Chapter 139#
Little White Rabbit 03#
“You don’t want to eat?”
“You’ve already eaten half — don’t you want to finish the rest?”
Yu Feichen: “Thank you for your hospitality. I’m full.”
The rabbit’s hand settled on Yu Feichen’s shoulder, fingers gradually tightening, an immense force bearing down: “After every guest eats one piece, they always find themselves craving the entire plate of mushrooms.”
Hearing this, Yu Feichen glanced thoughtfully at the green mushrooms.
“I don’t like green.” He turned toward the rabbit’s plate. “Can we trade?”
The rabbit flew into a rage, snatching up its own plate and clutching it protectively.
“Foolish! Foolish! Foolish! Who gave you permission to cast your greed upon my mushrooms! Don’t you want to know the way to the City of Mist?!”
Foolish people are always easy to ensnare with hollow words — and so are foolish rabbits.
Grey makes one foolish. It seemed green made one greedy.
Foolishness and greed together destroy the two most remarkable virtues of humankind: wisdom and self-restraint.
“I am greedy — I want to go to the City of Mist.” Yu Feichen controlled his gaze, letting it go slightly unfocused.
The rabbit missed the hint entirely. It clamped down on Yu Feichen’s shoulder and, lifting the plate of green mushrooms, shoved it forcefully toward his mouth. “Eat it! You must accept my hospitality!”
This hospitality was better refused.
Yu Feichen had no choice but to remind it again: “I’ve already eaten half.”
The rabbit’s hand paused mid-shove. After a moment, its three-part lips split open into a grin.
Normally, a full plate served to regular guests was half green and half grey — enough to make them sufficiently foolish and greedy.
But this human’s plate was already missing half the green mushrooms, which meant he had already met the threshold for greed. There was no need to force him to keep eating.
Having finally worked this out, the rabbit set down the plate, its voice softening: “Very well. I’ll tell you how to reach the City of Mist.”
Yu Feichen: “Please, tell me.”
The rabbit walked over to the squat black iron pot bubbling and churning with boiling water, pointing at the surface: “This is the entrance to the City of Mist. Only the brave may step inside and receive the City of Mist’s gift.”
Yu Feichen: “Is this the City of Mist’s trial for me?”
Is this how those people who were turned into maps died?
The rabbit: “Of course. Surely you are a brave person, aren’t you?”
As it spoke, the rabbit cheerfully produced a large iron ladle and stirred the pot. White mist billowed up, and the boiling surface showed no reflection.
Behind the rabbit’s back, Yu Feichen weighed the wooden signpost in his hand, then raised it toward the back of the rabbit’s head.
“I’m not.”
The rabbit: “?”
The rabbit turned — just in time to meet a heavy wooden sign swinging straight into its face. The blood-red arrow collided squarely with its nose, producing a dull, weighty thud.
The rabbit’s nose bent sideways. It was also dazed.
In that split second of dazed confusion, Yu Feichen’s signpost snapped in two.
A moment later, the rabbit grabbed its own ears and let out a furious shriek that rattled the entire room: “AAAAAAAAAH!!!!!”
The iron ladle slipped from the rabbit’s hand.
Now it belonged to Yu Feichen.
“HUMAN!!!” The crooked-nosed rabbit kicked off its hind legs and launched itself at Yu Feichen with tremendous force, right hand raking high toward him!
The rabbit’s hand had been enhanced by strength as well — veins bulged beneath the skin, which was pulled taut and tight. This made the seam at the wrist, where human skin met rabbit skin, even more visible; the flesh was pinched all the way around by the stitching.
Yu Feichen raised the ladle’s long handle to block the blow. The sheer force sent a numbing shock through his entire arm.
But the point of impact had landed precisely on the rabbit’s sutured wrist, and the human hand visibly wrenched to one side.
“AAAH!!!” Within the furious screaming, every hair on the rabbit’s body stood on end, its whole body swelling a size larger.
The rabbit had completely lost control now.
Yu Feichen’s strength wasn’t enough to go blow for blow with it in this state. He fell back — the room was cramped, and two steps brought him to the edge of the table. He reached out and grabbed a fistful of mushrooms from the rabbit’s plate, just about to overturn it, when the rabbit hurled a long, sharp knife at him.
Yu Feichen pulled his hand back and tilted his head. The knife buried itself in the wall. He set down the ladle and pulled the knife out with a reverse grip — this was far more useful than the ladle.
As he drew the knife, the rabbit was already charging at him again, cleaver raised.
The sharp blade swung for Yu Feichen’s neck. He kicked the table over; the tabletop blocked the blow for a moment, then was split clean down the middle. At the same time, the red and yellow mushrooms remaining on the plate scattered across the floor.
Unfortunately mushrooms aren’t like beans — they don’t roll chaotically in every direction. They landed in a neat pile.
The rabbit looked at the red and yellow mushrooms on the ground and let out a savage grin, scooping them up and stuffing them into its mouth.
Yu Feichen also ate a few of the red mushrooms.
Red mushrooms boosted strength. He didn’t know what yellow did yet, so he didn’t rashly consume any.
In the next second, he found out.
He watched the rabbit’s body inflate like a balloon — swelling until it stood three full people tall. Its muscles expanded and bulged. The once boy-sized white rabbit had become a hulking, muscle-bound giant-rabbit.
The room was already small. With the rabbit enlarged, its arms stretched wide could touch anything in the space, making it all the more convenient when it swiped at Yu Feichen.
Yu Feichen dropped the yellow mushrooms he’d been holding without eating them. He pressed off the wall and leapt, twisting and dodging continuously through the rabbit’s strikes.
The rabbit’s body slammed repeatedly into the walls. The walls trembled faintly but didn’t creak — solid enough, apparently.
The only thing that rattled faintly with each impact was the locked door.
In the rush of wind, Yu Feichen once again slipped past the rabbit’s lunge.
As the rabbit ate its remaining red and yellow mushrooms, its power turned it into something truly monstrous. But sheer strength and size disparity alone weren’t enough — Yu Feichen’s combat instincts and experience were sharper, and the rabbit hadn’t managed to touch him even once.
Still, he had no way to bring the rabbit down either.
In the pursuit battle across that cramped space, Yu Feichen dodged the rabbit while seizing every opportunity to drive the knife, repeatedly, into the rabbit’s wrist.
The smell of blood spread. This strike went deep. The rabbit’s right hand went limp and dangling, barely able to move.
“Foolish! Foolish! Foolish!”
Looking up at the human hanging from the ceiling beam, the rabbit cursed three times in a row.
Having nearly lost one hand, it finally came to understand Yu Feichen’s combat ability, and stopped attacking.
From the beam, Yu Feichen watched quietly as the rabbit picked up the other scattered red and yellow mushrooms from the floor and ate every last one.
Its body began to swell again.
Yu Feichen took out the yellow mushrooms he’d set aside earlier and let them drop to the floor.
The rabbit noticed them quickly and ate those too.
The enormous rabbit now nearly filled the entire room. The pink dress had long since been torn apart by its expanding body; only a strip of pink cloth hung from its shoulders.
Big enough.
Yu Feichen ate all the remaining red mushrooms, dropped from the beam, and slipped past the rabbit’s lunge to reach the door.
With a single kick, the door was knocked clean off — crashing to the ground.
Yu Feichen stepped out through the bare doorframe.
The whole house shook. One massive rabbit arm, bearing a human left hand the size of a pot lid, thrust out through the doorframe and slapped furiously at the courtyard ground.
As for the rest of the rabbit — regrettably, it could no longer fit through.
The enraged screaming poured out through the chimney: “Foolish! Foolish! Foolish!”
Now Yu Feichen was certain: the rabbit’s “foolish” wasn’t an adjective. It was a swear word.
“Foolish! Don’t you want to know how to get to the City of Mist?!”
Yu Feichen climbed to the top of the chimney.
“Don’t you want to go back to normal?”
The rabbit: “Of course I do!”
Yu Feichen: “Tell me the way to the City of Mist, and I’ll gather the mushrooms that will shrink you back.”
“There are no mushrooms that make you smaller!”
Staring down the chimney, Yu Feichen had only one word left.
“…Foolish.”
“AAAAAAH!!!” The rabbit screamed. “Give me the COLD-COLORED mushrooms!!”
It finally said something not-so-foolish, Yu Feichen thought.
Red mushrooms boosted strength; yellow mushrooms enlarged — both were positive enhancements, and both were warm colors. The green mushroom with its negative effect was a cool color; the grey stupidity mushroom had bluish-green speckles running through it, which barely counted as cool-toned as well.
The rabbit had both enhancements active simultaneously — warm-colored effects could stack.
Now it was asking for cool-colored mushrooms, which meant cool and warm effects could cancel each other out.
Yu Feichen took out all his remaining mushroom stock.
“Do you want grey?” he said.
“I don’t want to become foolish!”
“Green?”
“I don’t want to become greedy!”
“Blue?”
“I don’t want to become a coward!”
With each question Yu Feichen asked, the rabbit rattled off mushroom effects like reciting items off a menu, unwittingly giving away the whole list.
The last one was purple.
“Purple?”
“I don’t want to become…” The rabbit’s voice faltered for a moment, then: “A pure white rabbit fears no purple! Give it to me quickly!”
Yu Feichen: “The route first.”
“Let me eat it first, then I’ll tell you.” The rabbit seemed considerably less foolish at this particular moment.
Yu Feichen thought it over.
The rabbit had no more red or yellow mushrooms left to eat. And he still didn’t know what purple mushrooms did.
He said: “Catch.”
Three pieces of purple mushroom were tossed onto the rabbit’s left hand, which was still stretched outside. The sutured left hand closed around the mushrooms and slowly withdrew back into the house. The sound of labored shuffling came from within, followed by a few chewing sounds — and then the house ceased its strained, shuddering trembling.
Yu Feichen landed on the ground and walked back in through the doorframe.
The rabbit, restored to its original size, turned to face him. Its nose, of course, was still crooked — and a trickle of blood was running down from it.
Its three-part lips split open to a degree Yu Feichen had never seen before. The rabbit’s voice took on a lilting, dreamy quality.
“Hello,” said the rabbit. “My beautiful guest — may I touch your face?”
Yu Feichen: “…”