Chapter 11: Chapter 11: The Door
"Whatever happened, don’t panic. Tell me slowly." Zhang Wenda quickly reached out to grab the boy with glasses, steadying him.
Seeing that the boy with glasses was trembling too much to speak, Fatty, who was standing beside them, blurted out, "Haozi! A cat! There’s a cat in the calligraphy room!"
"A cat?!" Zhang Wenda froze. For a moment, he wasn’t sure if the cats in this world were the same creatures he remembered.
’If it was just the kind of cat I remember, they wouldn’t be this terrified.’
Zhang Wenda quickly pulled out the Youth Palace guide and flipped to the page on the calligraphy room. However, there was no mention of a cat. The picture of Old Ding on the page only instructed students to stay out of the large pit in the center of the room, though he had no idea why a calligraphy room would even have a large pit in the middle of it.
"Not that one. Ours is the standard edition; it’s missing some of the appendices. The teacher told us about the new ones at the start of class."
"Our literature teacher said there aren’t supposed to be any living creatures in the Youth Palace. If we see any other animals, it means we’re in deep trouble," the other students chimed in, all trying to explain to Zhang Wenda at once.
Just as they finished speaking, the lights began to flicker again. The Youth Palace, which should have been brightly lit, was now plunged into intermittent darkness.
This new anomaly filled the others’ eyes with even greater fear.
"Don’t panic. Everyone, stay calm." Zhang Wenda glanced at the digital watch on Xiaopang’s arm and saw it was already 5:10 PM.
"That’s about right. It’s almost time. With something like this happening, the teachers won’t say anything if we leave. Everyone, pack your things. We’re getting out of here right now!"
’I don’t give a damn what that cat is or what else is going on in the Youth Palace. At this point, nothing that happens in this godforsaken place would surprise me. The moment I sense something is wrong, my first instinct is to retreat.’
’I’d rather be punished for breaking the rules than stay in this hellhole a second longer.’
The others were clearly panicking. When they heard Zhang Wenda’s words, they instinctively treated him as their leader and gathered around him.
Supported by the boy with glasses and Xiaopang, a battered and bruised Zhang Wenda led the group back the way they came.
Just then, with a FIZZLE, the lights in the entire hallway dimmed again. This time, however, they didn’t come back on. Only one or two bulbs remained lit. Seeing this, everyone quickened their pace.
With a CLICK, Zhang Wenda switched on his flashlight, making up for the lost light.
In the gloom, Zhang Wenda felt as if something was stirring behind the closed doors of the rooms they passed. The atmosphere began to feel... wrong.
"Go! Move, now!" Zhang Wenda’s expression twisted into a grimace. He shrugged off the hands supporting him and started running, leading the others.
Thankfully, the hallway wasn’t long. Not even twenty seconds later, they reached the main entrance.
The moment Zhang Wenda aimed his flashlight beam at the wall, a cold chill shot up the back of his neck. The door was gone.
He reached out, his hand meeting only a cold, solid wall. The wooden door—the one that read "Serve the People"—had vanished completely!
At this, the others completely panicked. Several of them even burst into tears.
Clearly, even for locals like them, a situation like this was anything but normal.
"I was just thinking... is it possible..." A strained smile appeared on Zhang Wenda’s face. "Is it possible that the Youth Palace only opens the main door at 6 PM sharp?"
But Xiaopang, standing beside him, frantically shook his head. "No way. There’s always a door here, all the time."
"Besides... if we leave at 6 o’clock... we’ll miss our cartoons."
"Then what the hell is going on?!" Zhang Wenda’s head was about to explode. ’I just knew there was something wrong with every corner of this place!’
He whipped his head around to look at the boy with glasses, who was clearly a good student, and asked urgently, "I missed class this morning. Did the teacher say what to do if major trouble like this happens?!"
"She did!" The boy answered, tremblingly raising the Youth Palace guide in his hand. He quickly began tearing out the pages and sticking them in a corner of the hallway.
"The teacher said the rule is, if something goes wrong, we stand on the pages and wait. Teacher Rabbit will come and save us."
Hearing this, the other students began to do the same. They tore up their Youth Palace guides, plastering the corner with the pages until the floor was a sea of Old Ding’s face.
Zhang Wenda then watched as the students all huddled onto the papers, trembling as they anxiously scanned their surroundings.
"The teacher really said that?" Zhang Wenda asked, a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
"It’s true, really! Why would we lie to you in a situation like this?" Xiaopang whispered.
After following the teacher’s instructions, the students—some lying, some sitting on the pages—seemed to calm down considerably. They sat there peacefully, awaiting the so-called rescue from Teacher Rabbit.
Seeing their confident expressions, Zhang Wenda said no more and spread his own guide on the ground as well.
The minutes ticked by. Soon, every light bulb in the Youth Palace had gone out, leaving Zhang Wenda’s flashlight as the only source of light.
He flexed his hands, preparing for whatever might happen next. ’My left hand is fine, but my right is still broken. I straightened it out, but I can’t put any force into it without a lollipop to heal it.’
Zhang Wenda could hear the noises from within the rooms growing louder. He glanced at Fatty’s watch and saw that ten minutes had passed, yet Teacher Rabbit hadn’t appeared to save them. A knot of anxiety began to form in his chest.
Suddenly, Zhang Wenda’s sweeping flashlight beam froze on the left wall. Six black chess pieces, each sprouting countless centipede-like legs, were arranged in a neat row on the wall. The sight made his face turn ashen.
’The Youth Palace guide proved how critical this situation was. It seems things started going wrong back in the model airplane room.’
’First, the hole in the model airplane room was bigger than usual. Then the lights started flickering. After that came the inexplicable cat, and now these black chess pieces in a row. The situation is just getting worse and worse.’
He had no idea what was happening in the Youth Palace or what this place even was, but Zhang Wenda knew one thing for sure: the situation was deteriorating rapidly.
He tugged irritably at the collar of his short-sleeved shirt. Zhang Wenda realized the temperature inside the Youth Palace was starting to rise as well.
After another glance at the others, Zhang Wenda gritted his teeth and decided to trust the locals for the time being.
A few minutes later, growing agitated, Zhang Wenda tore off his T-shirt and undershirt, leaving him bare-chested. Even so, he was drenched in sweat from the heat.
Sweat seeped into his wounds, the stinging pain making his body tremble involuntarily.
He roughly estimated the temperature was at least forty degrees Celsius.
In the rising heat, the crayon drawings of Old Ding on the papers began to melt. Twisted trickles of wax slid from the corners of the drawings’ eyes and mouths, making the faces look sinister and terrifying.
When he started finding it difficult to breathe, Zhang Wenda decided he couldn’t wait any longer. ’If we just keep waiting,’ he thought, ’we’re going to suffocate in here!’
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