Rules-related weird stories: 4016

Gradually, a strange melody drifted from the depths of the mist, sounding like a song carried on the sea breeze, or perhaps fragments of memories from a distant past.

He involuntarily walked towards the music, each step filled with a vague anticipation.

The music was like a silken thread, drawing him deeper into the edge of this dream.

His eyes began to glaze over, the initial glimmer of anticipation slowly replaced by a sense of numbness.

He saw fragmented scenes unfold and collapse before him, memories that were neither his nor those of "Dream Weaver-HX-S-023," but rather painful shards of experience from some fallen souls.

These agonizing experiences materialized into visual recollections, surging towards him in relentless waves, devoid of material or temporal boundaries, drowning him in an abyss of despair.

He witnessed disease, terror, and the uncanny, even unspeakable horrors, slithering like phantoms into this world of life, gradually devouring its once vibrant energy...

Then, the world began to decay, its functions grinding to a halt like an aging machine...

His breathing grew heavy, as if he were personally enduring the agonizing process of this life fading away.

He could feel the warmth of life slowly dissipating, his consciousness gradually enveloped by darkness, like the last rays of sunset swallowed by the relentless night...

At the edge of this dream, he witnessed the cold visage of death.

Death was no longer an abstract concept, but a silence, an ending, the disappearance of all sound and color...

"I tried to awaken myself, to tell myself it was just a dream, but my consciousness felt trapped in a solid cage, no matter how I struggled, I couldn't break free..."

"I shouted, but my voice was swallowed by the endless mist, without a single echo..."

"My body began to feel heavier and heavier..."

"Just as I was about to collapse completely, I saw a faint glimmer of light, like a beacon in the darkness.

I used all my strength to crawl towards it, my fingers scraping grooves into the illusory ground..."

"However, the light always seemed to elude me, as if deliberately teasing me..."

"..."

He was immersed in this despair, but at the very end of it, he seemed to see a new ray of light, rising from the ruins of death, like the embers of a soul rekindled...

That radiance, like the afterglow of the sun, the ashes of angels, lingered and permeated the blurred boundary between life and death at the edge of the dream, like ice flowers blooming and withering, beautiful yet eerie...

"'Ashes'...?!"

"At the edge of the dream, there are countless withered 'ashes'!"

Ashes, like dust, floated in the chaotic void, like eternal flowers falling in a dream.

Lin Yi continued to sink, the surrounding mist began to pour into his mouth and nose, his breathing became difficult, he felt his soul being drawn away by this dream bit by bit, and his consciousness became more and more blurred...

The consciousness of "Dream Weaver-HX-S-023" had fallen, but Lin Yi's had not, he felt he was leaving...

"At the edge of the infinite dream, I constantly felt the cycle of 'life' and 'death' evolving... my reason became chaotic, and I felt like I was being abandoned by the world..."

"I seemed to traverse indescribable dimensional spaces, until finite matter seemed to transform into infinity, and infinite time became visual fragments..."

"No... everything lost its form, and matter and time no longer evolved, leaving only infinite chaos..."

"There seemed to be a murmur in the chaos..."

"It was an aria..."

"It was a word of power..."

"Or perhaps it was just the snoring of some terrifying existence sleeping at the edge of the dream..."

"——'Moon-III' Survey Team, Gu Fangqing, 'Dream Weaver-HX-S-023'

March 5, X002"

...

May 10, X023, 4:42 AM, first floor of the library, [Dream Studies (Drmmelre)] section.

Lin Yi leaned against a somewhat old bookshelf, holding a book in his hand, turning the pages mechanically.

The gentle light from the lampshade fell on him, making him look like a statue from afar.

The words on the book seemed to float with a hazy light under this illumination, as if gaining more profound meaning from Lin Yi's touch and turning of pages.

The words were like symbols, rising and falling in the floating light, as if opening a gateway to another world.

As time passed, the phantoms in the floating light gradually became tinged with a terrifying color, and the portal to that world looked more and more like a vortex connecting to the abyss...

While Lin Yi was engrossed in his reading, he didn't notice that some strange figures had gathered around him.

They stood like tombstones, surrounding Lin Yi, some with eyes full of fanatical color, others empty and lifeless, but regardless of which, their mouths were very large.

They weren't stretched to the point of being terrifying, but they were still very abnormal.

They were very similar to the Pseudo sculptures, but unlike them, they wore dark green, somewhat tattered robes.

It was the attire of art students.

But they weren't art students.

They were art students who had been transformed into fanatics.

They looked at Lin Yi at this moment, not as if they were looking at a person, but as if they were looking at an object, a work of art.

"What a perfect light... produced from the soul..."

"Living light..."

"This is the real... 'creation'!!!"

"Too perfect..."

One of the fanatics approached Lin Yi, took a deep breath, and his eyebrows relaxed, a look of joy on his face, as if he had inhaled some mentally stimulating aura.

"He's a treasure from head to toe..."

"Take him away..."

"We must take him away!"

"No! We can't take him away! If we take him away, he won't belong to us anymore... we should eat him!"

"Yes! Eat him! Eat him now!"

"Everyone gets a share, we'll eat him clean, and no one will know what happened!"

"No! We can't eat him here!"

"It will make a lot of noise... it will attract the attention of the administrator!"

"Administrator...?! Yes! Administrator! Administrator!"

The mental state of the fanatics fluctuated greatly, and this somewhat rational communication was only possible after they suppressed themselves.

And these fanatics were not quite the same as those Lin Yi had seen in the Green Forest Belt.

Compared to those fanatics, these in the library seemed a little more abnormal...

Perhaps they were cursed by knowledge, or perhaps they had sunk into the sea of knowledge and capsized...

At the mention of "librarian," the surrounding grimacing fanatics calmed down, seeming extremely fearful.

"We can't be discovered by the administrator... otherwise the delicious food we're about to get will turn into a new administrator!!"

"Not only will the administrators notice, but those guys at the higher levels will too!"

"We can't give them the chance!"

"He can only be eaten by us! Or..."

"How about we let him join the ranks of our 'Glorious Evolution'!"

"No, eat him! Eat him!"

The fanatics chattered like a flock of sparrows, their different opinions dividing, merging, then dividing again, then merging again...

"Head, torso... delicious pancreas... heart... blood... I want them all!"

"He was discovered by us... he should be ours alone!"

"Wait for him to fall!"

"Wait until he's completely fallen, then we'll lead him into the lightless area and devour him piece by piece!!"

"Yes! Devour him piece by piece!"

Their mouths seemed to be watering, their stinky breath like they rinsed their mouths daily with seawater soaked in dead fish and rotten shrimp.

But just at this moment, a figure holding an old kerosene lamp slowly walked out from behind the bookshelf.

It was the female dormitory manager.

The appearance of the old kerosene lamp seemed to scorch the eyes of the fanatics like dazzling sunlight, but it didn't seem to cause them any particular damage.

The fanatics narrowed their eyes and scattered a little, quite wary.

"'Dorm Manager'?" One of the fanatics identified the female dormitory manager.

"You shouldn't be here... Dorm Manager! You shouldn't!"

"Get out! Get out!"

The female dormitory manager didn't seem to see them, or perhaps she directly followed the 'Library Rules' and chose to ignore them. She held up the old kerosene lamp and scanned the books on the bookshelf one by one, but didn't take down any of them.

The newest novels are first published on 6_9_shu_ba!

Finally, she broke a path through the crowd of fanatics, who were dispersed by the light of the old kerosene lamp, and came to Lin Yi's side.

She stopped beside Lin Yi, gently lowered the old kerosene lamp, so that its light enveloped both herself and Lin Yi, and then pretended to look at the titles on the book covers on the bookshelf.

"We'll remember you... the day you no longer have the 'Dorm Manager' identity, we won't even give you a chance for 'Glorious Evolution'!" One of the fanatics threatened.

The female dormitory manager didn't respond to him. Her slender, pale fingers gently brushed over a certain book on the bookshelf, and she murmured something in a strange foreign language, as if reading the title, but the pronunciation sounded like she was saying:

"[Get out]."

The fanatics slowly retreated behind the bookshelf, their complex gazes of sinister, resentful, and longing constantly shifting between her and Lin Yi, reluctant, but not daring to act rashly.

They weren't as afraid of the old kerosene lamp as the Nightwalkers and Pseudo-human Sculptures, but not being afraid didn't mean the old kerosene lamp wouldn't hurt them.

A raging bonfire won't hurt you as long as you don't touch it.

"Wait for the buzzing!" The fanatics communicated in low voices.

"When the red light flashes, she'll definitely leave!"

"The Dorm Manager's lamp is different from others... she can't last that long!"

"We'll wait. As long as that person hasn't woken up when she leaves, we can eat him!"

"Dream-weaving books, how easy is it to escape?"

"Good! Good!"

"Just bear with it a little longer... it'll all be ours! Just bear with it!!"

"If it really doesn't work, we'll go to the upper levels and call for help!"

"Get out! You can't go to the upper levels!!"

"If you call them, we'll only get to drink the soup!!"

"Either feast! Or, we won't get to eat anything at all!"

"Seeing those bastard gluttons on the upper levels gorging themselves is more painful than not being able to drink anything!!"

"Wait! All of you, just wait and die!!"

The fanatics chattered non-stop, but a few still retreated and left the Dream Realm Sector.

"Damn traitor!!"

The fanatics cursed the guy who went to call for reinforcements, viciously, but they didn't stop him.

Because Lin Yi woke up.

"Pa..."

Lin Yi closed the book.

"-- 'Moon-III' Survey Team, Gu Fangqing, 'Dream Weaver-HX-S-023', March 5th, X002..."

He savored the last sentence in his heart.

"Gu Fangqing... 'Dream Weaver-HX-S-023'..."

"March 5th, X002..."

"X002..." he murmured to himself, and as he turned his head, he suddenly noticed a leg beside him.

He was startled, and almost thought it was a sculpture standing there, but he immediately realized that it wasn't the texture of a sculpture.

After all, this texture had some flexibility, and wearing that kind of stockings, it had a special fleshy feel under the light of the old kerosene lamp.

Just as he subconsciously wanted to test the truth and falsehood of this leg.

"Don't think about touching my leg, you perverted exhibitionist!"

A sentence floated from above, and the familiar voice instantly invigorated him, who hadn't yet emerged from the book 'Dream Boundary: The Reincarnation of Life and Death'.

Lin Yi's hand flashed past the leg like lightning, touched the bookshelf shelf beside the leg, and then supported himself on the bookshelf to stand up...

Lin Yi looked at his nose with his eyes and his arms with his heart: "What are you talking about? I was just steadying myself on the bookshelf to get up."

That's what he said, but he still couldn't help but feel a little guilty in his heart...

"Steadying yourself on the bookshelf or steadying yourself on the leg, your heart knows better than I do." The female dormitory manager sneered.

Lin Yi's expression didn't change, and he silently put the book 'Dream Boundary: The Reincarnation of Life and Death' back on the bookshelf.

"Steadying myself on the bookshelf."

"Stubborn!"

"Don't think that every man can't resist stockings, I'm a gentleman."

The female dormitory manager glanced at him, her face full of disdain: "A gentleman wouldn't be streaking in the middle of the night, and he wouldn't even be able to distinguish the bare-leg stockings I'm wearing. In this kind of light, only a LSP could tell."

Lin Yi's expression changed slightly, and he thought to himself that this was bad, this female dormitory manager was too observant!

He never thought that one day he would actually lose because he wasn't observant enough!

"I'll emphasize again, streaking wasn't my intention. If you knew what I've been through, you'd be amazed that I've 'only' been streaking so far." Lin Yi said seriously.

"You've experienced even more perverted... ah no, even more outrageous things?" The female dormitory manager opened her mouth wide, and the way she looked at Lin Yi changed slightly.

Lin Yi thought something bad was going to happen, he had only seen this kind of look when Liangzi was fantasizing while reading H manga.

He had encountered a female pervert...

He silently started scanning the books beside him, wanting to see if he could flip through something before the red light came on.

He suddenly thought of something and looked down at his watch.

4:46.

He had been reading that book for more than ten minutes.

That book was actually quite thick, and what he had read was actually just the dream-weaving autobiography of that 'Dream Weaver-HX-S-023'. Immersed in it, reading for more than ten minutes was normal. After that, it was some academic, systematic, and professional stuff. He didn't have time to look at it in detail.

"You still want to find a book?" The female dormitory manager called out to him.