Despite the dried sli in his black hair and the dust on his face, the mory suddenly struck the old professor, who had been lost in his thoughts.
Professor Nuno Alexandrovich’s withered hands trembled uncontrollably; his eyes reddened, and his lips quivered.
“My God... how is this possible... You... You’re alive?”
Lu Li gave a slight nod.
With trembling hands, the professor gripped the edge of the sofa, trying to push himself up. His frail body shook.
“Please, wait a mont. I’ll go get my old friends...” he stamred excitedly. His unsteady gait was so precarious it seed he might fall at any mont.
The door slamd shut.
The hurried footsteps outside gradually faded away.
Left alone with Lu Li, Katerina asked in astonishnt, “That ballad... was it about you?”
“Yes.”
“But you never told ...”
“You didn’t ask.”
Lu Li thought back to the ballad. Who had told that story—the Rope of Descent or Anna?
Katerina suppressed the surge of emotion, realizing this was for the best—the treasure in the chest was far more valuable than she had imagined.
Perhaps she could even gain citizenship in Midnight!
Suddenly, the sound of stomping boots and shouting erupted outside. The door burst open, splintering off its hinges, revealing guards who now packed the hallway.
“There they are!”
All of Katerina’s beautiful dreams burst like a soap bubble.
“We’re caught!” she snarled, drawing her dagger and bracing herself to fight the guards.
Anomalies were ineffective against humans.
From the guards’ hesitation, Lu Li understood the situation and calmly asked, “What happened?”
“And you don’t know what you’ve done?!” one of them yelled with feigned ferocity.
As they argued, Lu Li pieced together what had happened after Professor Nuno Alexandrovich left.
The agitated professor had rushed off to find his old comrades, but, either forgetting his condition or overco by emotion, he had collapsed in front of a guard.
He had only managed to whisper, “People in the office...” before losing consciousness. The guards, assuming an intrusion had occurred, had stord the office.
The entire situation was utterly preposterous.
“He just fainted?” Lu Li clarified.
“What, did you do sothing else to him?!”
Lu Li shook his head and replied calmly, “We are guests of Professor Nuno Alexandrovich. He beca emotional after learning sothing, and that is likely why he fainted. We can wait here until he regains consciousness. If you don’t trust us, call his colleagues. They will confirm our story.”
Perhaps it was the reasonableness of his words, or perhaps it was his aura, but the guards agreed. They withdrew from the office, leaving Lu Li and Katerina inside under guard, to await the professor’s awakening.
“I thought a fight was about to break out,” Katerina said, sheathing her dagger. “So this is how they solve problems in Midnight? Where I’m from, the powerful don’t bother talking to common folk...”
Her words were tinged with undeniable admiration for Midnight.
Lu Li walked over to the window and looked down into the garden. A few guards had gathered below, watching them, but they were lounging lazily on flowerbeds and benches.
This was less a sophisticated thod for resolving problems and more simple negligence.
A neglected university?
“There are so many books here...” Katerina remarked, approaching the bookshelves. “What is a university?”
“A place where knowledge is passed down.”
“Knowledge? Sounds dreadful...”
Katerina recoiled from the bookshelves as if they were contaminated and turned her attention to the paintings instead.
A painting titled “The Great Migration from Revoltown” depicted a crowd of people streaming out from behind dilapidated city gates. On a rise next to the gates stood two figures.
“Is that you?” Katerina spotted the silhouette with black hair and eyes, then turned to compare it with Lu Li.
“Yes.”
“And who is that next to you?”
She pointed to a powerful silhouette.
“The head of Revoltown.”
Katerina moved her finger to the figure on Lu Li’s right. “And this one?”
It was a silhouette completely concealed by a black cloak.
“My...”
Lu Li paused.
“Hm?” Katerina looked at him quizzically.
Lu Li lowered his eyes and answered softly, “Family.”
“What happened afterward?”
Katerina already suspected how the story ended, but she couldn’t help but ask.
“She beca an evil spirit.”
“An evil spirit... The Shadow Maiden?”
Katerina suddenly rembered who Lu Li had been asking about all this ti.
“Yes.”
Katerina snatched her hand back as if from a fla and returned to the sofa.
Lu Li stepped away from the window and approached a bookshelf, pulling out one of the volus.
“The professor said not to read books of unknown origin.”
Opening “Geography of the Gloomy Wastes,” Lu Li saw an inscription on the title page: “Published in the 24th year of the Age of Anomalies,” which ant it was a modern edition.
The first page displayed a map of the Gloomy Wastes in dark, somber tones.
This territory, comprising part of the Old Riverbed Plain and its adjacent lands, was ho to more than a dozen cities.
Midnight was situated in the western part of the Gloomy Wastes, while the City of Phantoms, Leviathan, and Mantistown were located progressively eastward.
Mantistown lay almost on the very border of the Gloomy Wastes.
Besides the cities, the map was marked with the dark symbols of skulls, indicating Anomaly lairs.
There were more of them than cities, like malicious specters prowling around the settlents, searching for prey.
“Problematic books aren’t left on the shelves,” Lu Li replied, turning the pages.
The contents that followed were not as detailed as he had hoped; in fact, they were sparse. The cities were ntioned only in passing, noting their size and rules, but nothing was said about their deities or the Anomaly lairs.
It was as if people had forgotten how to keep records.
Lu Li then scanned several other books—all were similar, containing only brief, generalized descriptions.
The advantage was that such books couldn’t distort one’s mind, but the disadvantage was that they offered only scraps of information.
They had lost their purpose—to preserve knowledge.
If modern people could only read such books, then the decline of the university was understandable.
As he was about to put the book back, Lu Li noticed another one, long forgotten, wedged in a gap between the others.
He pulled it out, thick with a layer of dust.
The book was titled “Anomaly Bestiary.” Beneath the title was a single line: “By opening this book, you confirm your readiness.”
After a brief pause, Lu Li brushed the dust from the cover and opened it.
[Part One: The Pack of Ghouls]
Turning the first page, which was as thin as a cicada’s wing and yellowed with age, Lu Li saw a drawing on the reverse side.
It was a sketch of a ghoul, captioned “Common Ghoul.”
The next page held a description.
[This is a humanoid creature with a snout resembling a dog’s, a hunched back, and long claws that nearly touch the ground. It is reminiscent of the werewolves imagined by humans, but it is usually not as tall, sotis even shorter than a woman. Its body is heavily decomposed and covered in fungus, aning that in addition to its claws and fangs, it is also a carrier of deadly diseases and viruses.]
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