Rules-related weird stories: 4016.

Chapter 637 An Infinite Number of "Principal's Offices"

A wisp of energy lingered in the vertical pupil, chasing after the countless human sculptures that had been conjured from the page of paper, leaving them in ruins.

But in that instant, the vertical pupil was severely disturbed, losing its ability to hunt for Mao Feiyang's aura.

The vertical pupils coldly surveyed the area before silently fading away.

Among the blooming layers, only a large number of dilapidated humanoid sculptures remained.

These broken sculptures floated in the layers of the sculptures. Someone shouted first, and then the rest began to shout in unison:

[Lin Yi, oh Lin Yi...]

We're waiting for you...

You will take us away...

You will...

[Lin Yi, oh Lin Yi...]

[...Lin Yi... Lin Yi...]

……

The moment Mao Feiyang tossed out the book pages, the world of layers that bloomed like flower petals also came to an end.

Lin Yi saw the flower stamen—it seemed to be a dark corridor, giving off an extremely oppressive feeling at first glance.

As the petals bloomed, Mao Feiyang's body fell into the corridor as if it were plummeting.

Just as he was about to leave the layer, a light circle like a portal appeared around him. He passed through the light circle and fell into the corridor with a "splat" like a piece of clay.

As the sound rang out, lamps lit up one by one in the corridor, stretching all the way to the dark and indistinct end.

Lin Yi's physical body was also in a daze. After he came to his senses, he quickly began to observe his surroundings.

Is this the "principal's office"?
Why is it so different from what he imagined?
This almost endless corridor, this dim lighting... doesn't it look more like a prison?

He glanced up and saw that the halo behind him had disappeared, replaced by a ceiling illuminated by an incandescent light bulb.

In this corridor, there were countless doors, each with a different symbol in front of it, making it impossible to tell which door led to the "principal's office".

"Maozi, Maozi, how are you?" he quickly called out to Mao Feiyang.

Mao Feiyang's body was slowly recovering like putty. Once fully recovered, he propped himself up from the ground.

"call--"

He let out a long sigh of relief: "Luckily, I'm quick-witted and clever, otherwise I would have definitely been affected by the 'angel's' power."

“An angel?!” Lin Yi’s pupils contracted. “You mean… that filthy thing you were being so secretive about earlier, it was an angel?”

Mao Feiyang said, "No, that was just a tiny wisp of sensory power from the 'angel' projection..."

"But we are like cotton wool, and even the slightest senses are like sparks. Once we are touched by them, we will catch fire and be doomed to ruin."

Lin Yi hadn't calmed down yet when he heard this, he was immediately shocked and said, "So you actually solved this crisis with just one page of paper?"

Mao Feiyang chuckled and said, "What do you mean by a single sheet of paper? That's the most terrible form of pollution in the world."

"Huh?" Lin Yi was taken aback. "What do you mean?"

He wrote all those notes; at most, they contained some cognitive pollution. How did they become the most terrifying pollution in the world?
Is it just because you get wet that you get touched?
He didn't understand, but Mao Feiyang mysteriously changed the subject and called out softly, "Young Master Tian... Young Master Tian, ​​have you arrived yet?"

"Isn't Young Master Tian over at the Star Gazing Platform?" Lin Yi asked instinctively, but as soon as the words left his mouth, he realized his mistake and quickly corrected himself, "Oh right, Young Master Tian is inside the Dream Boundary..."

In other words, Tian Bufan can get here in one trip.

It was a fierce battle for them, but for Tian Bufan in the dream, it might just be a matter of "going through the motions" at the scene change location.

Seeing that Tian Bufan did not respond, Mao Feiyang said, "We're already here, so there's no need to be too anxious for now. Let's get started and wait for Young Master Tian a little longer."

"Is this the 'Principal's Office'? Something doesn't seem right to me," Lin Yi asked.

Mao Feiyang said, "The 'Principal's Office' is behind one of these countless doors. Today, the coordinates of the 'Principal's Office' are '4-0-1-6,' so we just need to find that door number."

"Don't be fooled by the fact that there are an infinite number of doors. In reality, it is both a single door and an infinite number of doors."

As Mao Feiyang spoke, he began to pace back and forth in the corridor.

Upon hearing Mao Feiyang's words, Lin Yi couldn't help but ask, "Is there some explanation? Could it be that all these doors are just projections of a single door?"

Mao Feiyang laughed and said, "As the Taoists say: One begets two, two begets three, three begets all things... The existence of the 'Principal's Office' is like a combination lock on a dimensional level. In reality, there is only one lock, but when the unlocking sequence is arranged and combined, almost an infinite number of possibilities are presented before you."

"The 'Principal's Office' wasn't originally called the 'Principal's Office,' but rather 'Star Prison,' a crucial anchor point that locked the Black Moon Outpost's location within the vast expanse of stars."

"The armillary sphere can visualize star trails. By turning gears, it can locate the coordinates corresponding to specific positions in the night sky, such as 'star prisons.'"

"Initially, the 'First Apostles' sank the Black Moon Outpost into this layer, but they couldn't completely sever the connection between the layer and reality. They could only compress it as much as possible, forming a singularity with an infinite number of sequential changes—this is the origin of the 'Star Prison.'"

"It's not just the projection of 'angels,' but also 'higher-ranking alien angels,' and numerous bizarre creatures, all searching for the location of 'Star Prison' for countless years. Once they unravel the mysteries of 'Star Prison,' the entire layer will rise and reconnect with reality."

Upon hearing this, Lin Yi felt a strong sense of unease: "Wait, what you're saying about the inability to cut off... is that the origin of the gray fog invasion?"

"Is that part of the pollution that seeps into reality from the last vestiges of continuity what we call 'fog invasion'?"

Mao Feiyang affirmed, "That's right. So, once the coordinates are exposed, the Black Moon Outpost's layer will float up, and the consequences will be dire, needless to say?"

"Such an important juncture, and it's become the 'Principal's Office'? No, no..." Lin Yi was shocked, but then his thoughts suddenly changed. "Yes, yes, yes... It's precisely because it's such an important juncture that it should be given special attention. So, the principal deliberately built the 'Principal's Office' in the location of 'Star Prison'?" "That's right." Mao Feiyang said with certainty.

Lin Yi gasped sharply: "The 'Star Prison' was created by the 'First Apostle,' and the 'Principal's' rank... is that high? He actually possesses the secrets of the 'Star Prison'?"

"Good question..." Before Mao Feiyang could answer, Tian Bufan's voice suddenly appeared in Lin Yi's mind.

Lin Yi was overjoyed: "Young Master Tian?! You arrived so quickly?"

Mao Feiyang's eyes and brows also revealed obvious joy.

Tian Bufan's voice continued, "The 'Principal' himself holds a rather high position, but before being qualified to set sail, he certainly cannot reach the level of the 'First Apostle.'"

"However, if he simultaneously possesses several extraordinary artifacts that elevate his status, and has received explicit 'authorization' from the 'First Apostle,' then he will naturally qualify."

Lin Yi was quite surprised: "Weren't the 'First Apostles' active before the birth of human civilization? How come the Principal is..."

“Dream weavers,” Tian Bufan interrupted, “top-tier dream weavers can penetrate time through dreams, communicating with the figures of the ‘first apostles’ left in the time dimension from ancient times… like the so-called ‘knowing eternity in a dream’ or ‘traversing time’ in fantasy novels. Although it’s very fantastical, in a high dimension where time is not linear, anything is possible.”

Although something didn't quite seem right, Lin Yi could only believe Tian Bufan's story now.

"Then... how did we come to be? Do we have 'authorization' and extraordinary creations?" Lin Yi asked.

Tian Bufan retorted, "Don't we have any?"

Lin Yi was taken aback.

Tian Bufan smiled and said, "The 'Ouroboros Ring' and the 'Bronze Key'...aren't these two extraordinary artifacts now in your hands?"

Lin Yi was deeply shocked: "Are these all the 'Principal's' extraordinary creations?"

“Not all of them,” Tian Bufan said, “but they’re pretty much the same.”

"In short, the 'Starfield' exists as a super hub, a strategically vital location that can only be controlled by ourselves."

Lin Yi then curiously observed his surroundings. The corridor he was in seemed endless, and apart from the different patterns on the doors, everything else was monotonously repetitive.

"How are we supposed to find the Principal's Office? Searching room by room is like looking for a needle in a haystack!" Lin Yi said anxiously. "And what's behind the other doors?"

Tian Bufan said, "Behind the door... is a special prison. If you accidentally wander in, you will be imprisoned inside."

"This is precisely the most domineering aspect of 'Star Prison'—there is absolutely no room for error."

"Even if some being did manage to break in using special means, opening the door without knowing the location of the 'Principal's Office' would only result in endless imprisonment."

Lin Yi asked again, "Then how do we find the 'Principal's Office'?"

Tian Bufan said, "Maozi."

Mao Feiyang followed up, saying, "We've arrived."

He only wanted the door in front of him.

The door was unremarkable, and the patterns on it definitely didn't mean "Principal's Office" or "4-0-1-6," but Mao Feiyang walked over with absolute certainty and put his hand on the doorknob.

Tian Bufan's voice rang out immediately: "Old Lin, remember this: in an infinite number of sets of numbers, the difficulty of finding a single number is far greater than... directly writing down this set of numbers."

"Because it is infinite, because we know it must be here, it absolutely exists."

"In this way, it's not that we're looking for it, but rather... we're editing it."

"Using editing, we summon this door from the gate of infinity to our door."

“That’s right, that’s it. As long as we are determined, the door will come to us by itself.” Mao Feiyang gripped the doorknob tightly, but showed no intention of opening the door. Instead, he waited quietly for some kind of change to occur.

During this process, Lin Yi noticed that the mysterious and unknown symbols on the door and frame of the door that Mao Feiyang was holding the doorknob seemed to come alive and slowly began to move.

The symbols are not only of varying sizes and formats, but also have their own patterns and styles. Even a single one of these symbols would be enough to drive scholars of the occult around the world crazy, let alone when they are put together.

At this moment, these symbols were evolving automatically like a celestial script. Mao Feiyang seemed to be doing nothing, but his life force was draining away, as if the door was sucking his life away.

Gradually, Mao Feiyang's body began to rise slightly into the air, floating like a balloon in the endless corridor.

Then, the corridor beneath his feet began to move, the incandescent light overhead also moved, the entire corridor began to move, the only thing that remained still was Mao Feiyang and the door in front of him.

This infinitely long corridor kept moving, faster and faster. Mao Feiyang, who was "bound" to the door, was like a static particle in the accelerator. What was accelerating was the accelerator as a whole, but what remained unchanged was... him!
No, actually he's changing too!
Lin Yi discovered that the movement speed of the corridor was directly proportional to the jumping speed of the mysterious symbols on the door. The faster the mysterious symbols jumped, the faster the corridor moved.

Before long, the world in front of Lin Yi became blurry, and even the only clear door page was reduced to a blurry outline.

His ears were filled with the sounds of the corridor moving, almost indistinguishable from the sound of a train speeding past him!

"Clang! Clang! Clang..."

In a daze, he seemed to see a crack appear in the portal before him, and pure white light emanating from the crack...

As the portal opened, more and more white light filled his entire field of vision, and the clanging sound in his ears gradually faded away, as if things were turning for the better, until it disappeared completely...

At this moment, Lin Yi felt as if he were in a pure white world, where there was not a sound.

However, this state did not last long before the sound started to appear in his ears again.

That was a familiar voice; it was someone I knew well.

"If you do this... it's going to be difficult for me too..." The more he heard that cheeky voice, the more familiar it became.

“You can’t say that. I know you’ve always wanted to do this… haven’t you? I just gave you a chance.” This time, the voice that came to mind was that of a middle-aged man who was both strange and familiar, giving one the intuition of a sleeping lion.

(End of this chapter)