Chapter 32

Chapter 32

Back in the zoo,

Su Chen hurried all the way to the entrance of the Lion Enclosure.

Only then did his taut nerves finally ease.

He dropped onto the lawn beside the entrance, pulled the bottle of mineral water from his pocket, and drained half of it in one breath.

Then he lay on the grass and panted for a long time.

The trip through the Aquarium had been countless times more dangerous than the Elephant Enclosure.

Facing “It” directly, combined with an inescapable attack, had placed Su Chen under enormous strain.

Fortunately, he had found the note left by his predecessor, and his quick mind had identified the key information.

Together with a little luck,

that had allowed him to escape alive.

Even if Su Chen went through it again, he could not be sure he would survive.

He lay watching the blue sky for a long time before he completely calmed down.

Sitting up, he plucked a blade of grass and absently wound it around his fingers.

He began considering his next move.

After what happened in the Aquarium, Su Chen could see that “It” was indeed gradually breaking free of the rules.

“It” had developed new beliefs, such as its ideas about jellyfish.

That made it even more dangerous.

There were far too many uncertainties. Who knew how many new beliefs it possessed that had never been recorded in the rules?

If he accidentally fell into another of its traps, he would be doomed beyond recovery.

Su Chen knew he could never confront it directly again.

His incomplete body gave him no means to resist it.

He had to avoid it.

Yet according to his analysis, the Aquarium was clearly the exit.

If Su Chen wanted to leave, he really did have to return there.

That created another paradox.

He had no idea how “It” moved. If he encountered it in the Aquarium again, wouldn’t he simply be delivering himself to his death?

He needed a foolproof plan.

Then Su Chen remembered the notice posted inside the Aquarium.

[Our staff all wear red and conduct their routine daily cleaning and inspection of the Aquarium only after 12:30 a.m.]

He had not paid much attention to that sentence before.

Now, however, it provided crucial information: the Aquarium had staff!

But during his earlier visit, Su Chen had not seen a single one.

That suggested their shift had not yet begun.

Combining that clue with the rule stating that the Aquarium was routinely cleaned and inspected at 12:30 a.m.,

Su Chen inferred that the staff in red might work only after midnight.

An Aquarium would normally operate during the day.

Working at night was clearly unusual.

A bold guess was that this schedule protected the staff from “It.”

In other words, “It” would not appear in the Aquarium during that period.

Su Chen narrowed his eyes. He believed he had found an opening.

It was worth the risk.

With a plan in place, his priority was to recover his strength.

Since he could not act until midnight, he might as well sleep first.

He was inside the Lion Enclosure, so his personal safety was assured.

With that thought, Su Chen lay back down.

He had eaten nothing all day and drunk only half a bottle of water.

Combined with the constant tension, he was truly exhausted.

Now that he finally had a chance to rest, he soon fell asleep.

He slept deeply,

as though he had not enjoyed such peaceful sleep in a very long time.

In his dream, he first saw himself become an elephant.

Wielding his tusks, he fought seven or eight elephants with rabbit ears.

Despite being outnumbered several times over, he showed no fear and fought with extraordinary courage.

In the end, he defeated every enemy. The bizarre elephants scattered in panic, fleeing blindly before vanishing into thin air.

Once they were gone, he transformed back into a human.

Su Chen felt warmth on his arm.

Looking at his left arm, he found that an opponent’s tusk had wounded him during the fight.

He paid the injury no mind and decided to treat it after returning.

Then his body jolted. The scar on his arm suddenly seemed familiar.

“Isn’t this the scar from the security guard’s arm?”

Su Chen exclaimed in shock.

He hurriedly took out his phone and opened the front-facing camera.

The face on the screen was the security guard’s.

Su Chen was startled.

His vision went dark, then bright again.

To his astonishment, he found himself in a mist-shrouded world.

He looked around.

The place seemed filled with smog, and visibility was less than five meters.

Su Chen switched on his phone’s flashlight and felt his way forward.

Before long, the outline of a metal sign gradually appeared in the mist.

He quickened his pace and approached it.

As he drew closer, the writing became clear.

Goat Enclosure!

Su Chen stared at the three large Chinese characters in confusion.

He remembered no such area on the map.

As he wondered about it, his body unconsciously walked into the Goat Enclosure.

After following the path for about ten minutes, the mist before him gradually thinned.

Taking advantage of the clearer view, he looked around.

Then he was utterly stunned.

The sky above was transparent like glass.

On the other side of that glass was the zoo.

Directly overhead stood the terrifying Elephant Enclosure.

Pure white elephants with rabbit ears grazed on the grass.

Su Chen hurriedly looked away, afraid the strange elephants would affect his cognition again.

Turning east,

he noticed the familiar Aquarium embedded at the very edge of the sky.

Its upper half stood inside the zoo, while its lower half floated amid the smog.

No matter how he looked at it, this floating Aquarium resembled a sinister city in the sky.

Su Chen was deeply shocked.

Then he abruptly realized that, according to his earlier conjecture, the Aquarium lay between the surface world and the Otherworld.

Didn’t that mean he was now inside the Otherworld?

But how had he entered it?

He could remember nothing about that.

While he struggled to think, a ray of sunset passed through the transparent canopy and fell across him.

He turned and thoughtfully watched the crimson sun sinking in the surface world.

Distorted by the canopy, its light brought Su Chen no warmth.

Instead, it seemed eerie.

Before long, the afterglow faded and the sun sank below the horizon.

The Otherworld seemed to grow even darker.

But before Su Chen could look away,

a pitch-black sun dropped beneath the surface world’s horizon and appeared on the transparent dome to the west of the Otherworld.