Bai Yu ignored Hei Yan’s theatrical line. He walked over to the coffee table and poured himself a glass of cold water, then sat down on the sofa opposite Hei Yan.
He needed this simple action to return his hard-won relaxed mind to calm.
“‘Gate of the Interstice,’ ‘Visitors,’” Bai Yu said, his voice so steady that not a single ripple could be heard in it. “There are no records of these terms in the Investigation Bureau’s database.”
“Of course there aren’t.” Hei Yan chuckled, the sound low and elegant, as though mocking a naive question. “How could a mortal archive contain the drafts of gods? The ‘malign nightmares’ the Investigation Bureau fights are nothing more than filthy reflections cast upon the canvas of the real dimension by humanity’s own fear and despair. Dangerous though they are, they ultimately share the same origin as you. There are traces to follow, and ‘rules’ to rely on.”
He extended a pale finger and lightly stroked the branded, vortex-like eye on the diary’s cover.
“But these ‘Visitors’... they are different.” A trace of intoxication entered Hei Yan’s tone. “They come from the rifts between dimensions. They are lonely ghosts born amid the ruins of logic, scraps forgotten or discarded when the universe constructed order. They are not products of fear. They themselves are a kind of ‘error’ in existence. No rules, only instinct. Devouring, imitating, merging... what a free form of art.”
Bai Yu’s gaze narrowed slightly.
Hei Yan’s words had revealed to him a domain of terror even more chaotic and disorderly than “malign nightmares.”
Malign nightmares still had rules that could be analyzed, cores that could be destroyed. But these so-called “Visitors,” if they truly followed only instinct, were in themselves an unpredictable disaster.
“This mortal,” Hei Yan said, shaking the diary in his hand, “wanted to bypass the conventional passages under your jurisdiction and directly chisel a hole in the wall of his own backyard, peeping into that chaotic primeval forest next door. He was very lucky, and even more unfortunate. Lucky, because he really did chisel it open; unfortunate, because the things in the forest saw him too.”
“What was his purpose?” Bai Yu asked the question he cared about most.
What kind of obsession could drive an ordinary person—even a learned scholar—to touch such a forbidden realm?
Hei Yan raised an eyebrow with interest, flipped the diary to a page somewhere in the middle, then floated it before Bai Yu as though presenting a menu.
“See for yourself. Answers are often far more boring than the questions themselves.”
The handwriting on that page was far messier than before, as though the writer had been in a state where extreme excitement and agony were intertwined.
“March 17, clear. It has been three years since she left me. They all say that when a person dies, they are like a lamp going out, and tell me to restrain my grief. Ridiculous! They do not understand. My world went dark three years ago. All the light was buried with her in that cold earth.”
“March 20, rain. I have consulted every ancient text I could find, from Strange Records of Mountains and Seas to the Western Key of Solomon, from Eastern planchette divination to the Book of the Dead by the Nile... All lies! Deceptions! They can only summon pitiful aggregates of energy without even self-awareness. They are not ‘souls’ at all!”
“April 1, thunder. I found it... In the oral myths of an indigenous tribe, I found a description of the ‘Gate.’ They call it ‘the rift leading to the sea where all things return to silence.’ They revere it, fear it, and every year they use the grandest rites to appease it. They are wrong... That is not the end. It is another beginning! The myth mentions that ‘honored guests’ once walked out from within the Gate, and that these ‘honored guests’ can ‘grant dead wood new life and make stubborn stone speak’!”
“...So that’s how it is,” Bai Yu murmured.
Not for power, nor for eternal life. It was simply a grieving man who, after exhausting every method in the world, ultimately tried to ask a demon for a bargain that would grant him the result he desired.
“Look, such a beautiful motive, such a crude method.” Hei Yan withdrew the diary, his tone filled with regret. “He thought he was praying to a benevolent ‘god,’ never knowing that his sorrowful call sounded, on the other side of the rift, like the wail of an injured, bleeding cub. That would only draw hungry predators.”
Bai Yu fell silent. He thought of Lin Sheng and A-Wan from Luoshui Village.
The same obsession born of love and loss, yet in the end, both had brewed tragedies beyond repair. Before existences that surpassed understanding, humanity’s most beautiful emotions always seemed to twist into the deadliest poison.
He stood up and took the diary from Hei Yan’s hand. It felt cold and heavy in his grasp, as though what he held was not paper, but the weighty despair of a person.
“I need to take this somewhere,” Bai Yu said.
“The library?” The corner of Hei Yan’s mouth curved into a knowing smile. “That works too. Go, then. Go to that ‘temple’ of yours, built from steel and paper, and see whether the fears your predecessors sealed in ink can give you an answer. I’ll enjoy your next performance.”
Hei Yan’s figure slowly faded, eventually turning into a wisp of nearly imperceptible black smoke that sank back into Bai Yu’s body. It felt like a block of ice sinking once more into the deep sea, bringing a brief chill before falling utterly silent.
Without further hesitation, Bai Yu picked up the diary, turned, and left the dormitory.
...
The library of the Nightmare Investigation Bureau was as vast and silent as ever.
Bai Yu walked between row after row of enormous bookshelves that reached from floor to ceiling. These shelves, forged from a special alloy, were like silent armies, guarding all the knowledge humanity had ever possessed regarding “reason” and “unreason.”
The air was filled with the distinctive scent of old paper mixed with disinfectant.
He did not go to the literature section, but headed straight for the deepest part of the library—the non-public archive reading room.
Entry required A-rank clearance or above. The room was not large, containing only several huge terminals embedded in the walls. Bai Yu inserted his ID card into the slot, and a soft blue light scanned over his iris. The terminal screen lit up, displaying the Investigation Bureau’s simple and solemn emblem.
He placed the cowhide diary on the operating table. The terminal’s scanning probe automatically extended and began performing a high-precision scan and digitization of the diary’s material, ink composition, and every symbol on its cover and inner pages.
Bai Yu’s ten fingers flew across the virtual keyboard. What he entered were not complete words, but conceptual keywords.
【Dimensional Rift】
【Non-standard Malign Nightmare Entity】
【Summoning Ritual Loss of Control】
【Structural Contamination Source】
He manually drew the “vortex eye” symbol from the diary’s cover into the search bar.
The immense database began operating at high speed. Countless streams of information swept across the screen like a waterfall. The vast majority were marked as “irrelevant” or “low relevance.”
But very soon, the system gave a soft “beep,” and several encrypted files marked in dark red were filtered out.
Bai Yu opened the first one.
【Archive No.: 73-K-04】
【Incident Codename: Mirror House】
【Threat Level: A+ (Under Evaluation)】
【Summary: ...The target established a connection with a “mirror entity” through an unknown medium. The entity has no fixed form and can perfectly copy and “devour” the target’s reflection. After thirteen days, all reflective objects within a fifty-meter radius of the target’s location—including glass, water surfaces, and metallic reflective surfaces—were assimilated into “entrances.” In the end, the target... disappeared in front of the mirror in his home bathroom. No signs of struggle were found at the scene. Only a large amount of unanalyzable biological mucus remained on the mirror surface...】
Bai Yu’s pupils contracted slightly. He opened the second file.
【Archive No.: 91-G-11】
【Incident Codename: Whisperer】
【Threat Level: S (Sealed)】
【Summary: ...While studying a type of ancient cuneiform script that had nearly gone extinct, a linguist unintentionally pieced together a “prayer.” This prayer produces no observable energy fluctuations, but can act directly upon the conceptual level. After the first recitation, the target began to experience auditory hallucinations, claiming to hear “the conversations of the stars.” Seven days later, the target completely lost the ability to speak. All vocalization was replaced by an unidentifiable “language” composed purely of noise. This “language” possesses highly contaminating properties... Follow-up handling records [Encrypted]...】
The incidents recorded in these files were utterly different from any malign nightmare incident he had handled before. They had no clear “rules.” They were more like an irresistible, one-way erosion. Like water dripping into a sponge, silent and soundless, yet in the end it would soak through completely.
He continued scrolling down, and at last, his gaze stopped on the final file. Its encryption level was unprecedented—【Top Secret · Ω】.
【Archive No.: 04-Ω-01】
【Incident Codename: Babel Tower】
【Summary: [Data Deleted]...[Data Deleted]... This entity has been designated the “Tower of Myriad Heads.” Its form of existence is a collective of “structural concepts.” It has no will, only the instincts of “proliferation” and “stacking.” Any attempt to understand, depict, or record its existence will be regarded by it as an “invitation,” and will become part of its “structure”... [Data Deleted]... Three S-rank investigators... [Data Deleted]... Final handling plan: Conceptual Oblivion Protocol...】
The instant he saw the name “Tower of Myriad Heads,” Bai Yu’s breath suddenly caught.
He immediately lowered his head and looked at a certain page in the diary on the operating table. That page contained no words, only the eerie tower Lu Yueqi’s grandfather had drawn with trembling strokes, a tower stacked from countless twisted arms and eyes.
The two were astonishingly similar.
Just then, the soft lights in the reading room abruptly flickered.
“Bzz...”
A faint sound of electric current rang out, then everything returned to normal.
Bai Yu’s hair stood on end at the back of his neck.
He slowly raised his head and looked at the huge terminal screen before him. The incomplete file was still displayed on the screen, but at some point, the black screen that had already gone dark seemed to have become... a little deeper than before.
In that deep reflection, he could see his own pale face and the rows of orderly bookshelves behind him.
Everything was as usual.
No.
That wasn’t right.
Bai Yu’s gaze locked tightly onto the reflection in the screen, onto the bookshelf in the distance behind him. In the shadow between one bookshelf and another, there seemed to be... something extra.
It was a contour so faint it was almost impossible to detect. Like a hand. A hand stretching out from the shadows, belonging to some unknown creature.
Bai Yu did not turn around.
He knew that if he turned around now, he would see nothing. That thing was not in the real room. It existed only in the “reflection.”
“Heh... ‘Babel Tower.’ What an arrogant yet fitting name.” Hei Yan’s voice sounded lazily in his mind. “Mortals vainly attempt to build a tower reaching the heavens, only to summon divine punishment and chaos in the end. It seems that among your Investigation Bureau’s predecessors, there were one or two interesting ‘artists’ after all.”
Bai Yu did not respond. All his attention was focused on the reflection in that screen.
He saw the hand slowly reach out from the shadow. Its skin was an unhealthy grayish white, and its finger joints were long to an unreasonable degree.
It groped its way up onto the edge of the bookshelf.
Immediately after, a second hand, a third hand... countless hands sprouted one after another from that shadow like bamboo shoots after rain, fighting to emerge.
They climbed, crossed over one another, piled together.
Then, within the gaps where those arms intertwined, one eye after another suddenly opened.
Those eyes had no pupils, only a murky white. They turned in unison, bypassing the obstruction of the bookshelves in the reflection, until all their gazes finally focused on Bai Yu within the reflected image.
That stare, full of greed and hunger, seemed as though it wanted to pierce through the screen and drag his soul out of his body.
Bai Yu’s heartbeat nearly stopped in that instant.
He understood.
When he saw the name “Tower of Myriad Heads,” when he connected it to the drawing in the diary, he had already been “marked.”
Understanding was invitation.
Observation was sacrifice.
“Buzzz—”
The lights in the reading room flickered violently once more. This time, it was no brief flash. The entire lighting system seemed to have fallen into a seizure, brightening and darkening in turn while emitting a teeth-aching “zzzt” sound.
In the gaps where light and darkness alternated at high speed, the outline of the entire world began to blur and become unstable.
Bai Yu looked at the terminal screen before him. The text on the screen began to twist, turning into wriggling black lines. Those lines then rapidly rearranged themselves into the shapes of eyes.
The bookshelves behind him seemed to become living things in the flickering light. In certain instants, those cold alloy edges would elongate, then gradually twist into the outlines of arms. Book after book became deformed chunks of flesh stacked together.
The entire reading room was being eroded and assimilated by the concept of the “Tower.”
“How beautiful...” Hei Yan’s admiring voice carried a pathological obsession. “Look, how fragile a sheet of drawing paper reality is. All it takes is a more advanced ‘paint,’ and it can be reshaped with ease. Bai Yu, feel it, accept it... become part of this great artwork. Become the brightest eye at the top of that tower...”
“Shut up.”
Bai Yu squeezed the two words out from between his teeth. He abruptly reached out, grabbed the cowhide diary from the operating table, then used every ounce of strength in his body to slam it shut!
“Snap!”
The crisp sound was exceptionally abrupt amid the chaotic crackle of electricity.
As the diary closed, the force that had been madly eroding reality seemed to have its source severed in an instant.
The lights in the room stopped flickering and returned to stable, soft illumination.
The text on the terminal screen became clear again.
The bookshelves behind him were still cold, solid alloy.
Everything returned to normal. As if that terrifying scene from moments ago had merely been an illusion born from mental exhaustion.
An illusion?
Bai Yu lowered his head and glanced at the hand with which he held the diary. At some point, a faint mark had appeared on the back of his hand.
It was an eye symbol composed of several twisted lines.
Identical to the “vortex eye” on the diary’s cover.
“Tch, how boring.” A trace of appreciation flashed through Hei Yan’s eyes as he looked at Bai Yu, but his voice was still full of disappointment. “Just as the most magnificent movement was about to begin, you rudely slammed the piano lid shut. You really are... a barbarian who doesn’t know how to appreciate art.”
Bai Yu had no strength left to argue with him. He leaned against the operating table, gasping for breath, his forehead covered in fine cold sweat. Those brief few seconds just now had drained him mentally no less than his confrontation with the “Mountain God” in Luoshui Village.
He had successfully stopped the erosion from spreading.
But he had also paid a price.
He had transferred that “beacon” from the diary onto himself.
From this moment on, he was no longer the investigator.
He was the prey.
Bai Yu slowly straightened up. There was no fear in his eyes, only a deathly calm. He tightly gripped the diary, which had already turned back into an “ordinary old book,” then deleted all search records from the terminal.
He had done it.
He had successfully gathered all the danger onto himself alone.
An Mu, Mo Fei, Lan Ce... they would not know what had happened here. They could spend this hard-won holiday in peace.
Bai Yu walked out of the reading room alone and returned to the vast, empty hall of the library.
It was already deep in the night. Beyond the huge domed skylight was a night sky as dark as ink. There was no one in the library. Only rows of sensor lights lit up one after another with his footsteps, then went out one by one after he passed.
Light ahead, darkness behind.
He walked along the boundary between light and dark, his steps steady.
But he could vaguely feel it.
In that darkness he had left behind, there was a tower that could not be observed, constructed from countless arms and eyes. That tower had already locked its cold and greedy gaze firmly onto him.
It was waiting...
Waiting for the next chance to drag him completely into the abyss.