children's Palace. Among them, besides Xiao Pang, there were other students who gradually gathered together.

Zhang Wenda found them all familiar, but upon careful recollection, he could no longer remember their names.

Most of them were male students, and at that age they probably wouldn't be able to hang out with girls.

Whenever the boys get together, they always start arguing about random things. Right now, for example, they're debating whether airplanes or tanks are more powerful.

"Of course airplanes are more powerful! Airplanes can fly! Can tanks fly? Do you know how high airplanes can fly?" Pan Dongzi said, gesticulating wildly.

"Can an airplane compare to a tank? Tanks have cannons! They can shoot down airplanes!"

But Zhang Wenda didn't have time to argue about such trivial matters. He took out a pen and, gritting his teeth, wrote a new rule in the blank space of the Student Handbook: "Avoid asking others too many questions."

Based on his two experiences of triggering the rules, he found that the rules in the student handbook were clearly ambiguous, and he needed to mark the rules more accurately based on his own feelings.

He then wrote down new rules: TV set number 6 should be used to hang meat, and tap it four times around 8 o'clock. After writing it down, he thought about it and crossed it out.

"Here you go." A lollipop wrapped in orange plastic appeared in front of Zhang Wenda.

Zhang Wenda was taken aback. His gaze followed the lollipop upwards and fell upon Pan Dongzi's carefree smiling face. "Orange-flavored lollipop, don't you like this? It'll make the pain go away."

Looking at the familiar packaging, Zhang Wenda couldn't help but feel a little touched. The wariness that had quietly risen in his heart towards this guy immediately eased a lot. It was rare that he still remembered that he liked to eat this when he was a child.

However, after he learned to smoke, he never ate candy again.

Zhang Wenda took it, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. The rich orange flavor instantly filled his mouth.

Although it's not very useful, this sentiment is truly rare. Perhaps this fat guy is indeed not a normal person, but it seems that his relationship with me is definitely that of best friends.

"How is it? Delicious, right?" The fat man pushed the other person's hand away and went back to discussing airplanes and tanks with the others.

However, just a few steps after Pan Dongzi took a few steps, something strange happened.

As he took a few sips of the sugar water, a feeling of joy welled up inside him, instantly lifting his spirits from their low mood and making him feel warm all over.

The wondrous effects didn't stop there; along with the changes in his inner self, his scarred body was also undergoing rapid transformation.

As the burning pain gradually subsided, the swelling and bruising on my body also began to decrease.

(End of this chapter)