Gu Zhan felt a darkness before him and was sent out of the book's world.
As he landed, he seemed to hear the book gently fall to the ground.
He looked down and saw the black-covered book lying on the ground.
Not far away, a person was rushing toward this direction.
It was getting light outside, and it had already been some time since the library closed.
Gu Zhan picked up the book before the person arrived. That person's footsteps suddenly stopped, and a glimmer of despair appeared in their eyes as they looked at Gu Zhan.
Gu Zhan raised his eyes to survey the surroundings, noticing that there were hardly any people left in the library. The few remaining were staring at each other.
They were still hoping someone would help them find their way.
Holding the book, Gu Zhan walked toward the library exit.
As dawn approached, time seemed to pass particularly quickly.
The white mist at the library entrance dispersed, and the sunlight became brighter. Gu Zhan quickened his pace and reached the door.
At the entrance stood a simple table, behind which sat the librarian. Wrapped in a thick black cloak, his features were obscured, and he appeared to be elderly, as evident from the hands that were visible.
Gu Zhan placed a book on the table and said, “To borrow.”
“Name,” an aged voice emerged from beneath the cloak.
Gu Zhan provided his name. The old man meticulously recorded it along with the borrowing time.
As he wrote, Gu Zhan caught sight of the book's true title.
The Forest Spring, the very place where Mike confessed to Jane.
Perhaps this was indeed a love story.
“All set,” the librarian announced.
Gu Zhan quickly grabbed the book and exited just as the library door was about to close.
The glass door slammed shut behind him, causing the ground to tremble slightly.
Those still inside, waiting for someone else to open a book, were jolted awake and scrambled toward the exit.
But it was too late. The daylight surged in at an astonishing speed, as if it were a trap laid out for them.
When they reached the library entrance, the glass door was firmly closed.
Around five or six people were trapped inside, pressing against the glass door, pounding on it in a desperate attempt to escape.
But not only did the door not open, Gu Zhan couldn’t even hear their voices from outside.
The library seemed to transform into a gigantic meat grinder. The ground shook, and the bookshelves inside began to spin rapidly, quickly pushing the people to another place, blood splattering against the glass door.
Gu Zhan stood outside, watching in silence.
After a moment, the inside fell silent.
The people... the bookshelves... were all gone, leaving only darkness.
After a while, sunlight streamed into the library, restoring its calm, just as it had appeared when Gu Zhan first arrived. The rows of bookshelves were neatly arranged, the books placed meticulously.
Gu Zhan furrowed his brow slightly, looking down at the book in his hand.
In the sunlight, this nameless black book had a faint chill to it.
Although it appeared clean, Gu Zhan inexplicably detected a hint of blood on it.
He stood at the library entrance for a while when suddenly he heard a nearby mix of cries and wails, followed by a gust of wind rushing toward him.
Anticipating this, Gu Zhan sidestepped, just as Qin Yue lunged forward and crashed into the glass door behind him.
He had witnessed the earlier scene of the “library devouring people.”
Now, this building loomed in his mind as an ominous place of death. Startled, Qin Yue quickly turned to Gu Zhan, crying out, “You’re still alive! You finally came out, bro, boo hoo hoo…”
“Stop the noise,” Gu Zhan frowned, evading Qin Yue’s sonic assault and moving forward.
Qin Yue, chastened, didn’t dare to argue, thinking it was his fault that Gu Zhan had come out so late.
He followed Gu Zhan closely like a worried spouse.
As Gu Zhan took a few steps forward, two unexpected figures emerged from the bushes beside them.
The moment they appeared, Qin Yue flared up, stepping in front of Gu Zhan and shouting, “What do you want?!”
An He Yan raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, smiling, “Oh, I mean no harm. I just want to discuss a collaboration.”
“Collaboration my foot!” Qin Yue hadn’t forgotten the scene in the library where he had pushed Gu Zhan.
He rolled up his sleeves and declared, “Ignore them. Let me scare them off!”
But before he could speak, Gu Zhan pushed him aside and asked An He Yan, “What kind of collaboration are you proposing?”
“Gu Zhan!” Qin Yue grew anxious, “They’re bad guys!”
An He Yan said, “You came out so late; you must have opened the book, right? You’ve been into the world within the book, and we’ve been there too. We can trade experiences.”
Gu Zhan replied coolly, “The book you have was taken from me. Trading one story for another isn’t a collaboration.”
An He Yan chuckled, “How can you say that? The book wasn’t discovered by you first. It fell to the ground, which means anyone could pick it up. It wasn’t stolen from you.”
Ignoring An He Yan, Gu Zhan walked past him.
Qin Yue followed closely, sticking out his tongue at An He Yan as they passed.
An He Yan disregarded Qin Yue completely, focusing only on Gu Zhan. “I thought you were a smart person. Trading stories offers you benefits, no downsides.”
Yet Gu Zhan seemed resolute in his decision to leave, not turning back.
An He Yan gritted his teeth. “Alright, we’ll exchange two stories for one of yours, okay?”
Only then did Gu Zhan stop and look back at An He Yan. After a pause, he said, “For the story in Qin Yue’s hands, you come with us.”
“Why should we?” An He Yan could no longer maintain his friendly demeanor; his expression became slightly sinister. “You enjoy playing the benefactor; why should we accompany him?”
Gu Zhan said, “It’s up to you. If you don’t want to, leave.”
Having said that, he turned to leave.
An He Yan couldn’t hold back any longer and shouted angrily, “Fine! I agree!”
This strange turn of events left Qin Yue dumbfounded.
Initially, he thought An He Yan had come to trick Gu Zhan.
But now it seemed that An He Yan was begging Gu Zhan for a partnership.
What exactly were they up to?
Five minutes later, they were seated on the steps outside the library.
Gu Zhan said, “You go first, or we can enter his book first.”
An He Yan clenched his jaw. “We’ll go first, but you must finish your story too, and then we’ll all enter his book. Who knows what’s inside his book? What if we can’t get out?”
Gu Zhan knew not to push too hard, so he replied, “Fine.”
An He Yan continued, “Xu Ke’s book is a fairy tale, a simple story about a little girl and a small bird. The bird falls to the ground, and the little girl helps it return to its nest. That’s the end of the story.”
“My story… is also quite simple. It’s about a child who gets lost, and I help him find his parents.”
An He Yan’s description was brief, delivered in just a few words. After finishing, Qin Yue, somewhat dissatisfied, remarked, “How is anyone supposed to understand that?”
Gu Zhan replied, “My story is about helping a shy man confess to the girl he likes. They end up together, and then I left.”
Qin Yue was speechless.
He had just been criticizing An He Yan for his overly simple story, only to find that Gu Zhan’s was even simpler.
Moreover, the three books seemed utterly unrelated.
Qin Yue cautiously asked, “Is this kind of information exchange really useful?”
An He Yan smiled again. “Whether it’s useful or not, we’ll have to see once we enter your book.”
“What?”
They exchanged knowing glances, leaving Qin Yue feeling completely out of the loop.
He hugged the book Postpartum Care for Sows tightly to his chest.
Gu Zhan stood up, glancing around. “Let’s find a different place.”
This library always gave off an ominous vibe.
An He Yan said, “Alright, let’s head home and rest. We can meet up again in the afternoon.”
“Sounds good,” Gu Zhan agreed.
“Since that’s settled, Xu Ke and I will take our leave,” An He Yan said, getting up. “I’m sure you’d prefer not to travel with us.”
Gu Zhan indeed did not want to be with them. Once An He Yan and Xu Ke boarded the bus, Gu Zhan and Qin Yue headed to the bus stop.
After yesterday’s events, there were noticeably fewer people on the bus today. Most players were either trapped in the library or had already left, some with books, others empty-handed.
Upon getting off the bus, Qin Yue hesitated before approaching Gu Zhan and said, “It’s not safe for me to keep this book. Shouldn’t I give it back to you?”
Gu Zhan replied, “You should keep it.”
“But…” Qin Yue felt that it was Gu Zhan’s book; he was merely safeguarding it.
Gu Zhan insisted, “This book is yours. The opportunity to enter the world of the book is yours too. It’s your chance, so you should protect it. If it gets lost, it’ll be your problem.”
In other words, he wasn’t keen on looking after Qin Yue indefinitely.
This book falling into Qin Yue’s hands was a stroke of luck, and Gu Zhan didn’t think he should claim ownership over it.
“Alright then.” Qin Yue understood the implication behind Gu Zhan’s words, nodded, and said, “I’ll make sure to protect it.”
The two parted ways and returned home. Lying on his bed, Gu Zhan didn’t fall asleep right away.
Instead, he took out the nameless book he had borrowed from the library, The Forest Spring.
He took a deep breath and opened the book again.
This time, the pages showed no signs of change.
The words seemed obscured by something, making them unreadable.
Gu Zhan felt a twinge of regret; he had hoped to see what the original text looked like.
However, this meant that to discover the content of the book, he would have to enter its world himself. Otherwise, when he returned to class on Monday, he wouldn’t be able to share any insights when the teacher asked them to reflect on it.
As he had anticipated, entering the world of this book was unavoidable.
Gu Zhan set The Forest Spring aside, closed his eyes, and began to rest.
---
Three days later, the four of them met again at a café in the city.
A group of students sitting in the café attracted attention, but with textbooks spread out on the table, they looked like just a bunch of kids working on homework, which wasn’t unusual.
Once seated, Qin Yue appeared nervous. “So, when we all enter the world of the book, won’t we just disappear from this place? Isn’t that going to cause a commotion?”
Seeing his anxious demeanor, An He Yan smiled. “When will you stop being so concerned about those around us?”
Qin Yue glared at An He Yan suspiciously.
An He Yan continued, “In this scenario, everything except the players is fake, especially the passersby. They don’t enforce any rules on us, so we can ignore them.”
Gu Zhan remained silent, knowing An He Yan’s assertion was flawed.
Not everything besides the players was fake.
At the very least, the monsters were real.
An He Yan declared, “Let’s begin.”
Qin Yue took a deep breath, nervously placing the book on the table.
Before opening it, he glanced around, noticing everyone’s calm expressions.
He felt a wave of despair; why did it make him look so incompetent?
“Come on, hurry up,” Gu Zhan urged.
Finally, Qin Yue took a deep breath and opened the book.
As he did, a powerful suction force emanated from the pages, pulling him and everyone around him into the book.
---
Gu Zhan was now entering the book for the second time and was familiar with the process.
After a brief sensation of weightlessness, his vision cleared again.
He found himself in a chaotic battlefield, surrounded by trenches and scattered bodies.
The corpses were dressed in uniform clothing, indicating that a war had just taken place here.
A loud roar sounded overhead as Gu Zhan looked up to see a plane zooming past. A bomb was dropped, exploding not far from him.
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