The girl was seated by the window, dressed in a snug white T-shirt and light-colored skinny jeans, with a pair of canvas sneakers on her feet. She sat upright in a posture that was impeccably proper, which tightly accentuated the curves of her figure.
Her hair was silky black, long and straight, tied high in a ponytail with a white hair tie, reaching down to her waist. Under her bangs, her eyes, quiet and focused, watched the book she held in her hands, occasionally turning the pages with her neatly trimd fingers.
Possibly because she was too absorbed in her reading, the arrival of Li Ge was t with no response from the girl.
'A student from Qingcheng University? Looking at her age... she doesn't seem like one.'
Li Ge was sowhat surprised as he glanced twice at the girl, pausing as he noticed her slightly purple-tinted beautiful eyes.
She wasn't wearing a uniform, probably not a student from the Affiliated Middle School; perhaps she's a college student with a younger appearance.
He wasn't particularly concerned and turned to head towards the bookshelves.
The seventh floor had a total of four rows with sixteen double-sided wooden bookshelves each, plus wall-mounted bookshelves that completely covered three walls, leaving only one area for a lounge, all of which were packed, even overstuffed with dense arrays of old books and docunts.
The collection of books was astonishing.
Without computer indexing and no classification of the books, trying to find specific materials in such a sea of books was as difficult as reaching the heavens, no wonder this place was seldom visited.
Li Ge randomly chose a row of bookshelves, went to the middle, and looked sowhat painfully at the old disordered docunts laid out in front of him, not knowing where to start.
He picked up a relatively intact book randomly, wiped the dust off it, a wine-red hardcover with no designs. The center featured a title in sans-serif font and the bottom right corner had the author's na and the date of publication in smaller white letters.
"Hypotheses on the Phenonon of Intersecting Boundaries", Author: Ning Furen, Published: New Calendar Year 87.
'An antique book from nearly two hundred years ago...'
The overlapping of realms was a peculiar phenonon that appeared on Earth Star after "God's death".
Just as the term suggests, the overlapping of realms ant 'two worlds coming together'.
If we were to say that the world is a car driving non-stop on the road, then the overlapping of realms would be like two cars colliding.
This phenonon would cause parts of the two worlds to embed into each other's 'bodies', and these overlapping areas were known as the 'Intersecting Boundaries'.
The globally accepted explanation for this phenonon is that the 'driver' had died.
Without 'God', the driver, at the helm, the vehicles were left to clash and collide uncontrolled on the road.
"..."
Li Ge opened the book and glanced through a couple of pages. The theories, though quite flawed by modern standards, were considered cutting-edge research back then and laid an indispensable foundation for current research on the phenona of realms overlapping. Although outdated as theoretical data, it was still very valuable as historical data.
After placing the book back in its original spot, Li Ge continued to look for a needle in a haystack, searching for any clues related to 'Divine Substance'.
An hour later.
He browsed through the docunt "Eternal Night War Chronicles" he held in his hands and then placed it back on the shelf.
Li Ge shook his head, as he had expected, there were no fruitful findings.
Since he had anticipated this, he wasn't disappointed.
He composed himself and checked the ti on his phone—it was already half-past seven, nearly ti for class.
Just as he was about to leave, he saw the girl he had noticed earlier in the lounge area walking towards him with a book in her arms.
Li Ge's gaze was naturally drawn to an eye-catching part of the girl's anatomy—not that he was looking there, but it was where the book she was holding lay.
It was a thick book, about as wide as three fingers, wrapped in black leather with a peculiar cover.
The cover depicted a figure with a halo over its head, covered with nurous wings from top to bottom, radiating brilliance, holding an azure Earth Star in its hands aloft. The figure's face, blurred upwards as if shouting sothing, with light flowing like blood from its entire body and plunging into an abyss below its feet.
The aning represented by this cover was known to the world: it was "The Death of God," or more precisely, "Divinity's Death."
Similar imagery, Li Ge had seen in countless paintings, movies, and gas.
Li Ge looked at the title of the book.
"If God Had Not Died".
He nodded politely, sidestepped to let the girl pass him. When she was up close, Li Ge noticed her face—she was quite pretty in a clean-cut way, not strikingly stunning at first glance, but the more he looked, the more attractive she seed.
The girl also nodded at him, then tried to stuff the book she was holding into the topmost gap on the bookshelf, but struggled a bit since she was not tall enough, tiptoeing to reach.
Seeing this, Li Ge spoke up softly, "Let help you with that."
He reached out, motioning for her to hand him the book, which she did without resistance.
Watching Li Ge easily place the book into the gap on top of the shelf without even tiptoeing, the girl with slightly purple-tinted clear eyes blinked and said, "Thank you."
Xue Jing grunted in response, not minding this trivial favor.
After completing the task, he did not linger and walked straight out of the library toward the Affiliated Middle School's classroom building.
...
By the ti he entered the classroom, morning reading was almost over, and classes were about to officially start.
All the students had arrived, except for a few who were whispering, the majority were silently flipping through books or doing worksheets.
The pressure on students in the Elite Class was still very high.
Xue Jing was quite popular in this class, and although the atmosphere during morning reading wasn't ideal for talking, many classmates still nodded at him as a way of greeting.
Xue Jing responded to each of them, but when he arrived at his own seat, he stopped in his tracks.
His desk and chair were scratched.
The wooden fiberboard was covered with crisscrossing scratch marks, looking dreadful, and the desk was scribbled with many words like "Kill kill kill," "You're dead," "Watch your back after school," and other threatening phrases.
"Tsk, such ugly handwriting."
Li Ge ca over, looked at the words on Xue Jing's desk, and clicked his tongue.
"What happened?" Xue Jing's expression remained unchanged.
Such an incident of bullying, had it happened to anyone else, be it a high school student or an adult, would have caused so stir inside.
However, at that mont, like his deanor, his heart was undisturbed, driven purely by curiosity to know what had happened.
Just as those who exercise regularly tend to have more confidence, physical strength naturally fosters inner strength as well.
At that mont, facing high school-level bullying tactics, he felt like a lion looking at a little kitten baring its claws at him.
"Not sure, it was like this when I ca in the morning," Li Ge leaned against a nearby desk and shrugged.
"The drawer was stuffed with so disgusting things like dead mice and cockroaches; I've cleaned them out for you, but these words are written with an oil-based pen, so there's no easy fix at the mont."
Xue Jing patted his shoulder gratefully, "Thanks."
"For what? We're brothers," Li Ge replied, and then added:
"The priority now is to find who did this, or if it keeps happening like this every day, it's going to be unbearable."
"Have you pissed anyone off recently?"
Upon hearing this, Xue Jing thought carefully; he felt he had been quite peaceful and couldn't recall provoking anyone.
"Don't know, but it doesn't matter. From the words written on the desk, this isn't so coward's prank but a threat and a warning."
Xue Jing touched the desk, heavily scarred with scratches, pausing his fingertip on the words "Watch your back after school."
"I guess they'll show themselves during lunch break or after school, just wait and see."
People, simply by being outstanding, can inadvertently block others' paths and attract resentnt; this he had experienced in his past and present lives.
There's no need to reflect on what you might have done wrong; thinking about it is pointless. Facing issues and solving them is the way to go.
Xue Jing sat down, intending to put his backpack into the drawer, but hesitated midway, feeling disgusted since it had previously held dead rats and cockroaches, so he hung the backpack on a hook on the side of the desk instead.
Then, he crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and settled into a restful posture, ready for class.
Seeing how effortlessly calm Xue Jing appeared as if nothing had happened, Li Ge couldn't help but remark, "So cool, Lord Jing."
"But why don't we just tell the teacher?"
Li Ge was sowhat puzzled.
With his eyes still closed, Xue Jing casually said, "Just like calling the police isn't always the solution, teachers aren't omnipotent either. Telling a teacher might solve this, but the process would definitely be troubleso and likely lead to future problems."
"I have a simpler solution; no need to involve the teacher."
Li Ge grunted, fell silent for a while, then couldn't help adding, "You look so cool, with a strange, mature composure... or perhaps the ease of a strong person? Those few words you said, they had so real force..."
As the two were chatting, suddenly, there were voices calling from the classroom door: "Xue Jing, soone's looking for you!"
Xue Jing turned to look, and there at the doorway stood a pretty schoolgirl in a uniform skirt.
It was the junior from yesterday, who had brought him a towel during the physical fitness test.
...
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