It was already 1:30 a.m. when I got back to my rented room.
Yang Zheng put away his fishing gear and prepared to take a shower in the bathroom before going to bed.
As soon as he arrived at the bathroom door, he heard a rustling sound coming from inside.
When I opened the door, I was immediately startled.
"Holy crap, what the hell is this?!"
Inside the bathroom, the bucket that had held the small turtles had been overturned.
The small, dark yellow turtle that looked like a dorayaki has disappeared.
Instead, there was a giant turtle the size of a foot bath basin.
Conservatively estimated, this giant soft-shelled turtle must weigh at least 30 to 40 pounds.
It looks incredibly ferocious.
As soon as Yang Zheng appeared in front of it, the large creature suddenly raised its head, staring at him with fierce eyes, looking extremely terrifying.
Yang Zheng was startled by the giant turtle and quickly left the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
He's now afraid of this monstrous creature suddenly rushing out and biting him.
I've heard from elders that once a soft-shelled turtle bites its target, it won't let go unless there's thunder.
If it bites him, Yang Zheng estimates he'll have a large chunk of flesh torn off.
We must be careful to prevent this.
After standing at the door for a while and finding no movement inside, he cautiously opened the door again and peeked out to take a look.
The giant turtle was found to have retracted its head and was lying motionless on the ground.
"I need to find something to put it in, otherwise if it's lying in the bathroom, I won't be able to use the toilet or take a shower..."
Thinking of this, he went back and put his thick leather gloves back on.
Then, he carefully walked up to it and picked it up.
"Wow, that's heavy..."
There was a huge snakeskin bag in the rented room, which Yang Zheng put inside.
For safety, he also made some small holes in the snakeskin bag for ventilation.
Only after finishing all this could he finally go into the bathroom to take a shower.
It was almost 2 a.m. after I finished showering.
Yang Zheng lay in bed, glancing at his account balance every now and then—six figures!
Cool!
This is just the money from selling the pears.
Inside the small world, there are also four large mandarin fish and more than three hundred large carp and grass carp.
Oh, and there was that giant turtle in the snakeskin bag.
If they were all sold...
Doesn't that mean you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash on hand?
This amount of money is enough for him to pay off all his debts, and there will still be some left over.
If I enter the small world a few more times, I'll soon be able to become rich.
There's absolutely no need to worry about my father's medical expenses.
At that time, he will have a chance to buy luxury cars that were previously out of reach, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi.
Thinking of this, Yang Zheng became increasingly excited.
How can I possibly sleep!
He sat up and smoked several cigarettes in a row, becoming more and more energetic with each smoke.
I looked down at the label on the cigarette pack—1916
These are good cigarettes, I think they cost a hundred yuan a pack. They were all given to me by Lu Jiacheng.
You know what, Lu Jiacheng, the fishmonger, is indeed generous and magnanimous.
A pack of good cigarettes costs 100 yuan, and they'd give you two packs at once.
I really don't know what he does for a living? How does he get so much money!
"This cigarette is really good, very smooth, I'll have another one..."
Just as Yang Zheng took out a cigarette from the cigarette case, ready to light it again, he found that the lighter was out of gas.
I fiddled with the lighter for ages, sparks flew everywhere, but no flame came out.
He casually tossed the lighter into the trash can, preparing to go find a new one.
"There seems to be one inside the drawer!"
Thinking of this, Yang Zheng immediately went to the computer desk and opened the drawer next to it.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar black cloth bag appeared in the drawer, which startled him.
"Huh, where did this black cloth bag come from? I don't remember having one."
After thinking for a moment, he suddenly remembered.
This is the cloth bag we found on the little black-robed figure when we first entered the small world.
At the time, the bag was only the size of a coin.
Inside were Tai Chi beads and a dark yellow ancient book.
Because his attention was entirely focused on the Tai Chi Bead that could open a portal, he hadn't paid much attention to it.
After emptying the Tai Chi beads, he returned to his rented room and casually tossed the coin-sized cloth bag into a drawer.
I never imagined that this cloth bag would grow to such a size.
There's also an old book inside. I've got nothing better to do, so I'll take it out and study it to see if it's worth anything.
Thinking of this, Yang Zheng immediately took out the black cloth bag.
That dark yellow ancient book is still hidden inside the Budai Station.
Yang Zheng reached out and took it out, examining it carefully for a moment.
The dark yellow ancient book looks about the same thickness as an elementary school Chinese textbook.
There is a row of brown text on the cover.
The font is very strange, twisted and crooked, and feels a bit like the "pictographic script" of ancient times, but upon closer inspection, it also looks a bit like tadpole script.
It's really strange; given Yang Zheng's level of education, he simply couldn't understand it.
"What kind of script is this? Why is it so strange? Could it be the ancient script of this small world?"
Filled with curiosity, Yang Zheng opened the ancient book and slowly began to read it.
The ancient book is made of a very special material and has more than thirty pages in total.
Each page of paper was very thick and tough, feeling as if it were made of some kind of animal hide.
He looked through it for a long time, but it was all written in distorted and strange tadpole script, which he couldn't understand at all.
Finally, when he turned to the last few pages, in addition to a few strange fonts, there were also several illustrations.
One of the illustrations caught his attention.
The design is very simple: a perfectly round bead.
The bead is divided into two areas, black and white. There is a raised dot in the middle of the black area and another one in the middle of the white area.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the beads on the tour guide's desk were very similar to the Tai Chi beads in my hand.
Seeing this, Yang Zheng had an idea. He took out the Tai Chi Bead and compared it with the pattern in the ancient book. They were almost identical.
Instantly, he was intrigued.
However, what followed was an illustration that surprised him even more.
In the second illustration, near the raised dots in the white area of the Tai Chi bead, a rough, virtual pattern is drawn.
There were also some tadpole-like characters that I couldn't understand next to them.
There is also another illustration.
The illustration is of a small door, through which a group of tiny people are peeking out and looking around.
Upon seeing this, Yang Zheng was taken aback and frowned, saying, "Why does this little door in the illustration seem like the interdimensional portal I open every day?"
According to the virtual patterns in the illustration, the translucent bubbles in the white area of the Tai Chi Bead are indeed the buttons for opening the portal between the two worlds.
When the portal is closed, a semi-transparent bubble appears in the black area.
Yang Zheng stared at the illustration for a long time, but he still didn't fully understand what it meant.
He then turned to the last page of the ancient book.
The illustration before him immediately made him frown even more deeply.
The illustration still features the Tai Chi bead pattern.
The difference this time is that it's the black area of the Tai Chi bead.
In the black area of the Tai Chi bead, there is a raised dot, and next to it is a rough virtual pattern.
There are several rows of twisted tadpole-like characters on it.
Then a huge portal appeared.
Inside the portal, a towering, grotesque giant emerged, looking extremely eerie.
Yang Zheng stared at the illustration for a long time.
I still couldn't understand what it meant.
He lowered his head and pondered for a moment, then muttered to himself, "Judging from the illustration of the Tai Chi Bead, pressing the button in the white area should open the portal to the small world. But the button in the black area should be for closing the portal to the small world."
"But the illustration seems different. It seems that pressing the black button will reappear a huge portal from which a hideous giant emerges..."
"No, no, that's definitely not right."
"There's something wrong with this ancient book; it's probably just scribbles."
"I've used the Taiji Pearl so many times, and each time it only creates a portal to the small world. The giant portal like the one in the illustration has never appeared."
"If it had really appeared, I would have seen it already..."
Upon closer reflection, he instantly realized what was happening.
"Could the ferocious giant in that illustration be referring to myself?"
That doesn't seem right either!
In the illustration, besides a small portal, there is also a much larger portal.
All of them require the Tai Chi Bead to activate.
Oh my, it's so complicated and mysterious.
Yang Zheng's head was throbbing from thinking, so he simply gave up trying.
The problem is that he doesn't recognize the text, so he can't understand the meaning of the illustrations.
Otherwise, you can understand it from the text next to the illustration.
He carefully put away the mysterious ancient book and then stuffed it back into the drawer.
He had already planned it out. He would go to the small world later, capture a little person, and have the little person translate all the text in the ancient book.
"It's getting late, I should go to sleep. We still need to figure out how to sell the fish tomorrow..."
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