Infinite Nightmares

Chapter 321: Chapter 317: Changes

‘The sky… it’s dark?’ A nervous Zhang Wenda looked up at the sky, which had turned a dark blue. It wasn’t quite black, more like the moment just before dawn.

When he whipped his head around to look at the gym equipment, he found it was still moving—moving frantically, as if a group of invisible things were clambering all over it, using it with wild abandon.

SNAP. Suddenly, a light illuminated the dim area. It came from the blue glass of a top-floor apartment in the residential complex to the left; the living room light had abruptly switched on.

As if in a chain reaction, the lights in all the complex’s rooms began to switch on, floor by floor.

But this change didn’t make the area feel more lively; on the contrary, it only made it feel more bizarre.

This sudden turn of events caught Zhang Wenda completely off guard. He didn’t know what it all meant, but it was clearly not right.

His expression turning grave, Zhang Wenda immediately took action. He quickly hooked his blue scythe through the air, and as the door to his Inner World opened, he unhesitatingly dove inside with everyone else, planning to use the Inner World to temporarily isolate themselves from the outside.

Now, he and all the others peered warily through the slit at the incredibly bizarre scene outside.

One minute passed, then two, then three.

Just when he thought something even stranger was about to happen, nothing did. Outside, other than the lights growing brighter and the gym equipment continuing to move erratically, nothing else changed.

It was as if the lights had appeared just to give him a scare.

After a good while, seeing no other new developments for the moment, Zhang Wenda carefully poked his head out of the slit and observed the scene closely once more. Beside him, the Hippocampus was still rapidly recording everything.

“9:11. Area 1 sky color changed. Sky turned dark blue within 3.5 seconds. Ten seconds later, all residential lights in the complex activated. Other than that, Area 1 is confirmed temporarily safe. No current threat to consciousness-bodies.”

“Fuck! This is so annoying! I’d rather have enemies we can see and touch! I hate the atmosphere here! We worked so hard to become 03s, so why can’t we even use our powers?!” the red monster roared frantically from the side.

Agitated and with no target to attack, it even tried to turn the sharp tip of its scythe on itself, but the blue rabbit stopped it just in time.

“Stop yelling. Both of you, quiet down.” Having temporarily confirmed there was no danger, Zhang Wenda stepped out with his right foot and vaulted back outside to observe the blue-hued complex.

‘Could it be that, like the great Thought Waves of the past, this place has its own rules?’ This was the first possibility that occurred to the adventure-experienced Zhang Wenda.

Just as Thought Wave Two required one to have a job, this strange place might also have its own set of rules.

‘But what kind of rule is ‘everything turns blue’? Just a color change, with nothing else attached?’ Zhang Wenda wondered as he began to carefully circle the residential complex again.

So far, he hadn’t been punished in any way, which proved that if this place did have rules, he hadn’t broken any of them yet.

However, Zhang Wenda saw this as a potential turning point. After all, change always brought something new, and perhaps he could find a way to escape the complex within it.

If nothing ever happened and everything stayed the same, he feared he’d be trapped in this area forever.

“Do you smell that?” the blue rabbit suddenly asked, twitching its nose beside Zhang Wenda.

“Smell?” Zhang Wenda closed his eyes and took a gentle sniff. He realized the scent of burning wild grass from earlier in the day had vanished at some point, but he couldn’t smell anything special now.

“I don’t smell anything. Are you sure you’re not mistaken?” Zhang Wenda turned to the blue rabbit, confused.

The blue rabbit shook its head. “I’m not mistaken. A rabbit’s sense of smell is very keen. There’s definitely a smell. It’s some kind of fragrance.”

“A fragrance?” Zhang Wenda thought for a moment, then turned to look at the one-eyed black cats poking their heads out of the entrance to the Inner World.

Although Zhang Wenda couldn’t understand feline speech, the Little Black Cats fortunately could. At his request, a large black dog formed from Song Jianguo’s Black Cats appeared beside him and barked twice.

“Go. Find it. See where that fragrance is coming from.”

The large black dog lowered itself to the ground, sniffing earnestly, and led Zhang Wenda back into the deep-blue residential complex.

No matter how many times he walked through it, the complex remained unchanged. But as he followed the big black dog, Zhang Wenda gradually began to smell something too—a savory, meaty aroma, with a hint of spice and garlic.

After concentrating for a moment, Zhang Wenda immediately identified the smell. ‘This is… stir-fried pork with peppers? Someone’s cooking dinner?’

He hadn’t eaten in a while, and the enticing scent made him swallow hard.

The closer they got, the stronger the smell became. Finally, the black dog stopped in front of a ground-floor apartment in one of the complex’s buildings.

By the time they reached it, he didn’t need the rabbit’s reminder; he could smell it clearly. He could even hear the sound of a sizzling wok from inside.

The blue glass was supposed to be reflective, meaning that with the lights on inside, he should be able to see in from the outside. But bizarrely, Zhang Wenda couldn’t see a thing.

‘Someone’s cooking!’ Zhang Wenda stared at the window, arriving at a startling conclusion. Someone was actually cooking dinner in this complex? In this place?

He didn’t want to alert whoever was inside. He just gave a slight wave to his side, and the blue rabbit nodded immediately, taking the red one to circle around and enter the building from the back.

Before long, Zhang Wenda heard knocking from the direction of the door. The sizzling from the wok abruptly stopped. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK…

The knocking grew faster and more intense, like a drumbeat, and the fragrant aroma vanished as if it had been frightened away.

Just then, with a soft click, the window opened from the inside. The red monster poked its head out and looked at Zhang Wenda. “There’s no one inside.”

“What? How is that possible?” Zhang Wenda looked through the open window at the stove. There wasn’t even a wok on it, let alone one that could have been sizzling.

The smell of cooking in the air was gone, as if everything he had just smelled had been a lie.

But just then, from a window to his left, a tune suddenly and inexplicably started to play. DENG DENG DENG… “Good evening, viewers, and welcome to the Evening News.”