Mu Sichen’s mind flashed to the book Once Upon a Time, There Was an Eye Desiring to See Everything in the World, but he shook his head, rejecting the hypothesis. If the Apostle of Jiantong were hidden in such an obvious book, Shen Jiyue would surely have found it long ago. He must be hidden in a very obscure book, or perhaps several books, or he might even be able to transfer between books. If he were fixed in a single book, that would be fine; Mu Sichen was confident he could find him no matter how many books there were. But if he could transfer at will, that would be a headache.

The clues still needed to be found in the book donation catalog. Mu Sichen searched for all books donated by “Kongmutong” and found that in addition to the bedtime stories of Qin Zhou and the Sky Eye, the book There is an Ideal Home in My Dreams was also donated by Him. Kongmutong had not donated many books—only about ten—but every title was strange and seemed related to a God-level monster. Mu Sichen did not dare to flip through these books recklessly; once curiosity was aroused, one might enter the world within the book. Going into Xiangping Town before was fine, as Qin Zhou was introverted and protected humans as much as possible, but if he were to provoke some other Evil God in another town, it would be troublesome.

A Few Things About Me and the Moon was donated by Shen Jiyue, but another book related to the moon was donated by Kongmutong, titled False Happiness Under the Moon. Mu Sichen took out his notebook to copy down the titles of these books and discovered a pattern. The protagonist of A Few Things About the Moon, donated by Shen Jiyue, was not the moon, but a person going mad under the moon. From the protagonist’s perspective, this was a bedtime horror story, but from the moon’s perspective, could it be a short, satisfying story? Similarly, the ending of Once Upon a Time, There Was an Eye Desiring to See Everything in the World, from the standpoint of the protagonist, the Sky Eye, was also a warm and sweet ending. Conversely, for books like Embrace, False Happiness Under the Moon, and There is an Ideal Home in My Dreams, one could tell just by reading the titles that these stories either had unhappy endings or were somewhat smearing the moon and dreams.

The bookmark system displayed a calendar; today’s date was July 28, 20 years after the Cataclysm. The donation date for Shen Jiyue’s A Few Things was exactly five days ago, coinciding with the time Shen Jiyue occupied the New Eye Library. As for Kongmutong’s donation dates, they were more scattered, donated sequentially between 10 and 20 years after the Cataclysm. The donation date for Embrace was exactly today. This evidence was sufficient to indicate that regardless of whether they were God-level monsters or ordinary people, they would leave behind a book after entering the library, whether voluntarily or involuntarily. Those books related to God-level monsters, except for the two by Qin Zhou and Shen Jiyue, were all the Sky Eye’s impressions of other towns.

Mu Sichen scanned the list again, and sure enough, found the book Resident H5248 at the end of the donation list, donated by He Fei, with the status: “Rented, Not Borrowable.” Meanwhile, many other books in the Resident series were in the “Borrowable” status. That was probably because He Fei was still alive, while the readable books belonged to owners who had already passed away. The lives of ordinary people were donated here just like that.

Mu Sichen sighed slightly and continued searching for the book he wanted. In the donation records from five days ago, he found a book titled Apostle C03, donated by the Apostle of Famu. Another book, Apostle C02, was donated by the Apostle of Jiantong and was currently in the “Not Borrowable” status. Mu Sichen also discovered the book he himself had donated; unlike He Fei’s, his title was * *A02. Mu Sichen checked repeatedly; indeed, there were two asterisks, and two characters in his book title were masked. Based on the books donated by the Apostles of Jiantong and Famu, it could be inferred that the Chinese characters in the title represented identity, the letters’ meaning was unclear, but the numbers were likely sequential numbers. In other words, in this “A” sequence with masked words, there was at least a “01.” Mu Sichen searched for “A01” on the bookmark system’s shelf but couldn’t find the book. This did not mean “A01” did not exist, but rather that after entering the library, Mu Sichen was identified as “Number 02” by some unknown force.

Mu Sichen temporarily set aside the issue of the masked words and the existence of another person of his type, concentrating on finding the book that might hide the Apostle of Jiantong. Ultimately, he chose three books. One was Apostle C03 donated by the Apostle of Famu, one was The Power of Curiosity written by the Apostle of Jiantong, and the last was the familiar fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes. Mu Sichen searched for these three books in the bookmark system; the first two showed they had been borrowed once before, but the name of the borrower was unknown. Books here displayed borrowing records but did not show the borrower’s name, only the donor’s name. Like He Fei’s The Little Rainbow Fish, Mu Sichen found 13 borrowing records, but only He Fei was on the donor list; it seemed only He Fei had changed the ending of The Little Rainbow Fish, which was why his name appeared in the donor column. The borrowing records for The Emperor’s New Clothes were more numerous, totaling 27; it was truly a classic fairy tale, and likely the first choice for people who had just arrived here, leaning toward borrowing familiar books.

It took Mu Sichen over an hour to review the book list. During this time, He Fei had run to the bathroom three times and eaten a lot of food in the room, but this fake food only made him hungrier the more he ate. He Fei shook Mu Sichen’s arm and pointed to the time displayed on the bookmark system, saying: “I know you’re not in a hurry, but I’m truly worried for you. Regardless of what the library’s intentions are, we must survive first, right? At 23:59:59 daily, 1000 points are deducted; it’s already 23:50!”

“Do points get deducted before midnight? I thought I had to wait a full 24 hours,” Mu Sichen said.

He Fei: “It shows you haven’t read the system instructions carefully. Players who log in after 23:30 in the evening, due to having little time left, can have their points deducted before midnight of the second day. But players who log in before 23:30 must earn points within the remaining time. Otherwise, would I have been in a rush to clear ten books in a row? It was because I was scared by this points requirement.”

Therefore, the first few books He Fei chose were simple fairy tales, with very fast clearing speeds and fast point acquisition.

“So you should quickly enter a familiar book and get those 1000 points first,” He Fei suggested. “Those three books you chose… I think The Emperor’s New Clothes is pretty good! You go in, get the emperor some clothes, change the ending, and you can get a smiley-face bookmark. A smiley-face bookmark gives 1000 points, but 300 points are deducted for entering the book. You said you had 400 points left, that’s enough, go go!”

“But after deducting the 300 for entering the book and the 1000 for the day’s consumption, I will only have 100 left. After that, I won’t be able to enter any more books,” Mu Sichen said.

“Then… find one that might give a moon bookmark and an eye bookmark,” He Fei said. “A moon bookmark gives 3000 points, and an eye bookmark gives 2000. That book you looked at earlier, A Few Things About Me and the Moon, would work. I see it’s a bedtime story; you can finish a book in two or three minutes.”

“That book is absolutely out of the question, and you cannot enter it either,” Mu Sichen said. Entering that book was simply asking for death.

“Then what do we do!” He Fei was running around anxiously. “Only 5 minutes left. I have over seven thousand points, but I can’t transfer them to you!”

His words reminded Mu Sichen of something.

“Perhaps there is a way,” Mu Sichen summoned his pickaxe.

“Why did you bring this thing out again?” He Fei clutched his head, saying: “Are you going to smash my head again? Gently this time!”

“Not your head. Place a bookmark on the table, choose an unimportant smiley-face bookmark. Hurry,” Mu Sichen said.

He Fei obediently chose a smiley-face bookmark. Mu Sichen focused his mind, gently tapping the bookmark with the head of the pickaxe, activating the “Mining” skill to mine one of He Fei’s bookmarks. He Fei uttered an “Oh,” glanced at the bookmark system, and said: “I lost 1000 points. How about you?”

“I gained 1000. This method really works,” Mu Sichen said. He had not worried about points from the start; firstly, he felt that with the power of the “Self” sticker, he should be able to resist the point liquidation before midnight; secondly, he felt he could freeload a bit from He Fei.

“Your weapon looks stupid and heavy, but the skill is pretty interesting,” He Fei said.

“What was your initial item?”

“What else could it be, a gun, obviously. Even if it only has 6 bullets, that can’t stop my love for it.” He Fei took out a revolver.

Mu Sichen was not surprised; this was truly He Fei’s style.

“Skills?”

“Skills? Can there be skills?” He Fei said, spinning the cylinder. It seemed He Fei had not used the gun yet and had not figured out its skill.

“Initial items all have skills; you can explore them slowly later,” Mu Sichen briefly introduced the skills of the pickaxe.

After solving the point interlude, He Fei clutched his hungry stomach and said: “Have you thought about how to leave here? I’m so hungry. Did you bring food?”

“I don’t…” Mu Sichen felt his trouser pocket, then paused. In his left trouser pocket, a bar of chocolate had appeared from somewhere; it was very expensive, and Mu Sichen rarely bought such expensive food.

“Isn’t this the brand of chocolate I like? Why did you buy it too?” He Fei asked.

“Where do you usually keep your chocolate?” Mu Sichen asked.

He Fei: “Usually, I keep it in my backpack for school, on the desk in the dorm, and when I’m working, I carry one or two in my bag.”

“Then this is probably yours,” Mu Sichen handed the chocolate to He Fei.

He Fei had once put a bootleg doll and chocolate together in his bag to take to work. It was likely at that time that the bootleg doll had snatched a piece of chocolate. The bootleg doll could not eat food in the real world—drinking cola would soak the entire tentacle in cola—which was why it secretly brought a piece back when returning to the game world. The little octopus seemed to love sweets.

After eating the piece of chocolate, He Fei’s stamina recovered considerably.

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

“The Emperor’s New Clothes, no problem. That book is so simple. I even suggested you come here to earn points earlier,” He Fei said.

“Not necessarily simple,” Mu Sichen sighed. He found The Emperor’s New Clothes in the donation details, and it had 17 donors! Aside from the Apostle of Jiantong, there were actually 16 others!

“Do so many people donate one book at the same time?” He Fei said in shock.

Mu Sichen told He Fei his hypothesis that “you can become a donor as long as you have modified the contents of the book.” He Fei pointed at the list and said: “You mean, this book was modified 16 times? Then this story is probably unrecognizable by now, right? Why enter a book like that?”

Indeed, compared to The Emperor’s New Clothes, Apostle C03 and The Power of Curiosity seemed more worth investigating. But the borrowing records of these two books made Mu Sichen very concerned. He had dealt with Shen Jiyue, and based on his understanding of Her, Mu Sichen suspected that Shen Jiyue was the borrower of these two books. If he were Shen Jiyue, he would definitely enter all books where the Apostle of Jiantong might be hidden. Even if the Apostle of Jiantong wasn’t in these books, it didn’t matter; He could set traps within the books. That way, regardless of whether the Apostle of Jiantong could transfer books, He could cut off the other party’s retreat. Unless it was certain that the Apostle of Jiantong was in these two books, Mu Sichen would not enter recklessly.

Conversely, The Emperor’s New Clothes seemed ordinary and easily ignored, but this story was somewhat similar to the sentence on the note on the second floor: “My Lord has not completely fallen; He is in my heart, in the books, in the gazes of everyone who reveres Him.” In The Emperor’s New Clothes, everyone could not see the emperor’s clothes, yet insisted on praising the king’s new clothes for looking good, as if these non-existent clothes had long been implanted in people’s hearts. It just so happened that the people in this book were lying with their eyes open; clearly unable to see, they insisted on saying they could see. They did not believe their own eyes, believing instead in the lies of the swindlers.

In other words, the people in this book were the type least likely to believe their eyes and least likely to believe in the Sky Eye. If Shen Jiyue adopted a tactics-of-casting-a-wide-net approach, searching for the Apostle of Jiantong book by book, this book would instead be placed toward the end, and hiding here seemed safer.

Of course, besides this, Mu Sichen had another very important reason for selecting this book. He had He Fei note down the names of the 16 people in the donation list, then flipped to the books in the Resident sequence, and likewise found these 16 names among the donors. These books had one thing in common: they were all in the “Borrowable” status. He Fei’s Resident H5248, he who was still alive, could not be borrowed.

“You mean, everyone who entered The Emperor’s New Clothes and modified the story died without exception after leaving this book?” He Fei asked. “And you still want to enter?”

“The more dangerous it is, the closer it is to my hypothesis. Do you want to go with me?” Mu Sichen asked.

He Fei clenched his fist, and it trembled slightly, but he insisted on being brave: “Go. If you are going, how can I not go? Good brothers, let’s go die together!”