Chapter 1072: Chapter 502 Skull Central Roundtable Meeting_2

“No, that’s not right!” Finally, Lin Yi concluded definitively, “All these speculations are wrong!”

“If it’s purely about encountering a glimpse of the future, then it’s not necessarily about being acquainted; it’s just about that scene leaving a deep impression on Painter No.3.”

“If I had a nightmare, would I think of figuring it out before recording it? No! I would just directly record it! As for understanding it, that’s not something that can be resolved in a short time!”

“And in reality, this situation is different from when my Boss fell, the Gymnasium collapsed, or the campus overturned!”

“My prediction was, under the circumstances at the time, a strong delusion that gave birth to some kind of speculation… it was not ‘foresight’ at all…”

“But Painter No.3 is different…”

“He entered that bizarre valley, then was enshrouded by nightmares, perhaps… his dream transcended time? Or perhaps permeated time?”

The Contractor who was “exiled in time” might also be able to permeate time from outside of time. It’s not impossible that Painter No.3 had a similar experience… perhaps by chance, he glimpsed a corner of the future!

Or maybe it’s not the future, but one point among countless future timelines?

But if that were the case, within that terrifying future painting, mixed with the blurred silhouette of Wei Liang… it’s a contrast as if inserting a series of politically correct characters into a AAA game, or unnecessarily adding some Black Snow Princess and Dirty Braided Mermaid into a well-done fairy tale; damn, doesn’t it feel too jarring?

Lin Yi no longer wasted time here, picked up “Intimate Demon Hunter in the Dim Light,” and continued to move around the bookshelf area.

Next, he found in the vast sea of people a series of so-called “novels” or some bizarre “illustration books” such as “Bell from the End of the World,” “Netherworld Detective Investigation Notes,” “Dark Walker,” “Mist Sea Voyage.” The contents of the books are filled with a mix of chaotic and eerie elements.

Particularly in a seemingly normal book full of fantasies called “Starry Sky Imagination,” Lin Yi flipped to an evil matrix sequence that immediately caused a drop in layers upon first sight…

It was a Secret Pattern Matrix that looked off at first glance, akin to a magic circle, composed of a base made from three nested inverted heptagrams, each star tip piercing an unknown gemstone-carved raven skull with eye socket-embedded eyeball-like beads.

On the outermost layer of the Matrix, there was a row of twisted patterns unclear if they were symbols or text, like some ancient script, continuously intertwining, eventually resembling woven thorny flower vines.

The Matrix seemed to bear transcendent traces just by being a pattern. When he saw it, it was like his will was being pulled out of his body just at a glance…

Although he quickly restrained himself, he was still eventually drawn into a drop of layers.

There was another book called “Night Erosion,” documenting the “experience” of an adventurer self-identified as a “Martyr” who, after being polluted by the “black sea,” was gradually eroded by the night, transforming step by step into a monster even she herself found terrifying.

Most of “Night Erosion” reads like a fragmented account, but after Lin Yi read more than half of it, he discovered the problem; this book was not any so-called “account” but a trap, a deception, a kind of guidance!

That “Martyr” was already deeply contaminated when writing these words, and she clearly understood this issue, so she used the account to step by step guide readers to follow her account to accept contamination and become like her.

An evil propagator!

A martyr!

And the reason Lin Yi was able to clearly perceive this problem was that the contamination he endured now far exceeded the contamination the “Martyr” accepted when recording those words.

Reading “Night Erosion” was like a circus king watching a clown’s clumsy performance before him.

Frankly… kind of made him damned proud.

No, proud of what the fuck… another voice in the internal meeting popped up speechlessly.

Lin Yi flipped and searched around.

At a certain moment, combining with those books he saw before, he burst out with an inspiration—an inspiration about the dream boundary.

He suddenly realized that on that dream boundary, life and death were not simple opposites, but a cycle, an eternal alternation.

Just as night must be followed by dawn, death might just be another form of beginning. When he flipped through the books, it was like sinking into others’ dreams, and as he closed the pages, he slowly withdrew from that peering dream boundary, but back and forth, his new insight into life and death was being imprinted onto his mind…

Time silently passed, at 19:40, Lin Yi left the bookshelf area with several H manga on time.

Lin Yi left, but the story has two parts, and on the other side, Jin Jiuyao was in trouble.

Jin Jiuyao shadowed Lin Yi, flipping through books all the way; essentially, whatever Lin Yi read, he read too, except for some disposable books that he didn’t see, he disinterestedly flipped through the rest.

When Lin Yi left the bookshelf area, he casually picked a few books and carried them out of the bookshelf area.

When he returned to the trio of Lu Zhao’s side, even Lu Zhao put down his work, looking at him with somewhat anticipation: “Did you find anything?”

“I found a hammer,” Jin Jiuyao pursed his lips.

“Oh, what kind of hammer? Take it out and show me.” Lu Zhao’s attention was drawn from the map, not realizing Jin Jiuyao’s sarcasm at first, until the words left his mouth and his gaze landed on Jin Jiuyao’s hand, he realized his mistake, coughed lightly, and continued, “How about you tell us what you’ve got first?”

Jin Jiuyao pursed his lips and placed several books in front of Lu Zhao, then took one from the top.

“Why did you bring a stack of bricks back?” Chen Xue asked in confusion as she looked at the remaining books.

After Jin Jiuyao took the first book, the others were exactly those “disposable books” Lin Yi had read.

Jin Jiuyao revealed the bizarre situation he saw.

After hearing it, Lu Zhao slightly frowned but didn’t rush to a conclusion; instead, he picked up a book and started to go through it carefully.

Wordless Heavenly Scripture…

Wordless Heavenly Scripture +1…

Wordless Heavenly Scripture +2…

Jin Jiuyao pursed his lips: “Am I right? They are all books without a single word; this time, I was cautious and specially placed one on the top just in case that Xiao Zi suspected.”

Chen Bing and Chen Xue each picked up a book and began flipping through it.

Chen Xue puzzledly said: “It’s strange, not only is there not a word on the pages, but there’s also no text on the book covers either.”

Lu Zhao asked: “Think carefully again about the situation when Xiao Zi was flipping through these books.”

Jin Jiuyao was eager to blurt out, but seeing Lu Zhao’s serious gaze, he bit his tongue. After a moment of deep thought, he slowly opened up: “I don’t know if it was Xiao Zi that was really strange or this thing was strange but I couldn’t see it. At that time, his eyes were glued to the pages in a manner even more focused than a captain whistling at a stripper in a nightclub…”

“And his expression changed frequently, sometimes his eyes widened, sometimes they squinted into a line; his mouth would occasionally reveal an expression like a lecher, it didn’t seem like he was acting…”

Jin Jiuyao confessed honestly.

“Tsk… whew—” Lu Zhao rubbed his temples and let out a long sigh.

Chen Bing and Chen Xue quickly looked over; they knew that even though Lu Zhao seemed troubled, whenever he showed this kind of expression, he must have discovered something.