The sage was determined to die.

"...Will it really come true?"

Gongsun Yang's pupils dilated, a possibility flashing through his mind, but he quickly shook his head, muttering, "How could that be? Then why not just design it to be real?"

"Just a guess."

Ji Bai wasn't stupid. Seeing Gongsun Yang's somewhat timid expression, he patted the other's shoulder and comforted him, "You might not even survive to the end. Isn't it too late to be afraid of death now?"

Gongsun Yang instinctively denied it: "...Of course not."

"The greater the risk, the greater the reward."

Seeing that his words of comfort had been effective, Ji Bai thought to himself, "Let's go first."

Gongsun Yang nodded, and Ji Bai's disorganized and demoralized team continued to advance crookedly.

The swirling mist gradually dissipated, revealing everything more clearly, and the group moved forward through the gaps between countless corpses.

"How could a place like this exist in a mountain of books?"

Yan Ming covered his mouth and nose as he walked, and then suddenly spoke from his feelings.

"What exactly is the connection between this place and the Holy Path?"

Ji Bai suddenly stopped, his gaze sweeping over the group of people who wanted to leave, and said abruptly, "This place is dangerous, but those who want to leave can leave."

Of those who were forcibly brought here by Ji Bai, few were truly willing. Upon hearing this, they couldn't help but feel a sense of joy, but none dared to speak up at this moment.

Having made his stance clear, Ji Bai then turned to Yan Ming, his words showing considerable patience. He said, "I was examining the body just now; why didn't you go with me?"

Yan Ming: "..." Of course I'm not a pervert like you.

"Of course I don't know what the Holy Path is either."

Ji Bai rubbed his fingers together, his tone calm: "Those corpses, though fake, were made very realistically. The ribs protruded, the abdomens were sunken, and the whole body was light and weightless."

Ji Bai calmly looked at the corpses on the roadside. Anyone who looked at them would see that these corpses had the same face as him. These corpses were of different sizes, old and young, including women about to give birth and toddlers just learning to speak.

"They all starved to death."

Ji Bai said to Yan Ming, "Even if there are no top-grade scholars, Qi is not lacking in middle- to lower-grade scholars, is it?"

"The State of Qi is barren and lacks abundant water and trees, with much wasteland. In years of famine, the land is littered with corpses of the starved, and this is how the people who starved to death died."

His tone couldn't help but carry a hint of sarcasm: "Even if it's not as powerful as a top-grade literary heart, are mid- to low-grade literary hearts truly useless? Can't even save a few disaster victims?"

After saying this, Ji Bai scratched his head in annoyance, thinking to himself, "Why am I telling him all this? I'm not from this world."

I'll have to go back sooner or later.

Yan Ming hadn't expected Ji Bai to say these things to him, and subconsciously took two steps back, retorting instinctively, "Are you crazy? Scholars are of such noble status, why would they bother with...commoners?"

He had intended to say "lowly people," but considering the man's obviously strange attitude, he shrewdly kept those two words to himself.

"civilian?"

Ji Bai pondered these two words and said coldly, "I am also a commoner, but no one in this year's Book Mountain is stronger than me."

No one is better than me.

Upon hearing this, the group immediately wanted to refute it, but when they opened their mouths, they were speechless.

Ji Bai did not stop for them. He walked alone on the winding path surrounded by corpses, bending down to pick up a leg bone as he walked and putting it back in its place rather ungently.

"I will soon receive my second Wenxin."

Ji Bai left with a single sentence.

"Maybe we can get a third one."