Grotesqueries of the Old Domain

Chapter 40: The Adult World

On the street outside the park, Zhang Wenda looked up in disbelief at all the flesh-colored buildings before him, staring at the eyes and arms embedded within those towering structures.

Those eyes were still moving, those ribcages were still rising and falling—they were alive! Yet these living people were used as construction materials, as casually as if they were mere bricks.

What shocked Zhang Wenda even more was that within this city, not only were there normally-sized prefabricated people, but also prefabricated giants several times larger than a regular human!

These giants appeared immensely strong and burly, yet no matter how big or imposing they looked, their fate remained the same: they were turned into building materials, only with more to substitute.

The scene before him stunned him into stillness—everything defied physical logic and utterly shattered his understanding of the world.

He stood there for a long time, until he felt Song Jianguo biting his finger, finally snapping him back to his senses.

He quickly stepped back twice, drawing his gaze from the distant buildings and refocusing on the people by the roadside.

On the busy street, apart from Zhang Wenda, everyone else stared calmly at their phones, as if these skyscrapers made of living beings were nothing unusual.

Calling them people was not entirely accurate—besides the obviously stiff prefabricated ones and those who looked like ordinary humans, there were also many bizarre pseudo-humans with strange appearances.

There were lion dance heads in suits, TV-heads wearing long dresses, and even drone-heads floating through the air in Tang suits.

There were people with seven or eight eyes on their chests, muscle-covered bald heads, and tentacles instead of eyes.

Zhang Wenda was overwhelmed just looking at them—the adult world had all kinds of bizarre folks.

The only thing they shared was that all of them had some form of shackles or restraints—some around their necks, some on their feet.

Zhang Wenda stared at them wide-eyed, but they seemed unaware of any strangeness between one another.

"This... this is the adult world? Is this really the adult world?" Zhang Wenda swallowed hard, unable to calm his racing heart.

"Calm down, calm down." Zhang Wenda kept taking deep breaths to steady himself.

"It's fine, it’s okay, just a grotesque world—that’s nothing new. I’ve seen strange things before. No need to overreact. I can handle this."

He retreated back into the park, sat at the base of a large tree, and closed his eyes, slowly calming himself down.

"Are these fake? Or was everything before fake?" he wondered silently.

"No—that's not right. Maybe both are real, just seen from different perspectives—adults and children see things differently. But this... this difference is just too much! What the hell is going on in this place!"

After calming down a little, Zhang Wenda rolled up his sleeve to look at his forearm, trying to examine the new ability he had just acquired.

Compared to everything else, he still cared more about himself.

But then, something unexpected happened—his pupils slightly contracted as he noticed that though his forearm was covered in messy scars, not a single one was yellow or red!

"What the heck?! Where’s my special ability? Where’s my red core and yellow core?" Zhang Wenda rolled up his other sleeve, but that arm was the same.

"Could it be... I can’t go back again?" Zhang Wenda’s heart skipped a beat. The thought left his emotions tangled—he couldn't tell whether this was good or bad.

Thankfully, as he carefully inspected both of his hands, he finally saw red and yellow numbers on the dial of his black digital watch.

A red 0, and a yellow 11, displayed on the digital screen.

When Zhang Wenda saw the yellow 11 slowly tick down to 10, he let out a long sigh of relief. "Thank goodness."

The yellow core was gradually depleting. Based on the red core’s pattern, he should be able to return once the yellow core hit zero.

It was obvious now—the yellow core and red core granted completely different abilities.

If the red core provided power to his body and flashlight, then the yellow core allowed him to enter an entirely new perspective.

In this perspective, the monsters became prefabricated people, and Song Jianguo turned into a small black cat.

He didn’t know exactly what was happening or how the yellow core worked, but it was still within the bounds of his comprehension.

However, just as he breathed a sigh of relief, pain shot through his finger once more.

"Hiss!" Zhang Wenda drew back his bleeding finger and gave the small black cat in his arms a tap on the head.

"What are you doing? Don’t bite me! That hurts!"

But just then, Zhang Wenda realized why Song Jianguo had reminded him—those elderly folks exercising in the park were approaching again with unpleasant expressions, wielding newspapers and canes.

He glanced at the lush green park and thought to himself, "I can’t stay here. I need to get out first."

With that thought, Zhang Wenda hugged the small black cat and exited through the left-side path.

Stepping once more into that dazzling and surreal world, Zhang Wenda came to another halt.

He no longer needed to contemplate how strange the adult world was—he now had to think about his own safety.

Although he was temporarily safe, that didn’t mean he would be once he changed back—he had to get out of the library first.

But now came a critical issue—he couldn’t see the library in his current perspective. So how was he supposed to leave?

Everything around him looked like a regular street, but Zhang Wenda knew that in the alternate perspective, he was still inside the library. Just taking those few steps wouldn’t lead him to the exit.

If the yellow core energy ran out and he and Song Jianguo were still wandering inside the library, they’d be in big trouble.

He glanced again at the yellow core’s timer—roughly estimated, that "10" probably meant about ten minutes.

After thinking for a bit, Zhang Wenda came up with an idea. Though he couldn’t see the library now, Song Jianguo still could.

He bent down and set Song Jianguo on the ground, giving her a gentle push. "Jianguo, let’s go. While no one’s watching, take me out of the library."

To avoid miscommunication caused by the shift in perspective, Zhang Wenda even used hand gestures to repeat the request to Song Jianguo.

Whether she understood or not, she tilted her head, meowed twice, then began hopping forward.

Zhang Wenda followed, keeping an eye on his surroundings. Every moment brought something new to his vision. He even saw things flying in the sky—and he was sure they weren’t planes.

Compared to the previous world, which fused elements from various past eras, this place clearly had a much higher level of technology—much closer to the world he came from, yet an extremely abstracted version of reality.