Hidden Corners

Five thirty in the afternoon.

Li Chengyi arrived at Baijia Bookstore on time.

The old buildings are still crumbling, and the brand-new shopping mall building in the distance is full of people.

It's still as quiet and lonely here as before.

Only elementary school students carrying schoolbags after school occasionally pass by, go into the bookstore for a walk, and soon come out with a few old books.

Li Chengyi didn't let Zhou Xingtong follow, but got out of the car by himself and walked to the door of the bookstore.

The coffee shop on the left side of the store door has been closed, and a sign for subletting the store has been put up.

The stationery store on the right is still the same, half-dead, but the wooden boards on which the stationery is placed are a bit older and blackened.

In front of the dark bookstore, Li Chengyi recalled the scene back then.

The little red flower in the mountains with the skills exists in Bai Feipeng's painting.

So. Could it be that the painting was connected to some other world that possessed skills, and thus was affected by the pollution?

Approaching the store door, under the dark bookshelf inside, a bald old man was half lying on a wooden chair, playing fighting games with his mobile phone.

The crackling combo exploded with various light and shadow effects, and the fight was quite intense.

"Boss." Li Chengyi knocked on the table where the books were placed.

Boom boom boom.

The old man put down his phone and glanced at him.

"Buy books and choose by yourself. The price depends on the wooden sign."

"I don't buy books." Li Chengyi slowly reached out, took out a stack of banknotes from his pocket, and put them on the table.

"I buy paintings. All the comic strips, and the paintings your grandpa once drew in your store."

"?" Hearing this, the bald old man raised his head and looked at Li Chengyi carefully under the dim light.

"You were the one back then." He pointed at Li Chengyi, as if he remembered something.

"Yes, I'm the one who came here before." Li Chengyi nodded.

"What do you buy paintings for?" the old man asked suspiciously.

"I have a nephew who happens to be very fond of him."

"Forget it, forget it, don't talk about it, don't care what you use it for, come here." He quickly got up and motioned for Li Chengyi to follow along.

"You've come to the right place. There are a lot of old objects here, and there are too many old comic books of all kinds!"

He took Li Chengyi to the innermost, a small private room.

Rows of bookshelves were filled with all kinds of old-fashioned picture albums and small books. The dark light was blocked by the tall bookshelves, and the ground could not see its true color. There were only shadows that swayed and changed color as the two moved.

Soon, when they reached the last two rows of bookshelves, the old man bowed his head and dragged out a large wooden box from the ground, and began to unpack it.

While unpacking the box, he babbled about how good the physical books and comics are, and how suitable they are for enlightening and cultivating three views for children.

Li Chengyi responded casually, while looking around, looking at the surrounding environment.

Suddenly he saw a young woman in a white dress, black hair shawl, and barefoot standing in a dark place between the bookshelves on the left.

With her back to him, she stood at the innermost side of the bookshelf, quiet, still, and motionless.

Li Chengyi frowned slightly, feeling a little weird.

The old man was still chattering, obviously this is not a dead corner environment, so the woman can't be a dead corner monster, she should be a living person in reality.

But. It's a little strange that his perception can feel the breathing, heartbeat, and blood flow of the other party, but the woman just doesn't move.

She stood quietly in the shadow between the bookshelves, with her back to this side, facing the white wall, not knowing what she was doing.

"Boss, did you hire a helper?" Li Chengyi looked forward to the old man and asked casually.

"Clerk?" The old man was taken aback, "No, what kind of clerk do I need for such a small shop?"

"Who is that lady?" Li Chengyi turned his head and looked at the woman again.

The bookshelves were empty, and there was no one there.

"!?"

Li Chengyi's voice froze.

He stared at the prescription carefully.

Between the two bookshelves, one end is a dead corner of the wall, and the other end is his exit.

That woman. In such a short time, she disappeared! ?

With his current overbearing five senses, he didn't even notice how she left!

"What's the matter?" The old man Bai leaned over suspiciously, and followed Li Chengyi's gaze.

"I haven't sorted out the books over there for a long time. They are all about natural sciences, what do you want?"

"Let me see." Li Chengyi narrowed his eyes, already feeling something was wrong.

He walked forward between the bookshelves, and stopped right where the woman was just now.

Then look left and right at the bookshelves.

Nothing was found.

There was still a lot of dust on the bookshelves.

He lowered his head and saw that there were only his footprints on the ground.

Fine dust also covered the ground, and on the dust, there was only one line of his footprints, extending from outside the bookshelf to here.

Li Chengyi's heart shuddered, knowing that something was wrong.

"Okay, all the comics here have been dragged out, you are right, many old comics, now only I have here. As for my grandpa's paintings" the old man didn't finish his sentence.

"Wait!" Li Chengyi suddenly thought of something, "Do you still have paint for painting in the old version?"

"Paint, there must be." The old man smiled.

"Then the paints that your grandfather used to paint, are they still there?" Li Chengyi asked quickly.

"Are you kidding me, guest?" The old man was taken aback.

The paint his grandfather used back then?

How many years ago was that? How could it be still there now?

Isn't this funny?

"It's fine if you're not here, but can I ask, what brand of paint did your grandfather like to use?" Li Chengyi asked again.

The weird little fat man at the beginning was developed by Bai Feipeng with a drop of white paint that accidentally dropped.

That little fat man is very weird, it's hard to guarantee that it's not related to the paint.

That's why Li Chengyi thought of this.

"I remember this. At that time, the supplies were not abundant, and there were not many brands you could choose from. After all, there were only a few shops around." The old man said with a smile.

"My grandfather and I used Wanyou brand paints at that time. There was no other choice."

"Wanyou Brand, yes."

Li Chengyi memorized this name, and then carried a large box of comic books that he dragged out, and pictures drawn by the old man's grandfather, all of which were thrown into the car.

After paying the money, the white old man couldn't even close his mouth with a smile. The old man knocked Syndra a lot of money last time, and this time he got another hundred thousand. I really don't know what he wants so much money for.

The storefront is still so dilapidated, and the facade is not repaired.

With a carful of comic strips and picture frames, Li Chengyi found a hotel nearby to stay.

After opening the suite, he took out all the comics and looked through them one by one.

At the same time, he also gave AI Rose the information to find Wanyou brand pigments.

For a painting, from the paint, to the brush, to the painter, the paper, and the frame, he has to find clues one by one to determine why the flower language of Shanlihong has changed.

two days.

A full two days.

Li Chengyi stayed in the room, constantly flipping through all the comics.

He didn't just flip through it, but at the same time, he would cover and check it with a radiant force field.

Determine the condition of dead items.

But unfortunately, still nothing.

Crash.

Li Chengyi turned on the faucet in front of the sink, took up clean water and wiped it on his face.

He has read all the details of the comic strips in succession.

But still nothing was found, and the radiance force field was useless at all.

The rushing water continued to make noise, and Li Chengyi pulled the towel to wipe off the water from his face.

‘In the end, what’s the point? '

He kept turning in his mind, trying to find any key point that could be related to the exercises.

Can be meaningless.

Raising his head, he looked at himself in the mirror, and looked up the comics for two consecutive days without a break, which made his eyes faintly reveal a trace of fatigue at this time.

'Could it be that the paint used by Bai Feipeng is not something in reality, but something that has spread from a dead corner? ’ Li Chengyi’s heart suddenly moved.

There are all kinds of dead ends, and if this is the case, it may make sense.

He turned around, opened the bathroom door, and went back to the living room.

Suddenly, his steps stopped.

Just stopped, standing at the junction of the bathroom and the living room, motionless.

Li Chengyi squinted his eyes, and an invisible fusing form of knotted hair and flying scales unconsciously appeared all over his body.

He kept his eyes fixed on the living room.

In the early morning, the dim sky light comes in from the side windows, illuminating half of the living room.

The lamp on the desk in the corner was still shining yellow.

And the intersection formed by skylight and stage lights.

At this time, a woman was standing.

A motionless black-haired woman in a long white dress with her back to him.

She was barefoot, with one third of her fair calf exposed, her hands drooping naturally, and she stood upright.

"How did you get in?" Li Chengyi said in a low voice.

no answer. The woman remained motionless, as if she hadn't heard him speak.

"It doesn't matter who you are." A golden sword slowly appeared in Li Chengyi's hand, and he walked forward slowly.

"I was in the bookstore before, but now I am here. It seems that you are just staring at me?"

The distance between the two slowly approached.

The woman remained silent.

She stood still and didn't speak, just like a sculpture, with her back to Li Chengyi.

Crash.

Suddenly, the faucet in the bathroom behind him turned on automatically.

Li Chengyi was slightly distracted, and looked behind him out of the corner of his eye.

Behind him, the bathroom door opened with a click.

A white skirt floated slightly from the door.

someone! !

Li Chengyi was terrified.

He didn't notice any movement at all, how did these two people get in! ?

call.

Suddenly he came back to his senses and looked at the living room again.

The woman in the white skirt who was there just now has disappeared.

I don't know when it disappeared completely.

And the faucet was automatically turned off.

He hurriedly turned his head and found that the bathroom door had never been opened.

"wrong!"

Li Chengyi felt that something was wrong, so he immediately took out his mobile phone to check.

really!

The phone time is about half a minute slow!

This means that just now, he was disturbed by strong electromagnetic radiation, which caused the phone's timing to fail.

"Could it be a new blind spot!?" Li Chengyi didn't think anyone could approach him silently, and then left suddenly.

But if it's a dead end, it's understandable