Chapter 222: Found

After blurting out those words, he shoved the lollipop in his hand into his grandson's and rushed out without looking back.

"Grandpa! Grandpa!!" Hearing his grandson's cries behind him, he kept running forward, faster and faster, until he had left everything far behind.

As the surrounding city faded away like watercolors, the pink forest gradually returned.

As Zhongliang ran on, he gradually realized he had transformed from his own grandfather into his grandson.

"Huh?!" Snapping back to his senses, Zhang Wenda froze on the spot.

Certain past events began to surface, as if a veil had been lifted in his mind.

'Still, seeing this pink forest all around me... if I'm not mistaken, I must have escaped that so-called thought labyrinth. I'm just not sure how. It feels like at some point, my thoughts overlapped with my grandfather's.'

"That's it! The Qi Gong! I remember seeing it! My grandfather was wearing an aluminum pot on his head, floating in mid-air in a circle with other people!" Zhang Wenda recalled that his first dream after arriving here had been that very scene.

'In the labyrinth just now, the people practicing Qi Gong didn't fly at all.'

It was this contradiction that finally allowed Zhang Wenda to escape the thought labyrinth.

As Zhang Wenda recalled the memory, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off. 'But even if that's what I realized, why did Grandpa say those things back then?'

'He was by my side for so many years. He couldn't have been trapped in the Spiritual World that whole time, could he?'

Just then, a dark shadow flashed through the nearby bushes, startling Zhang Wenda.

'I can't stay here. Gotta go, gotta go. You're Zhang Wenda. You're Zhang Wenda. You came here to find the Hippocampus, so don't let the thought labyrinth mess with you! Focus.'

Zhang Wenda repeated this to himself over and over as he continued down the small path.

Whether his chanting worked or not, the next part of his journey was nerve-wracking, but thankfully, Zhang Wenda didn't fall into that strange thought labyrinth again.

After walking for about half an hour, he saw a drafty, asymmetrical house pieced together from various mirrors, standing alone in the middle of the pink world.

Even though he knew this was his own consciousness, he was still extremely cautious as he slipped through a crack in the house.

As soon as he entered, Zhang Wenda saw a giant, six-armed monster furiously writing something, and he almost blurted out, "Hippocampus?!"

The giant, bird-skulled monster was at least seven or eight meters tall. It glowed with a yellow light and was draped in a tattered cloth, its torso woven from writhing black tentacles. It hovered in mid-air, a pen in one hand and paper in another.

Its six hands were all rapidly recording something at once. The words glowed faintly, and the translucent sheets of paper they were written on nearly covered the entire floor.

Hearing Zhang Wenda's voice, the furiously writing Hippocampus stopped its arms—which had been moving so fast they were just a blur—and looked over through layers upon layers of lenses. "You've come at last, consciousness."

Hearing this, Zhang Wenda felt a wave of relief. 'It can communicate, and it recognizes me. This should be easy, then.'

Just as he was about to speak, the Hippocampus raised a sharp nail and pointed to a nearby mirror, inside of which sparks were constantly erupting. "Do you know what that is?"

"Those are sparks formed by the collision of subconscious entities. I need to record them to provide material for your future flashes of inspiration."

"And do you know what that is?" it asked, pointing to another mirror. Repetitive images played on a loop inside: the faces of people he'd brushed past at Bureau 507, the rows of prices at a supermarket.

"That is useless information. I need to transcribe it before destroying it to prevent it from taking up too much space. That is my job."

Seeing that the creature was about to continue, Zhang Wenda cut it off. "No, no, wait a second. I'm not here for a tour. Can you answer a few questions for me? If you have conditions, name them. I'm in a real hurry."

The Hippocampus tilted its head. "Why would I make things difficult for you? I am your Hippocampus. You may ask me any question, and I will do my best to answer."

"That's fantastic! I came here looking for the real me. Do you know where I can find what I'm looking for? And what is it, exactly?"

"The real you?" The Hippocampus looked at him intently. "Shouldn't you have guessed by now? The you that exists now is not the real you. Your blue, your red, and your yellow—the trinity—that is the real you."

'So I really do have to find those three!' Zhang Wenda had finally confirmed his objective.

"So where are they?" Zhang Wenda asked urgently.

This time, the Hippocampus didn't answer immediately. Instead, it looked toward a mirror on the left wall. "Don't you find it strange? Why have you returned to this world? Why do I exist? Aren't you curious?"

"You know all that?"

"No, I don't. But I want to know, which is why I'm asking you."

The creature's reply almost made Zhang Wenda cough up blood. 'Is this really the time for idle chatter?'

"Honestly, I don't care." Zhang Wenda shook his head firmly. "All I know is that if I find those three, I'll be able to make things I imagine appear in reality. It'll be a massive boost to my power, and that's all that matters to me."

The Hippocampus was silent for a moment before speaking slowly. "There is too much red."

"Of course I know there's too much red, but what am I supposed to do about it? Can't you just give me a straight answer?" Zhang Wenda's tone was anxious.

This time, the Hippocampus finally stayed on topic. "They left. They are not here. They went to the outside world. After they left last time, they never returned."

"That's impossible." Zhang Wenda rejected the claim outright. "I can still use their powers. And from what I understand, they *are* me, aren't they? The spiritual part of me? How could they have just run off?"

Recalling how he constantly switched between the three colors, Zhang Wenda was certain they couldn't possibly be separate individuals.

The Hippocampus earnestly refuted him. "Do you truly know yourself? If you did, why would you need to search for them?"

The creature's philosophical question made Zhang Wenda's head spin. "Look, I just want to know where I can find them."

"I am not lying. They went to the outside world. I saw them leave with my own eyes. So, if you want to find them, you must look outside. What you seek is not here."

"So you're telling me I went through all this hell just to come up empty-handed?"

"Regrettably, we who cannot leave this island can't help you in that regard."

Zhang Wenda turned to leave, but after only a few steps, he looked back. "Since we've met, I guess we can be considered friends, right? If I have more questions in the future, can I come find you again?"

'Another friend, another option,' he thought. 'Meeting this guy means the trip wasn't a complete waste after all.'

"No, we are not friends."

Just as Zhang Wenda's heart sank, the creature spoke again. "We are partners," the Hippocampus corrected.

"Alright then, partner! In that case, partner, could you shut down the thought labyrinth outside? I need to leave."

The Hippocampus looked at Zhang Wenda, considered for a moment, and then added a final piece of advice. "If you want an easier time searching out there, remember to drink the potion Ouyang Shuangdian gave you. If you maintain that state at all times, the trail of colors should lead you to them."