Extra 20 Administrator
1. Maintain absolute silence. No talking, shouting, or making any unusual noises.
2. Please take good care of books, handle them with care, and put them back in their original place after reading.
3. Please do not read for more than two hours at a time. Please abide by this rule.
4. Eating and drinking are prohibited in the library.
5. If you need help, please go to the front desk and ask the administrator quietly, but please note that the administrator is very busy, so please do not ask questions that are not related to the books.
6. All books must be borrowed with a student ID card. Unborrowed books may not be taken out of the library.
7. If you find any non-printed handwritten text or unusual images on the pages of a book, please close the book immediately, put it back on the shelf, and notify the administrator.
8. It is forbidden to enter areas marked as "Restricted Books Area" or "Archives Room".
9. The library bell rings. When you hear the first bell, start packing up your belongings. When you hear the second bell, leave immediately.
The rules are more detailed and more disturbing, especially Articles 7 and 9.
Li Mu raised his head and looked at the tall wooden reception desk at the entrance of the library.
There was a figure sitting in the back.
He was an extremely skinny old man, wearing an old-fashioned librarian's uniform that was washed white and a pair of reading glasses. He was lowering his head and slowly writing something with a feather pen in a huge register.
He looked like a dusty mummy, his movements were as slow as stop-motion animation, and he exuded an air of stale dust.
He is the administrator.
As if noticing Li Mu's gaze, the administrator suddenly stopped writing.
He raised his head very slowly, step by step.
Behind the reading lenses are a pair of cloudy eyes with almost invisible pupils.
There was no light in those eyes, they just stared straight and empty in the direction of Li Mu.
He didn't say anything, had no expression, just "watched" like that.
Li Mu instantly felt a cold chill crawling up his spine. He immediately lowered his head and pretended to read a magazine on the table, his heart pounding.
Those eyes... didn't look like the eyes of a living person, but more like two glass balls.
The administrator "looked" for a few seconds, then lowered his head again very slowly and continued his extremely slow writing, as if everything just now was just an illusion.
Li Mu breathed a sigh of relief, but didn't dare to look up again.
Time passes by every second.
The library still maintained that suffocating silence.
Gao Meng and Zhao Sha wandered between the bookshelves but found nothing. The books were either extremely boring textbooks or bizarre novels with completely confusing and incoherent content, which made them dizzy.
Li Mu's eyes unconsciously swept across to a girl who was reading a book across from him. She was very absorbed in reading, her fingers lightly running across the pages.
Suddenly, Li Mu noticed that she paused and leaned forward slightly, as if she saw something confusing.
Her brows furrowed slightly, and her fingers subconsciously tapped the page of the book.
Immediately afterwards, her face began to turn pale at a speed visible to the naked eye, and her breathing became rapid.
She suddenly raised her head, her eyes full of fear and disbelief, her mouth slightly open, as if she wanted to scream, but she held it back.
She closed the book in a panic, pushed it away as if she had touched a branding iron, then stood up and staggered out of her seat.
However, she had violated the first rule - she made a "strange noise".
Almost the moment she stood up——
The skinny administrator appeared behind her without any warning, like a ghost.
No one saw when he left the front desk or how he came here.
He just stood there quietly, staring at the back of the girl's head with his cloudy eyes.
The girl seemed to sense something, her whole body stiffened, and she turned her head very slowly and fearfully.
When she saw the administrator behind her, the color on her face instantly drained away and her pupils dilated to the extreme.
The administrator slowly raised a withered hand, holding the ancient feather pen, the tip of which seemed to be dipped in a dark red, sticky ink.
He stretched out his index finger, put it in front of his dry lips, and made a "hush" gesture.
Then, he used the feather pen to tap the girl's forehead very slowly and gently.
No sound, no struggle.
The horrified expression on the girl's face froze in an instant, then disappeared quickly like a faded photo, replaced by a complete, empty numbness.
The light in her eyes died, and she became exactly like the other students around her.
She slowly and mechanically sat back in her seat, picked up the book again, and lowered her head, as if nothing had happened.
The administrator retracted the quill, and his figure disappeared again as if blending into the air. The next second, he returned to the distant backstage and continued his slow writing.
The whole process was silent.
The other students in the library didn't even raise their heads, as if they were already accustomed to this scene.
Li Mu, Gao Meng and Zhao Sha felt cold all over their bodies and their clothes were soaked with cold sweat in an instant.
Punishment... This is the administrator's "punishment", not killing, but... erasing the mind and turning into a numb puppet that can only read books.
The "safety" here is based on absolute obedience and complete silence. Once violated, one will lose oneself.
In this extreme fear——
"when--!"
A heavy, melodious sound, as if from a bronze bell from a distant era, suddenly echoed in the library.
The first bell.
Rule 9: [When you hear the first bell, please start packing your things; when you hear the second bell, please leave immediately.]
The time has come and they must leave.
Almost at the same time as the bell rang, all the students who were reading numbly in the library began to close their books and tidy up their desks in unison, like clockwork dolls.
Then they stood up silently and orderly and walked towards the door. The whole process was still without a single unnecessary sound.
Li Mu and the other two did not dare to delay and immediately stood up, lowered their heads, and blended into this silent and strange group of people leaving the museum.
Wang Ke appeared from nowhere, his face even paler than before, and followed them silently.
The team moved in silence, passing through rows of tall bookshelves and heading towards the heavy library door.
Li Mu's heart was beating wildly.
What will be waiting for them outside the library?
The dorm manager? Or someone else? How long is the interval between the two bells?
Just as the team was about to reach the gate, Li Mu suddenly caught a glimpse of an open, old-style notebook lying on the ground in the depths of a narrow bookshelf aisle next to him.
The paper pages were yellowed and seemed to be covered with dense handwriting. On one of the pages, a pattern was circled in red pen.
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