Infinite Nightmares

"A tree?" Hearing this, Zhang Wenda looked at the field of grass before him. ’This place is tiny. Where would a tree be? Or maybe to a kitten, tall grass counts as a tree?’

After confirming there was no danger, Zhang Wenda quietly kept the Lamp God in front of him and cautiously ventured inward, full of doubt.

After taking a few steps through the dense grass, Zhang Wenda parted the tall green blades and found a vast, azure sky laid out right before him.

The sky’s color saturation seemed to be cranked to the max, yet it also had the faded filter of an old photograph.

By the time Zhang Wenda processed what was happening, he realized the green grass around him was actually the leaves of a tree.

He looked down. The drop of several hundred meters to the ground below sent a shiver down everyone’s spine.

The group, who had been walking through what they thought was a field of grass, now discovered they were somehow standing on the canopy of a giant banyan tree!

’Holy crap, this place really doesn’t play by the rules. It completely ignores the laws of physics. The prairie grass is actually the other side of the tree’s canopy.’

"What is this place? I’m telling you, don’t even think about pulling any tricks." Realizing something was wrong, Zhang Wenda quickly grabbed their guide, Jia Junpeng, in a death grip.

"Didn’t you say you were looking for a place to trade? This is it, under the banyan tree." Jia Junpeng pointed down below the tree.

Only then did Zhang Wenda see that there seemed to be people under the tree, but from such a great height, they looked like ants.

"It’s so high. How do we get down?" Song Jianguo asked, standing on one foot at the edge, looking down and itching for a try.

"Just jump down," the Lamp God said calmly, pointing below.

"Jump down?! Are you kidding me? Why don’t you try jumping?"

No sooner had Zhang Wenda spoken than he saw the other man shove his hand away and leap down.

"Damn it! He’s trying to escape!" Song Jianguo yelled anxiously, watching his body fall rapidly.

Then, she yelled to the Black Cats, "Quick, turn into a plane! Go after him!"

Hearing this, the Black Cats behind them all tilted their heads in unison, and a large question mark simultaneously popped up over each of their heads.

It was a literal, tangible question mark. Zhang Wenda felt he could even reach out and pluck it from the air.

Ultimately, at Zhang Wenda’s suggestion, the Black Cats formed a giant parachute and began to slowly carry the three of them downward.

As they floated down from on high, Zhang Wenda could see a group of people under the mountain-sized tree, all with their heads down, writing something.

’There’s no trading here, no market at all. The Lamp God tricked me!’

As Zhang Wenda surveyed the scene, his excellent eyesight suddenly caught someone in the crowd of people—who were all standing still—making a run for it.

He recognized him in an instant. It was that damn Lamp God! "After him! That goddamn liar!"

At a whistle from Song Jianguo, the cats instantly shifted from a parachute into a hang glider and, catching the wind, began to rapidly pursue the Lamp God.

However, the Lamp God was clearly more familiar with the terrain. He exploited the hang glider’s poor maneuverability, darting left and right to steadily widen the gap between them.

’This can’t go on,’ Zhang Wenda thought. ’If this keeps up, he’s going to get away. After all the trouble we went through to find a guide, there’s no way I’m just letting him go.’

"Come on, Auntie! Get in! I’ll throw you down there to grab him," Zhang Wenda said, pulling out the flattened enamel mug.

Auntie knew the situation was urgent, so without another word, she dove straight into the mug.

Zhang Wenda held on to the cats with one hand, then wound up his right arm and forcefully hurled the enamel mug—with Auntie inside—straight at the Lamp God’s head.

When Zhang Wenda and Song Jianguo landed, they saw Auntie holding the Lamp God by the collar with one hand, slapping him back and forth with the other.

When the Lamp God was placed before Zhang Wenda again, his face was swollen up like a pig’s head.

"I mean, why’d you have to go and do that? Wouldn’t it have been better to just lead the way obediently?" Zhang Wenda asked, exasperated.

The Lamp God’s eyes welled with tears, and he looked incredibly wronged. "I was leading you! I wasn’t trying to run away!"

He then stretched out a hand and pointed to a fat dog at the feet of a man to their left. "That’s it right there. The flea market under the Wutong tree."

He then pulled Zhang Wenda over to the dog, lifted a fold of its thick skin, and dove right in.

He was clearly much larger than the dog, but this world of the web was just that illogical. He easily squeezed into the fold of skin on the dog’s back.

"Quick, follow him! He might try to escape again!" Zhang Wenda yelled, quickly diving into the dog’s fur after him.

When he squeezed out from within the fur, the scene before him opened up. Amidst strands of dog fur over three meters tall, a narrow path, wide enough for three people abreast, stretched out before him, lined on both sides with all sorts of stalls.

"See? I didn’t lie, did I? And look what your girlfriend did to me. It hurts so much," the Lamp God said from the side, clutching his face in a pained expression.

Just then, Song Jianguo also squeezed in, staring in amazement at the flea market nestled within the dog’s fur.

"Come on, let’s go take a look," Zhang Wenda said, dragging the Lamp God with him into the crowd.

"Hey! I already brought you here, why are you still dragging me around? My job is done!"

"Aren’t you a local? You must know this place better than we do. Stick around and show us the ropes, so we don’t get ripped off."

Hearing this, the Lamp God’s face twisted in agony. "Ah... I’m so sad, I wanna cry..."

"Can you say anything without using some tired old meme? Now get moving," Zhang Wenda said, shoving him forward.

When he saw the items for sale at the stalls, he was certain they had finally come to the right place.

At a stall not far to their left, a translucent, jelly-like substance squirmed inside a bottle. Various objects continuously materialized around the bottle before vanishing into thin air. A label on it read: "Dream-Come-True Software."

Right next to it was a bag of small, black, fingernail-sized cubes. The name written next to them was "Solidified Pain."

Next to that were bottles of a milky-white liquid, an old acquaintance of Zhang Wenda’s: "Liquid Happiness."

Zhang Wenda looked from one item to the next: a fish in a diving helmet, a front tooth wearing a watermelon-rind cap, all manner of strange and wonderful things were for sale here.

Zhang Wenda reasonably surmised that these items had probably been excavated from bizarre places like the Youth Palace or the library.

If things like these could be sold so openly, Zhang Wenda was certain this place absolutely had what he was looking for.

It wasn’t long before Zhang Wenda spotted something that piqued his interest: various Qi Gong manuals laid out on the ground as casually as vegetables at a market.