Chapter 376: Fable

Atop the tallest building in the center of Forest City, Zhang Wenda and Hu Maomao stood upon a pool of blood, their eyes locked.

Hu Maomao stared at Zhang Wenda in disbelief. “You don’t know? How could you possibly not know? You killed all these people, and you’re telling me you don’t know?”

“I… how would I know? All I did was draw two lines on that monkey at the zoo with a red crayon,” Zhang Wenda explained, his words feeling useless. “Besides, it doesn’t make any sense! I clearly only drew on one monkey, so why did so many people suddenly die?!”

Floating in mid-air, Hu Maomao pressed her lips together, saying nothing. Her brow was furrowed in deep thought.

As the two stood in silence, Wang Shaojie, who was at the edge of the building, pointed outward. “Chief, you have to see this.”

Zhang Wenda walked over to him and saw a dense flotilla of boats churning the dark red, blood-tainted water, frantically fleeing the city toward the swamp.

Laden with bags of all sizes, they were clearly residents of the city. With faces full of terror, they looked back at the forest city that had been their home, as if the entire blood-red metropolis had transformed into a horrifying, life-devouring monster.

When one of them happened to lock eyes with Zhang Wenda on the rooftop, they immediately dropped their head in fear, their body trembling uncontrollably.

The battle had taken place right in the city; it would have been impossible for it to go unnoticed. In their eyes, Zhang Wenda was now more terrifying than the most dangerous forbidden zone.

It was predictable that this area, once destined to be a major human settlement, was about to experience a massive exodus.

“If they want to run, let them. I don’t give a damn if they die. You, go back to the pool and send word for our people to come and take control of this city.”

“Uh… right.” Wang Shaojie hurriedly left, taking with him several of the clowns who had been assigned to protect him on the way.

With Wang Shaojie gone, the only ones left on the rooftop were Zhang Wenda, Hu Maomao, and that “garbage bag,” Jinfeng, who had just pulled the plastic bag back over his head.

‘It seems I’ve gained some kind of incredible ability through Yellow, but its mechanics aren’t as clear-cut as Blue and Red. My top priority right now is to figure out what this power of mine actually does.’

Feeling vexed, Zhang Wenda paced in a few circles before turning to Jinfeng. “Right. You seem to know a lot about that other world. Come here. Tell me what’s really going on with all this.”

Jinfeng, however, appeared completely unruffled. He began to explain with ease, “I’ve told you before. This region is formed by the overlapping of three worlds. With the help of my friend, I can use mushrooms to travel freely between two of them.”

“That giant parrot?”

“You can call him Damin, actually.” As soon as he said this, he held out another handful of mushrooms to Zhang Wenda. “Here. My friend needs to see you. We should go meet him together.”

“Is that right?” Zhang Wenda eyed the mushrooms, which were arranged in the shape of a key, with extreme hesitation.

He recalled the bizarre transformation he’d undergone after eating the mushrooms before. ‘Could it be? Was that how I entered the zoo last time? By eating mushrooms?’

After a moment of thought, he tentatively stuffed the mushrooms into his mouth.

And so, Jinfeng nearly succeeded where the entire Big Circle, with all its might, had failed: killing Zhang Wenda.

His breathing stopped, his heart seized up, and his head swam. As the symptoms took hold, Zhang Wenda felt his life force rapidly draining away. His vision went black, and he collapsed.

He was moments away from being poisoned to death. Fortunately, thanks to the damage distribution from the Youth Palace, Zhang Wenda managed to cling to life.

Hu Maomao rushed to support the weakened Zhang Wenda, helping him lean against a wall. “Why would you believe him? You said it yourself—he’s a madman! Are you going to act crazy just because he is?”

“But he… he really can go to the zoo,” Zhang Wenda said, completely baffled.

Jinfeng tried to run over and explain, but Hu Maomao shooed him downstairs to gather supplies.

Hu Maomao pulled a bottle of water from her satchel and held it to Zhang Wenda’s lips. “Drink some of this.”

Zhang Wenda took the water bottle and took several large gulps. The violent cramping in his stomach finally eased a bit. “Well, it wasn’t a total waste. At least I’ve ruled out one possibility. This ability must have come from my Yellow power.”

Hu Maomao snorted and squatted down beside him. “All right, that’s enough. Since we don’t know what’s going on, let’s try to make some initial deductions based on the information we have so far.”

Zhang Wenda took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. You already know pretty much everything that happened on my end. Why don’t you start by sharing what you saw?”

He was dying to know what the things he’d done in the zoo looked like in the real world.

Through Hu Maomao’s ability, fragments of her experience began to replay in Zhang Wenda’s mind like a film projector. “First, one thing is certain: nothing in the zoo is what it appears to be.” And just like that, a complete sharing of their information began.

Everything Hu Maomao had seen now appeared in Zhang Wenda’s mind’s eye.

He then saw it: at the moment his life was hanging by a thread, he had transformed into a golden light—or rather, a cloud of mist. All attacks passed right through it.

The man in blue, who seemed to know something, lost his unflappable composure for the first time. A look of panic crossed his face as he charged headlong into the mist.

But moments later, he staggered back out, one arm severed and his body covered in blood.

The mist, which constantly shifted through various shapes, began to pursue the man in purple. Utterly terrified, the purple-robed man led all his people in a hasty retreat toward the swamp outside the city.

As the mist swirled in the air, nearby swamp vines began to rapidly twist and grow, forming a lion dozens of meters long that let out a silent roar.

Ghastly green leeches in the murky water began to pile on top of one another, forming a roaring elephant. Swarms of black-and-white mosquitoes spiraled through the air, twisting into the shape of a distorted giraffe.

Under the influence of the golden mist, the entire swamp had instantly come alive. Any living thing that came into contact with these creations died a horrible death.

No attack, in any form, had any effect on the golden mist—not even the Shamate’s red-and-blue spear or the volley of shockingly powerful rockets.

As the battle was drawn deeper into the swamp, Hu Maomao’s shared memory ended. She had decided to stay behind to rescue the others.

However, by the time she reached the place where Zhang Wenda had been fighting, she found that both the Red and the Blue factions were gone.

There wasn’t much useful information after that, only that the golden, ever-shifting mist was somehow dragged back into the city, where the members of the Big Circle suffered devastating casualties.

The final scene was Zhang Wenda’s return, just as every last member of the Big Circle died.

Zhang Wenda replayed these memories, stunned into a long silence, still unable to make sense of it all. “This is impossible. It doesn’t add up. How could *I* have created the animals in the zoo? Weren’t they released by the monkeys?”

Hu Maomao opened her eyes again. “Based on the information we have, I think everything in the zoo is conceptual. It doesn’t represent individual beings. That’s why you could kill every member of the Big Circle by harming a single monkey. That’s why the leeches became the elephant, the mosquitoes became the giraffe, and the vines became the lion.”

“So… what does that mean?”

After a moment’s thought, Hu Maomao spoke again. “Do you know what a fable is? It’s not about concrete things, but a metaphorical story used to impart a deeper meaning. I think that zoo is a fable for the world.”

After organizing all the information in her head, Hu Maomao arrived at her own conclusion. “And you have the power to enter that fable—and even to change it. Wenda, do you realize what that means? It means you’re powerful. Far more powerful than you could ever imagine.”