Chapter 1 Afternoon

5:30 PM.

Li Cheng Yi arrived at the Bai Family Bookstore on time.

The old building still looked dilapidated, pressed tightly against the bustling crowds surrounding the new shopping mall in the distance.

Here, it was still as quiet and desolate as before.

Only elementary school students with backpacks occasionally passed by after school, stepped inside the bookstore, and quickly emerged with a few old books.

Li Cheng Yi didn't let Zhou Xing Tong follow; instead, he got out of the car alone and walked to the bookstore entrance.

The coffee shop to the left of the bookstore entrance was already closed, with a "For Rent" sign hanging up.

The stationery shop on the right was still the same as always, half-dead, except the wooden shelves displaying the stationery were a bit older and darker.

Standing in front of the dark bookstore entrance, Li Cheng Yi recalled the scene from before.

That Shan Li Hong (mountain red) small flower with the cultivation technique existed within Bai Fei Peng's painting.

After paying, the old man Bai smiled so wide his mouth couldn't close. That old man charged Xindela so much the last time, and then refunded tens of thousands. He really didn't know what he needed so much money for.

Then, he checked the bookshelves to the left and right.

Li Cheng Yi's heart tightened; he knew something was wrong. Feeling that something was off, Li Cheng Yi immediately took out his phone to check.

A full two days. Was this a joke?

A white-haired woman wearing a white dress, with her back to him, not moving at all.

"My grandfather and I used Wanyou brand paints back then. There was no other choice."

From the paints to the brushes, to the person who painted, the paper, and the frame, he had to find clues to determine why the flower language of the Shan Li Hong had changed.

Suddenly, his footsteps stopped.

*Whirr.*

The paints my grandfather used back then?

The woman stood with her back to him, on the outermost side of the bookshelf, quiet, still, unmoving.

"Wait!" Suddenly, Li Cheng Yi thought of something. "Old man, do you still sell old paints here?"

"No matter who you are." A golden sword slowly appeared in Jiang Cheng Yi's hand, and he moved forward quickly.

The desk lamp in the corner was still shining with yellow light.

"I'm buying paintings. All the comic books, and the paintings your grandfather painted in your shop."

Walking closer to the door, in the dark bookshelves inside, a bald old man was half-reclined in a wooden chair, playing a fighting game on his phone.

He had already reviewed all the details of all the comic books.

"Where is the key?"

But he still found nothing, and the Radiance Force Field was of no use.

He turned around, opened the bathroom door, and returned to the living room.

The old man was still mumbling on the side, clearly indicating that this was not a dead-end environment, so the woman couldn't be a dead-end monster, but a living person from reality.

"Clerk?" The old man was stunned. "No, why would I hire a clerk for such a small shop?"

"You've come to the right place; I have many old things here, all sorts of old comic books!"

His mind was constantly spinning, trying to find any key point that could be related to the cultivation technique.

That big fatty was very strange; it was hard to say it wasn't related to the paints.

The old man put down his phone and looked at him.

The white-skirted woman who was just there had disappeared.

And the faucet also closed automatically. Li Cheng Yi felt a chill down his spine. "Something's wrong!"

This meant that he had just been subjected to strong electromagnetic radiation interference, causing the phone's timer to fail.

Soon, after walking to the last two rows of bookshelves, the old man bent down and dragged out a large wooden box from under the ground, and began to open it.

The distance between the two was quickly closing.

Behind him, the bathroom door opened with a click.

"Choose your own books. The prices are on the wooden signs."

"You... you are the one from back then..." He pointed at Li Cheng Yi, seeming to remember something.

"Wanyou brand is good."

She stood motionless, not speaking, just standing there like a sculpture, with her back to Li Cheng Yi.

There was no response. The woman didn't move, as if she hadn't heard him.

With his current strong senses, he couldn't even detect how she left!

His gaze was fixed on the living room.

Fine dust covered the ground, and on the dust, there was only a line of his footprints, extending from the bookshelves all the way to here.

Taking a car full of comic books and picture frames, Li Cheng Yi found a hotel nearby and stayed there.

"?" The bald old man immediately raised his head and looked carefully at Li Cheng Yi in the dim light.

That's why Jiang Cheng Yi thought of this.

Li Cheng Yi stayed in the room, constantly flipping through all the comic books.

Had disappeared completely at some point.

While opening the box, he rambled on about the benefits of physical comic books, how suitable they were for enlightening young children and cultivating their values.

"Forget it, let's not talk about that. No matter what you're going to do with them, come, come, come." He quickly got up, gesturing for Li Cheng Yi to follow him inside.

The bookshelves were empty, with not a single person.

"That, I remember. Back then, resources weren't abundant, and there weren't many brands people could choose from, after all, there were only a few stores around," the old man Bai said with a smile.

Intense combos erupted with various light and shadow effects, fighting fiercely.

"Boss, do you have any helpers or clerks here?" Li Cheng Yi looked at the old man and casually asked.

The woman still didn't move.

He hadn't noticed any movement at all. How did these two people... come in!?

"What's wrong?" The old man Bai asked, puzzled, and followed Li Cheng Yi's gaze.

You stood quietly in the shadows between the bookshelves, with your back to this side, facing the white wall, not knowing what you were doing.

Li Cheng Yi narrowed his eyes, and his whole body unconsciously manifested the tangible fusion state of the Jie Mao Fei Lian (Joint Hair Flying Lotus) Flower Scale Armor.

A glimpse of a white skirt corner fluttered slightly from the doorway. The sound of rushing water kept ringing; Li Cheng Yi pulled a towel and wiped the water off his face.

He lowered his head and saw that there were only his footprints on the ground.

That woman... disappeared in such a short amount of time!?

He booked a suite and took out all the comic books, one by one, to look through.

"First at the bookstore, now here with you. It seems... you've been targeting me all along?"

Suddenly, he saw a white, blurry figure standing between the bookshelves on the right, a young woman with white hair draped over her shoulders, wearing a white dress and standing barefoot.

And where the light from the sky and the desk lamp intersected. *Dong, dong, dong.*

He stared carefully at that direction.

So... could it be that this painting connected to another world with a cultivation technique, thus being polluted and affected?

The phone's time was half a minute slow!

Dead ends were bizarre and varied, of all kinds. If that was the case, then it might make sense.

"Could it be... a new dead end!?" Li Cheng Yi didn't believe that anyone could approach him silently and leave suddenly.

"What are you buying paintings for?" The old man asked, puzzled.

"Then, the paints your grandfather used to paint back then, are they still around?" Li Cheng Yi asked quickly.

But it was meaningless.

He hurriedly turned his head back and found that the bathroom door hadn't been opened at all.

"How did you get in here?" Li Cheng Yi said in a low voice.

Just stopped there, standing at the junction of the bathroom and the living room, not moving at all.

"Uh... are you joking, sir?" The old man was stunned.

Row upon row of bookshelves were filled with all kinds of old-fashioned picture books and small books. The dim light was blocked by the tall bookshelves, and the color of the ground couldn't be seen clearly. Only shadows flickered and changed color with the movement of the two people.

In the early morning, dim light from the side window shone in, illuminating half of the living room.

Suddenly, he came back to his senses and looked at the living room again. He took Jiang Cheng Yi to the innermost area, a small single room.

"Yes, I'm the one who came here before..." Li Cheng Yi nodded.

Li Cheng Yi stood in front of the sink, turned on the faucet, and splashed clear water on his face.

Found nothing.

Suddenly, the faucet in the bathroom behind him turned on automatically. But unfortunately, there was still nothing to be gained...

Li Cheng Ti's voice stopped abruptly.

Two days.

Could it be that the paints Bai Fei Peng used were not something from the real world, but items circulating from within a dead end? Jiang Cheng Yi's heart suddenly stirred.

But... what was strange was that his senses could feel the other person's breathing, heartbeat, and blood flow, but the woman just wasn't moving.

Raising his head, he looked at himself in the mirror. Two consecutive days of reviewing comic books without rest made his eyes faintly reveal a trace of fatigue.

Back then, that strange big fatty was expanded by Bai Fei Peng with a drop of white paint that accidentally fell.

*Whirr.*

"Then, who is that lady?" Li Cheng Yi turned back to look at the woman again.

"I have a nephew who likes it very much..." "Boss." Li Cheng Yi knocked on the table where the books were placed.

"I'm not buying books." Li Cheng Yi slowly reached out, took out a stack of banknotes from his pocket, and placed it on the table.

The bookshelves were still covered in a lot of dust.