The rules of the zoo unfolded line by line in mid-air.
They had already become quite long.
But it did not stop.
They continued to grow longer.
[……]
[Twenty-three, if you accidentally enrage an elephant, you might be turned into a rabbit by the elephant. If you become a rabbit, please immediately find a staff member in a blue uniform for assistance.]
[Twenty-four, the shops in the zoo only sell normal items. If you find any abnormal items, please do not purchase them.]
[Twenty-five, if you are coerced into buying abnormal items, please immediately feed the abnormal items to the normal animals.]
[Twenty-six, there is no aquarium in this zoo. If you accidentally purchase a ticket for the aquarium, please immediately give the aquarium ticket to a chimpanzee wearing a yellow hat.]
[Twenty-seven, if you still cannot find a staff member in a blue uniform and have become a rabbit, please seek help from an eagle.]
[Twenty-eight, the eagle will not harm you, but it will prey on rabbits.]
[Twenty-nine, if you are injured in the zoo, please immediately hide in the white wooden house in the tree and wipe away your bloodstains.]
[Thirty, please be wary of any companions who have been separated from you and later found again.]
[May you have a pleasant time at our zoo!]
"..."
"What is this?"
Duan Chen and the others looked extremely grim as they found themselves at the entrance of the zoo.
"What is this, like a wireless space, a main god space."
Jun Ci was not unread.
In fact, due to his cold personality but intense inner thoughts, he was a devoted novel fan.
"I have a not-so-good guess."
Duan Chen gritted his back teeth, extending a finger to rub his temples, trying to ease the tightness and pain.
He gathered all his strength to voice his guess.
"Is there a possibility that the secret realm we entered is not a true secret realm?"
"..."
No one answered.
This seemed to be a fatal question.
No one dared to respond.
But their hearts all skipped a beat.
Duan Chen gave a bitter smile.
Everyone likely had the answer in their hearts.
"What should we do?"
"What else can we do? We have to break through, of course."
Duan Chen saw it clearly.
"If we don't go in and try, we probably won't be able to leave."
This damned world, this damned secret realm, and those damned influential families. They had not explained it clearly at all. This was not a secret realm but a large-scale anomaly!
Like the large-scale anomaly in Mirror City!
Perhaps they had not investigated thoroughly.
Or perhaps no one would have imagined that an anomaly could masquerade as a secret realm.
Everything here was likely an aberration.
This was quite troublesome now.
"However, it's not entirely impossible."
Duan Chen's voice echoed in their minds. He had reactivated his ancient scripture and linked to telepathic communication.
"This secret realm is currently still adhering to certain rules. If we act according to the rules, we should be able to leave safely."
"Heer, did you not notice any issues here the last time you came?"
Heer, who was asked this question, was startled. She opened her mouth to answer.
Yuan Qingqing reached out and covered Heer's mouth, patting her own chest.
Heer cautiously replied mentally.
But all they heard was a busy signal.
"I can't."
Heer frowned first, then said quite calmly.
This was problematic.
She couldn't speak here.
Duan Chen hesitated, said no more, and pointed to the ticket booth at the very front.
"It's okay. If that's the case, then let's go into the zoo first."
There were five of them.
Five people, one after another, approached the ticket booth.
A staff member in a red uniform was sitting at the ticket booth.
Upon seeing the red uniform, they all breathed a sigh of relief.
"Buying tickets?"
The staff member suddenly raised his head. His neck seemed very stiff, and his head-lifting motion was like that of a puppet.
The others could only ignore his strangeness for now.
According to the rules they had seen earlier, staff members in red uniforms were considered safe.
So, before they discovered anything more unsafe, it was best not to provoke them.
"I have many tickets here. No matter which hall you want to go to, I have tickets."
The staff member spoke stiffly.
It was as if he had a fixed mechanism.
Duan Chen wanted to ask about aquarium tickets, but in such a bizarre place, he feared breaking some rule. In the end, he honestly said:
"I want tickets for the lion house, the python house, the rabbit house, the cat house, and the chimpanzee house."
"A total of five, five tickets each."
The staff member heard him ask for twenty-five tickets and said nothing. He tore off a stack from a pile of small tickets and shoved them all into Duan Chen's hand.
"Go ahead."
The staff member waved them away like he was shooing flies.
Duan Chen did not leave immediately. He took the stack of crumpled tickets that the staff member had handed him and began to inspect them carefully.
The staff member's expression changed noticeably.
His face looked as if something was about to burst out from within, appearing exceptionally terrifying.
It churned and tumbled, becoming increasingly bizarre.
Yuan Yuan nervously reached out and gripped his sister in front of him. Yuan Qingqing shot him an angry glare, and he awkwardly lowered his hand.
Duan Chen seemed not to notice. In front of the staff member's increasingly long neck, he was still looking down, counting the crumpled tickets in his hand.
He went through them one by one and finally saw a ticket for the aquarium on one of them.
Duan Chen, with a calm expression, handed the ticket back to the staff member.
"Please help us exchange this ticket. We did not purchase a ticket for this hall."
"Which hall's ticket?"
The red-uniformed staff member's face was almost touching Duan Chen's.
He asked.
Duan Chen paused. Under the staff member's flashing, bizarre gaze, he calmly replied:
"This ticket in my hand, please exchange it for a ticket to the lion house."
"This ticket is not the ticket I wanted."
"You are a staff member, you should be able to solve our problem, right?"
Seeing Duan Chen avoid the question, the red-uniformed staff member draped his neck directly over Duan Chen's shoulder. After lingering for a long time, he reluctantly retracted his neck and sat back in his seat.
"Understood."