Chapter 232: Library
Da da.
After two crisp footsteps, Zhang Qian only felt a blur in front of his eyes after passing through the portal.
Before he could carefully observe the surrounding environment, a red phantom rushed over as if it had been premeditated.
“What thing…”
Zhang Qian’s expression changed, not daring to be the slightest bit negligent, his body almost instinctively trying to mobilize the supernatural power around him.
However, everything happened too suddenly, that figure had ambushed outside the portal early, and the speed of rushing over was too fast, not giving him any chance to react.
Almost in an instant, that phantom had already disappeared in front of him.
Illusion…
Just as sudden as its appearance, this phantom disappeared very abruptly too, and there was no supernatural aura around, making even Zhang Qian somewhat doubt if he had just seen things.
There were no places to hide around, so the only possibility…
Zhang Qian looked down at his body, the long gown and jacket showed no damaged areas, and true qi circulated through his body without any findings.
“Since there’s no influence, let’s treat it as an illusion for now.”
There were too many unacceptable phenomena on the ghost ship; if it was merely an illusion, it wouldn’t count as a big deal.
What was more important now was to scout the surrounding environment and find the position of the mannequin.
After all, one person’s ability was limited, and the ghost map had already combined with the mannequin; the best way to obtain clues was to find the mannequin and ask.
The light in the room wasn’t bright, but with the aid of true qi, Zhang Qian could confirm this place was a very huge space.
Moreover, the ceiling of this room was extremely high; although there were no layers, it was a full six or seven meters tall, enough to fit two floors with room to spare.
Further away couldn’t be seen clearly, because the entire room was divided by many shelves reaching straight to the ceiling; individual shelves weren’t long, but there were enough in number.
And Zhang Qian was in a corner of the room, because behind him and to his right were somewhat damaged wallpapers on the walls.
Approaching the shelf to his left, the shelf had many layers, with countless books placed on them.
“So this place is actually a study?” Zhang Qian narrowed his eyes.
It really had style… a music hall and now a library; it seemed ghost controllers from the Republic of China era were quite good at cultivating their sentiments.
He didn’t rashly take books from the bookshelf.
For safety’s sake, Zhang Qian just stood in place observing, trying to find some clues from the names on the book spines.
《Huaxia Strange Tales》
《Da Dong Night Talks》
《Da Chuan Strange Records》
……
Just looking at these book titles made it easy to guess what the contents inside were.
Should say it’s worthy of ghost controllers?
Zhang Qian’s expression was a bit odd; the contents of these books weren’t too outrageous, after all, ghost controllers would definitely understand these folk rumors, but this quantity—wasn’t it a bit too much?
Just the shelf in front of him had nearly twenty layers, each layer filled to the brim with books; even conservatively estimating, one shelf had to have over a thousand books?
And there were more than just this one bookshelf here; from the six or seven meters height, the room’s area was inevitably not small, possibly equal to or even larger than the music hall’s area.
“Tens or even hundreds of thousands of books? And all with this kind of content—even all the supernatural events from all over the country added up couldn’t make this number, right?”
Thinking about it, Zhang Qian became a bit curious about what contents the books recorded.
After all, books collected by the ghost ship, though the titles looked like novels, certainly had some reference value.
If he could take these documents out and interpret them, it would probably be of great help in understanding the history of the supernatural.
Forget it, no rush at this moment…
After pondering for a moment, Zhang Qian decided to keep his paws to himself.
This library was eerily quiet, but based on prior experience, it was very likely not as safe as it appeared on the surface; if taking books triggered certain patterns, that would be bad.
“At least before finding the mannequin, can’t be too reckless.”
As for after that, perhaps he could pack a few books to take away before leaving.
However, Zhang Qian wasn’t in a hurry to act, but began thinking about methods to find the mannequin.
According to the waiter’s statement, the ghost restaurant only pulled in those qualified to dine, that is, ghost controllers.
And the mannequin didn’t have this qualification, so the mannequin that came out of the music hall should have directly landed in this library.
“Just don’t know if this position is random, or if it would land in the same place as me?” Zhang Qian touched his chin.
The mannequin didn’t have the waiter as a guide, so it shouldn’t know we were separated into different spaces.
In that case, upon entering the library and not finding my position, it would think this library separated us into different positions.
If that’s the case, then it would definitely want to rendezvous with me; after all, with just the mannequin plus ghost map’s strength, it wasn’t enough to protect itself on the ghost ship, let alone leave.
“But this place is so big, without clues it’s not easy to find another person; if it were me, I’d definitely leave some clues…”
The mannequin was a bit dumb, but it shouldn’t fail to think of this.
Then first see if he could find marks left by the mannequin.
Using true qi’s night vision, Zhang Qian quickly searched the surrounding space.
Although the size of this room was unknown, the environment he was in wasn’t actually that big.
Two sides were walls, two sides were bookshelves.
The portal he came through had already disappeared, with only a gap in the middle of the bookshelf.
The mere seven or eight square meters area was quickly searched by Zhang Qian.
Considering the mannequin’s height, he only glanced at the very high places, focusing more on the ground and lower bookshelves.
Unfortunately, there was no harvest.
There were no special marks here at all, and the carpet on the ground seemed compressed due to too much time, with no existence of footprints.
“Looks like the entry position into this library is random; the mannequin hasn’t been here.”
After spending a few minutes checking the surrounding environment, Zhang Qian had to give up his previous idea.
During this, he also dug out the pendant from the gun barrel, but unfortunately, perhaps because this space was too small, this tiny change in distance couldn’t cause a change in the flashing frequency.
Clever shortcuts probably wouldn’t work; it could only serve as a reminder to avoid accidentally missing the mannequin.
“In the end, still have to go in to find it, and also see if I can find the exit while at it.”
