Alien Hotel.

Chapter 495 Collapse
"The quality is not good enough."

Yu Sheng opened the old book on the bookshelf and saw only a few large characters on the yellowed pages.

He was taken aback for a moment, then subconsciously turned to the next page, only to see the same few words again: The quality is not good enough.

After a slight hesitation, he continued flipping through the pages, finally confirming that every page of the book contained only the same, repeated content, with that one sentence appearing repeatedly—

The quality is not good enough, the quality is not good enough, the quality is not good enough...

The jet-black, hard-lined characters seemed as if they had been slashed into the paper with a knife, carrying a kind of chilling power. And whether it was just his imagination or not, Yu Sheng even felt that he could sense something obsessive and desperate from those pages, a kind of despair and oppression seeping into him from across the book, across the old bookstore, and across the entire dark alley.

Little Red Riding Hood immediately noticed the strange expression on Yu Sheng's face. After giving herself an injection to block it, she leaned over and cautiously peeked at the book, only to reveal the same bewildered and astonished expression as Yu Sheng.

"...What does this mean?" the girl murmured to herself.

"You didn't know either?" Yu Sheng looked at Little Red Riding Hood in surprise, waving the old book in his hand. "Has this never happened before?"

“I haven’t seen it, and the information shared by other investigators doesn’t mention that this sentence appears in books in used bookstores. Besides, it doesn’t fit the ‘format’,” Little Red Riding Hood said immediately. “Normally, the content in these books has a preface and postscript, and they will fabricate a source of information. The content recorded is also specific events. It wouldn’t be… so inexplicable.”

She hesitated for several seconds before saying her last sentence, and in the end, she could only use the word "inexplicable" to describe the contents of the book in Yu Sheng's hands at that moment.

Yu Sheng frowned, and after a moment's thought, he reached out and pulled another book from the bookshelf, quickly flipping through it.

The same words eagerly entered his field of vision—the quality was not good enough.

Yu Sheng casually tossed the book onto the counter. To verify this, he pulled out several more books from the shelf. No matter what the old books looked like, the contents of each one were exactly the same!
The yellowed pages were covered with the repeated words "the quality is not good enough," on every single book and every single page!

“Something’s not right. The alley has definitely changed. It’s different from what’s recorded in the documents,” Little Red Riding Hood’s tone became serious. “But why did these changes suddenly happen? It used to be just an ordinary alien place, but today…”

Yu Sheng had cautiously stopped trying to take more books from the shelf. While remaining vigilant for any disturbance around him, he put the last old book back in its place, a series of bold thoughts racing through his mind: "Is it because of our arrival that these changes occurred? Or because we discovered that post from three years ago? Or because..."

Little Red Riding Hood turned her head: "Or is it because of something else?"

"Or is it because... Marlene found the records left by 'Eileen' deep within the Garden Network?" Yu Sheng said slowly, his expression growing increasingly solemn. The knowledge and experience he had accumulated from dealing with the Dark Angels seemed to come alive in his mind, reminding him of the theory that "everything is information" that Hu Li had once told him. "I feel like these information are resonating and spontaneously converging."

He paused suddenly, his brows furrowing as he recalled what he had recently told Hu Li—that the "information" related to the Goddess of Omens seemed to be alive, even actively gravitating towards those connected to Eileen.

The shadows beyond the curtain are chasing after those who try to find the truth, or those who accidentally come into contact with it.

Yu Sheng looked up and surveyed the tall bookshelves, the mottled and dark ceiling, and the "rotten knowledge" that kept seeping from the melting books in the old bookstore.

In his eyes, everything here suddenly seemed to have come to life, as if it had become the limbs of some huge living thing that had seeped in, with some purpose and some will, waving tentacles at him in an attempt to communicate.

The "Wandering Mage" summoned a ball of magical light and, together with the other three members of the adventure team, carefully examined every corner of the old bookstore. These summoned creatures, whose speech and actions were usually stiff, completely lost their rigidity and sluggishness when completing their tasks within their "set limits," appearing exceptionally professional and reliable.

The "Stalker" seemed to have suddenly noticed something. He tapped the wall next to the bookshelf with the hilt of his short sword and reported to the king, "Your Majesty, something is amiss here."

The king immediately jumped onto his head and looked at the place where the bookshelf was right next to the wall.

Some subtle patterns, barely noticeable without close inspection, seep out from the wall plaster—the tiny gray-black patterns look like ordinary mold marks at first glance, but upon closer inspection, one can see the complexity and regularity of the patterns, as well as the style that is incongruous with the old bookstore itself.

“…I bet the publicly available information about ‘Dark Alley’ doesn’t mention this thing either,” Yu Sheng muttered to himself.

“It’s like it’s seeping in from the outside,” Little Red Riding Hood said, describing her first impression upon seeing the patterns. “Some kind of…invasion?”

Yu Sheng stared at the wall: "What's outside this wall? Has anyone tried to 'break through' these buildings in the alley?" Little Red Riding Hood and the King looked at each other in bewilderment.

“It seems no one has ever done this before, but theoretically the boundary of the ‘dark alley’ is the buildings on both sides, and there is nothing beyond the boundary—if you climb up to the roof, you can see that there is only a gray haze outside, and jumping out will only return you to the original position,” the king said, then paused and added, “I have climbed up there before.”

When a cat says this, it sounds very authoritative.

But Yu Sheng still really wanted to give it a try.

“How about we try digging this wall open?” he began to urge his teammates. “Even a small hole would be fine… to see where these patterns are seeping in from. If it’s too difficult, I can call Luna over.”

As soon as he uttered a word of encouragement, the king jumped onto the "young swordsman's" head and said, "Alright, make a hole."

Cats are seven times more curious than humans—and this curiosity doubles again when provoked by the King of Boundary Points.

Little Red Riding Hood opened her mouth, seemingly wanting to warn the two in front of her to be careful, but when she thought of the king's almost omnipotent abilities and Yu Sheng's strong execution (mainly the latter), she swallowed the words that were already on the tip of her tongue. She knew that even if she stopped the king, Yu Sheng would definitely call Luna over to pry open the wall, so she could only stand aside and watch with utmost attention as the idea king and the cat courted their doom.

The young swordsman raised his Murakami sword and thrust it at the wall without hesitation.

Sparks flew.

A bright spark erupted between the seemingly old and fragile cement wall and the longsword with solid properties, accompanied by the sound of metal clashing.

Yu Sheng opened his mouth upon seeing this scene, wondering whether he should call Luna over, but before he could speak, the village priestess from the adventurer's party stepped forward and patted the young swordsman on the shoulder.

Immediately afterwards, the wandering mage and rogue in the group also stepped forward, clenching their fists to cheer on the swordsman.

Yu Sheng didn't know what had happened, but he vaguely heard them talking about friendship, journeys, and bonds. The next second, the young man's body started to glow, and then the Muramasa sword also started to glow, looking like a lightsaber. Then the young swordsman shouted, "For everyone in the village!"—he didn't know where the village he was talking about was—and then he heard a "whoosh" sound, and the gleaming Muramasa sword pierced straight through the wall of the old bookstore, like a hot knife through butter.

Yu Sheng was dumbfounded: "...Holy crap, the power of friendship and bonds!"

Then the lightsabers of friendship and bond began to fly up and down, dismantling the load-bearing walls.

Yu Sheng only realized that it was the "load-bearing wall" of the old bookstore when the entire building began to shake violently.

That could even be a load-bearing wall in this space.

A series of cracking and breaking sounds came from deep within the walls, the ground beneath our feet began to shake, and the tall bookshelves on both sides creaked under the weight. Old books covered with the words "Not good enough" fell from the shelves like a torrent, pages flying everywhere, the words inside scattering in panic, crawling and running wildly along the ground and walls, the dark, bold characters crawling everywhere, some even reaching the entrance of the old bookstore, scrambling to escape to the street outside, only to dissolve in the small puddles at the bookstore entrance, turning into clumps of ink spreading across the stone brick floor.

"I should have stopped you two—" Little Red Riding Hood shouted, grabbing the King by the scruff of his neck and running towards the door, turning back to call out to Yu Sheng as she ran, "Don't just stand there! This floor's reality is about to collapse!"

The king's adventure team also ran out quickly. The young swordsman carrying the village sword was shouting excitedly about "dreams" and "everyone's future" as he ran out, but was hit on the head by a fireball from the wandering mage in the team.

Yu Sheng also began to retreat towards the door, but he couldn't help but turn back to look at the large hole that the swordsman had just dug open.

The bookshelves on both sides coughed violently, and dusty old books continued to fall down like flesh and scales peeling off the shelves. The rotting knowledge formed a small waterfall, washing over the floor, which had become pitted and uneven. The words falling from the books scrambled to climb higher, and the walls were crowded with the words "not good enough." Moreover, the words were pushing and shoving each other, shaking violently, and emitting many small but headache-inducing screams.

On the other side of that large hole, there was a thick, gray fog, and many thin, dark lines stretched out from somewhere, winding around the edge of the "dark alley".

However, just as Yu Sheng was about to go closer to take a closer look, the large hole suddenly disappeared, as if it had never existed at all.

(End of this chapter)