Calamity of Tomorrow

The lecture passed slowly while Zhou Bai sat in a daze. When Professor Zhuang was getting ready to leave after class, Elsa raised her hand and yelled, “Teacher! Zhou Bai had a nightmare yesterday! Help him out!”

They all turned their heads to look at Zhou Bai.

Alice asked with concern, “Zhou Bai, are you okay?”

“Are you still scared? Do you want me to sleep with you tonight?”

“Haha, you’re so old, and you’re still having nightmares?”

As he listened to their concerns, Zhou Bai’s face took on a helpless expression. He couldn’t decide whether to tell Professor Zhuang about what had happened last night because of the strange atmosphere at the base. He hadn’t expected that Elsa would tell Professor Zhuang first.

Zhou Bai could only smile awkwardly. When he saw Professor Zhuang’s cold gaze, he felt nervous. Without waiting for Zhou Bai to speak, Professor Zhuang asked, “You had a nightmare?”

Professor Zhuang’s solemn gaze surprised Zhou Bai. Before he could answer, Professor Zhuang continued. “Remember, don’t open your door at night, and don’t leave your room. Come with me later to the warehouse to get incense. Light it tonight before you sleep. If you continue to have nightmares, let me know tomorrow.”

Zhou Bai’s heart thumped. Professor Zhang acted as if he knew something was up.

That night, when he lay in bed again, Zhou Bai looked at Elsa on the other bed. He couldn’t sleep again.

He still recalled the strange white furry face he saw last night.

Had it been a dream? If it wasn’t a dream, could it have been Elsa?

Zhou Bai locked his eyes on Elsa the minute he lay down. He couldn’t calm down.

Yet across the room, Elsa had already begun snoring. She opened her mouth wide to bite down on her blanket. She looked like she was dreaming about food again and kept drooling, wetting her blanket.

This kid, Zhou Bai thought…there’s no way she could be that strange thing.

Zhou Bai continued staring at Elsa. The aroma of incense continuously rushed into his nose.

As time passed, nothing unexpected happened that night. Zhou Bai only felt his eyes get heavier and heavier, his brain become more and more exhausted. Finally, he fell asleep.

When he was half-asleep, Zhou Bai felt something furry rub against his cheek.

He frowned, slowly opening his eyes. A strange face full of white fur appeared before him, staring at him.

Astonished, Zhou Bai quickly backed up—and saw the full body of the strange face. His shock slowly faded.

What appeared before him was a long-haired white cat. The cat’s eyes reflected red light, and it stared at Zhou Bai.

Was what I saw last night this cat too? Zhou Bai wondered. It was up against my face, and I couldn’t see its full body. Is that why I thought it was a monster?

Zhou Bai glanced at the door and in Elsa’s direction. He found the door still closed and Elsa still sleeping.

The man and cat looked at each other. Although the cat was cute, and Zhou Bai was slightly less scared, when he thought about how a white cat somehow had entered his locked room at night in this underground base, he still felt alert. But since it was a cat, he didn’t know how to communicate with it.

Zhou Bai focused his will. The shapeless primordial spirit power invaded reality again from his mind, standing guard against the strange cat before him.

At that moment, the long-haired white cat blinked. A female voice suddenly sounded in Zhou Bai’s mind.

“Are you Zhou Bai?”

Zhou Bai was surprised. He looked around, then stared at the cat and asked, “Are…are you talking to me?”

The cat’s expression was one of disdain. It narrowed its crimson glowing eyes. “Your spirit is blocked, and you have no apparent Taoification. You’re the epitome of mediocre. Why are you the chosen one? Did you have someone pull strings for you?”

“Who are you?” Zhou Bai asked. “What do you mean by that? Wait…are you that woman?” With some shock, he suddenly remembered the female voice he’d heard when he first got the auxiliary system.

The cat’s eyes showed confusion and hesitation. After taking a long look at Zhou Bai, she said, “Yes, I was the one who contacted you before.”

Zhou Bai was suddenly ecstatic, “What is going on here? Where is this? How do I go back? Why did I become younger? How come I can’t use Laziness anymore?”

Hearing this string of questions, the white cat furrowed her brows, “Let’s not talk about these for now. You have to try to find me first and rescue me.”

“Rescue you?” Zhou Bai was confused, “What do you mean?”

“What you see now is just a dream I’m showing you with a fragment of my primordial spirit power,” the white cat said. “If you want to start your plug-in…want to know what happened…you must find my original form…It’s in this underground…base’s…”

In the end, the white cat’s voice gradually became intermittent and finally disappeared with her body.

Zhou Bai frowned. The next instant, his eyes shot open. He sat up in bed, looking at the space before him. Then he slowly lay back down on his bed. He closed his eyes and began contemplating.

***

The morning courses the next day were physics and chemistry. The afternoon course was still demon class.

In today’s demon class, Professor Zhuang pointed to a distorted, absurd humanoid sculpture and said, “This is the Hundred-Armed Demon Child. Countless arms and heads grow on his body. Each arm has the power to overturn rivers and seas. Each head, for as long as it exists, is immortal. Also, he holds different types of weapons in his hands…”

Zhou Bai looked at the sinister faces on the sculpture. The child’s heads were lively. They looked like they were staring at him.

But both the Hundred-Armed Demon Child and yesterday’s Three-Eyed Demon Wolf General gave him a strange sense of familiarity.

Zhou Bai thought, These are kind of like Erlang Shen and Nezha, re-created based on Chinese mythology.

He turned to look at the other deformed sculptures, thinking that the other ones also look like the Giant Spirit God, the Fire God, the Water God…they were just uglier.

After class, Zhou Bai found Professor Zhuang and asked him about the talking cat.

“A talking cat?” Professor Zhuang frowned. “There are indeed such things, but they’re goblins. Why are you suddenly asking about this?”

Zhou Bai had already thought of an excuse. He responded, “I saw a talking cat in the outside world before. What are goblins?”

“Goblins are goblins,” Professor Zhuang said somberly. “They’re all monsters who want to eat people and are the natural enemies of humans. If you meet on in the future, you must be very cautious. In a while, I’ll introduce goblins in demon class. You’ll understand then.”

“Then will they find the base?”

Professor Zhuang glanced at Zhou Bai with suspicion. Zhou Bai said hurriedly, “I’m just worried the demons outside will find the base. What if they discover us?”

Professor Zhuang said faintly, “Then we can only die, and human history would be over.”