Deadly Game: Almighty Boss’s Guide to Making Money

Chapter 1246. The Book at Night (34)

Everyone immediately divided up the tasks.

Lin Xi compared the notes to determine the year of each event.

Huang Jingjing and Wen Ya were responsible for verifying the correspondence between the wood chips and the year.

Ouyang Xichen and Bai Yueming passed a piece of wood to each other.

Xia Jin was in charge of arranging the items because she could sense the heat.

The others were responsible for guarding and observing for any unusual activity.

"Movable type printing, Bi Sheng of the Northern Song Dynasty, around 1045 AD." Lin Xi pointed to the annotations in the notebook. "Corresponding to the graduations after '1000 AD'."

Xia Jin took the wooden piece and was about to place it on the "1040" mark when she suddenly felt a sharp pain in her palm, and the golden inscription on the wooden piece dimmed.

"No!" She quickly withdrew her hand. "It doesn't feel right here; it seems like the year is wrong."

Bai Yueming leaned closer and tapped the edge of the notebook with her finger.

"Could it be accurate to the specific year? Look, the annotations don't mention the specific year, so maybe there are other clues in the notes."

Huang Jingjing turned to the middle page of her notebook.

"It says here, 'During the Qingli era of the Northern Song Dynasty, Bi Sheng invented movable type.' Qingli refers to the period from 1041 to 1048. What about the year 1044?"

Xia Jin tried placing the wooden piece on the "1044" mark. The stinging sensation in her palm disappeared, replaced by a familiar warmth.

The inscription on the wooden piece lit up again, and a thin, faint silver-blue light followed the markings, connecting with the light from the previous "pyramid" wooden piece.

"That's it!" Her eyes lit up. "It's this year!"

—Excuse me, are players here to learn?
—Thank you, I've also learned a bit from it.

—No, no, I know now, I'll forget about it later.

—123 has a good memory, she shouldn't forget.

—Doesn't 123 know it herself? In my heart, she is all-powerful.

—You're overthinking it. Being omnipotent is relative; no one can be good at everything.

Everyone sped up and quickly arranged the six key wooden pieces: "Code of Hammurabi", "Papermaking", "Modular Type Printing", "Law of Universal Gravitation", "Improvement of Steam Engine", and "Proposal of Evolution".

The silver-blue light followed the scale lines to form a complete arc, circling the circular groove once, and a soft white light began to emanate from the center of the groove.

"It seems like it's done!"

Quan Quan had just stood up when he suddenly pointed to the corner of the display case.

"what is that!"

Everyone looked over and saw that the remaining few unused pieces of wood had suddenly turned black. Several palm-sized, strange shadows pounced on Xia Jin.

She was closest to the display case when the wood chips were being arranged.

"Watch out!" Xiao Qin grabbed a thick-covered ancient book from the side and threw it at the strange shadow.

The ancient book cover made a hissing sound when it touched the black mist. The black mist dissipated a little, but the strange figure was not harmed.

Bai Yueming immediately raised his hand, orange flames igniting in his palm, and flung it at the strange shadow.

"These are the pieces of wood that weren't arranged correctly! Quickly move the rest of the pieces of wood aside!"

Ouyang Xichen bent down and quickly swept the remaining wood chips onto the floor outside the display case. As soon as the wood chips left the velvet, the strange shadows weakened.

Taking advantage of the moment, Xia Jin raised the silver key in her hand, and the silver-blue light on the key lit up, just as she was about to summon the Star Spirit. "No need to summon, these strange shadows are weak, we can handle them!" Lin Xi said.

She picked up a hammer from the ground and smashed it at a monster.

Before long, the few small, strange shadows were eliminated, and the black wood chips on the ground turned into the color of ordinary wood.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Suddenly, the recessed area in the center of the display case emitted a bright light, shooting into the sky and illuminating the entire historical document area, making even the dust on the ceiling clearly visible.

"Look at the groove!"

Huang Jingjing pointed to the groove, and a circular stone door slowly emerged from the white light inside.

The stone gate is engraved with patterns similar to the previous hourglass design, but with a few more lines of small characters: "Time is the key, history is the guide, in the depths of ancient books, the truth awaits discovery."

The stone door slowly opened, revealing a narrower corridor. At the end of the corridor, a faint golden light could be seen, and the sound of pages turning could be faintly heard.

Xia Jin gripped the hourglass in her pocket. The silver-blue sand inside flowed faster, and warmth spread through her palm: "It seems there's something very important inside."

Lin Xi walked at the front. As soon as she stepped into the corridor, she smelled a sandalwood scent that was stronger than before, mixed with a faint trace of ink.

The walls on both sides of the corridor are no longer scrolls, but glass boxes, each containing an old book.

The words on the spine are blurry, but a small "eternal" mark can be seen at the top of each spine.

“These books… seem to be related to the Eternal Chapter.” Ouyang Xichen stared at the books in the glass box. “Alo said before that the Eternal Chapter was hidden deep in the sea of ​​books, maybe these are the guides.”

Wenya suddenly stopped and pointed to one of the glass boxes: "This box is open!"

The crowd gathered around. The lid of the glass box was askew, and the book inside was gone, leaving only a yellowed note with the words written in calligraphy: "The bloodline of the Guardian is not broken, and the shadow of oblivion is hard to remove. If you want to save Zhang Liming, you must find the 'Page of Memory'."

"Uncle Zhang!" Xia Jin clutched the note tightly. "This is talking about Uncle Zhang, isn't it? He's still alive!"

Lin Xi took the note, her fingertips pinching the edge of it, lost in thought.

"The Shadow of Oblivion didn't kill him, but used him as bait?"

The golden light at the end of the corridor grew brighter and brighter.

The group quickened their pace and, upon reaching the end, discovered a circular room.

On the stone platform in the center of the room lay an open book. There were no words on the pages, only a transparent feather, exactly the same as the luminous feather in Xia Jin's palm before, except that this feather shimmered with golden light.

"This is... a page of memory?"

Bai Yueming leaned closer, about to touch it, when the feather suddenly floated up and landed in Xia Jin's palm.

Xia Jin's palms felt hot, as if the feathers had seeped into her skin.

She suddenly exclaimed "Ah!" and closed her eyes.

A scene flashed through my mind: Uncle Zhang kneeling before a black vortex, holding a black book in his hand, muttering, "I'd trade my memories for the bookstore's safety." Then, a hand reached out from the black vortex, grabbed Uncle Zhang's wrist, and black mist climbed up his arm...

“Uncle Zhang did it voluntarily!” Xia Jin opened her eyes, her voice trembling. “He willingly allowed the Shadow of Oblivion to take his memories in order to protect the bookstore, which is why he was controlled!”

Lin Xi frowned: "Voluntary? But the Shadow of Oblivion deceived him; not only did it not protect the bookstore, it also destroyed it."

Just then, the door to the room suddenly slammed shut.

The shadows on the wall began to distort and quickly coalesced into a huge black monster with a transparent hole in its chest, through which Uncle Zhang's figure could be vaguely seen—his eyes were closed, as if he were asleep.

"To save Zhang Liming, you must hand over the hourglass of time!" The monster's voice was like the sound of countless pages of a book being rubbed together, harsh and hoarse. "Otherwise, he will be trapped inside my body forever, becoming a part of the Shadow of Oblivion!"