The Strange City (13/98)

After entering the city, Liu Zhi learned a few things from the talkative rabbit in front of him. For instance, the city was called Jeronimi, and the rabbit was Mr. Clyde.

He was the king's thirty-first-generation descendant and the 17,321st in line to the throne.

Mr. Clyde had a lot to say about his name. There were simply too many people with the same first and last names in the city, so most people added a little something distinctive to their names to remember who they were and what they were called.

For example, they had to be particular about which syllable to emphasize, where to curl their tongues, and how quickly to pronounce certain parts.

Mr. Clyde spent a full half hour teaching Liu Zhi how to say his name.

During that half hour, Liu Zhi also noticed how strange the city was.

Just as he'd seen before, space within the city was distorted. No matter how many people were there, or how wide or narrow the roads appeared to them, everyone could walk along them side by side.

Liu Zhi had assumed that everything in the city worked this way. So when he saw a door open on a house no bigger than a rabbit hole, he tried to go inside and found that he couldn't.

Mr. Clyde laughed as soon as he saw what Liu Zhi was doing.

"You're overthinking it. This automatic size adjustment only happens on the roads. If you want to enter a tiny house, you need to find a shrinking potion. But you'd better not drink one. Sometimes you can't find the antidote, or you drink the wrong potion, and then you can't change back."

As he spoke, Mr. Clyde pointed in a certain direction. A rabbit as big as a hill sat