Chapter 338: Youth Palace

The set square wobbled gently, conveying a hint of happiness to Zhang Wenda. All of its former aggression was gone.

“Thanks for coming to save me. By the way, why are you here?”

Zhang Wenda stroked it and stood up. He looked around at the decor again: the famous quotes on the walls, the rusted windows, the “Celebrate June 1st” banner that hadn’t even been torn down, the yellowed light bulbs. Nothing had changed. It was still the same Youth Palace. Only he had changed.

Of course, Zhang Wenda understood what this place truly was. But it seemed that with the return of the color yellow, he could maintain this disguised appearance indefinitely, even without Old Ding.

As he walked down the corridor, his crisp footsteps echoed. His fingers brushed lightly against the wall. As his understanding of other matters grew, so too did his insight into the Youth Palace.

‘I think I’m starting to get it now. You floated up to the surface not because you died, right? It was because you were missing the color red? The red I obtained back then… I passed it to you, and that’s what woke you up?’

As Zhang Wenda quickly transferred the color red along the wall, the Youth Palace’s happy emotions instantly grew even more cheerful.

‘Or did you actually die, and that’s why you fell to the surface—a whale fall? Is red your life force? Can you be revived if you’re replenished with it?’

However, the Youth Palace couldn’t answer Zhang Wenda’s questions. It could only convey simple emotions. As for what truly happened back then, he could only guess for now.

Zhang Wenda walked to a window and peered out into the pitch-blackness. ‘I never would’ve thought a land whale could actually live in water.’

He raised his flashlight and shone it outside. Instantly, some underwater shadows that sensed the light lunged toward him, startling Zhang Wenda into quickly pulling the flashlight back.

‘So those things are attracted to light?’ As Zhang Wenda’s brow furrowed in thought, he seemed to have discovered a new rule for this area. Just then, the Hippocampus floating nearby quickly recorded it.

And just then, the entire Youth Palace began to shake violently, and a strong sense of panic washed over him.

‘What’s going on? What’s wrong with it?’ Zhang Wenda was startled.

When he saw the giant set square, globe, and stone sculpture aggressively closing in on the floating Hippocampus, he immediately cried out to explain, “Don’t worry! Relax! That’s part of me! It’s not an enemy!”

Zhang Wenda quickly poured a large cup of the liquid happiness concocted by the Little Black Cat into the model aircraft room, and the Youth Palace’s agitated emotions finally calmed down.

With the Youth Palace stabilized and the immediate danger of suffocation averted, he now had to find a way to get out of this godforsaken place.

Reaching out to touch the wall again, Zhang Wenda said, “Can you help me find a way to leave this body of water? After that thing dragged me down, I couldn’t find the surface where I entered anymore. I almost drowned.”

“That thing seems to have some kind of ability. It instantly pulled me from a very shallow Shallow Water Area to a deep water area, so I’m not sure where I am now.”

He wasn’t sure if the Youth Palace could understand his words, so he did his best to convey the desperate feeling of wanting to leave.

‘Since retracing my steps won’t get me out of this vast body of water, my only hope is to rely on this thing.’

‘It’s lived here for so long, so it must be very familiar with the area.’

Soon, the Youth Palace began to move. But judging by the sensation of weightlessness, it wasn’t floating upward, but diving downward.

“Are you sure it’s down?” Zhang Wenda asked hesitantly. “Any deeper and we’ll be on the seabed, won’t we? Are we going the wrong way?”

Time ticked by. As they continued their deep dive, Zhang Wenda found his breathing growing shallow. At this rate, they had to have descended at least several thousand meters.

‘The exit is really this deep? I could’ve suffocated to death and still never found it.’

As they continued to descend, a fluorescent glow gradually appeared outside the window, allowing Zhang Wenda to see what was out there. Here, in the depths of the seabed, he saw the long, uniform light strips that ran along the ceilings above pools.

He saw pools—or more precisely, unformed ‘pool larvae.’ Some were palm-sized, some were several meters wide, and some were nearly fully formed. The light pillars for these pools were also of varying lengths.

‘Don’t tell me these pools weren’t built by someone, but actually grew here in the deep sea?’ Zhang Wenda stared at the scene in disbelief.

No one answered his question, just as no one could answer whether the Youth Palace had appeared on the surface because it had died or because it lacked its red power. Everything was an unknown. All he could do now was guess, relying on his imagination as Area 2 barely revealed the tip of the iceberg.

As Zhang Wenda watched, engrossed, he spotted some monsters. They were deep-sea creatures, mesmerized by the white lights on the seabed. The very same monsters that had used a trap to ambush him now finally revealed their true forms.

It was hard to describe its appearance. It had a single, ferocious eye and a shriveled, fish-like, translucent body that left its internal organs clearly visible. The haphazard tentacles on its body weren’t surprising. What struck Zhang Wenda as odd, however, was that the creature had three large discs growing on its head. Some of them were black, others transparent.

The creature’s coloring was indistinct, making it almost completely invisible in the water. Zhang Wenda hadn’t noticed at all that the enemy he had fought before had such things growing on it.

Just as Zhang Wenda watched in astonishment, he saw the monster raise one of the discs in front of itself and quickly dive in. Ripples spread across the disc’s surface, and the monster vanished in an instant.

‘What?! Those discs are portals?!’ Zhang Wenda pressed himself against the glass, watching the scene unfold in utter disbelief.

But as Zhang Wenda observed more closely, he soon realized something was off. The ripples… they were ripples in water. ‘That’s not a portal,’ he thought. ‘It’s water. Each of those discs is a pool of water.’

‘But why?’ The more he learned, the more confused Zhang Wenda became.

‘Area 1 was dangerous, but at least its logic was straightforward. I can’t make any sense of the logic in Area 2 at all.’

Just as Zhang Wenda was pondering what those things were, the Youth Palace suddenly noticed something. It began to swim rapidly, charging toward one of the nearly-formed pools on the seabed.

Compared to the water in the other pools, the water in that one was exceptionally clear and transparent.

With a SPLASH, the Youth Palace leaped out of the water. The view outside the window instantly brightened, and a vast, circular pool appeared before him.

‘We’re out?’