Chapter 8: The Well-behaved Little Rabbit_2

It had the face of a wolf.

A pointed snout, a broad mouth, a face covered in coarse, black bristles, and a pair of eyes full of cunning, at odds with its bulky physique.

Just like in the nursery rhymes, this wolf was in disguise as a large rabbit, seeking other rabbits.

"Hush...." the wolf-faced rabbit stretched out a ruby tongue, licking its snout. It split into a grin, revealing two rows of twisted, protruding sharp teeth. It then pulled one hand from its head, raising an index finger in front of its mouth, gesturing a sign of silence.

It was reminding me not to spill the secret!

This creature was dangerous!

It knew I could see it!

The alarm bells started ringing in Yu Liang's mind.

Why could only I see the real face of this rabbit wolf?

Because...

Am I the "monkey"?

Yu Liang quickly checked his hands and body at this thought. Luckily, he hadn't grown any monkey hair or a tail.

"Let's go. Just a bit further, and we'll reach the convenience store. We'll get some supplies there," Old Du called the other two, preparing to leave. He was very strict with time and tended to carry out his plans methodically.

Xiao Zhize followed right behind Old Du. Yu Liang lagged behind. He glanced back at the grassland on the other side of the lake. The rabbit wolf had already rounded a bush and disappeared from his view.

He briefly glanced at the sign that read 'Mingxin Lake', committing the name of the lake to memory, then quickly caught up with Old Du's pace.

There were monsters among the zoo's staff and the escaped animals, but regular visitors couldn't see them. The monsters knew that irregular visitors could, and they seemed intelligent, able to restrain their desires and behave rationally.

The only good news was that these monsters abided by their own rules. They acted under the unique guidelines of urban legends—they did have restrictions. Only in this way could visitors grasp a slim chance of survival.

Yu Liang thought about this as he picked some weeds off the roadside and gathered some pebbles and soil chunks, storing them in his inventory.

He wasn't quite certain what characters the soil chunks combined with his pieces could create, but keeping some "earth" radicals would always be useful.

Dike, slope, collapse...

The "soil" radical seemed to be ideal for constructing terrain?

As for the 'dike', he should be able to find shellfish in the zoo. 'Slope' was self-explanatory, a piece of skin would suffice. For 'collapse', he could look in an office, perhaps find wolfberries "杞" and extract the "wood" for a combination. The rest would be 'self', combined with 'earth' to complete it.

In just an instant, numerous thoughts flashed through Yu Liang's mind, and he mentally bookmarked these items. He wouldn't necessarily go looking for them, but he would keep them if he came across them.

Upon thinking about this, Yu Liang's understanding of the character rules became clearer. The correct way to deploy the character construction rules is by multiplying the combinations to form a character. There aren't many characters constituted by two concrete objects, like candle "烛" and broken "破". The majority of the component characters are composed of a component and an abstract object. These abstract objects can only be found in other characters, such as wanting to form collapse "圮", it's necessary first to find the abstract character "己" from "杞" wolfberry, which takes a secondary combination to get the desired character.

This rule seemed quite interesting. Once enough simple objects were obtained, you could become a mage, harnessing written characters to create and destroy this world.

So, things weren't too bad yet. At least, he was familiar with Chinese characters, and there hadn't been any danger on the way aside from that crocodile.

About a quarter of an hour later, Yu Liang had followed Old Du to a convenience store. The clerk was a woman in a red uniform. She merely said 'welcome' when they came in, then went back to her work.

"Don't think too much, don't ask too many questions, take what you need. Everything on the food shelves is edible. Everything else is not," Old Du whispered to the other two. "Everything here costs traveler points to buy. Each traveler gets a certain amount of points each week, enough for basic needs. If you need more points, you can earn them by doing 'volunteer work' at the zoo."

After saying that, Old Du added, "Your points are in the bottom right corner of your main page. Take what you want and pay by facial recognition. Buy within your means. I won't manage your food and accommodation."

"Got it," Xiao Zhize responded, heading towards the shelves.

With a thought, Yu Liang opened up his main page visible only to himself. There wasn't much on it, just a few items.

[Yu Liang]

Traveler Points: 1000

Occupation: Writer (Unmutated)

Urban Legend Code:

[Zoo]

…

[The Monkey That Can't Be Alone]

…

A writer?

Yu Liang was taken aback. He only considered himself a content writer, and never expected to get the title of "professional writer" here. That surprised and flattered him.

But the "Unmutated" after "writer" puzzled him. What did that mean?

Has he not been assimilated by the urban legends here, or was it something else?

He looked around for Old Du, and saw him whispering with Xiao Zhize not far away. The tall shelves hid them, exposing only their heads.

Next to Yu Liang, the clerk went by with a mop, paused when she passed him, and put a sticky note on the item in front of him.

"Don't tell them you can see," the note said.

Yu Liang looked at the clerk sharply. She was wearing a mask that covered most of her face, but her eyes showed that behind the mask was no puppet face like the crocodile clerk's. The fatigue in her eyes seemed almost tangible.

They locked eyes for a moment but quickly looked away. After that, the clerk quickened her pace, off to the back of the store with her mop.

"Hmm?"

Zoo volunteers?

Yu Liang wanted to say something, but the clerk obviously didn't want to talk. She went into the back of the store, giving him no chance to ask questions. It was over in seconds. Old Du and Xiao Zhize didn't notice what had happened.

Wait, her?

Yu Liang stared at the clerk's retreating figure, dumbfounded, because he saw a short, snow-white tail on her backside, like a ball of fluff. Looking at her head, she had two long ears drooping down on both sides, just like pigtails.

Not a volunteer, but...

A rabbit?

The clerk – was she a rabbit?