Chapter 495 Collapse
“The quality is not good enough.”
Yu Sheng opened the old book on the bookshelf and saw only a few big words on the yellowed pages.
He was stunned for a moment, then subconsciously turned to the next page, but saw only those few words: The quality is not good enough.
After a slight hesitation, he continued to flip through the pages, finally confirming that every page of the book contained the same, repetitive content. That sentence kept appearing—
The quality is not enough, the quality is not enough, the quality is not enough...
The dark font with hard lines seemed to be cut into the paper with a knife, as if carrying some kind of heart-pounding power. He didn't know if it was an illusion, but Yu Sheng even felt that he had experienced something paranoid and desperate from the pages of the book, something... despair and depression that seeped into him through the book, even through this old bookstore, and across the entire dark alley.
Little Red Riding Hood immediately noticed the strange expression on Yu Sheng's face. After giving herself an injection of blocker, she moved closer and cautiously took a look at the contents of the book, but she showed the same confused and stunned expression as Yu Sheng.
"...What does this mean?" the girl muttered to herself.
"You don't know either?" Yu Sheng looked at Little Red Riding Hood in surprise, raising the old book in his hand. "Hasn't this happened before?"
"I've never seen this before, and the publicly shared data from other investigators doesn't mention this sentence appearing in books in used bookstores. Besides, it doesn't fit the 'format,'" Little Red Riding Hood said immediately. "Normally, these books have prefaces and postscripts, fictional sources, and record specific events. They wouldn't be... so inexplicable."
She hesitated for several seconds when she said the last sentence, and finally could only use the word "incomprehensible" to describe the contents of the book in Yu Sheng's hand.
Yu Sheng frowned, and after a little thought, he raised his hand and took out another book from the bookshelf and opened it quickly.
The same few words rushed into his field of vision impatiently - the quality is not good enough.
Yu Sheng casually threw the book on the counter, and in order to verify it, he pulled out several more books from the bookshelf. No matter what the appearance of each old book was, the contents inside were exactly the same!
The yellowed paper just kept repeating the words "quality is not good enough" in every book and every page!
"Something's wrong. The dark alley has indeed changed. It's different from what's recorded in the documentation," Little Red Riding Hood's tone became serious. "But why did these changes happen so suddenly? It was clearly an ordinary foreign land before, and now that we've arrived..."
Yu Sheng had cautiously stopped trying to take books from the shelf. He put the last old book back in its place while keeping a vigilant eye on any disturbances around him. Meanwhile, a series of bold thoughts quickly crossed his mind: "Are these changes caused by our arrival? Or is it because we discovered that post from three years ago? Or is it because..."
Little Red Riding Hood turned her head: "Why?"
"Or is it because... Marlene found the records left by 'Erin' from deep within the garden network?" Yu Sheng spoke slowly, his expression growing increasingly serious. The knowledge and experience accumulated from his repeated dealings with the Dark Angels now seemed to come alive in his mind, reminding him of Hu Li's theory about "everything is information." "I feel like this information is resonating and spontaneously converging."
At this point, he suddenly paused, frowned, and thought of what he had said to Hu Li not long ago - the "information" related to the Goddess of Omens, they seemed to be alive, and were even actively moving closer to people related to Irene.
The shadow outside the curtain chases those who try to find the truth or accidentally come into contact with the truth.
Yu Sheng raised his head and looked around at the tall bookshelves in the old bookstore, the mottled and dark roof, and the "rotten knowledge" that kept seeping out from the melting books.
In his eyes, everything here seemed to suddenly feel "alive", as if it had become the limbs of some huge living creature, with some purpose, some will, waving tentacles towards him, trying to communicate.
The "wandering wizard" summoned a ball of magic light and carefully checked every corner of the second-hand bookstore with the other three members of the adventure team. These summoned creatures, who used to have stiff manners, no longer had that dull feeling when completing their work "within the set scope" and appeared to be extremely professional and reliable.
The Stalker seemed to have suddenly discovered something. He knocked the hilt of his dagger against the wall next to the bookshelf and reported to the king, "Your Majesty, there's something unusual here."
The king immediately jumped on his head and looked at the place where the bookshelf was close to the wall.
Some lines that are difficult to notice without careful observation are faintly seeping out from the wall - the small gray-black patterns look like ordinary mold marks at first glance, but if you look carefully, you can see the complexity and regularity of the patterns, as well as the style that is incompatible with the old bookstore itself.
"...I guess there is no mention of this thing in the public information about 'Dark Alley'." Yu Sheng muttered.
"It's like it's seeping in from outside," Little Red Riding Hood said of her first feeling when she saw the patterns. "Some kind of...invasion?"
Yu Sheng stared at the wall. "What's beyond this wall? Has anyone ever tried to 'break through' these buildings in the alleys?"
Little Red Riding Hood and the King looked at each other in bewilderment.
"It seems no one has done this before, but theoretically, the boundaries of the 'Dark Alley' are the buildings on either side. There's nothing beyond that. If you climb onto the roof, you'll see nothing but gray outside. Jumping out will only bring you back to where you started," the king said, then paused and added, "I've climbed up there before."
Maomao sounded very authoritative when he said this.
But Yu Sheng still wanted to give it a try.
"Why don't we try digging through this wall?" He began to urge his teammates. "Even if we make a small hole... we can take a look at where these patterns are seeping in. If it's difficult, I can call Luna."
As a result, he just said a word of instigation, and the king jumped on the head of the "young swordsman" and said: "Okay, make a hole."
Cats are seven times more curious than humans—and twice as curious when goaded by Borderland Spot King.
Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth, as if wanting to remind the two to be more cautious, but when she thought of the king's almost omnipotent ability and Yu Sheng's strong execution ability (mainly the latter), she swallowed the words that were already on her throat. She knew that even if she stopped the king, Yu Sheng would definitely call Luna over to pry open the wall, so she had no choice but to stand aside and watch the Idea King and the cat committing suicide with full concentration.
The young swordsman raised the sword in his hand and stabbed the wall without hesitation.
Sparks flew.
A bright flash of fire burst out between the seemingly old and fragile concrete wall and the long sword with physical properties, accompanied by the sound of metal colliding.
Yu Sheng opened his mouth when he saw this scene, wondering whether he should call Luna over. But before he could say anything, he saw the village girl priest in the adventurer team took two steps forward and patted the young swordsman on the shoulder.
Then the wandering wizard and the stealth warrior in the team also stepped forward, clenched their fists and cheered for the swordsman.
Yu Sheng didn't know what was going on. He just vaguely heard them talking about friendship, journey, bond and so on. The next second, light began to appear on the young man's body, and then the Village Sword also began to glow, looking like a lightsaber. Then the young swordsman shouted "For everyone in the village" - he didn't know where the village he was talking about was - and then he heard a "puff", and the glittering Village Sword pierced directly through the wall of the second-hand bookstore, like a hot knife cutting butter.
Yu Sheng was stunned: "...Oh my god, the power of friendship and bond!"
Then the lightsabers of friendship and bond began to fly up and down, tearing down the load-bearing walls.
It was only when the entire building began to shake violently that Yu Sheng realized that it was the "load-bearing wall" of the second-hand bookstore.
It might even be the "load-bearing wall" of the space.
A continuous cracking and breaking sound came from deep in the wall, and the ground underfoot began to shake. The tall bookshelves on both sides creaked under the weight, and old books with words like "poor quality" written on them fell from the shelves like a torrent of water. The pages flew everywhere, and the words inside were scattered all over the ground in panic, crawling and running around along the ground and walls. The black bold words were everywhere, and some words even crawled to the door of the used bookstore, scrambling to escape to the street outside, and then melted into the small puddle at the door of the bookstore, turning into clumps of ink scattered on the stone brick floor.
"I should have stopped you two—" Little Red Riding Hood screamed, grabbed the king by the scruff of the neck and ran out the door, turning back to call out to Yu Sheng as she ran, "Don't just stand there! This level of reality is about to collapse!"
The king's adventure team also ran out quickly. The young swordsman holding the village sword ran out while excitedly shouting words like "dream" and "everyone's future". In the end, he was hit on the head by a fireball from the wandering wizard sister in the team.
Yu Sheng also began to retreat towards the door, but he couldn't help but turn around and look at the big hole that the swordsman had just dug.
The bookshelves on both sides coughed violently, and the gray old books continued to fall down like scales of flesh peeling off the shelves. The rotten knowledge gathered into a small rushing waterfall, washing over the floor that had become bumpy at some point. The words that fell out of the books scrambled to climb higher, and the walls were filled with the words "quality is not good enough", and the words were still pushing and shoving each other, shaking violently, and making many tiny but headache-inducing screams.
On the other side of the big hole was a thick gray fog, and there were many faint black lines extending from somewhere, winding around the edge of the "dark alley".
However, just as Yu Sheng was about to get closer to see what was going on, the big hole suddenly disappeared, as if it had never appeared.
(End of this chapter)
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