Puzzle Madness

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!
A loud popping sound—the purple skin of the Taro King shattered, revealing a towering pile of food inside: these taro products shot into the sky like fireworks or a fountain, cascading outwards.

"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 buy more from your shop after school. Amitabha." "But I'm still very strong here; or rather, I still have a bit of madness? 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."

The students' commotion began to subside - although the Taro King disappeared with the explosion, this misty and heterogeneous space did not collapse with the Taro King; this slightly reduced everyone's fear.

Some students started picking up taro food from the ground and stuffing it into their hard mirrored heads; but all they heard was a gurgling sound: their current body structure probably didn't support eating.
-
Ai Xi looked at the crowd that gradually dispersed and calmed down, and changed the subject:

"Do you think this place has anything to do with the Asia-Europe Post?"

"I had never even heard of this before, and it just popped up in the last couple of days."

She stood up straight and jumped up and down:

"I think it's as bizarre as a trip to space, and I saw it with my own eyes - this isn't one of those stories where the bus is going too fast and it's a ghost driving it."

"This kind of thing is much more elaborate than yours, Doudou. If Jingbo isn't counted, I still can't tell if she has super powers or not."

Doudou observed the other students from a distance, as if trying to gauge their emotional state:
"Well, it's hard to say. If this was really done with ecstasy, then there's a high chance they'll offend the Asia-Europe Post—"

"The agent I met earlier said that big companies keep stronger fanatics under surveillance?"

"Let's call this place, uh, Taro World, to commemorate the Taro King."

"It seems that Taro World doesn't have much lethality at the moment? But it's so expressive that it's perfect for making games, movies, or something like that."

Doudou spoke faster and faster, and the mirror spun around:
"If I leave it alone, it might actually be targeted by Asia-Europe Post. Could they use it as a special effects editor, editing tool, or a new entertainment medium?"

"This is much better than a terminal or a TV."

"It's not just sight and hearing, but also touch and smell. If I had a mouth right now, I could try to see if I could taste it. It's like that—that virtual reality."

"It seems that the criterion for Asia-Europe Post to judge whether a post is strong or not is how much commercial value it has."

(End of this chapter)