Tang Mo looks around. There is no one else in the quiet library, especially no angels or demons.

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“Mr. Chen, please help me shut down the computer. I’ll go see if I can take any books down from the shelves.”

Weirdo nods and takes the mouse, clicking ‘shut down’.

Tang Mo’s gaze sweeps over the hand that’s gripping the mouse. He walks to the bookshelves, takes down a book, and puts it back. “It looks like we can still take whichever books we want right now. Now I want to confirm something… Mr. Chen, did you hear that voice?”

A bit confused, Weirdo asks, “You mean the voice that said we had to help the little girl find her book, otherwise we’d die?”

Tang Mo nods lightly. They sit behind the service desk, and he says, “For now, it seems like we’re on the angels’ side.” As he says this, Tang Mo stretches out his right hand. Weirdo takes a look and realizes immediately, stretching out his right hand too. On the back of his hand, there is an image of angel wings.

“Ah, I have this too.”

Almost at the same time the childlike voice said ‘angel’, Tang Mo discovered this picture on the back of his right hand. The implication is obvious: Tang Mo is on the angels’ side. Most people in China are right-handed, so when he asked Weirdo to help him shut down the computer, Tang Mo wanted to see which side Weirdo was on without startling him.

But if Weirdo is on the angels’ side, then the problem is even more complicated.

Clearly, Weirdo has thought of this as well. “If we’re both angels, then who’s the demon?”

This library is exactly the same as the library that Tang Mo works at. Tang Mo opens his drawer and takes out a piece of gum. He gives Weirdo a piece as well and chews slowly, furrowing his eyebrows, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the desk.

“The first possibility is that the demon is not like us, not a human. That voice was probably associated with the Black Tower, so we can temporarily confirm that this game is the game that the Black Tower mentioned three days ago. The Black Tower is some unknown organism, and the demon is the same. It’s not human, it’s just an opponent designed by the Black Tower.”

When he puts it this way, Weirdo can understand completely. “So there’s no one else in the library right now, just us, because the demon doesn’t really exist.”

Tang Mo nods. “Right, exactly. But that’s if the situation is good. There’s also a second possibility, that the demon is a human.”

Weirdo grips his police baton nervously. “He’s[1] hiding?”

Tang Mo’s gaze casually sweeps over Weirdo’s hand that’s holding the baton. A moment later, he smiles. “It’s possible.”

An unknown opponent is always much scarier than a known one.[2]

Tang Mo and Weirdo split up. Weirdo’s more buff than Tang Mo, so he’s in charge of looking for any possible demons hiding in the library. Tang Mo, on the other hand, plans to go to the first and second floors of the library to explore.

Originally, Weirdo was scared and didn’t have the courage to go alone, but Tang Mo tells him, “That voice said that violence was banned.”

Even so, Weirdo is still a bit scared. His legs shake when he walks, and he can’t even hold his police baton properly.

But not even a minute later, Tang Mo returns. His expression is not very good[3]. “I can’t go downstairs.”

“Huh?”

“There are two ways to go down from the third floor. One is to take the staff elevator, the other is to walk down the stairs. I tried to go down the stairs, but there’s like an invisible wall at the stairwell preventing me from walking over. Then I went to the staff elevator, but it wouldn’t start, so I couldn’t go down either.”

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The gears in Weirdo’s head turn quickly. “That means we can only move around on the third floor, so then the book we want to find must be on the third floor, right?”

Tang Mo thinks so too, but if the books are restricted to those on the third floor...

Weirdo’s expression suddenly turns very bad as well. He turns his head stiffly, voice shaking. “How many bookshelves are there on the third floor?”

“Twenty-three.”

Weirdo’s eyes widen. “Why so few?!”

Tang Mo is also helpless in this situation.

How could he have decided this?

A few months ago, Director Wang seemed to go crazy, saying that he wanted to emulate libraries in the west and redesign the entire library, starting from the third floor. The Suzhou Library has many years of history, much unlike libraries in other cities, and the equipment is also very old. When Director Wang was redesigning the third floor, the first thing he did was replace the more-than-one-hundred old bookshelves and bought twenty-three connected bookshelves instead.

A lot of readers complained that it was hard to move around these bookshelves, so Director Wang had already decided that he would once again replace these bookshelves. Unfortunately, no one could have predicted the events happening right now, so there’s probably no more chances for him to change the bookshelves.

If the book they need is confined to the third floor, then it’s advantageous to Tang Mo and Weirdo. Tang Mo is a library employee who’s always worked on the third floor, and Weirdo likes reading books about theology and the supernatural, which are all on the third floor. Both of them are the most familiar with the third floor of the library.

But since there aren’t many bookshelves, the demon has an easier time burning books, and he has a larger chance of burning the right book.

Just when both of them are feeling dejected, those familiar footsteps sound once again from the depths of the bookshelves. When he sees Pixels, Tang Mo doesn’t even have the energy to wonder where she came from. The little girl holds a bowl in her hand, and there’s a little piggy bib tied around her neck. She runs towards them, panting hard.

“Have you found my book yet?”

Weirdo shakes his head dejectedly. “We haven’t even started.”

The little girl says angrily, “You haven’t even started?! I went through so much trouble sneaking out during lunch when the teacher wasn’t paying attention. The first day is almost over! I’ll be going home after classes end in the afternoon, and if Mama finds out, I’m done for.”

Tang Mo says, “Do you have any hints? Do you remember anything about the book?”

The little girl shakes her pigtails. “I don’t remember.”

Weirdo says desperately, “Weren’t you supposed to give us hints?”

Suddenly, the little girl says, “Ah, I remember now. I found this feather in my room this morning. Right, this is a demon’s feather! I knew it, it definitely wasn’t me who lost the book, it was that damned demon who stole it! Those demons are bad guys who love to deceive people. I hate demons the most. That despicable demon! I have to catch him, then break his wings, then put him in the popcorn machine and make him into popcorn, my favorite snack!”

The little girl puts a black feather into Tang Mo’s hand and bounds away.

“Ding dong! The angel receives Hint 1: ‘A Demon’s Feather.’”

Tang Mo: “...”

Weirdo: “...”

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A moment later, Tang Mo says, “...this is our hint?”

Weirdo’s a little confused too. He thinks for a bit. “Maybe this feather has some other use?”

Tang Mo touches the feather, then waves it around in the air. It seems to be a normal feather without any sort of magic. When Tang Mo tries hard to make it reveal its hidden secret powers, it just remains the same, silently mocking him.

At this moment, the lights turn off[4].

Weirdo screams.

The entire library sinks into darkness. Tang Mo’s heart skips a beat, but he’s standing right next to the service desk and automatically turns on the table lamp. With a click, dim yellow light illuminates the area around the service desk in a one-meter radius, including Tang Mo and Weirdo.

Unblinkingly, Tang Mo stares at the bookshelves shrouded in darkness.

Suppressing his nervousness, Tang Mo tries to turn on the other lights and finds that, other than the lamp on the service desk, none of the other lights work. The two of them press close to the service desk and sit down on the ground.

In this unending darkness, fear becomes ever more pronounced. There is only this little bit of dim light on the entire third floor of the library, confined to this small space. It refuses to reach anywhere else, as if the darkness is a ferocious beast that will gladly swallow anything that leaves the light.

“Did you hear that noise?” Weirdo scoots closer to Tang Mo.

Now that he says that, Tang Mo’s a little scared too[5]. He listens closely for a while. “No, I didn’t.”

Weirdo swallows. “How did it suddenly become dark…”

Tang Mo remembers the lullaby that the childlike voice sang in the beginning. “Three days and three nights of silence, angel and demon both want it. The angel can get a hint during the day, and the demon can burn a bookshelf during the night… maybe the game’s sense of night and day is different than the time passage of real life?”

Weirdo’s so scared he can’t even think properly.

With difficulty, Tang Mo manages to calm down. “It’s two hours.”

“What?”

“The game started at 17:52. Now it’s 19:58. Daytime is two hours.”

Weirdo: “Your memory is that good?!”

Weirdo vaguely remembers that before the lullaby started, the childlike voice did announce a time. But he was terrified at the time, so he wouldn’t have even noticed, much less remembered it. But Tang Mo somehow remembered it?

Actually, Tang Mo is shocked too. He’s realized that his memory is unbelievably good right now. For instance, he remembers that the Minnie Mouse on the little girl’s backpack was wearing a yellow bow and holding a pink lollipop.

When did his memory become this good?

There’s no time to think about this right now.

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Tang Mo calmly says, “Let’s temporarily assume that daytime lasts for two hours. The lullaby said that after three days and three nights of silence, the little girl would die. So… we can deduce that this ‘night’ is also two hours long, and at ‘night’, the demon will come out and burn a bookshelf.”

In the time that follows, Tang Mo and Weirdo open their eyes wide and stare at the twenty-three bookshelves hidden in the dark.

Even though they know that the game bans violence, the fear of the unknown still washes over them, and they grip their police batons tightly as a form of mental reassurance.

Yet after half an hour, they still haven’t seen a single person, nor any burning bookshelf.

Weirdo: “Are there really any demons?”

Tang Mo purses his lips tightly, gaze settling on Weirdo. “There should be.”

“Then why hasn’t he burned any shelves yet?”

Tang Mo leans on the service desk. He says meaningfully, “I also want to know why he hasn’t burned any bookshelves yet.”

Weirdo doesn’t understand, but Tang Mo has already turned away, gaze dark as he grips his baton tightly. “Mr. Chen, why do you think that the demon hasn’t burned…”

Boom!

A huge explosion suddenly sounds in the library[6].

Eyes wide, Tang Mo looks at the explosion. In an instant, fire roars to life, and flames engulf the seventh row of bookshelves. The gigantic flames seem unbelievably scary as they light up the entire library. Tang Mo and Weirdo continue to search with their eyes, but they can’t find anyone there, even after the flames go out.

The second day, the little girl skips up to them again, still wearing her Minnie backpack.

“You still haven’t found my book? Mama went to visit Mr. Mole today, and I went through so much work to hide the truth from her so she wouldn’t find out my book’s been stolen. I can’t hide it from Mama any longer, she’ll definitely find out, so when will you be able to find my book?”

Tang Mo’s face is pale, and he rubs his temples. “Have you remembered anything about the book today?”

The little girl says in dissatisfaction, “I said already, I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t remember!”

Tang Mo reminds her, “This is already the second day.”

As soon as he says this, the little girl falls silent, but Tang Mo can feel that, underneath the layers and layers of pixelation, the little girl is looking at him with an odd expression. She says, “You’re the angel, you’ve read so many books, of course you know that book. I’m not an angel, I hate reading the most, how would I know anything about a book? You’re obviously the one who knows!”

“Ding dong! The angel receives Hint 2: ‘Pixels’ Contempt.’”

Tang Mo: “...”

Notes

[1]

Sponsored Content The usage of the pronoun 'he' here might have been intentional by the author (giving the reader a hint as to the true identity of the demon), or it may have just been used as a general placeholder pronoun. In Chinese, 他 (he), 她 (she), and 它 (it) are pronounced the exact same way (ta, first tone), so often, if the gender of the person isn't known, writers will default to 他 (he). While there is 'they' (他们/她们/它们), as you can see, it is also gendered and always refers to a group of people/objects. I don't think I've ever seen any nonbinary person go by 他们 since that would imply that they're more than one person. I'm not sure what nonbinary people go by in China so if you know, feel free to tell me. My point is, the author defaulting to 他 (he) could be a hint for readers, or it could just be a general pronoun. Please don't worry about the author being sexist because this is just a language difference.

[2]	Here the literal translation was 'An unknown opponent is always scarier than a known danger' but I didn't like how that sounded in English so I chose to parallel-phrase it, changing the 'known danger' to 'known opponent' instead.

[3]

Here the translation is quite literal. The original phrase, 他的脸色有点难看, is a common phrase in Chinese to say exactly what I translated it as: someone doesn't feel great and you can tell. Currently, I think it's easy enough to understand (and I don't have a better way to translate it) but if this bothers anyone, feel free to let me know and I can try to find a more natural way to phrase it.

[4]	Here the original phrase was 'the light vanishes' but for me, that seemed a bit vague.

[5]	Here, the original text was 唐陌也有点头皮发麻, translating to 'Tang Mo's scalp is a little numb as well.' In Chinese, 头皮发麻 is used as a way to say that someone's a bit creeped out, as in 'my scalp is a bit numb/tingly because I'm creeped out' but again, that doesn't translate too well into English.

[6]

I may say this every couple of chapters or even every chapter, but Mo Chenhuan (author) loves using the phrase 'XX sounds suddenly' as in 'XX sound suddenly starts up'. It works well in Chinese but not so well in English. Unfortunately, I don't have a better way to translate it right now, but if it bothers yall, feel free to let me know and I'll work things around.

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