Mu Sichen stared at the two bookmarks for a long time, but couldn’t find any clues on them. Unfortunately, due to the replacement of his left eye, the ability he had gained from the Sky Eye was gone, and he couldn’t use the gold-rimmed glasses anymore. Otherwise, he could have examined the specific circumstances under which He Fei obtained the two bookmarks.

The only certainty was that the pollution belonging to Shen Jiyue and the Sky Eye on He Fei’s body was perhaps just like the origin of these two bookmarks.

“Did you feel anything special happen in those two books?” Mu Sichen asked.

“What counts as special?” He Fei asked, puzzled. “Does it count as special that, as the King, I turned pages every time I slept with the Queen after stealing the mirror?”

Mu Sichen: “…No.”

Bedtime fairy tales should not include adults’ delusions.

He Fei stared at Mu Sichen, saying seriously and earnestly, “I’ve noticed that you’ve asked for so long, yet you haven’t asked about the crucial, key points.”

“Which aspects?”

He Fei puffed out his chest and said, “The acquisition of points and the point mall, the essentials of an infinite stream fast-travel world! Why didn’t you ask where my motorcycle hovercraft came from? How important is that!”

Mu Sichen rubbed his temples, feeling a headache: “If you want to say it, just say it.”

He Fei took out a smiley-face bookmark and said, “This is the pass for the Main God System. Click on the smiley face to check how many points you have earned. You can also exchange them for houses, gourmet food, motorcycle hovercrafts, and all the magical props you want! I’ve continuously cleared ten worlds, and the system told me that I can see the Main God after passing ten more levels!”

“You know perfectly well that time here is fake; why do you still believe in the existence of the points system and the Main God?” Mu Sichen asked.

He Fei said, “Then we have to leave this world somehow, right? Is there no other way besides meeting the Main God?”

“What about your original system? The one that gave you the login options?” Mu Sichen reminded him.

He Fei was stunned for a moment, then pounded his head, saying: “Right, that system… at first it was a light screen floating in the air. After entering the library, it disappeared. Oh, it appeared! It turns out that as long as I try hard to call up the system, it can appear!”

Mu Sichen could understand why He Fei confused the two systems. Because the system in the Ideal Town had always been very behaved within the “Pillars”; unless he completed a task or triggered some special event, it wouldn’t actively prompt anything. If a player was polluted, the system would become even more silent, as if it had disappeared.

However, He Fei’s words led Mu Sichen to guess how the Pillars within the library absorbed emotional energy and souls: they relied on curiosity and a fake system.

People with curiosity would be sent into books. These people would display great curiosity within different stories, providing energy for the “Pillar.” And when curiosity reached its peak, ordinary people would be sent before the Main God by the fake system. The final fate of these people was no different from discharged patients or workers entering the breeding area.

The only question was, with the Sky Eye’s IQ and the quite simple and brutal rules of Bright-Eye Town, was the original library really such a complex and high-tech place? There were too many mysteries here. Mu Sichen felt that he probably couldn’t approach the “Pillar” without taking risks.

He took out his own bookmark and, following He Fei’s prompt, clicked on the smiley face. Sure enough, as He Fei said, a system light screen popped up, containing sub-menus like the System Mall, Exchange Window, and Book Selection. It was quite well-made, just rather crude. Except for the Book Selection page, which was made in 3D mode, the rest was in a 2D mode that looked exquisite but actually had crude artwork, and the screen design gave one a feeling of not wanting to look at it again after a glance.

Bookmark System: Player obtained 700 points for the first book. 1000 points are consumed for every day spent in the Central World. Please execute missions as soon as possible, or you will be erased.

Mu Sichen: “They really are in a hurry to urge me into the books.”

“Right? That feeling of being chased by death is too uncomfortable. I also cleared ten books consecutively and had over ten thousand points before I felt like strolling around the Central World,” He Fei leaned over and said. “You said the concept of time here is fake, and the Main God system is also fake; is this points system real? Is it true that I will die if I don’t have 1000 points?”

“I’m not sure,” Mu Sichen said, “but if one dies just like that, the ‘Pillar’ cannot squeeze out a person’s emotional energy. Even if it absorbs this person’s soul, it cannot obtain the curiosity it needs most. So I think it should be urging people to generate curiosity and explore the world within the book as soon as possible, rather than tending to kill people immediately.”

Once a person’s curiosity is fully mobilized, they give him a large sum of points, let this person go to see the so-called Main God with the most intense curiosity and desire for knowledge, and only then can the “Pillar” obtain the energy it needs most.

If you want to obtain the “Pillar,” you cannot be led by the nose by it. Going to see the “Main God” according to the requirements of the bookmark system doesn’t necessarily mean you can see the “Pillar”; it will probably just result in your soul being dissolved.

But taking the risk to enter the books is still necessary. He currently knows too little information. Since He Fei was able to obtain two bookmarks related to Outer Gods within the books, he should also be able to get clues from the books.

Which book to choose is very important. Mu Sichen searched through the book management; all the books he had read could be searched, and “After Growing Tentacles, I Can Finally Embrace Him” had a bookmark icon added to it, indicating the book could be found in the “My Books” section. It seems the books here are almost identical to the books in the library.

Mu Sichen flipped through and found a very special book—“A Brief History of the First Quarter Library.” General libraries usually have a profile, ranging from establishment time and number of books owned to a list of donors. This kind of book is usually crammed into a corner and is hard to find without specifically looking for it. Mu Sichen tried looking for it, and it was actually there.

The bookmark system was made with a great sense of technology. As Mu Sichen reached out, he actually took out the physical book from the 3D screen.

“It really is magical,” Mu Sichen exclaimed. It’s no wonder He Fei was tricked into this state; that bookmark system is much more exquisite than the game system.

“I plan to enter this book. Do you want to go with me?” Mu Sichen asked.

“This one… it looks so boring.” He Fei glanced at the book and said, “I’m not interested. I still prefer those books with stronger storylines pushed by the system.”

It seems the bookmark system strongly recommends books with stronger storylines, which are more likely to get people deeply involved, making it impossible to distinguish reality from the story.

“You should still be interested; the stories inside might be more thrilling than the book about hanging the princess on the city wall,” Mu Sichen said.

He Fei leaned in to take a look and said, “Isn’t this just the library profile? A huge pile of book details and a donor list; my eyes hurt just looking at it.”

Seeming to fear that someone would patiently look at the content later, the first page of “Library Profile” was a long list of books, making it impossible for people to generate curiosity.

However, the more it was like this, the more curious Mu Sichen became.

With a desire for knowledge, it took him a long time to find the three bedtime storybooks about the Outer Gods, and he found that these three books were hidden in very inconspicuous positions on the list, and the titles of other books nearby were almost identical.

Mu Sichen mainly checked the donors of these three books. The donor of the Sky Eye’s book was called Kongmutong, which was clearly a pseudonym for the Sky Eye. The donor of “A Few Things About Me and the Moon” was Shen Jiyue. The donor of “Embrace” was even stranger: Kongmutong, Mu Sichen, and Qin Zhou.

“Huh? Why is your name on this?” He Fei finally developed some curiosity about this brief history.

Mu Sichen glanced at him, flipped through the book, and found “The Little Rainbow Fish.” He saw that the donation had two names: one was Jiantong, who was recorded in the brief history as having donated a large number of fairy tale books, and the other was He Fei.

“Huh? My name is on it too? What’s going on!” He Fei snatched the book to take a look, and he and Mu Sichen entered the book together.

They appeared in front of the library gates.

“It actually worked,” He Fei said in shock. “I went from the library into the book, into the Central World, into my home in the Central World, and entered “A Brief History of the Library” again… Just how many layers of worlds are stacked here?”

Mu Sichen also felt this kind of experience was very magical. He looked up at the plaque of the library and saw it read “New Eye Library.” It seems this was the original form of the library.

“Let’s go in and look,” Mu Sichen said.

“Wow, this place looks so old, gloomy, and foggy everywhere, and the lighting is very dim,” He Fei said. “This is completely different from the simple and clean library I saw. Has it been redecorated?”

This time, the two appeared to have entered the library as ordinary visitors. There was a manager in the hall who had no whites in his eyes, only pupils. He was quite handsome, but those special eyes became more terrifying the more one looked at them. Everyone around called him the Apostle of Jiantong.

“Sure enough, it’s Jiantong; are his eyes simple to the point that only the pupils remain?” He Fei complained. “These eyes look way too terrifying.”

The Apostle of Jiantong was only responsible for a registration list. People who came to borrow books every day wrote their names on it by hand, and then went to look at the books. No money was spent, and no borrowing records were registered, because the books couldn’t be taken away and could only be read inside the library.

Mu Sichen observed these townspeople borrowing books, seeing them looking at the books infatuatedly. During the entire “Day” period, they kept reading without stopping, not blinking their eyes even once.

“Looking at books like this will ruin your eyes, right?” He Fei said.

As soon as he finished speaking, someone’s eyes fell out with a “crackling” sound.

He Fei was full of shock: “I didn’t do it!”

Mu Sichen grabbed him: “Don’t be afraid. This is the norm in this world. You have to adapt. Keep watching.”

After this person’s eyes fell out from watching, the Apostle of Jiantong picked up the pair of eyes calmly and placed them on the registration list. A light suddenly appeared on the list, and within the light was a massive eye, with the sun, moon, and stars reflected within the pupil. It was exactly the totem of the Sky Eye.

Afterward, the body of the person whose eyes had fallen out turned into white bones, and a library cleaner, with an eye connected under every single hair, came over and swept the white bones into the trash can.

The Apostle of Jiantong placed that pair of eyes in a glass bottle and handed it to a follower, gently instructing: “Go to the Mingmu Sanatorium and deliver it to the Apostle of Yumu.”

Meanwhile, the cleaner handed the trash bag to this errand-running follower as well: “Deliver it to the processing plant for the Apostle of Chongtong to handle.”

“Yes, Apostle of Jiantong, Apostle of Famu,” the follower responded.

Watching this scene, Mu Sichen understood why both Yao Wangping and Shen Jiyue chose the sanatorium as their first choice, rather than the library. The mode of the New Eye Library was extremely simple, yet very effective. The “Pillar” was held right in the hands of the Apostle of Jiantong. If you want to grab it, go ahead. But to fight directly with the Apostle of Jiantong, the Apostle of Famu, and even the energy of the entire library, you would only have a chance of winning if you had three Yao Wangpings carrying the Sword of Protection. If the Apostle of Jiantong asked Yumu and Chongtong for help, at least five or six Yao Wangpings would be needed. It was just too difficult to fight.

If Mu Sichen hadn’t been attracted by Yao Wangping’s sanity value back then and followed him to the sanatorium, but had instead come to the library in a daze, he probably wouldn’t have escaped the fate of having his eyes pop out from reading.

“How did such a terrifying library turn into the high-tech appearance it has now?” He Fei asked curiously.

As if responding to his words, in the next second, the scene shifted, and a person who looked exactly like Shen Jiyue walked into the library.