He Fei had managed to acquire a motorcycle hovercraft from somewhere; it looked incredibly punk, and he was absolutely beaming. He approached Mu Sichen, took off his helmet, and said to his roommate, “You just got into this game, right? I know you probably don’t understand your current situation and are still confused. Come, come, I’ll tell you what’s going on.”

Mu Sichen: “…”

It was likely He Fei who didn’t understand the situation.

He Fei parked the hovercraft in the plaza, and a book manifested in his hand. He casually flipped to a page and tapped the book against the hovercraft. The craft vanished, and an image of the motorcycle hovercraft appeared on the page of the book.

He Fei told Mu Sichen, “This is the gap between the 2D and 3D worlds. Everything has both 2D and 3D forms. Just now, I converted the hovercraft into its 2D state, and it was absorbed back into the book, making it easy to carry. Amazing, right?”

“…Yeah.” Mu Sichen looked at him with a complex expression, his mind racing.

Compared to the previous two Pillars, the library was simply too advanced, and the forms it manifested were completely different. It didn’t feel like a Pillar that the Sky Eye and the residents of Bright-Eye Town could have created. After all, the Sky Eye seemed quite low-IQ, worlds apart from Qin Zhou and Shen Jiyue.

Was this place so magical because of Shen Jiyue’s influence, or was there another reason? Shen Jiyue was a “Sun-Obscuring” level God. Although Qin Zhou was also “Sun-Obscuring,” He was clearly much stronger than Shen Jiyue. And yet, among the books in the library, bedtime stories appeared that related to Qin Zhou’s past and future. It felt like this library was of a higher caliber. It shouldn’t be just a Pillar-level space.

Mu Sichen looked up at the sky. The sky here was a transparent dome; blue skies and white clouds seemed to drift outside, and the sunlight was quite bright, yet it still felt artificial. Someone zoomed by in the sky on a hovercraft. Mu Sichen immediately lowered his head and said to He Fei, “Lend me your helmet.”

“Like it?” He Fei tossed the helmet to Mu Sichen. “See how generous I am? Unlike you, refusing to even lend me your octopus doll.”

Mu Sichen: “…”

He still remembers the octopus doll, Mu Sichen thought. It seems He Fei hasn’t been corrupted. Even if he’s caught some bad stuff, it shouldn’t be too serious.

“Look at you, standing there dumbfounded. Come on, Brother Fei will take you to see the world.” He Fei led Mu Sichen into the only building near the plaza.

It was yet another library.

The library was still unmanaged, featuring several distinct areas.

He Fei said, “This place is the hub of the ‘Central World.’ My home is settled here—it’s a book, actually, in the residential area, book number H5248. Once you start performing tasks, you’ll have a book, too.”

Mu Sichen followed him to the residential area and saw many books, marked only with numbers, not names. Some covers were white, some were black and white, and some were already pitch black.

“What do the colors of these books mean?” Mu Sichen asked.

He Fei replied, “I think it’s the level? They start as white paper. The higher the level, the more color. They say the completely black books belong to players who have reached max level. I heard that after reaching max level, players can see the ‘Main God,’ choose to return to their original world, or stay in a favorite book, and the Main God will also grant them one wish.”

The completely black books have probably been absorbed by the Pillars, Mu Sichen thought silently.

Apart from the residential area, the library had two other zones. Those zones were separated by a layer of fog. Mu Sichen tried to enter them, but was blocked by the mist and couldn’t move forward.

The moment Mu Sichen stepped in with one foot, he heard a system prompt:

[Player is consuming 1000 energy points. Do you wish to continue entry?]

Better not. Mu Sichen withdrew his foot. He couldn’t afford to enter a place that consumed energy just to set foot inside.

Mu Sichen was now, by all accounts, a Pillar-level player. Aside from not having an Outer God backing him, his level was roughly equal to that of the Feather-Eye Apostles, Yao Wangping, and the others. If he couldn’t enter these two zones, it meant that neither the Sky Eye’s Apostles who originally guarded the library, nor Shen Jiyue’s Apostles trying to occupy it, could likely enter either.

“What are you doing? You can’t go in there,” He Fei found Mu Sichen and dragged him back.

“I know you’re curious, but some places are very dangerous,” He Fei told Mu Sichen. “I saw a very handsome man try to enter this zone with my own eyes. But just one step in, an arm and a leg were gone. However, he must have exchanged for some special item; he was holding a mirror. The moment his arm and leg vanished, the mirror shattered, and then his limbs grew back.”

“Very handsome?” Mu Sichen asked. “What kind of handsome? Sunny, athletic, gloomy, or…”

He Fei looked disgusted. “Why are you suddenly interested in men’s looks! He wasn’t any of the types you mentioned. He was… how do I describe it? I’m not very good at describing men’s faces, and why would I observe a man handsomer than me? I didn’t look closely. But that person, without me even looking, gave off a pure, bright feeling. Seeing him was like seeing the moon.”

“Good grief, why did I use that kind of phrase to describe a man!” He Fei rubbed his arm, unable to stand it.

His description reminded Mu Sichen of Shen Jiyue. It was as if Shen Jiyue herself had come here.

It wasn’t easy for Outer Gods to enter other domains, but the library was a domain Shen Jiyue had just occupied; it didn’t seem difficult for Her to come here.

Furthermore, in Bright-Eye Town, the person Mu Sichen encountered was supposed to be Shen Jiyue’s Apostle, but later, when confronting Shen Jiyue’s main form, although Mu Sichen hadn’t dared to look back, the voice, tone, and the feeling the person behind him gave off were no different from the Shen Jiyue he had seen.

Shen Jiyue held the title of “Mental Controller.” Perhaps She could directly control an Apostle’s mind and enter any domain using their body. If that was the case, the enemy he would face was not a mere Apostle, but Shen Jiyue herself, suppressing Her power to the level of an Apostle.

Thinking of what Shen Jiyue had done, Mu Sichen developed a headache. This Outer God was different from the Sky Eye; She was cunning and quiet. Sometimes She flaunted Her presence in the dark night like a full moon, and other times She hid among the starlight like a crescent moon, making it difficult to detect Her existence.

The library contained both the Sky Eye’s and Shen Jiyue’s power. Mu Sichen hoped to obtain more information and rules, get the Sky Eye’s power first, and then undermine Shen Jiyue. If he was targeted by Shen Jiyue from the start, this fight would be extremely difficult.

Moreover, those two zones… even Shen Jiyue tried to enter but couldn’t… It seemed the library really was more than just a simple Pillar. It hid many, many mysteries.

“Why are you standing still again?” Seeing Mu Sichen standing still, He Fei took his hand, heedless of the situation, and brought him before a black-and-white book. “I know you think this place is magical and are observing and thinking. But don’t worry, come back to my place first; I’ll tell you all about it slowly.”

Slowly… He Fei’s book had turned half black. Looking at this book, Mu Sichen felt that he was not far from death.

Mu Sichen desperately wanted to stop He Fei’s corruption, but he didn’t understand the rules within this Pillar yet, nor did he know where the corruption came from. He needed more information to explicitly tell He Fei his current situation.

He Fei opened the book, and a door appeared in front of Mu Sichen.

“Isn’t it magical!” He Fei proudly invited Mu Sichen into his room.

It was a large flat-screen apartment covering four hundred square meters, filled with a sense of technology. There were robots automatically handling chores, chef robots cooking, a gym, a study, a movie theater, and other rooms. It was truly a dream life.

“Coffee, tea, or cola?” He Fei asked. “Or ice water?”

“I’m not drinking anything.” Mu Sichen looked at the three drinks and water brought by the robot and suddenly remembered that the first time he came into the game, the water the followers gave the residents had an eye floating in it. He wasn’t thirsty and didn’t want to touch these things at all.

He Fei opened a can of ice cola and chugged it down.

Mu Sichen desperately wanted to stop him, but thinking that He Fei had probably eaten who knows how much of the food here, stopping him now was just a drop in the bucket. It would be better to just stick a “Self” sticker on him or strike him with the pickaxe; that would be more straightforward.

Fortunately, in the “Embrace” book, borrowing Qin Zhou’s power had gotten him 8 more Pillar-level “Self” stickers. With stickers in hand, Mu Sichen felt very secure; even if his opponent was Shen Jiyue, he felt he had a chance of winning.

He Fei finished a can of cola, let out a gasping burp, and then said with a melancholy look, “It’s been a long time.”

Mu Sichen: “…”

He Fei: “Looking at you, so young, not much time has probably passed in the real world, right? But you probably don’t know that I’ve been in this world for who knows how many years, experienced who knows how many lifetimes.”

He looked out the window, seemingly weathered by time.

Mu Sichen: “…”

How many years? Adding it all up, it wasn’t more than an hour and a half!

In this space, time was just an illusion. Just as he seemed to have spent over a dozen years with Qin Zhou in “Embrace,” in reality, it was just the time it took for him to quickly finish reading a storybook. A few hundred words, no more than 5 minutes.

Looking at the books He Fei had read, several were fairy tales that could be finished in three or five minutes. It had only taken Mu Sichen two or three minutes to finish both versions of the ending for “The Little Rainbow Fish.” Aside from the one about the life of a coffee bean, which might have taken a bit longer, which of the others could exceed an hour?

He Fei laughed self-deprecatingly: “You might not believe me if I told you, but I was once a fish, swimming in the water for a lifetime; I was once an ant longing for ice and snow, in…”

“Enough,” Mu Sichen stopped He Fei’s words, deciding to wake up this roommate living in a dream. “He Fei, where is your phone?”

“Right here.” He Fei took out his phone. “This is probably my only connection to the real world. I’ve been taking good care of it. For so many years, I’ve maintained it to be exactly as it was, even the battery hasn’t… oh, it dropped 12%, which is about an hour or so of consumption.”

“Hand it over.” Mu Sichen said.

He Fei handed the phone to Mu Sichen with a carefree smile: “There’s a lot of chat history in there. If it were in the original world, I wouldn’t dare let you see it. But now, I’ve experienced countless worlds and have become indifferent to everything. Go ahead and look.”

“I’m not interested in looking.” Mu Sichen quickly opened the “My Ideal Town” APP and clicked on his game group chat.

Sure enough, after entering the library, He Fei hadn’t received questions from Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo asking, “How can you send messages from the game?” but Mu Sichen’s automatically sent book message, He Fei had seen.

Mu Sichen pointed it out to He Fei: “Come here, look at the message history on this. The time you first sent that you entered the game was an hour and a half ago. These next messages were automatically sent by the system after you experienced each world. The interval between each message is about 3-10 minutes. You experienced 1, 2, 3… the life of a coffee bean is 9, and you later sent a Mars exploration message. That’s 10 messages in total, meaning you experienced 10 worlds, read 10 books, taking 1 hour and 37 minutes.”

“During this time, you haven’t been using your phone, but the battery has consumed 12%.”

“He Fei, think carefully. After entering the game, have you ever been hungry?”

“I’ve eaten a lot of things!” He Fei argued with Mu Sichen, looking as though his worldview had been shattered.

Mu Sichen: “I’m not talking about what you ate. I’m asking, have you been hungry? Have you felt the need to use the bathroom? After eating, have you felt full?”

He Fei: “…Well, I feel like using the bathroom a little bit now.”

Mu Sichen sighed: “It has been an hour and a half, after all; it’s time to use the bathroom.”

He Fei rubbed his stomach: “I just finished a can of cola, and now I feel a little hungry?”

“What time did you have dinner?” Mu Sichen asked.

He Fei: “You mean that night before entering the game? That was too long ago, my memory is fuzzy. I need to think carefully… Huh? I remember clearly, I ate at around 6 PM.”

Mu Sichen nodded: “I don’t know the ratio between game time and real time, but eating at 6 PM, entering the game at 9 PM, and reading books for an hour and a half in the game… it’s indeed time for a midnight snack.”

He Fei: “…”

Author’s Note:

Mu Sichen: How can I save you, my wretched roommate.

He Fei: I don’t believe it ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!