The Wordless Book

It was late at night.

Outside the window frames of the Library's third floor, moonlight crept in inch by inch, spreading a blanket of cool, silvery-white light across the gray stone floor.

Leaning against the back of her chair by the window, Lin Zhiyue let out her latest yawn of the day and rubbed her eyes. She glanced at the sand timer in the corner—there was still one shichen left before she reached the required six.

She felt that if she didn't stand up and walk around, she really would fall asleep in the Library, just as Qi Yan had warned.

Rising to her feet, she paced slowly between the bookshelves, her boots making a faint creaking sound on the wooden floor.

The third floor of the Library was much quieter than the two floors below. At this hour, everyone else had long since departed, leaving her completely alone on the entire floor with nothing but shelves full of books and jade slips.

The scent of old paper and ink drifted through the air. The warm yellow glow of spiritual lamps filtered through the gaps between the shelves, casting crisscrossing shadows onto the floor.

As she walked, a sudden wave of daze washed over her. It felt as though she had returned to her past life, wandering the university library just before closing time—the quiet between the shelves, the bright lights, and that familiar scent of paper. Only back then, the view outside the window was filled with city neon lights, not tonight's cold, massive moon.

As she passed a row of bookshelves, her gaze was drawn to a beam of moonlight.

The moonlight filtered through the gap in the western window frame, passing through the shelf in front of her to shine directly onto a specific slot of the shelf behind it. The cold white beam landed squarely on the spine of a book.

The book looked no different from those beside it, with a dark blue cover and no gold lettering on its spine.

But when the moonlight touched it, a very faint sheen shimmered across the surface of its cover.

Lin Zhiyue reached out and pulled the book from the shelf.

The cover felt warm and smooth to the touch, with a texture resembling some kind of ancient leather, completely devoid of any written markings.

She flipped to the title page; it, too, was entirely blank.

Frowning, she flipped through a few more pages. From beginning to end, it was completely blank. The paper had a slight cream-colored tint, so pristine that there wasn't a single trace of ink, annotation, or stamp.

She closed it and opened it again, repeatedly checking the back cover and the spine, but found no markings whatsoever.

Gradually, she realized something was amiss. Every book on the third floor of the Library was cataloged and registered. It was impossible for a blank book to appear out of thin air.

The system's light screen suddenly popped up with a line of text: 【Special Item Detected: Wordless Ancient Scroll. Quest Issued: Unravel the secret of the blank book. Reward: Premium Draw Ticket ×10.】

Ten tickets.

Lin Zhiyue's fingers tightened slightly around the book.

Ten tickets would be enough for her to do a ten-pull and secure the main dress of the Dusk Rose set.

At the same time, she knew very well that the system never gave out such generous rewards for no reason.

This book was definitely not as simple as it seemed. She closed it, walked back to her seat by the window, and placed it on the desk, letting the moonlight shine on it.

When the moonlight fell upon the cover, that faint sheen reappeared.

After a moment of thought, she tried to slowly channel spiritual energy from her palm into the pages.

As the spiritual energy seeped into the paper, it seemed to be absorbed by something. The pages did not react, but her fingers holding the book felt a very subtle shift in temperature, as if responding to her touch.

Lin Zhiyue stored the book in her system space, deciding to bring it back to her courtyard for further study. As for whether she should return it—this book probably wasn't even cataloged, so what was there to return!

Since her time was almost up, she packed up her things on the desk, went downstairs, and left the Library.

Moonlight poured down from behind her as the heavy doors of the Library gently shut with a dull thud.

As she walked down the stone steps, her mind was still occupied with thoughts of the book.

By the time Lin Zhiyue returned to her courtyard, the moon had already reached its zenith.

She placed the Wordless Ancient Scroll on the desk. Yuetuan poked his head out of his nest and yawned before trotting over to the desk on his short little legs. He tilted his head up to stare at the book, his round, pale blue eyes filled with a wariness that Lin Zhiyue had never seen before.

She sat down and opened the pages, holding them up to the oil lamp to inspect them. She tried channeling spiritual energy into them twice more, but the pages remained completely blank, without even a speck of ink.

She tried holding it under the moonlight, and even probing it with her divine sense—she tried everything, but the pages remained completely still and silent.

As she bent over to examine it, Tuanzi suddenly let out a low whimper. The fur on his back bristled slightly, and his four paws stepped back on the desk. With his ears flattened against his head, his eyes remained locked onto the book, as if there were something inside it that deeply unsettled him.

Lin Zhiyue froze for a moment and reached out to scoop him up, but Yuetuan uncharacteristically dodged her hand. He shuffled a couple of steps to the side and turned his face away, refusing to look at her.

This was the first time since Yuetuan's birth that he had ignored her.

Previously, whether she was feeding him medicine or rubbing his belly, the little guy would always cling to her palm and refuse to leave.

Drawing her hand back, Lin Zhiyue looked at Tuanzi's wary state, and a thought surfaced in her mind—did Tuanzi recognize this book? Or rather, did the book's aura feel familiar to him? She wanted to ask, but Yuetuan remained huddled in the corner of the desk with his face turned away, ignoring her no matter how she called him.

Lin Zhiyue did not force him.

She hadn't slept for hours on end, and her eyelids were so heavy she could barely keep them open.

She closed the book and placed it on the small table beside her bed, then scooped Yuetuan onto his cushion and stroked his back a couple of times. After blowing out the lamp, she lay down, falling fast asleep almost the instant her head hit the pillow.

She had a dream.

In her dream, she stood in a vast, grayish-white void, with a book flipping rapidly before her.

The pages turned so fast that she couldn't make out the words on them, only feeling the wind kicked up by the rustling paper.

When the book flipped to a certain page, the image came to a halt. She saw a person—a young man holding a blade, with blood dripping continuously from its edge.

There was blood on the ground, spreading outward in pool after pool.

The man looked young, with a cold, sharp edge between his brows. He stood there holding his blade, shrouded in a murderous aura she had never witnessed before, as if he had just walked off a battlefield or crawled out of an abyss.

She stared at his face for a long moment, feeling as though she had seen him somewhere before. The contours of his eyes and brows seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place him no matter how hard she tried.

She opened her mouth in the dream, wanting to ask, but found her throat blocked as if by some invisible force.

The man seemed to sense her gaze, turning his head to glance in her direction.

The moment his gaze pierced through the pages and the void to land upon her, a chill ran down her spine, as if she were being targeted by something terrifying.

Then, the image shattered, the grayish-white void began to collapse, and she plummeted downward.

When she woke up, daylight had already broken.

Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the window frame, casting a warm band of light across the desk.

Yuetuan was sitting by her pillow watching her. Seeing that she was awake, he leaned in and nudged her fingers with his damp nose.

Lin Zhiyue tried to sit up, but her head felt as if it were being violently stirred. A sharp pain exploded from her temples, sending her crashing back onto the pillow. She closed her eyes, waiting a long while for the pain to subside before opening them again.

She could no longer remember the man's face at all. It was as if a thick fog had rolled in; no matter how hard she tried to recall it, his features blurred into an indistinguishable haze.

She was certain she had seen him before, but she simply couldn't remember where.

Propping herself up by her forehead, she pulled out the book and placed it beside her pillow. The pages looked just as clean and slightly yellowed as yesterday, sitting quietly as if nothing had ever happened.

She stared at the cover for a long moment.