Deadly Game: Almighty Boss’s Guide to Making Money

Chapter 1233. The Book at Night (21)
"Don't you guys think... it's too quiet here?" Xiao Qin's voice was very low. "There's nothing except the sound of our footsteps."

Her gaze swept over the bookshelf beside her. On the dusty spines of the books, the covers of a few books had a faint ink-like tinge, as if they had just been touched.

Just as Huang Jingjing was about to speak, Chang Xiaohe suddenly pulled her back.

"Don't move!" Chang Xiaohe's voice was tense.

He pointed to the floor next to Xiaoqin's feet.

Black viscous liquid seeped from the wood grain there, slowly creeping upwards along the grain, only a finger's width away from Xiao Qin's shoe sole.

Huang Jingjing immediately handed the silver key down. A white light swept over it, and the slime instantly shrank back into the wood grain, leaving only a faint black mark.

"This slime will follow the heat and chase people, so try not to step on places with slime when walking."

Her palms were slightly warm, and the white light from the key was weaker than when she entered, maintaining a safe zone of only about half a meter.

Ouyang Xichen walked at the back of the line holding a lighter. Suddenly, the flame of the lighter shrank with a "poof," and the orange light turned into a pale blue.

"Something's not right. There's something ahead that's drawing fire."

As Ouyang Xichen spoke, he took two steps forward. When the firelight illuminated the third bookshelf in front of him, he suddenly saw a black shadow flash through the gap in the bookshelf.

The shadow was long and thin, like an arm wrapped in black cloth, slowly sliding down the edge of the bookshelf.

"Who is there?"

As Guo Yuelang spoke, a knife appeared in his hand.

His fingers still bore faint red marks from the corrosion of the black mist, which, when illuminated by the torchlight, faintly shimmered with an inky color similar to viscous fluid.

no respond.

The ticking sound suddenly became louder, as if it were coming from behind the bookshelf.

Lin Xi gestured for everyone to stop. She took out a dagger from her backpack and gently pushed aside the books blocking her way with the tip of the blade.

As soon as a thick book with the title "Mo Jing" on the cover was pushed aside, there was a "whoosh" sound, and the entire bookshelf suddenly moved half a meter to the side, revealing a narrow passage behind it.

The passageway was filled with a thicker black mist than the hall, and tiny pages of books floated in the mist. The words on those pages were all black, as if they were written with ink, yet they were slowly wriggling.

——Holy shit!
—Those pages are so eerie, the words are actually moving!

Where's the shadow ahead? Could it be hiding in the passageway?

—There's a bookmark on the ground! Look at the ground at the entrance of the passage!

—They didn't have time to watch the live stream, so they don't know if they even saw it.

Lin Xi's gaze fell on the floor at the entrance of the passageway.

There lay a silver bookmark, engraved with a snowflake, its edges still stained with half-dried ink.

“This bookmark looks like it’s from the first snow,” Ouyang Xichen said.

"Has the first snowfall been here?"

Lin Xi bent down to pick up the bookmark, and as soon as her fingertips touched the metal surface, she felt a chill.

The ink stains on the bookmark were still damp.

She handed the bookmark to Huang Jingjing.

"Look at this ink stain, is it the same composition as the slime from before?"

Huang Jingjing scraped off a little ink stain with her fingernail and held it up to the white light of the key.

When the ink stains come into contact with white light, they immediately emit black smoke and give off the same smell of decaying leaves as black fog.

"It's the same thing! The person who left the bookmark must have been chased by this ink stain; she went into the passage."

—Was the first snow in this library too?
—I don't know. She wasn't at the convenience store just now, was she?
—Perhaps they came from elsewhere and were randomly assigned to the same task.

—Great, we have another companion.

—Whether they are companions or not, we don't know yet!
Should we chase after them?

Quan Quan's voice carried a hint of hesitation. He stared at the pages of books fluttering in the passageway, feeling as if those pages were a pair of eyes watching them.

"The direction of the passage matches the direction the compass points, so there should be clues to the key inside."

Lin Xi said, putting away the bookmark and gripping the dagger in her hand. "But there's definitely danger inside, and the torch seems to be failing. Ouyang, how far can your lighter's flame reach?"

Ouyang Xichen held the lighter to the entrance of the passage. The pale blue flame stretched forward, but it could only illuminate a distance of two meters.

The black mist deep within the passage was like solidified ink, impenetrable even to firelight.

"At most two meters, the fog inside can swallow fire."

“I walked in front, and Huang Jingjing followed me. The white light from the key could block the ink stains.”

As Lin Xi spoke, she took a deep breath and stepped into the passage first.

I had only taken two steps when I heard a "whoosh" sound behind me.

The bookshelf that had just been moved slowly closed up, completely blocking their escape route.

"There's no way out!" Bai Yueming said, turning around to try and push the bookshelf, but it was as if nailed to the ground, not budging an inch. "How can this damn bookshelf still close?!"

"Knowing it's a trap, I still have to try it." Xiao Qin shook her head with a smile.

Bai Yueming's gaze swept across the bookshelves on both sides of the aisle, and he noticed a small ink dot on the spine of each book.

“These books are the switches for the mechanism. We just touched the Mo Jing, which triggered the passage and the closing mechanism.”

As soon as he finished speaking, a rustling sound suddenly came from deep within the passage.

It's like countless pages of a book being turned.

Ouyang Xichen's lighter flame suddenly shrank to a ball, and in the pale blue light, more pages of books could be vaguely seen drifting in from the black mist.

The pages spun in the air, gradually coalescing into the shape of a person.

——Fuck!

——Holy shit!
——How exciting!

—This is the kind of copy that's truly a copy.

—Yeah, dating and all that, to hell with it!

—You guys are so fickle, you've already lost interest in peaceful dungeons.

—My main philosophy is to go with the flow; I see what comes my way.

—The players are really calm!
--Um.

Chang Xiaohe remained calm.

—Although he has been injured, it doesn't necessarily mean he isn't formidable.

—As long as they're not new players, there are probably very few who aren't skilled.

Huang Jingjing's key suddenly became extremely hot, and a burst of white light instantly illuminated most of the passage.

Only then did everyone realize that it was a monster made of book pages!

Its body is made of blackened pages, without hands or feet, just a clump of wriggling pages.

Black viscous liquid seeped from the gaps between the pages, and there were two red ink dots on the top, like eyes.

The scariest thing is that it makes a "rustling" sound when it moves, and with each step it takes, several pages fall off and turn into ink stains on the ground.

Lin Xi suddenly remembered that the half-piece of paper she had found in the convenience store earlier had a line of even more blurred small print on the back besides "clock"—"Ink Eroder, with books as his body."

"It's the Ink-Etched Book Spirit!"

—And what the hell is this "Book Spirit" thing?

—You're right, it really is a ghost.

--ink?

Which "ten"?
—How did 123 know that?

—Don't ask, the answer is royalty, a princess.

—Huh? Those little black guys seem to have disappeared.

—After Meng Ye's experience with love, everyone went to date?