(3)
Yuying University
Chapter 481: Satan would have to get a tattoo of you on his back.
In an instant, Wen Jianyan felt a chill run from his head to his toes.
He finally understood why there were so many motionless “corpses” sitting in the reading area outside.
“Student, please check out a book.”
The voice was flat but extremely cold, like someone whispering right next to his ear, carrying a terrifying power that was impossible to resist.
“Bzz… bzzt…”
Unknowingly, the already dim lights in the library grew even dimmer. In the boundless darkness, only the three characters for “Wen Jianyan” on the book’s spine were dripping blood-red.
Those three characters gradually enlarged and swelled in his vision, eventually filling his entire field of view.
Wen Jianyan’s whole body felt as if it were filled with lead, unable to move even a single bit.
However, he could clearly see his own fingers slowly rising, approaching the book with his name on it.
“!!!”
Wen Jianyan watched helplessly as his fingers neared the spine, the nerves that predicted danger screaming alarms in his head.
No, I have to stop it immediately!
The three immunity chances given by the Nightmare had already been used up. That left him with only one final choice…
[“Holy Infant’s Remains” Confirm activation?]
Confirm.
[Ding, item Holy Infant’s Remains has been activated! Detecting you have a title equipped, please select the activation form.]
Immunity! Of course, it’s immunity!!!
Without a second thought, Wen Jianyan made his choice.
The moment he made his choice, a strange interference sound came from his ear, and the system’s voice seemed to become distorted and garbled because of it.
[World ??? Status has been obtained, duration: ???]
Before Wen Jianyan could figure out the source of the anomaly, the cold power that had been tightly controlling him suddenly vanished. His limbs, which had felt like they were filled with lead, returned to normal. The abrupt loss of support caused Wen Jianyan to lose control and fall backward, stumbling several steps.
“Be careful!”
A familiar voice sounded by his ear, and then someone supported him from behind. In the chaos, his hand landed on the other person’s shoulder—
It was very slender.
In his peripheral vision, Wen Jianyan saw a flash of dazzling orange hair.
“…Orange Candy?”
His voice was a bit hoarse.
“Yeah.”
Orange Candy let go, her face grim. She didn’t mind his uncontrolled touch, but instead raised her eyes and looked at the bookshelf not far away.
Wen Jianyan steadied himself and followed Orange Candy’s gaze.
At some point, the light had completely returned to normal.
A lone lightbulb flickered weakly not far away, illuminating the dust-covered books on the shelf. The blood-red names that looked like they were bleeding had disappeared from the spines. Everything was the same as before.
—Except for one thing.
Besides Wen Jianyan and Orange Candy, everyone else had disappeared.
Su Cheng, Yun Bilan, Wei Cheng, Tian Ye…
Their figures had vanished completely, without a trace.
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s pupils couldn’t help but shrink.
One must know that when faced with such a crisis, all senior anchors would have the exact same reaction—activate an item to resist the crisis.
Wen Jianyan and Orange Candy would, and so would the others.
But the terrifying thing was, besides Wen Jianyan and Orange Candy, no one else had succeeded.
This was just the first wave of attack.
And they had only been in the library for just over ten minutes.
Although the attack was now over and the library had returned to its previous calm, and both the cold voice and the terrifying power he had felt were gone as if they had never appeared.
However, the meaning behind it was terrifying.
This was a true Double S-rank difficulty.
A Double S-rank death trap.
Wen Jianyan felt a chill climb up his spine, causing him to shiver uncontrollably.
He couldn’t help but remember his decision at the end of the last school year, when he passed by the library with the support of the other anchors in his team—no matter what, he couldn’t get close, he had to take a detour immediately.
What exactly had he seen back then?
What kind of role did this seemingly ordinary “library” play within Yuying Comprehensive University?
“Tsk.”
Orange Candy clicked her tongue lightly.
Her eyes were gloomy as her gaze fell on the spot where the others had disappeared. She said, “It seems we still underestimated this place.”
Although they had entered the library last time and even trespassed into the librarian’s office, strictly speaking, they had not met the conditions for the danger to be activated.
So, even though they broke into the office, the librarian only responded passively and didn’t even chase them out of the office, letting Orange Candy and the others leave.
But now, it seemed the real death threat was “time.”
—”You have been in the library for over ten minutes, you must borrow a book.”
In other words, as long as they were in the library for more than ten minutes, they would encounter a life-threatening, fatal attack.
“But I think the ten minutes started counting from when we entered the borrowing area,”
Orange Candy narrowed her eyes, tapping her fingers on her arm, and said calmly.
Although she wouldn’t deliberately keep track, as a high-level anchor, she still had this sense of time.
“But last time, we were mainly in the reading area, so we just happened not to trigger the condition.”
And although Orange Candy and the others’ entry last time was very fruitful, they had, by a strange twist of fate, not exceeded the time limit, and naturally did not have to face the real crisis from the library.
But this time, they weren’t so lucky.
“The good news is, they’re not dead.” Orange Candy lowered her head to check her livestream interface—as the captain, she could see the current status of all members in the team, whether they were alive or dead.
After receiving the affirmative answer, Wen Jianyan’s constantly tense heart finally relaxed a little.
That’s great. It seemed that although they hadn’t completely resisted this attack, as senior anchors, they had some life-saving means and wouldn’t die a violent death on the first attack.
“Of course…”
Orange Candy raised her head with a blank expression. She looked at Wen Jianyan and added,
“The bad news is, you and I both know where they are now.”
Wen Jianyan: “…”
Right. Indeed.
After exchanging a glance, the two tacitly turned in unison and trotted back the way they came.
Soon, they were back in the reading room.
The pale light flickered faintly overhead, illuminating the vast area.
It looked no different from when they had left. The cold tables and chairs were neatly arranged, and figures sat upright at the tables, maintaining the eerie posture of “looking down at a book,” motionless.
However, unlike before, the number of people seemed to have changed slightly.
After scanning the area, Wen Jianyan quickly located a few familiar figures among them.
“Over there!”
Sure enough, just as he had guessed, the few people who had disappeared by the bookshelves were now at the tables in the reading room, maintaining that familiar, strange posture, looking down at a book spread open on the table.
On the open pages of the book were densely packed, twisted small characters, the content of which could not be deciphered.
Seeing this, Wen Jianyan’s heart, which had just jumped for joy, sank again.
The good news was that his teammates were not dead, and he knew how to rescue them.
All he needed to do was move the books in front of them.
But the problem was, the difficulty was too great.
According to the information Wei Cheng provided earlier, once he moved the book, he would be directly attacked by the librarian… and it would be a fatal attack.
When all the team members were present before, they might have had the strength to fight head-on.
But now, their numbers were greatly reduced, and the difficulty would become infinitely greater.
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan seemed to think of something. He turned to look at Orange Candy and said, “Help me watch the office.”
After hastily dropping that sentence, he walked forward and reached for the book in front of Su Cheng.
“!”
Orange Candy was startled and immediately turned her head to look at the librarian’s office behind the curved front desk.
However, Wen Jianyan didn’t pull the book out this time. Instead, he carefully maintained the book’s original position and slowly lifted the cover.
The book’s cover was white.
But a strange scarlet color was seeping out from the spine.
Wen Jianyan let go and quickly walked to another table.
He lifted the cover of the book in front of Wei Cheng.
The same white cover, and the same thick, bloody color spreading from the spine.
Wen Jianyan retracted his hand again.
This time, he walked straight into the distance, to a stranger’s figure, and reached for the book in front of him.
The yellowed book was lifted by the young man’s cautious force, gradually revealing the front cover of the book.
It was a cold, deep, and impenetrable pitch-black.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[???]
[Wait a minute? This is…]
Wen Jianyan took two steps back and slowly took a deep breath.
Orange Candy, who was keeping watch on the side: “?”
Looking at Wen Jianyan who was dazed on the spot, she was a little anxious: “Hey, what did you find out?”
Wen Jianyan pulled himself back from his thoughts, turned to look at Orange Candy, and said slowly, “First, this attack is not a guaranteed death.”
As if feeling his statement wasn’t accurate enough, he added, “To be precise, it’s completely non-fatal.”
No wonder Wei Cheng, who should have sensed a fatal attack, had no reaction at all in front of the bookshelf.
“But, it’s pretty much a suspended death sentence,” Wen Jianyan said.
Orange Candy was stunned.
“If you want to stay in the library, you have to borrow books,”
Wen Jianyan paused and said slowly, “and they were just controlled by this rule and forced to ‘borrow’ a book.”
“Borrowing a book itself doesn’t cause death, but the problem is, in the library, what is borrowed must be returned. Once we have ‘borrowed a book,’ a countdown will begin.”
On every borrowed book, there would be the borrower’s name. Once the bloody color spreading from the name covered the entire cover, the countdown would end.
The cover would then turn black.
This also meant that the person was completely beyond saving and had officially become one of the dead.
And what led Wen Jianyan to this conclusion was Arnold.
The cover of his book was a deep blood-red.
And Arnold’s talent was to feign death.
In other words, his talent would keep his state at the moment before death and freeze it there forever. That’s why the book in front of him was the only one with a cover completely filled with blood-red.
Wait a minute…
What is borrowed must be returned?
Wen Jianyan seemed to have thought of something, his eyes suddenly widened slightly, and he abruptly turned to look at Orange Candy: “Hey—”
Before he could speak, Orange Candy’s eyes also widened suddenly.
The two said in unison:
“Library Borrowing Slips!!!”
Yes, the borrowing slips.
Before this, Wen Jianyan had no idea what use this item had in the instance. But as the terror and death rules of the library gradually became apparent, everything fell into place.
Orange Candy hurriedly lowered her head and took out the two borrowing slips from her pocket.
On one of the two slips, which should have been blank, blood-red writing had now appeared.
Borrower: Orange Candy
Book Borrowed: ————
Borrowing Time: ■■■■.■ Month ■ Day. 16:42
Return Time: ■■■■.■ Month ■ Day. 17:42
Indeed!
The reason Orange Candy was immune to this attack was not because the item she used was of a high level, but because she was carrying a borrowing slip.
At this point, the true terror of the library was revealed.
After all, not everyone’s luck was as good as Orange Candy’s, to have gone to the librarian’s office and obtained borrowing slips on their first visit, and without lingering.
What if a anchor entered here without a borrowing slip and without knowing the rules?
There was no way.
They could only wait for death.
This was probably why the number of victims gradually increased, with no survivors.
Because this was a rule that had to be figured out by sacrificing lives.
Strictly speaking, this was not an unsolvable death trap.
After all, borrowing a book wouldn’t kill you directly; it would still give the anchor a certain amount of time to survive. But the problem was, those who entered here often moved in a team, so a whole team would naturally be wiped out together.
But for someone who entered unprepared, unless their luck was really good, it was no different from certain death.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Damn, I’ve got goosebumps.]
[Ahhh, is this the terror of a double S-rank instance? This is too insane…]
[Luckily, only the library in the entire school is of this difficulty, and it only opens in the second school year. Otherwise, this instance might truly have no survivors.]
“An hour of immunity,” Orange Candy narrowed her eyes.
Wen Jianyan glanced at the time.
It was exactly five in the afternoon. There were only 4 minutes left until the immunity time ended.
“So what now?” Orange Candy turned her head, glanced at the closed office door not far away, and raised an eyebrow at Wen Jianyan.
“Right.”
Wen Jianyan nodded and said slowly.
There were two options before them.
First, directly move the books in front of their trapped teammates and then face the possible attack head-on.
Second, break into the librarian’s office again and get more borrowing slips.
Both options were very difficult and required a direct confrontation with the invisible “librarian.” But, if compared, the death rate of the latter was lower.
After all, Orange Candy had broken into the administrator’s office before and successfully left.
More importantly, the latter did not trigger the fatal rule managed by the librarian, while the former was the exact opposite.
“You stay outside later, I’ll go in,” Orange Candy’s gaze fell on Wen Jianyan. “After all, you know your own combat abilities.”
Wen Jianyan: “…”
Thanks a lot.
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[Hahahaha!]
[Hahahahaha hahahaha!]
[Give the kid some face, is it polite to be so blunt!]
“But I need a teammate,” Orange Candy said to herself, her gaze sweeping across the reading room. “Coincidentally, I still have one borrowing slip, I can save one person. If you have no objections, I’ll pull Wei Cheng.”
Wei Cheng was, after all, one of her longest-serving team members. Not only did they cooperate well, but he also had an extremely practical talent that was highly compatible with her combat-oriented style. For Orange Candy, this was clearly the most cost-effective option.
Orange Candy glanced regretfully in Yun Bilan’s direction:
“Sigh, if only there was a third slip.”
In the [Yuying Comprehensive University] instance, there were separate male and female dormitories, so it could be said that Yun Bilan spent ninety percent of her time with Orange Candy.
Therefore, Orange Candy quickly got to know her comprehensively.
In terms of combat awareness, Yun Bilan was the strongest in the entire team, apart from herself.
Although her experience was still slightly lacking, she had a crazy and fierce spirit of risking her life, which was very much to Orange Candy’s taste.
“I have to say, she’s wasted on you,” Orange Candy commented objectively.
She looked at Wen Jianyan and said with a grin, “It’s a pity, she refused my invitation and insisted on staying in your team… I don’t know what kind of love potion you gave her.”
Wen Jianyan: “…………”
To be able to casually talk about failing to poach someone in front of their team leader, that’s really something only you would do.
“But that’s fine,” Orange Candy retracted her gaze.
She stretched her somewhat stiff neck and shoulders and walked towards Wei Cheng. “Although the conditions are a bit tougher than last time, it’s still barely acceptable.”
As she spoke, Orange Candy took out the borrowing slip. But before she could make a move, Wen Jianyan’s voice suddenly came from behind her:
“Wait a minute.”
Orange Candy paused her action, turned to look at Wen Jianyan, and raised an eyebrow quizzically. “What?”
Behind her, the young man stood not far away.
His hair was dyed a snow-like silver-white due to the effect of the item’s title, and his pair of light-colored eyes shone brightly under the pale light:
“I have a better idea.”
Orange Candy: “?”
Wen Jianyan pointed to Arnold at the side. “Save him.”
Orange Candy’s brow furrowed. “Huh?”
This guy??
If it were before they were attacked, saving this guy would have been very cost-effective.
After all, in a new map like this, information is life.
Orange Candy also regretted, more or less, not taking a bit more risk to save this guy earlier. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.
However, now that things had come to this, it didn’t make much difference whether they saved him or not.
After all, they had already experienced the first wave of attacks and had judged the method of attack, the operation of the rules, and the way to break the situation based on their own experience.
In this situation, the information this person had was more or less dispensable to them.
Wen Jianyan pursed his lips, the corners of his mouth lifting into a restrained, yet somehow unsettling smile:
“Trust me, he’s really useful.”
Pale light fell from above, stinging Arnold’s eyelids.
His eyelids twitched, then slowly, bit by bit, they lifted.
What appeared before his eyes was a blurry, shaking ceiling.
Everything was so unfamiliar, giving him a feeling of being in a different world.
—He was… alive?
Arnold was in a daze.
Ever since he was attacked in the graveyard last time, he never dared to be separated from his teammates again.
So this time, he entered the library with his teammates. But not long after entering the library, they realized that the difficulty of this area was probably far beyond their imagination.
Before Arnold fell into a deep sleep, he felt an unparalleled despair.
You see, although his talent could save him from death, if he was not rescued and awakened, he would sleep forever.
What was the difference between that and death?
And with the difficulty of this area, his teammates could barely protect themselves, how could they possibly care about him?
Arnold really didn’t expect that he would have a chance to wake up again.
Was… was this a dream?
Arnold hadn’t yet recovered from his feigned death when a gentle and soft voice came from the side: “You’re awake?”
Arnold was startled and turned to look in the direction of the voice.
A very handsome silver-haired young man was squatting in front of him, looking at him with a concerned expression.
“…Yeah.”
Arnold nodded, his voice hoarse.
He propped himself up from the ground and looked around.
He recognized that he was indeed still in the library.
Not far away, a small girl with orange hair was tilting her head and watching him, her expression a bit strange, but Arnold couldn’t quite put his finger on how it was strange.
He uncomfortably averted his gaze and looked at the young man again, asking, “You saved me?”
“Yes.” The young man nodded, admitting it.
“Thank you,” Arnold said gratefully. “If there’s anything I can help with—”
He didn’t know if it was an illusion, but the smile on the other person’s lips seemed to deepen:
“Actually, there is.”
“You might not believe it, but I actually know you very well—better than you can imagine.”
Wen Jianyan smiled, and under his silver-white eyelashes, his pair of light-colored eyes sparkled, like something brilliant, expensive, yet dangerous.
“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have dug you out of the grave soil during the outdoor practical class.”
“Wha—?!”
Arnold’s eyes widened, and he looked at the stranger in front of him in astonishment, clearly not expecting to get such an answer from him.
“So, I’m afraid you’re the only one who can help me with this.”
Wen Jianyan moved closer and put his arm around his shoulder like a good buddy.
He seemed to think of something and added:
“Oh, right, mainly because if you don’t help, my companion would be more than happy to send you back.”
He pointed to the small orange-haired girl behind him.
The little girl tilted her head and gave Arnold an angelic smile.
Arnold: “…”
As someone whose talent was related to death, he could very keenly smell a similar scent from the other person—it was a very heavy smell of blood.
The smell of death.
“Of course,” Wen Jianyan looked very sincere. “Trust me, this favor should be a piece of cake for you.”
Arnold: “?”
He had a bad feeling.
“Your talent is feigning death, right?” Wen Jianyan said, his arm around his shoulder. He turned to the side and pointed to the librarian’s office behind him. “So, what you need to do next is to go in there with my friend and die a few more times.”
Arnold: “………………”
In the “Integrity First” live room chat:
[…]
[………………]
[Ahhhhh, you bastard, you’re wicked to the core!!!]
[He’s going to make him go into the administrator’s office with Orange Candy as a meat shield, to die over and over again, to explore the path and figure out the rules!!]
[Human lives are consumables, so you’re planning to recycle them, is that it??]
[…Seriously, Satan would have to get a tattoo of you on his back.]
Wen Jianyan patted his shoulder and said with a grin:
“It’s a piece of cake, right?”
__
The author has something to say:
Arnold: …Bro, why don’t you just not save me, really.
