Chapter 78

Just as Luo Ruian walked into the bookstore, the girl disappeared behind rows of bookshelves. He hurried toward the depths of the shelves; the store was large, the ceilings were high, and the shelves were packed densely, stretching from the floor all the way up to the high ceiling. The further he went, the more profound and deep it felt. Coupled with the bookstore's uniquely dim and deep atmosphere, it truly felt as if he had slipped into another world.

At first, he still saw the hem of the girl's clothes flash between the shelves. He followed closely, rounding two rows of philosophy books, when the girl suddenly stopped behind a shelf and stood still. The girl's Yajian was still clamoring loudly in his Mental World, so he did not hesitate and walked into the art section with almost no defenses.

The change happened right there. As soon as he passed between two rows of shelves, the girl's loud Yajian vanished as if choked off. In all his experience, this situation signified the end of Yajian—a person's death.

He was so shocked his body shuddered, a chill running down his spine. After all, it was the death of an innocent little girl, far more heartbreaking than any other death, and he instinctively quickened his pace. With one step forward, he prepared himself to see a fallen corpse; if he were fast enough, he might still catch a glimpse of the killer's shadow.

But behind the bookshelf, there were only more bookshelves, and the empty aisle made his skin crawl.

He looked back; the path he had come from was an endless stretch of bookshelves, as vast as an absurd world.

Sometimes the path taken is not the way back. He understood the principles of an Illusion; the place of return is always the Illusion's sweetest and most fatal temptation.

Luo Ruian pondered for a moment, then walked into the area of shelves where the girl had vanished, carefully examining the books on the front and back rows of shelves. The books filling the entire shelf were packed tightly under the theme of fine arts, regardless of language or age.

He observed them carefully, but other than the rather peculiar way of selling books, there was nothing special here. He pulled out a book at random; it was a book on Impressionism, and the artist was a woman named Mary Cassatt. This was a real American woman who existed; he remembered this painter, as he had once taken Luo Qi to see her exhibition. He also remembered that the children in her paintings, under the Impressionist style, were exceptionally soft and delicate. This album had nothing abnormal about it, as if it were a book from the real world.

He put the book back and pulled out a book by Titian; it was still ordinary. He pulled out seven or eight books in a row, from Salvador Dali's clocks to Katsushika Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa, and every single one was consistent with his knowledge. He put all the books back and stopped checking blindly; he began to realize he had not fallen into the Illusion of another Mind Archmage. There were not many people in this world capable of putting him into an Illusion. Besides, who would want to trap him in a bookstore? What was the point of constructing such a complex Illusion?

Luo Ruian paced back and forth among the shelves, recalling the person hiding behind the scenes and everything the enemy had done. They had used a human girl to lure him because human Yajian is the loudest and least guarded. Even if he did not want to listen, he would be drawn in by her intense emotions and directed thoughts.

She was bait set by a clever person. She must truly have some connection to his son; she knew some things about Luo Qi and was deeply worried for him. Someone had let her know a part of Luo Qi's affairs but was careful not to let her know more. To deal with a Mind Archmage, the safest method was to push forward someone who knew nothing. If they knew nothing, they could not leak anything, and if they only knew half, it was enough to attract a Mind Mage.

In other words, the person behind this knew clearly that he was a Mind Mage.

Luo Ruian took a deep breath; the light from the chandelier swayed slightly above his head, and the spines of countless books flickered in the lamplight. He reached out a hand and rubbed a small Fireball between his fingertips.

The Fireball flickered at his fingertips and then extinguished.

He understood completely. In this ocean of books, he could not create a burning Fireball; the rules here prohibited fire-type Magic. Hallucinations produced by hypnosis have no active rules, but another trick similar to Mind Magic can have complete game rules—this place was a Sandbox.

A Sandbox like a puzzle-solving game.

Someone had hidden a game Sandbox between two rows of shelves. He became increasingly curious about the person behind all this; they must be an extremely intelligent person. Not many people could successfully deal with a Mind Mage, and they had once again exploited a Mind Mage's confidence and blind spots. Even if a human girl saw him setting up the Sandbox, she would not know what it was, or even care. She must have been guided here by a series of vague persuasions to complete this sequence of actions, and she herself did not even care about these actions. Unless a Mind Mage had the time to dig through the girl's entire subconscious, how would they know the trap was here?

Luo Ruian reached out and brushed his hand over the book spines. There was no true malice in the Sandbox; it was a riddle, a riddle he could easily solve, but others could not. Even if the human girl was hard to control and, on a whim, did not follow the instructions, if someone else were brought here, that wrong person would not receive any information from this Sandbox.

He knew that all games had keywords, and the keyword for this game was—Luo Qi.

He remembered the first book he had pulled out. He walked back to the position in his memory and pulled out the Impressionist album filled with children. He believed that no matter who it was, the first album they pulled out would be this one. He carefully looked through the album, but still found no clues. He shoved the album back, suddenly thinking that the theme of this album was children.

He thought this game would not be particularly complex, certainly not complex enough to consume too much of his time, or complex enough to be caught red-handed by those following him outside. The first keyword he needed to find was Luo Qi, the second was children, and this was a bookstore... He raised his head, looking at the boundless sea of books. What he had to find in this sea was a book about his child that only a father would know. A book his child read most often when he was still a child, one he still had an impression of.

He reached out, focused his Yajian, and sought to find an album on the shelves. "David, No," he murmured. A children's picture book fell from the shelf and landed in his hand.

Luo Ruian was unable to open the book for a moment; it took quite a while before he forced himself to open the album. On the bottom right corner of the last page, a string of numbers was written. He understood clearly: it was a geographical Coordinate.

He tucked the picture book back into the shelf. The light changed subtly; the chandelier no longer existed, and more reasonable modern Light Magic appeared on the bookstore's ceiling. Luo Ruian walked back to the path between the shelves; the bookstore's glass door was not far away. Through the glass door, he saw the little girl hailing a taxi at the entrance.

He let out a long sigh.