Chapter 411: Fragment

What the hell, if I remember right, this is a secret realm exploration, not a scripted mission, right?

Who the fuck sent me here, is this even still China?

If not for the Sea-Soul Lock Bell on my person, Li Cheng would've suspected he'd fallen under an Infinite Tsukuyomi.

"Why can I hear it?"

Hui Yu was equally stunned and bewildered, "Am I a player too?"

"Stop dreaming. It's fake."

Li Cheng removed the small sports camera mounted on his chest and pressed play; the camera clearly transmitted the system's announcement.

Meanwhile, the player panel's mission log was completely empty, offering no clues.

Li Cheng calmly surveyed his surroundings—the ceiling corners held no speakers, yet the mysterious voice had come in surround sound.

The entity creating this noise clearly knew the players' mission type and possessed unknown powers capable of remotely disturbing the air to form sound waves.

Trap? Prank? Or a friendly warning?

There was no time for careful thought—the images of Binary Tree and Red Spider were slowly fading from the pages.

They seemed aware of their situation, their remaining half-faces desperately squinting and winking, signaling Li Cheng to rescue them.

The problem was: how?

If Fu Ding Hua Long were here, perhaps he could use his Divine Brush Ma Liang skill to redraw their full images and pull them out.

Wait.

Li Cheng suddenly noticed a detail—Binary Tree's VR headset wasn't on his eyes, but on his head; his exposed right eye blinked rhythmically.

Bart Mosi code?

Using blinks for dots and closed eyes for dashes, Binary Tree was clearly transmitting information to him via Bart Mosi code.

deeplearning, and, image

Li Cheng scanned the nearby bookshelves and indeed found a book titled Deep Learning and Image Recognition.

Flipping through it quickly, he found a misprinted page whose corner matched the missing half of Binary Tree's face.

Rip.

Li Cheng tore off the page's edge; the fragment was thick and resilient; his Information Synthesis Goggles showed its material was unknown—acid-resistant, alkali-resistant, tear-resistant, fire-resistant.

He placed the fragment beside Binary Tree; it seemed magnetic, automatically adhering to complete Binary Tree's face.

"Huh!"

Binary Tree took a deep breath, his eyes filled with fear and relief; trapped inside the book, he could not speak, only opened his mouth wide to form the words, "Are you Master Pi Fu?"

"It's me."

Li Cheng could read lips and understood what Binary Tree was saying; to ensure the other wouldn't understand lip-reading, he immediately pulled out his phone, typed a message, and held the screen up to Binary Tree—they had established contact.

"Who locked you in the book?"

"A tall, thin woman in black."

Binary Tree knew the urgency and spared no words: "We were attacked the moment we entered the secret realm; she has the power to warp reality. She directly controlled all of us, and when we woke up, we were like this."

We can't log out of the arena, and we still don't know where Andre and the others went."

Again, the tall thin woman—and the suit-wearing baby—this secret realm's anomalies seem suspiciously numerous.

"I just heard a low voice, pretending to be a system broadcast, telling me I had ten minutes to rescue you."

Li Cheng typed at lightning speed, honed from years as a keyboard pianist in online games, "Also, how did you know your fragment was in that book?"

"Pretending to be a system broadcast? What do you mean?"

Binary Tree paused, then said: "The book Deep Learning and Image Recognition was published by our university, co-authored by me and my professor."

If I'm right, my fragment and Red Spider's should be scattered among books that contain our memories—or represent our lives."

Try looking for Turing's Biography, C Primer Plus, Effective Java, Clean Code."

Aside from cultivators who had pledged to state institutions and used real names online, most players guarded their privacy fiercely and hated and feared doxxing most of all; by naming himself as the book's author, Binary Tree had already exposed his true identity.

Back in the early years of the Arena Game, this might've triggered a scene like: "You don't want your family to find out you're a player, do you hehehe."

But matters had to be prioritized.

Binary Tree rattled off a list of book titles like reciting a menu.

Li Cheng activated his Information Synthesis Goggles and Multi-Threaded Brain Domain Method, installing numerous electronic eyes on himself to scan the bookshelves and locate every book Binary Tree mentioned.

Indeed, in one coding book, he found a new fragment—Binary Tree's right hand.

Are we assembling a Yu-Gi-Oh! Dark Magician here?

"I found mine too!"

Hui Yu proudly announced her find—she had discovered Red Spider's facial fragment in a book titled The Matrix Art Book.

"I'm still alive?"

Red Spider took a deep breath and spoke quickly: "I don't read much—try these books: Criminal Psychology, Autopsy Reports, Poison Guide, Male Style Guide, Twilight, Fifty Shades of Grey."

"Criminal Psychology," "Autopsy Report," "Poison Guide," "Stylish Men's Fashion," "Twilight," "Fifty Shades of Grey.""

And isn't Fifty Shades of Grey just the porn version of Twilight?

Li Cheng rolled his eyes and moved like lightning, flipping through books rapidly.

Time ticked away; six minutes passed, and only half of Binary Tree and Red Spider's images were pieced together. No matter how hard they tried to recall, they couldn't remember any other books that might hold their fragments.

Time slipped by minute by minute. Six minutes passed, and the images of the binary tree and the red spider were only half completed. No matter how hard they tried to recall carefully, they could not think of any other books that might carry their fragments.

Li Cheng put down the books; the entire library held hundreds of thousands of volumes, arranged haphazardly.

Without clear guidance from Binary Tree and Red Spider, it was impossible to find the remaining fragments.

With the binary tree and the red spider unable to give clear hints, there was no way to find all the remaining fragments.

"Is it over now?"

The image of the Red Spider had grown extremely faint, almost melting into the white paper,

His eyes lost focus, and he let out a weary sigh, then said calmly, "Mr. Pi Fu, when you get back to Slum Street, please tell Ritz at the Fallen Angel Bar, Sophie at the Red Dancing Shoes Club, and Minnie and Kasia at Mint Club that I love them."

???

These are all your side pieces, right? Bro, your kidneys are doing great. But if I remember correctly, isn't Mint Club a nightclub under the Evil Faction Alliance?

By comparison, Binary Tree was far calmer, quietly making his final arrangements.

Whale Song was a large guild; every fallen member received a family allowance, so there was no need to worry about afterlife affairs. Binary Tree's friends would also help him handle things afterward, like deleting his internet browsing history and the like.

"I only said the usual methods wouldn't be in time. I never said I couldn't save you."

Li Cheng picked up the steel flag-lance and flicked a gravity energy orb toward the spearhead.

The surrounding gravity instantly shifted; bookshelves scraped and groaned against the floor, and countless books flew toward the flag-lance, clinging to the shaft.

Li Cheng stepped back half a pace, then with a wave of his hand, summoned a magic energy turret out of thin air. Its long, thick barrel aimed at the flag-lance and blasted out roaring flames.

Because of the altered gravity, the fuel didn't drip down but clung tightly around the gravity energy orb, greatly boosting combustion efficiency.

Ordinary paper burned to flying ash, while the fragments transformed from players could withstand the raging flames.

Ash Rain was quick-eyed and deft-handed, picking out the fragments and promptly brushing away the dust.

Li Cheng held up the flag-lance like an Olympic torchbearer, weaving through row after row of bookshelves, rapidly searching through the books.

Education, literature, art, humanities and social sciences, economics and management, success and motivation.

Row after row of bookshelves finished burning, and every fragment was picked out.

Li Cheng fitted the fragments together, and the book "Robot Motion Programming" suddenly swelled to two meters tall. Binary Tree and the Red Spider, wreathed in the smell of fuel, tumbled out from its pages.

(End of this chapter)