Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Attack
The mechanical pencil clattered as it rolled across the floor. Zhang Wenda’s gaze followed it as it moved slowly over the concrete. When it stopped, he froze.
He glanced out the sunlit window, an absurd thought entering his mind. ’Is this damn place haunted in broad daylight?’
But before he could figure out what was happening, his heart suddenly clenched. His pulse quickened, and he was instantly overcome with a sense of impending doom.
The next second, a searing pain shot through his left leg with a tearing sound. Zhang Wenda stumbled and fell. When he looked down, he saw a line of blood slowly seeping through his pants.
The sudden attack left Zhang Wenda dumbfounded. He looked around his familiar old home in a daze but couldn’t find any sign of an enemy.
Before he could even begin to understand what was happening, intense pain washed over him. All sorts of cuts and bruises started spreading rapidly from his leg up the rest of his body.
"Why? What’s attacking me? What did I do wrong?!" Zhang Wenda scrambled into a corner, raising the flashlight in his hand to try and block the assault.
But it was futile. No matter how he tried to defend himself, the wounds appeared out of thin air directly on his skin, beneath his clothes. There were all kinds of injuries, but the one constant was a pain so intense it felt like his flesh was being carved from his bones.
The agony wracking his entire body nearly made Zhang Wenda pass out. But a powerful will to survive forced him to endure the pain and think about what was happening.
’What did I do wrong? Why is it attacking me?! There has to be a reason!’
After quickly replaying the preceding events in his mind, Zhang Wenda’s gaze locked onto the static-filled television.
’Could it be because I ate the TV’s steamed bun? Is *it* angry?!’
Zhang Wenda had no idea where such a bizarre idea came from, but right now, he would do anything to make the pain stop.
’Meat!? I need to find a piece of meat to hang back up there!’ Zhang Wenda frantically scanned the room, trying to find something to replace the steamed bun.
But the entire room could be taken in at a glance. Forget meat, he couldn’t even find another living creature. And in his current state, there was no time to run out, buy some meat, and run back.
The pain made Zhang Wenda grit his teeth, nearly curling into a ball. Just when he thought it was hopeless, that he was about to die right here, a flash of inspiration struck him. He looked at his own reflection in the mirror.
With almost no time to think, Zhang Wenda endured the agony wracking his body and rushed forward. He grabbed the string from the TV antenna—the one that had held the steamed bun—and wrapped it around his own wrist.
As he let his arm hang limp, there was a sharp CRACKLE, and the image of a crosstalk performance finally reappeared on the television.
"Well, well~ Look what we have here. A damn out-of-towner, come here to beg for food?"
As the sounds of the crosstalk performance filled the room again, Zhang Wenda’s body still throbbed with searing pain, but the intensity finally stopped increasing.
Seeing that the mysterious assault had finally stopped, Zhang Wenda, who was drenched in a cold sweat from the pain, let out a long sigh of relief. "Okay... I’m okay..."
’Setting aside how these injuries will affect my body, if that attack had continued, I honestly don’t know if I would have literally died from the pain.’
As someone who had been an adult, even he could barely take it, which just went to show how excruciating the pain had been.
’What the hell is going on with this world?’
Zhang Wenda looked around, his heart still pounding with fear. The house, once a place of fond nostalgia, now seemed utterly sinister and terrifying in his eyes.
’I was wrong just now. Dead wrong! This strange world isn’t safe at all—it’s fraught with danger! This damn place might actually kill me!’
"I..." Zhang Wenda swallowed hard, wiping a drop of blood from his chin. "After school, I have to find that damned Fatty and get some straight answers out of him!"
’Wait!’ At that thought, a chill ran down his spine. The image of Little Fatty in his mind suddenly took on a sinister expression.
’If this world has such huge problems, is Pan Dongzi still the same best friend I knew from my childhood?’
Zhang Wenda didn’t know. But if Pan Dongzi was truly his buddy, he definitely would have warned him about something this dangerous.
SLASH! Intense pain shot through him again. A red line appeared on the back of Zhang Wenda’s left hand, which began to swell slowly.
Then, an immense force sent him flying, slamming him hard against the concrete wall. The pain, which had just receded like a tide, came rushing back and engulfed his entire body.
Seeing that the television was still playing but the attack on his body hadn’t stopped at all, Zhang Wenda immediately understood.
’No! It’s not the TV! And it’s not about the meat! Then what the hell is happening?!’
A suppressed emotion exploded from within him. A wave of panic seized his mind, almost paralyzing him on the spot.
This sudden burst of negative emotion left him unable to do anything. He could only crawl under the bed and curl into the tightest possible ball, as if that could help him hide.
But it was useless. The unseen thing seemed to have no intention of letting him go. Wounds appeared on his body again and again.
Every wound brought a heart-piercing pain, but compared to the physical agony, the psychological torment was even more terrifying.
Each new scar brought with it a heavier wave of negative emotions. Crushed by this pressure, the pain made him wish for death. Even his attempts to think of a solution were constantly interrupted.
He tried swinging the flashlight around him, but it hit nothing. Its yellow beam revealed nothing at all.
As he swung it again, a piercing pain shot through his hand. CRACK! Two of his fingers broke, the joints swelling up visibly.
"What did I do wrong? What the hell did I do wrong?!" Zhang Wenda roared, gritting his teeth at the empty room.
But his question received no answer. Suddenly, the flashlight was ripped from his grasp. It flew up and then fell back down, carving a deep gash into his right forearm.
His injuries grew more and more severe, and his consciousness began to fade. Only a single question echoed in his mind: Why was this happening? If it wasn’t the TV, then what was it? What had he done wrong?
As his head grew heavy and sank, the battered and broken Zhang Wenda lost consciousness. In the final moment before his awareness faded completely, Little Fatty’s voice suddenly echoed in his mind.
"You’ll be in for it if you’re late!"
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