“A tree?” Hearing this, Zhang Wenda looked at the grassland in front of him.
“This place is just this big. Where would a tree come from? Or is it that to cats, tall grass counts as trees?”
After confirming there was no danger, Zhang Wenda quietly shielded Lamp Spirit behind him and cautiously advanced with suspicion.
After walking a few steps through the dense grass, Zhang Wenda once again parted the thick greenery, and an azure sky suddenly appeared before him.
The sky looked vividly saturated yet slightly filtered, reminiscent of an old photograph.
By the time Zhang Wenda realized it, he discovered that the green grass around him had transformed into leaves of a tree.
Glancing downward, a sheer drop of several hundred meters to the ground made everyone shudder involuntarily.
The group, who had been walking on the grassland moments earlier, inexplicably found themselves inverted on top of a gigantic banyan tree canopy!
“Damn, this place really doesn't follow logic or physical laws. The grass of the meadow is actually the underside of the tree’s canopy.”
“What kind of place is this? I'm warning you, don't play tricks,” Zhang Wenda said nervously, grabbing Jia Junpeng tightly.“Didn’t you say you wanted a marketplace? Here it is—beneath the banyan tree.” Jia Junpeng pointed downward casually.
Only then did Zhang Wenda notice that there appeared to be people beneath the tree, though from this height, they looked no bigger than ants.
“How do we get down from here?” Song Jianguo stood on one leg, looking down, eager but hesitant.
“Just jump,” Lamp Spirit pointed downward and stated calmly.
“Jump?! Are you kidding? Why don’t you jump first and show us?”
Just as Zhang Wenda finished speaking, Lamp Spirit pushed away his grip and leaped off decisively.
“Damn it! He’s escaping!” Song Jianguo anxiously shouted as she saw Lamp Spirit plummeting quickly downward.
Then she yelled to the black cats behind them, “Quick, transform into a plane! Chase him!”
Hearing this, the black cats tilted their heads simultaneously, giant question marks literally popping out of their heads.
These question marks were so substantial that Zhang Wenda could even pluck one off.
Finally, at Zhang Wenda's suggestion, the cats formed a giant parachute, slowly descending with the three of them toward the ground.
From high above, Zhang Wenda could see beneath this enormous tree, larger than a mountain, a group of people busy scribbling something.
This place had no transactions or markets; Lamp Spirit had tricked him!
While scanning below, Zhang Wenda, with his keen eyesight, suddenly noticed someone running away from the standing crowd.
He immediately recognized the figure—it was that damned Lamp Spirit! “Catch him! That damned swindler!”
Following Song Jianguo’s whistle, the cats quickly reshaped themselves from a parachute into a glider, swiftly chasing after Lamp Spirit with the aid of wind power.
But Lamp Spirit clearly knew the terrain better and took advantage of the glider's slow turning, zigzagging left and right to widen the gap.
Zhang Wenda realized they couldn't go on like this. If it continued, that guy would get away. After finally catching a guide, how could he let him escape so easily?
“Quick, Aunt Flo! Get inside! I'll throw you down to catch him,” Zhang Wenda said, pulling out the flattened enamel jar.
Aunt Flo, realizing the urgency, didn’t waste words and immediately crawled into the jar.
Holding a cat firmly in one hand, Zhang Wenda swung his right arm powerfully, hurling the enamel jar filled with Aunt Flo directly at Lamp Spirit’s head.
When Zhang Wenda descended with Song Jianguo, they saw Aunt Flo holding Lamp Spirit by his collar, slapping him repeatedly left and right.
When he was once again dragged in front of Zhang Wenda, Lamp Spirit’s face was swollen almost beyond recognition.
“Why did you do this? Couldn’t you just lead us honestly?” Zhang Wenda asked, speechless.
Lamp Spirit, eyes filled with tears, looked extremely wronged. “But I was leading you! I wasn’t trying to escape!”
He then pointed toward a fat dog at a man’s feet on their left. “That's it, the flea market under the Wutong tree.”
Lamp Spirit then pulled Zhang Wenda toward the dog, lifted a fold on its body, and directly crawled in.
Though Lamp Spirit was much larger than the fat dog, logic didn’t matter in this networked world—he easily slipped into the folds on the dog's back.
“Follow him! He might escape again!” Zhang Wenda hurriedly squeezed through the dog’s fur after him.
When Zhang Wenda finally pushed through the dog’s fur, the scenery opened up dramatically before him. Inside the three-meter-tall dog fur, a three-person-wide road appeared, lined with countless stalls on either side.
“You see? I didn't lie! Look how badly your girlfriend beat me up,” Lamp Spirit said miserably, covering his swollen face.
At this moment, Aunt Flo and Song Jianguo also emerged, staring in shock at the flea market hidden within the dog’s fur.
“Let’s take a look around,” Zhang Wenda said, pulling Lamp Spirit into the crowd.
“Hey, I've already brought you here. Why are you still pulling me along? My job is done!”
“You’re local, right? You must know this place better than us. Help us out; don’t let the locals scam us.”
Hearing this, Lamp Spirit's face was filled with pain. “Ugh…blue thin mushroom...”
“Do you only know how to speak in stupid internet memes? Keep moving.” Zhang Wenda shoved him forward impatiently.
After glancing at the goods displayed on the stalls, Zhang Wenda confirmed he had come to the right place this time.
On a nearby stall to the left, a translucent jelly-like substance squirmed inside a bottle, constantly materializing and vanishing various objects around it. A label on it read: “Dream-come-true Softgel.”
Next to it was a bag of black fingernail-sized cubes labeled “Solid Pain.”
Beside them were bottles of milky white liquid, Zhang Wenda’s familiar acquaintance: “Liquid Joy.”
Zhang Wenda carefully examined each item—a fish in a diving helmet, front teeth wearing watermelon hats—all sorts of bizarre things being sold here.
Zhang Wenda deduced reasonably that these things must have been excavated from places like the Youth Center or the Library.
If these things could openly be sold here, Zhang Wenda was certain he'd find what he was looking for.
Before walking far, Zhang Wenda had already spotted items he was interested in—various qigong manuals scattered casually on the ground as if they were vegetables.